Who is your Superhero?

Some of the blog and article below are in my Video Blog;

Loved this article;

Award to Artist Who Gives Slums a Human Face

It’s not common for important philanthropic prizes to go to people whose work involves criminal trespass and who make statements like the following: “You never know who’s part of the police and who’s not.”

But the TED conference, the California lecture series named for its roots in technology, entertainment and design, said on Tuesday that it planned to give its annual $100,000 prize for 2011 — awarded in the past to figures like Bill Clinton, Bono and the biologist E. O. Wilson — to the Parisian street artist known as J R, a shadowy figure who has made a name for himself by plastering colossal photographs in downtrodden neighborhoods around the world. The images usually extol local residents, to whom he has become a Robin Hood-like hero.

For most recipients, the value of the six-year-old award has less to do with the money than with the opportunity it grants the winner to make a “wish”: to devote the funds to a humanitarian project that will almost inevitably draw donations and other help from the organization’s corporate partners and influential supporters. The chef Jamie Oliver, the 2010 prize winner, recently proposed setting up an international effort to further his campaign against obesity; Mr. Clinton’s wish has channeled significant resources toward the creation of a rural health system in Rwanda.

Reached by telephone on Wednesday morning on a bus in Shanghai, where he was headed to work on a largely unauthorized photo-pasting project to draw attention to the city’s demolition of historic neighborhoods, J R said that he had learned of the prize only two weeks ago and that he had not yet had time to think of a wish.

But he said that it would undoubtedly involve his kind of guerrilla art, which he has been creating with the help of volunteers in slums in Brazil, Cambodia and Kenya — where the outsize photographs, printed on waterproof vinyl, doubled as new roofs for ramshackle houses. “I’m kind of stunned,” he said of the prize. “I’ve never applied for an award in my life and didn’t know that somebody had nominated me for this.”

At a time when street art is being embraced not only by the art world but also by branding interests, J R, who dislikes being called a street artist, preferring the term “photograffeur” (graffeur is French for graffiti artist) has become known for rejecting corporate sponsorship offers and other outside help. He said that he reinvested most of the money he makes by selling his art in galleries and at auction — one piece went for more than $35,000 at Sotheby’s in 2009 — into creating more ambitious projects, and that he would use the TED prize money for the same purpose.

“If there’s one thing I’ve always taken care of with my work, it’s that it’s never an advertisement for anything other than the work itself and for the people it’s about — no ‘Coca-Cola presents,’ ” he said, speaking in English. “I think the TED people knew that that was one of my main concerns, and I feel pretty sure that we can come up with a project that works that way.”

Amy Novogratz, the director of the prize, said that picking an artist like JR — he is 27 and fiercely protective of his anonymity, identifying himself only by his initials — was an unusual choice but that the prize committee felt that his work could “catalyze the whole TED community” to support an art-centered philanthropic project, which will be announced at the organization’s next conference in March.

“One of my concerns at first was that he wasn’t going to be accessible or available, which could be off-putting when you’re trying to get partners to get excited about a project,” she added. And, in fact, the first time prize officials had a Skype conversation with the artist, he appeared in sunglasses with a hat pulled low over his forehead.

“But then he said, ‘You know, I trust you guys,’ and he took them off,” Ms. Novogratz said, “and we just had a regular old conversation.”

During the interview on Wednesday morning, J R said that he had not been nearly as trusting of Chinese officials, as he and a crew of helpers erect towering pictures of elderly Shanghai residents on the walls of a neighborhood that is now more than three-quarters demolished.

“I keep thinking we are going to get into trouble,” he said, adding that anyone he talks to might be an undercover police officer. But then he described an illegal act: pasting a 20-foot-tall wrinkled face around the facade of an old water tower he spotted from the highway.

“We went into the building next door, and it was empty, and we went up to the tower, and nobody stopped us, so we just started working,” he said. “It’s crazy. This city is so huge and overgrown, the more you’re in the middle of things, the more you feel transparent.”

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How can our talents best serve our communities? Do we require the recognition? Do we know how to be fulfilled by just knowing we did some good or do we need everyone to know we did it? What about the people who have mentored us as individuals? Is there someone you can mentor?

Can you be a modern day superhero? The kind which doesn’t require the spotlight…

Painting moustaches on Hollywood billboards…mostly because I am a BRAT!

