Mar

The Yin and Yang of Crossing Cultures

by Sheron Long on March 28, 2013

Yin-yang symbol representing a concept learned by crossing cultures

Yin and yang are always on the plate of life.

Embracing Different Cultures

Often the first taste of another culture is through its food or music or fashion, something like “hello.” But people who find a way of crossing cultures—stepping inside the culture’s traditions, language, history, attitudes, and beliefs—are forever changed by the experience.

Sheron Long Comments

Crossing Cultures/Cultural Heritage & Traditions/The World's Art & Design/Vietnam

Mar

Creative Inspiration from 365 Superheroes

by Meredith Mullins on March 21, 2013

Mulch, overgrown and green, serves as creative inspiration for one of 365 superheroes.

Superhero #68, Mulch, takes on the world.
© Everett Downing

Getting Inspired . . . The Superhero Way

When I was eight, I thought I could fly. Turns out I couldn’t. (One of the more brutal “Oh, I see” Moments of my life.)

I jumped joyously from the top railing of our porch steps, waiting for my arms to become wings. But soon after liftoff, I found myself in a crumpled heap at the bottom of my launch pad.

I had been so sure. So sure I could fly. After all, I had role models like Superman, Peter Pan and Wendy, Captain Marvel, the Flying Nun, and Dumbo.

The creative inspiration was there. But, regrettably, superpowers don’t come easily.

Limelight, neon green flying superhero, serves as creative inspiration for 365 superheroes

Limelight—Superhero #162

Superpowers and Superheroes

We all wish for superpowers. Flight. Invisibility. X-Ray Vision. Extraordinary Strength. Mind Control. Ability to Time Travel. Healing Prowess.

And sometimes we just wish for superheroes to come along and save the day.

Maybe the key is this:

If we need them, they will come.

Civil Liberty—female superhero in red, white, and blue—serves as creative inspiration for 365 superheroes

Civil Liberty, Superhero #79, fights for justice.
© Everett Downing

Imagining the Supers

Superpowers and superheroes give us hope, especially in the face of overwhelming odds or even just the everyday problems of living life.

For Pixar Story Artist Everett Downing, the supers were the creative inspiration he needed.

He was ready for an artistic self-kick in the pants. He felt he was in a rut and needed to shake things up a bit.

So, he made a New Year’s Resolution to draw a superhero every day—a way to set his right brain free. 365 supers. He would let creativity and imagination (and his childhood love of weird and wild heroes) take over.

His only guideline was not to overthink. The drawing could not take more than an hour.

Whipper/Snapper, lobster claws and whips, creative inspiration for 365 superheroes

Partners Whipper and Snapper, Superheroes #132 and 133
© Everett Downing

He found it easiest sometimes to be inspired by the name—one he had thought of or an offer from friends, fans, or family. A cool name like Vibe or Apex or a pun or word play like Arm and Hammer, Alpha Romeo, Giga-bite, Red Cross and Blue Shield.

Sometimes an origin story came first, like Pandorceress, and the character grew from the story he wove. (She found Pandora’s box and opened it. Then paid with her eyesight but was given dark wisdom in return.)

Think Tank, a tank with a brain, creative inspiration for 365 superheroes

Think Tank, Superhero #282—brute force and brain power.
© Everett Downing

From Impulse to LOL—Just Have Fun

Creating the whole cast of characters took him a bit longer than he expected, but he stayed with it. He just finished #365 last week, with his blog fans (365 Supers) and Facebook friends cheering him across the finish line.

“I won’t say it wasn’t tough,” he says. “I wanted to quit plenty of times. But getting encouragement from people can be extremely powerful.” When he got stuck, his supercommunity would give him a gentle push and remind him to “just have fun.”

Everett Downing, artist who drew 365 superheroes for creative inspiration

Everett Downing keeps his resolution—
365 superheroes . . . done!
© Michael B. Johnson

From Howler to Cacophony to Emoticon to Morph Fiend—these supers can do everything from “creating crushing decibles at will” to “morphing into whatever form suits the moment.”

Sometimes they are partners (Shock and Awesome, Ball and Chain, Whipper/Snapper), sometimes dread enemies, and sometimes even adversaries and lovers (Deal Breaker and Heart Breaker).

Auntie Matter, pink and black female superhero, creative inspiration for 365 superheroes

Auntie Matter, Superhero #95
© Everett Downing

Oh, I See

These heroes (and villains) are full of power and creative inspiration. “Everyone wants to believe that we can be larger than life,” Everett says of the superhero phenomenon, “and that one person can make a big difference.”

