A MIGHTY GOOD QUESTION: How do we want to change? Through insight or fear? I pick insight, hands down.
(via theboulderrollingsociety)
E.O. Wilson on Ideation, Innovation & Developing Solutions
Ideas emerge when a part of the real or imagined world is studied for it’s own sake. Of foremost importance is a thorough well organized knowledge of all that is known of the relevant entities and processes that might be involved in that domain that you propose to enter.
—E.O. Wilson
A number of other images from the Connect The Dots event during 350.org Climate Impacts Day in Waitsfield, Vermont recently published in the Burlington Free Press
Defining Sustainability: Education
Hundreds of Vermonters gathered on May 5th, 2012 for the 350.org Climate Impacts Day, Connect The Dots event in Waitsfield, Vermont to learn about recent developments surrounding the climate crisis. Many who attended this event had spent the morning volunteering at Vermont Green Up Day activities in and around the Mad River Valley, one of the regions hardest hit by Tropical Storm Irene.
Speakers during the day’s events included 350.org founder Bill McKibben, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin. The event was particularly special for many Vermonters in that it was first in a series of recent global climate action events where Bill McKibben was able to attend the day’s events in his own home state of Vermont. Climate Impacts Day included thousands of communities around the world who came together to Connect the Dots, learn, raise awareness and call for urgent action to stop the climate crisis. Keep connecting the dots
These images are part of a long-form documentary project I have undertaken on sustainable living in Vermont with the working title: Defining Sustainability
© Copyright 2012 Seth Butler. All Rights Reserved. http://www.sethbutler.com
Coconut Processing. Ben Tre, Vietnam. 2011 (A picture package out-take from a larger narrative I am developing from Vietnam under the working title The Long March)
Photographs © Copyright 2011 Seth Butler. All Rights Reserved.
Tadanori Yokoo. Shambhala #9 of 14.
Japanese, Shôwa era, 1974. Silkscreen with offset text, 85cm x 57cm.
everything becomes illuminated
On a recent trip to the North Shore in Massachusetts as a visiting artist to the Photography Department at Montserrat College of Art, I was fortunate to reconnect with a number of old friends & artist colleagues—finding great inspiration in doing so.
In addition, I was able to study the Seeking Shambhala exhibition at Boston MFA:
Shambhala is a Sanskrit word describing a mythical land whose exact location is hidden behind mist of snow-capped mountains, where peace reigns, wealth abounds, and there is no illness. The West was first introduced to the concept as “Shangri-la” in the 1930s book and film Lost Horizon, but Shambhala, in both physical and spiritual senses, has been part of Tibetan Buddhist art and culture for centuries.
Beyond having an opportunity to revisit the poignant work of Gonkar Gyatso in this exhibition—a contemporary artist dealing with issues of Tibetan identity in exile—and view a varied collection of 17th century Thangka paintings, I was introduced anew to the work of Tadanori Yokoo, a prolific Japanese graphic artist and painter.
a synesthesia of symbolism
Fascinating enough, Yokoo is said to have stumbled upon the concept of Shambhala while researching UFOs. In his edition of the same name, 14 vividly hued silkscreen prints from 1974 are on display in sequence. In Shambhala, Yokoo cleverly interplays underlying rhythms of Buddhist, Hindu & Occult iconography—all in a visual framework built upon appropriated incense box images, rich pop-art alchemy and various inter-linked visual metaphors. The mixture of iconography and relationship suggested by both form and proximity in his work is quite evocative—the multi-layered execution an inspiring exploration of media, representation & meaning—transcending the sometimes literal limitations of graphic design and print making mediums with great depth in both concept and execution.
