Tigers, Transformers and Legos–Oh my! Thinking retail.

I visited the new LEGO store at the Mall of America this morning.

It reopened this weekend after a major renovation.

I was immediately struck by the amusing sense of scale of the enormous characters constructed of giant Legos.

It triggered an instant appeal to my childlike awe at giant things.

The monstrous size of the saber tooth tiger and the Transformer

character, along with other Lego-built creations hovering over the open ceiling of the new space made you want to go in and build things.

There was lots of inventory of boxed sets in well-lit shelving on the walls. There were plenty of places to sit and make things. Computer screens circled a work table to allow Lego engineers to log into the Lego resources for answers on how to construct well, I guess, anything you could imagine.

There were row after row of bins of Legos that covered the front wall.

They stretched out in a seemingly endless supply of wonderful colors.

It was almost too tantalizing to resist sticking your hands in some of the bins, grabbing some Legos, and sitting down at a table to build something magical.

James Chung and Susie Wilkening recently wrote in their blog Museums are Awesome! about the memorability of experiences that play with our sense of scale: “Over the past few weeks, we have been sharing some of our research into early childhood memories of museum visits. A recurring theme has been what we call the “wow” factor. Time and again, people wrote about being “awestruck” by what they saw at a museum. Unsurprisingly, most awesome memories were about scale. That is, buildings and objects that were larger-than-life were more likely to create that sense of awe in children.”

We sense this with dinosaurs and giant sculpture – like this dramatic “Origins” by Mark di Suvero at the front of the Currier Museum of Art, NH.

Or the iconic  “Spoonbridge  and Cherry” at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden at the Walker Art Center.

Claes Oldernburg & Coosje van Bruggen, Spoonbridge and Cherry, 1985-1988

Nina Simon recently posted a story about how museums could consider borrowing some ideas from the retail world. She highlighted a few points from a recent workshop she attended by Bob Gibbs, an urban planner who designs malls and shopping districts around the US.

Here’s Nina’s take on the workshop in abbreviated form:

• Within two seconds of entering a store, 70% of people know whether they will buy something. Stores use simple window displays and a “front and center” table to convey what’s hot, and most train a staff member to welcome customers immediately upon entry.
• An open door generates 35% more business than a closed door. Doors that are flush to the sidewalk are more inviting than recessed doors. How many museum and library entrances are hard to find, dark, and require opening a heavy door?
• The highest-performing malls and shopping districts (in terms of sales) have lots of clear sight lines from one storefront to another. In a museum or library, this translates well to being able to see across to other exhibits or areas (especially when visiting in a family group that frequently splits and recombines).
• 75% of American spending occurs after 5:30pm and on Sunday. Stores should be open when people want to shop.
• The average shopper in America does not like shopping. She’s a single mom with very limited time. She wants to get in and out quickly, with a good deal on the thing she needs. The only time she likes shopping is when on vacation. Shopping is one of the most popular vacation activities, and many Americans plan their trips in part around shopping.

These data are startling in some ways, yet, on reflection–this is how each of us approaches “store fronts” whether it’s a retail space, like the Lego store at Mall of America, our favorite artist’s studio or gallery, or a museum.

Museums frequently have an object or a collection that suggests an opportunity to play with scale, whether large or tiny, or even to highlight scale in terms of magnitude, such as the volume of items in the collection. I am always transfixed and awed by the display of beetles and–in a completely different way–by the glass flowers at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, Harvard University.

Perhaps it makes sense for museums and for artists to take some cues from Gibbs and the Lego store on making the experience seem enticing while mixing in elements of scale.

Maybe it just takes thinking like a five-year-old.

 

Update 1.15.11: A story in the Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) presents Paul Janssen’s part-time project for over two years to build a replica of The Ohio State Stadium. Using one million Lego pieces his quest would have cost about $75,000 to $100,000 if he had to purchase all the pieces new. The 8′ x 6′ model is another example of scale– going the other direction–scaling down a giant piece of architecture to have the humans peer inside and marvel at the detail. He is considering using it as a fundraising focus “for his research on heart failure and muscular dystrophy. The stadium can be filled with up to 6,000 Lego people, he says, each of which could represent a donor.” I love that idea!

 

Creativity and how to bludgeon it to death.

Quick update on Creativity. Just noticed that Emory University appointed the Dalai Lama as a Presidential Distinguished Professor. www.emory.edu/tweetpeace has a number of YouTube videos, etc. Some discuss the relationship between spirituality and creativity, some talk about the difference in creativity between the East and the West, and about how those differences express themselves in our art. Another point of view to broaden the discussion. 10/30/2010.

Up to our elbows in spiral notebooks is part of the national “back-to-school” mentality, but let’s consider what we are putting in our students’ heads instead of into the back-to-school shopping cart. Retail is a vital cog in our economic vitality, but the current buzz is that perhaps the most important component of the economic health for a culture is creativity. A Newsweek article, “The Creativity Crisis,” cited a study in which 1,500 CEO’s said creativity was the number one most important “leadership competency.”

This is right-side up. A dramatic view of the Milwaukee Art Museum taken from a table at the museum's restaurant. A soaring example of architectural creativity.