Karen :)

“We rely upon artists to articulate what most of us can only feel in joy and sorrow. Whenever I feel my courage wavering I rush to them. They will give me the wisdom of acceptance, the will and resilience to push on.” ~Helen Hayes

Fulfillment Needs a New Measuring Cup

I think if most creative people didn’t have problems, they’d have to look for some.

It’s not that we invite them, or even miss them like a dear old friend, it’s because part of the artist’s soul (while often very introspective) at least desires some sort of outreach or connection either to themselves or others. I for one do not think I can heal the world, I just wish I could. My spirit is temperamental and moody, not explosive like in my past where I was a stick of dynamite waiting to be ignited, but I have a very deep connection to pain and sadness. I don’t find myself particularly sad at this point but I am drawn to others with it. My heart still weighs heavy with topics about animals and children. I hate hearing people rip each other apart domestically, religiously or politically. Gossip hurts me almost as much as the person they are talking about. I know I have a compassionate nature that is much like a ball and chain at times, but I am beginning to understand the deeper side art plays in everything.

Art for me is a way I can stop the emotions from spilling out haphazardly around me. It’s how I can get a grip on the notes and ideas that stir demanding to be set free. (partially why I relate to Beethoven so much like I suggested in our recent discussion of him) I not only write here but in a book, historically on paper, notepads, sticky notes or cardboard if necessary. I am not limited with ideas, but I feel like I maybe have too much going on in my poor little melon. Creating is how the ideas can escape.

I often wonder if the seemingly lumbering gift of art (I use gift ever so loosely) is more of a responsibility than a present. For years, I have felt as though creativity plagued me but I am beginning to wonder if I should have a better look at this so-called gift.

When someone is gifted with anything; mathematical skills, drawing, the ability to speak in front of large audiences etc, it’s usually completed with adoration from the masses, awards or a star on the Walk of Fame. It’s the line of progression we have become accustomed to. The idea being; if you are gifted, you should receive more gifts for your gifts. But what if our individual gifts were really a responsibility?

If your boss handed you a shovel and said, "Go dig a two foot hole" you are kind of expected to go do it. He’s given you the tools and there is an expectation. It is your responsibility to go do it. Now of course this example is imperfect because you expect to be paid for what you are doing. So how can we as artists ever wrap our head around the word responsibility if there is no paycheck? Well I believe the answer has to be, "because giving IS the reward." The problem is while seemingly plagued with art, artists have to eat too. It’s why I have always done other things for money so the art could be free to roam. Our bellies affect our judgment too much.

If my theory is true that all artists feel pulled to drama, connect with compassionate issues or are deeply hurt or affected by the problems either around us (or in us) then it would stand to reason this magnet is pulling us for a reason…for a higher purpose than the rewards and accolades we usually expect. Fulfillment needs a new measuring cup, one that has not been presented to us in the mainstream media. I think this is why we are always searching, always dissatisfied, why our hearts are laden with such heavy burdens and why it would seem we go looking for dramatic events. It’s because art heals…like nothing else, art heals.

There is a very sad world out there. There are potential areas to heal all over the place. If we can truly view each gift as a tool to help heal, if we can take the gifts we are given and just pass them along not expecting something back, none of us will be starving artists. I really believe we can get rid of this "chasing the dream" mentality and start using the art for the greater good and get away from self-indulgence a bit more. If everyone continues this "look at me" path, we will all be staring into mirrors and the people who truly need looking at will be crying somewhere on a street corner.

EVERYONE has a gift. It may be in the arts, it may not be. But most people with more logical gifts have been able to reason out why they have the gift (see the gift of logic is something I have always wished for – quite selfishly) However, artists struggle with knowing what to do with their talents and this makes us completely miserable and forever unfulfilled.

Guess I am trying to insert some logic which if you don’t naturally have it, comes out looking like some surreal painting.

Giving is not only a reward for the obvious reasons, but I know for myself, I can slow down the chaos inside…at least for a time. hahahaha

Ok, back to work…just had to purge some to make room for more. ;) Or am I just receiving all this goo to simply share? I am not a great listener to the higher point, but I am trying.

ROCK ON my friends,

Karen :)

"It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit." ~Denis Waitley