Janet Echelman: Taking imagination seriously

This woman, artist and innovator is so incredible. 

http://www.echelman.com/

ARTIST STATEMENT
American artist Janet Echelman reshapes urban airspace with monumental, fluidly moving sculpture that responds to environmental forces including wind, water, and sunlight. Echelman first set out to be an artist after graduating college. She moved to Hong Kong in 1987 to study Chinese calligraphy and brush-painting. Later she moved to Bali, Indonesia, where she collaborated with artisans to combine traditional textile methods with contemporary painting. When she lost her bamboo house in Bali to a fire, Echelman returned to the United States and began teaching at Harvard. After seven years as an Artist-in-Residence, she returned to Asia, embarking on a Fulbright lectureship in India. With the promise to give painting exhibitions around the country, she shipped her paints to Mahabalipuram, a fishing village famous for sculpture. When her paints never arrived, Echelman, inspired by the local materials and culture, began working with bronze casters in the village. She soon found the material too heavy and expensive for her Fulbright budget. While watching local fishermen bundling their nets one evening, Echelman began wondering if nets could be a new approach to sculpture: a way to create volumetric form without heavy, solid materials. By the end of her Fulbright year, Echelman had created a series of netted sculpture in collaboration with the fishermen. Hoisting them onto poles, she discovered that their delicate surfaces revealed every ripple of wind. Today Echelman has constructed net sculpture environments in metropolitan cities around the world. She sees public art as a team sport and collaborates with a range of professionals including aeronautical and mechanical engineers, architects, lighting designers, landscape architects, and fabricators. She built her studio beside her hundred-year-old house, where she lives with her husband David Feldman and their two children.

Hermann Hesse, Demian

"Each man’s life represents a road toward himself, an attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that – one is an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best as he can. Each man carries the vestiges of his birth – the slime and eggshells of his primeval past – with him to the end of his days. Some never become human, remaining frog, lizard, ant. Some are human above the waist, fish below. Each represents a gamble on the part of nature in creation of the human.

We all share the same origin, our mothers; all of us come in at the same door. But each of us – experiments of the depths – strives toward his own destiny. We can understand one another; but each of us is able to interpret himself to himself alone." 

-Hermann Hesse, Demian

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Next Stop, Boston

Crossing my fingers for the next step in my life to be in a city I love, Boston.

MUST READ! "My Medical Choice" by Angelina Jolie

MY MOTHER fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.

We often speak of “Mommy’s mommy,” and I find myself trying to explain the illness that took her away from us. They have asked if the same could happen to me. I have always told them not to worry, but the truth is I carry a “faulty” gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer andovarian cancer.

My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman.

Only a fraction of breast cancers result from an inherited gene mutation. Those with a defect in BRCA1 have a 65 percent risk of getting it, on average.

Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex.

On April 27, I finished the three months of medical procedures that the mastectomies involved. During that time I have been able to keep this private and to carry on with my work.

But I am writing about it now because I hope that other women can benefit from my experience. Cancer is still a word that strikes fear into people’s hearts, producing a deep sense of powerlessness. But today it is possible to find out through a blood test whether you are highly susceptible to breast and ovarian cancer, and then take action.

My own process began on Feb. 2 with a procedure known as a “nipple delay,” which rules out disease in the breast ducts behind the nipple and draws extra blood flow to the area. This causes some pain and a lot of bruising, but it increases the chance of saving the nipple.

Two weeks later I had the major surgery, where the breast tissue is removed and temporary fillers are put in place. The operation can take eight hours. You wake up with drain tubes and expanders in your breasts. It does feel like a scene out of a science-fiction film. But days after surgery you can be back to a normal life.

Nine weeks later, the final surgery is completed with the reconstruction of the breasts with an implant. There have been many advances in this procedure in the last few years, and the results can be beautiful.

I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy. But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.

It is reassuring that they see nothing that makes them uncomfortable. They can see my small scars and that’s it. Everything else is just Mommy, the same as she always was. And they know that I love them and will do anything to be with them as long as I can. On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.