But the real “Oh, I see” moment is that we don’t need to be a superhero to do right and might. We mortals may not be able to fly or have x-ray vision, but we can heal and help, find extraordinary strength, and champion causes with dogged determination (like Dober-Man and the Pincher) when we need to.

And we can give ourselves creative challenges (and meet them!) just to keep life interesting. That’s a superpower of the best kind.

Thank you, Everett Downing, for the creative inspiration . . . and a whole new world of superheroes.

Silent Knight, creative inspiration for 365 superheroes

Silent Knight, Superhero #284
© Everett Downing

Stay tuned for Everett’s next projects on Mr. Scribbles’ Sketchblog. We just might see a reunion of this awe-inspiring cast of characters.

VIA National Public Radio and Wired Magazine

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Meredith Mullins Comments

The World's Art & Design

Mar

Creative Expression Glows In a Crowdsourced Sunset

by Sheron Long on March 14, 2013

Sunset, seen in a photographer's creative expression and contributed to the crowdsourced Virtual Sunset project

The day says adieu in this sunset over the Pacific Ocean in Cambria, California.
© Sheron Long

Shared Creativity

A few years back, standing with friends on the edge of the western world, I caught a glorious sunset in my lens. It was a moment of creative expression as we laughed at pelicans diving for dinner against the glow.

We were about to dive for dinner too, but first we each had to create a tasty dish. Then we feasted on our shared creativity, a kind of friend-sourced dinner.

At work this week, I collaborated on creating our free ebook—50 Dos and DON’Ts for Living and Laughing. The team lived through the arguments during photo selection (by applying some of the advice in the book), and we laughed a lot. When it was over, there was some of each of us in this team-sourced book.

Shared creativity has been a theme of my life, a great way to stay connected with others. So, when I heard about the Virtual Sunset, created by Studio Tobias Klein, I was intrigued.

Here was an opportunity to create and connect on a bigger scale, really big—like the size of our planet.

The Crowdsourced Sunset

In a three-year project, Tobias Klein is creating the first crowd-sourced choreographed global sunset. It relies on the compilation of sunset images uploaded to his site by people around the world.

Visit Virtual Sunset to see the sunset sites in the collection thus far (and add your own). Click on a pin to see the sunset itself. There’s the one I took in Cambria, California!

World map showing sunsets crowdsourced for the Virtual Sunset project from the creative expression of global photographers

Pins on the world map locate the sunsets crowdsourced for the Virtual Sunset project.
map image © 2013 NASA, TerraMetrics courtesy of Studio Tobias Klein

Klein digitally stores these sunset images, geolocated by time and place. For the installation, he hangs three kilometers of silicone translucent tubing in strips from a rig on the ceiling. He then projects the images in real time onto the tubing. The result? Shared creativity in a three-dimensional artwork that captures the transient nature of a sunset.

Virtual Sunset projecting sunset images crowdsourced from the creative expression of photographers around the world

Translucent tubing hangs in the Virtual Sunset installation, Industry Gallery, Washington DC
photo by Brandon Webster courtesy of Studio Tobias Klein

The installation first appeared at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. It is now on display at the Industry Gallery in Washington, DC, ending on March 20, 2013, the day of the vernal equinox.

At the Industry Gallery, projections from one side of the room show the actual sunset from Washington, DC, while those from the other side show a composite of the crowd-sourced images from the global collection in real time. For example, the sunset taken in Nice, France, at 7:00 pm shows up in the projection at 1:00 pm in DC.

Each future installation will vary based on its physical location and the sunset images that continue to populate the collection.

Strolling Through Creative Expression

Meandering through the tubing in the Virtual Sunset can be meditative, a tangible way to experience collective sunsets as time elapses around the world.

Moving through the Virtual Sunset installation at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London
photo by Miyukii Yamanaka courtesy of Studio Tobias Klein

But the experience also invites you to sense the power of creative collaboration—the mix of Tobias Klein’s creative genius in conceiving the project and the creative expression of all those who contributed their sunsets for the global show.

Oh, I see. Shared creativity is people glue.

—It binds friendships over dinner.

—It gives common cause at work.

—Even when you don’t know the other people with whom you share your creative expression, you’re connected to them in the moment.

Together with the Virtual Sunset team and galleries, those of us who participated in this project made something bigger than ourselves. Those of us who walked through the glow of the Virtual Sunset got to share real sunsets experienced by others all over the world.

Now that’s collaboration!

Find the thrill of shared creativity in one of these crowdsourcing projects:

For another article on crowdsourcing, read “Creative Ideas: Dishes Feed a Community Art Project.”