monsters Archives - Slow Learning

learning as water

Does learning flow?

Does learning follow a cycle? What contributes to our learning? How does our thinking get dammed up? What is the source? How might we distill our learning? What bubbles up? What sinks in? How is learning like the the water cycle? How does learning transform us? How do we transform the way we learn? How is learning deep? How is learning shallow? (Is one good and the other bad?) What happens when we get our feet wet? What’s the risk of diving in? Do you want to swim in the deep end? Are there floods and droughts of learning? (Is one better for us that the other?)

Does learning come in tides, in waves? What kinds of monsters lurk in the depths of learning? How are communities of learning like tributaries of a river system? Do we sink or swim?

“Is he a dot or is he a speck? When he’s underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?”
from They Might Be Giants’ “Particle Man” Flood

we’re evolving

“We’re all busy learning on a learning curve.”

itty bitty show a spectacular success beyond all measure (even the metric system)

Much gratitude to all the fabulously beautiful people

who participated in the first

International Ten Itty Bitty Pieces of Sh*tty Art Show
held Saturday, November 24, 2007, in Dayton, Ohio

Tons of outrageous party pictures may be found at dhurwitz.com thanks to David “Free Books” Hurwitz.
Just a few of the artists represented at the first annual ITIBPOSAS include:
Teri Schoch, “CaCa Illumination,” glass sculptures
David Kenworthy, Works on Paper
Anna Kiss, photography, fabric sculpture, Pussy Pillow
Kim Rayburn, photography, poetry, prose
Kidtee Hello, Works on Paper
Michael Kelly, Sculpture, cardboard, paintings and drawings
DJ Scorpius Max, spinning the grooviest tunes in town especially Music for Getting that Song Out of Your Head
Joey London, dancer and provider of eye candy
Joe Lutz, live photography
Brendon Rayburn, drawing on paper
Heather Reid, Cityscape tile window frescoes
Dave Hurwitz, Ever-emerging art truck mixed media assemblage, live photography
Suzanne Furman, Dia de la Muerte Shadowbox, Shagalischious diorama
Eva Makstutis, Masks and body plates, acrylic paintings, mixed media assemblage, and mistress of ceremonies of the Beer Tasting Competition
Kate Ervin, dance performance and Visionary graphical display for the Dayton Circus Creative Collective
Laurana Wong, Juror and member of the Snooty Patootie Arts Community Juror and dance performance
Dr. Peter Hayward Jones, PhD Juror and member of the Snooty Patootie Arts Community
Peter Jones, Brush painting and clove cigarettes tins, Ten Tins of Tao
Mike Officer, paintings
Greg Kambitsch, Wire Hanging Sculpture
Tim Kambitsch, $49.95 man, works on paper, acrylic, canvas
Fambitsch Family Singers: featuring Maribeth Kambitsch, Liz Landis, Patricia Kambitsch, Tim Kambitsch, Pete Jones, Phillipe Prevoteau, Alexander Prevoteau, Matt Randolph, Laurana Wong, Adam Elfers, et al under the direction of Gregorovitsch Kambitschski in their performance of IGOTAHARDONLVR
Patricia Kambitsch, Grandma and Grandpa Kronenberger on Their Wedding Night
Christopher Bell, Luscious black and white photo essay
Jan Underwood, Interpretive dancer
Rachelle and Lily and Amy, et al, Fantabulously Limber Limbo Dancers,
Dan Taylor, unforgettable works of art
Shannon Nelson, Drawing on Paper
Micky Waltz, Marker on paper
Forrest and Friends, Champions, Dirty-word Scrabble
Mary Brzezinski Mixed media sculpture, masks, painting
Leslie Morrow, Paintings and sculpture
Tom Tebatt, color photography
Lissa Lush (AKA Mellissa) Artist Trading Cards, textile arts
Sara Nay Feltner Atomic Cat Butt triptych
Jeff Opt, Prints
Alexis Williams, Photographs
Leslie Nachbauer and Tricia Calvert Performance Art
Leigh Waltz, print/paintings
Sheri Shepherd, Culinary delights
Alivia Meininger,
Mark Meininger, , works on paper and assemblage
Ken Felnter “Good things come in small packages”
Nancy Cumming: Fabric, Celestial Jacket
Jim Cumming: Fabric, Happy Suit
Laurana Wong: Patricia’s Wicked Dancing Shirt

Special thanks to:

The audience

The beer drinkers

The Dayton Circus Creative Collective

Kristen and Eva for support sharing studio

www.archive.org

Our sponsors, Redesign Research, Dialogic Design, the Institute for Slow Learning and Playthink Learning

Moonbeam McQueen and the Dayton City Paper

The countless, nameless participants in the Dirty Word Scrabble Poem and Performance of Song

Eva (again, for her work behind the counter)

Michaelearcheangelo for event support

DJ Scorpius Max for blessing our spectacle with style and grace

Esteemed members of the Snooty Patooty Arts Community: Laurana Wong and Dr. Peter Hayward Jones, PhD

YOU, the artists, for your forgiveness of my faults, my faults, all my faults including: misspelling your name, leaving your name off this list, misrepresenting your work. (It really wasn’t intentional. I won’t do such a sh*tty job as curator next year.)

And special, special thanks goes to:

Alexander Prevoteau and John Landis for recording and posting the hit song IGOTAHARDONLVR forever in the archives to refresh your memory in case you forgot the tune.

And to Mark for the inspiration for holding the event in the first place.

playing with blocks; writing with robots

Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. –Gene Fowler

There is no such thing as writer’s block for writers whose standards are low enough. –William Stafford

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. –Jack London

Are you feeling like no matter how hard you try, no matter how low you set your standards, no matter how many clubs you wield, no matter how much blood you sweat, that you just can’t write? Sorry to say it, but maybe your “writing block” is just a piss-poor excuse for for not getting anything done. Now thanks to advances in neopostmodern, postneodada, ne0-oulipo technology, you can let robots write for you. Check out

language is a virus Full of enough writing games and poem generators to keep you from your writing projects for weeks. Look for William S. Burrogh’s cutups.

esoteric-sensationalism.com A free cut up-machine that allows you to rewrite and rearrange your writing refrigerator magnet style. Also includes a formula to help you “transchannel the spirit of of Shakespeare.”

Charles Bernstein’s collection of writing experiments includes extensive list of prompts and ideas from Bernadette Myer AND links to poetry machines, robots, and writing generators.

Think you’re blocked by your own perfectionism rather than held back by a lack of inspiration? Consider the master’s dying words:

I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have. –Leonardo da Vinci

There is no excuse, really. Get to work.