Thank you all so much for your nice emails and updates. I’m happy to learn some of you began to run (awesome!), that bambinos will fill your homes this year (double awesome!), and news about your projects and exhibitions. Congratulations! What a great way to start the new year.
One of my new year’s resolutions is to immerse myself in all things healthy and creative. Here are my first two creative curiosities. Enjoy!
New Perspectives in Latin American Art, 1930–2006: Selections from a Decade of Acquisitions.
On view at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) thru February 25, 2008.
This exhibition is a must-see. The artists on view are some of my favorites, like Felix González-Torres, Ana Mendieta, Gabriel Orozco, Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Gego, and Mira Schendel. The works that spoke to me most were Mira Schendel’s works on paper. The works – monotypes on rice paper – felt free and powerful. Schendel used modest traces of lines and words to investigate the visualization of language. My favorite work was a delicate circle with the words Si al mundo (yes to the world) inside.
I’m also currently reading the book Like the Flowing River by the Brazilian author Paulo Coehlo. I found The Story of the Pencil beautiful, poetic, and just brilliant. Perfect for artists.
The Story of the Pencil
A boy was watching his grandmother write a letter. At one point, he asked: are you writing a story about what we’ve done? Is it a story about me? His grandmother stopped writing her letter and said to her grandson: I am writing about you, actually, but more important than the words is the pencil I’m using. I hope you will be like this pencil when you grow up.
Intrigued, the boy looked at the pencil. It didn’t seem very special.
But it’s just like any other pencil I’ve ever seen!
That depends on how you look at things. The pencil has five qualities which, if you manage to hang on to them, will make you a person who is always at peace with the world.
First quality: You are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps.
Second quality: Now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpener. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, it’s much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.
Third quality: The pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.
Fourth quality: What really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.
Fifth quality: The pencil always leaves a mark. In just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action.
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