Mile-High Musings on Arts, Culture, Creativity and Philanthropy

Couldn't resist sharing this new video from the graffiti/street artist from Italy, BLU . In this video he uses stop-motion animation techniques to transform street painting into an extraordinary animated film called Big Bang - Big Boom . I think this is especially interesting as it blends multiple art forms - street art, performance art (it is clear that many people had to have watched the creation of this as a work in progress) and eventually a film. When all of this is free, how does the artist make money?  For one, he sells prints, drawings and books via his Web site. This is all part of the convergence going on now: "outsider" artists are now "inside". Renegade street artists are now at the Tate Modern (as was BLU) and are selling coffee table books. Finding the line between "vandalism" and "art" is increasingly difficult. We ran into this in a small way recently with the Philagrafika art fair here in Philadelphia. A participating artis...

An article recently appeared in Newsweek called " The Creativity Crisis " that reported on some really disturbing new research. A test was developed back in 1957, the Torrance test, that is designed to measure creativity in a quantitative way as we also measure IQ. The Torrance test has shown a remarkable correlation between children demonstrating creativity and creative accomplishments in life - the high performers on the Torrance test go on to become inventors, college presidents, authors, diplomats, entrepreneurs, etc. The correlation to lifetime creativity is three times higher for childhood creativity than childhood IQ. And now - as anyone who reads this blog or follows the news knows - creativity is more highly valued than ever. It is seen as the leading edge of innovation and increasingly critical to global business success. A recent IBM poll of 1500 CEOs found creativity to be the #1 "leadership competency" of the future. Here is the rub - the data shows...

With all the financial challenges arts workers are facing these days - struggling to balance the budgets of their organizations, or dealing with salary and benefit cuts on compensation that was modest to begin with - it is easy to view the sacrifices people make to work in this field as being entirely financial. Not to minimize the financial sacrifices - they ARE significant - but I would argue they are probably no more significant than a wide array of professions where people choose to devote themselves to the pursuit of "making the world a better place". This includes early childhood workers, teachers, social workers, the whole world of NGOs working in challenged communities, both domestically and abroad. And the sacrifices all these workers make are also not just financial. We all work long hours, and often under trying and unglamorous circumstances (though to outsiders arts work can seem glamorous). No, I think the more significant - and unique - sacrifice arts worke...