I am fortunate to have a partner, Brad Pitt, who is so loving and supportive. So to anyone who has a wife or girlfriend going through this, know that you are a very important part of the transition. Brad was at the Pink Lotus Breast Center, where I was treated, for every minute of the surgeries. We managed to find moments to laugh together. We knew this was the right thing to do for our family and that it would bring us closer. And it has.

For any woman reading this, I hope it helps you to know you have options. I want to encourage every woman, especially if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, to seek out the information and medical experts who can help you through this aspect of your life, and to make your own informed choices.

I acknowledge that there are many wonderful holistic doctors working on alternatives to surgery. My own regimen will be posted in due course on the Web site of the Pink Lotus Breast Center. I hope that this will be helpful to other women.

Breast cancer alone kills some 458,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organization, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. It has got to be a priority to ensure that more women can access gene testing and lifesaving preventive treatment, whatever their means and background, wherever they live. The cost of testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2, at more than $3,000 in the United States, remains an obstacle for many women.

I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options.

Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.

- Angelina Jolie is an actress and director.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/opinion/my-medical-choice.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

Something I tell myself everyday

“If you work really hard, and you're kind, amazing things will happen.” Conan O'Brien

Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability

When ever I am about to have an emotional break down, Brene Brown is my go to.

• Tell the story of who you are with your whole heart

• Have the courage to be imperfect

• We can't practice compassion with other people if we can not treat ourselves kindly

• What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful 

• Vulnerability is necessary

• The willingness to do something where there is no guarantees

• The willingness to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out

• It's the birthplace of joy, love and creativity 

• Let our selves be seen

• Love with our whole hearts

• Practice gratitude and joy

• Believe that we are enough

• Vulnerability is our most accurate measure of courage 

• Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change

• It is not hte criticque who counts 

• It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly - TR

Anderson Alley, Rochester NY

Working at Anderson Alley's artist studios is exciting. Every time I walk into the building I am inspired and creativity overcomes me.

It's amazing how many artist there are and how they all have something different to say/share with the world!

Beauty - Life - Family

It's crazy how much my life has changed in the past year. From graduating college to moving to LA and back to Rochester, it all sure went by really fast. However I have learned so many valuable lessons and have grown so much!

1. Life is beautiful, enjoy the little things. The moments in life that make you feel fulfilled, like there is purpose and you wouldn't rather be anywhere else.

2. Do what makes you happy. Life is too short to wait for things to happen. Stop thinking so much about the future and start thinking about the present.

3. Family is everything. Cherish them, be there for them and appreciate the time you have with them because you never know what will happen.

I an excited for the next chapter in my life. Hopefully I will be moving to Boston, where I am sure I will learn even more valuable lessons.

“Only that which is the other gives us fully unto ourselves”.

"I think there is great truth to this quote, and great sadness. The one that isn’t there. The one that doesn’t fit with our lifestyle. The one that can’t mesh with us. That is the other. The one that is the ideal. The one that fits our fantasies. The prince charming or cinderlla. That is the other. We have people. We have couples. We have friends. We have family. We might even have love. But we don’t have the other. And since it is the other that gives us fully do we feel at all without them? Can we truly experience love in their absence? Does it even compare? To what extant are we missing out on life? On liberty to be ourselves? …. On happiness?

Another true saying is “ignorance is bliss“. So maybe since we haven’t found our other than we don’t know what we are missing. Maybe. But what about the longing we feel inside when we have everything? What about the depression we feel when we have someone that makes us happy? That my friends, is when our hearts cry out for the other.

We have two choices. We could take a stand and live with our choices Say that what I have should be and will be good enough. We could live great, normal lives filled with love and happiness. Or, we could wait and search. Despite the fact that the search is hard, is filled with mistakes, and never fails to bring tears. Either life is hard. One feels incomplete. One is a struggle everyday to bring it together.
It is for this reason that the saying holds true — only what the other gives us is truly undeserved, and is truly given without expectation of return. That is what makes it truly “fully unto ourselves”.

- Gardens of Serenity