#45944
10/25/2001 5:28 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094 |
Last night I had the opportunity to attend a lecture at my school conducted by Sam Mockbee, the Auburn University architecture professor who started the Rural Studio. The Rural Studio uses natural and "junk yard" type material to provide contemporarily designed housing for poor people in Masons Bend, Alabama. Though not a very articulate speaker, Mockbee is quite insightful and certainly has strong convictions about the conditions of social status in the south.
Anyway, he at least twice used the phrase "plug into the muse" when referring to creative inspiration. I hadn't heard this used before and got the impression that is was a cyber-age equivalent of invoking the muses. Then I got to thinking that I remember the Muses only being the patrons of things like history, poetry, and theater.
Has anyone heard this phrase before and what do you think of it?
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#45945
10/25/2001 5:59 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
jazzo, I'd never heard it, and it only merits one (1) google-hit. it may be that the prof. owes this to nobody.
Remote Rural Studio: Auburn University, 1993
Every year, teams of architecture students from Auburn
University leave the campus to design and build housing
for low-income people. The Remote Rural Studio, led by
architect and professor Samuel Mockbee, gives students
the opportunity to, in Mockbee's words, "plug into the
muse responsibly." Working with Community Service
Programs, deserving clients, and local businesses, the
students create invaluable linkages that inform the design
and construction process. Since the start of the program in
1993, the students have built two houses and a chapel and
renovated a building for a social service agency.
(not much is acoustic anymore)
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#45946
10/25/2001 7:07 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear JazzO: I read a magazine article by that gentleman recently. I liked some of his ideas, particularly the idea of giving rural people some individuality in their dwellings.
But the Muses are very shy, elusive, and hard to invoke. They cannot be commanded. The "plug-in" phrase seems almost blasphemous.
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#45947
10/25/2001 9:57 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Jazzo, what a good thread topic--thank you. I'm so glad you're still with us. Though the phrase tastes funny, I think the idea of 'turning your brain on' (plug it in) and getting creative (with the Muses' help) is excellent. My total knowledge of the martial arts comes from watching bad movies, but in one of them the teacher kept saying, "Use what's around you" (as McGyver demonstrated, on his gone-and-unlamented TV show). People who cannot afford to run out and buy something new whenever they want to have always had to get creative in recycling and reusing, and if Prof. Mockbee can give them new ways to think about old things, more power to him.
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#45948
10/25/2001 10:22 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Sensitivity and Creativity are hard to understand. One thing that struck me very forcibly was the fascinating
fingerpaintings my oldest daughter did before she started school. For instance seeing Walt Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" led her to make some fingerpaintings that were very interesting. I still very much regret that the paper that came with the paints was so cheap it lasted only a few months..
But within a very short time of her starting school, her artwork became stilted, unimaginative and totally boring. I guess artists are just lucky in not having lost their childhood imagination.
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#45949
10/26/2001 11:26 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
artists are just lucky in not having lost their childhood imagination
I am not sure whether luck plays a big part, Bill. Most of us are perfectly capable of recapturing this sense of wonder, but it takes real effort and application. It's the old 99% joke for most artists, I think.
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#45950
10/27/2001 5:48 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Schools do it - they say "Paint this" or "Paint that". The child looks around and sees what his/her peers are doing and tries to copy that. Part of trying to fit in.
A friend of mine who was a primary school teacher (elementary school in the US?) said that the way that she tried to get around that was to make them paint on their own, unable to see what the others were doing. Forced them back on to their own imaginations, so to speak. But by year 2, they conform anyway. Kids' opinions of other kids have an amazing effect on what they do!
My sister, who is a kindergarten teacher/zookeeper, has some really, really funny stories about kindergarten kids, art, their parents and the interactions between them all. But they are not suitable for the delicate ears of the general populace of the Board.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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