What is creativity? The article suggests a definition of creativity as: requiring the ability for “divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result).”

Creativity as embodied in artist Billyo O'Donnel. En plein air painting in Siena, Italy, 2010.

So, how we are doing nurturing creativity in our classrooms and in our culture?

Newsweek reported that for the first time in the decades that it has been measured, American creativity is declining. A report by the Alliance for Childhood, documents that creative learning and the arts are being programmed out of schools starting as early as kindergarten (Edward Miller and Joan Almon, Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School. Alliance for Childhood: College Park, 2009.)

The authors found that in some of today’s classrooms, children are so unfamiliar with open-ended creative play, that “as one kindergarten teacher put it, ‘If I give the children time to play, they don’t know what to do. They have no ideas of their own.’” (8) For me, it is almost too sobering to accept that children in our communities do not have a concept of play.

Sidewalk art by children in Minneapolis-St. Paul as part of the Walker Art Center, Drawing Club project.

The report summarizes, “Research shows that children who engage in complex forms of socio-dramatic play have greater language skills than nonplayers, better social skills, more empathy, more imagination, and more of the subtle capacity to know what others mean. They are less aggressive and show more self-control and higher levels of thinking. Animal research suggests that they have larger brains with more complex neurological structures than nonplayers.” (7). These seem to be qualities it would be helpful to nurture in the next generation on our fragile planet.

How much damage has “teaching to the test” done to the ability of our students to ask questions, think independently, look for novel solutions, or engage in discussions presenting various points of view? How much damage has the amount of time taken from the arts –and even recess—done to minimize the sparkle in the eyes of an elementary student? (Or an elementary teacher?)

Richard Florida in his book, The Rise of the Creative Class, argues that creativity is the key economic and healthy-community resource of the future. Having an enclave of creative thinkers, or “creative class” as he calls it, will bring businesses, (with jobs), economic vitality and economic stability to a region. He writes that jobs don’t “come to a region.” They come to an area where creative people have nurtured an inspiring, creative community. (xix). “At all levels of government and even in the private sector, Americans have been cutting back crucial investment in creativity—in education, in research, in arts and culture—while pouring billions into low-return or no-return public projects like sports stadiums. …The real threat to American security is not terrorism, it’s that creative and talented people may stop wanting to come here.” (xxiv)

Independent student filmmaker in Chicago.

Visitors outside the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Boston, MA Fall 2009.

Consider for example that other countries are identifying creativity as a national priority:

-       In 2008, British secondary-school curricula was rewritten to focus on “idea-generation.”
-       The European Union identified 2009 as the European Year of Creativity and Innovation.
-       In China, “there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach.” (These points are from the Newsweek article, “Creativity Crisis.”)

Think about it: it’s the creative members of a community that solve the problems, offer new opportunities, new products, new ways of using resources—the creative class offers the excitement and hope for the future. And it is a vital resource. Richard Florida says, “Creativity is not a tangible asset like mineral deposits that can be hoarded or fought over or even bought or sold. We must begin to think of creativity as a common good, like liberty or security. It is something essential that belongs to all of us, and that must always be fed, renewed and maintained—or else it will slip away.” (xxvi)

Music in the streets during a festival in the North End, Boston, MA.

It is linear thinking that confines creativity and innovation exclusively to art classes. These vital skills can be honed in many divergent forums. Although I am a huge advocate (naturally) of keeping the fine arts in all or our lives and in our curricula, perhaps, as the Newsweek article suggests it would be more palatable to introduce creativity in other areas of instruction, like in history or writing term papers. “Researchers say creativity should be taken out of the art room and put into homeroom. The argument that we can’t teach creativity because kids already have too much to learn is a false trade-off. Creativity isn’t about freedom from concrete facts. Rather, fact-finding and deep research are vital stages in the creative process. Scholars argue that current curriculum standards can still be met, if taught in a different way.” (Newsweek).

Creativity and imagination are vital in science too, not only in discovery but in disproving, challenging and proving theses. “The obvious role of imagination is in the context of discovery. Unimaginative scientists don’t produce radically new ideas. But even in science imagination plays a role in justification too. Experiment and calculation cannot do all its work.” (Timothy Williamson, New York Times: Opinionator, “Reclaiming the Imagination,” August 15, 2010.)

Another benefit to society of using creativity and imagination, as suggested by Florida, is that it goes beyond problem solving, “Along with problem solving…work may entail problem finding: not just building a better mousetrap, but noticing first that a better mousetrap would be a handy thing to have.” (69)

Are the students you know given:

• enough introduction to the arts?
• enough time to find their voices through creativity?
• enough time to process and problem solve through open-ended creative play or group problem solving?
• enough immersion in a curriculum built around thinking in order to develop divergent thinking and convergent thinking?


Painting (c) Jane M. Mason, "Bird with Aspirations." What aspirations for innovation do kids have that we are squashing?

Are students in your community supported for engaging in the arts such as the visual arts, music, theater, dance, film, performance art, or writing? Are opportunities available? Is creative thinking and problem solving important? Is it important that students have a chance to stretch their creative wings?

The video “Schools Kill Creativity,” from TED.com will challenge your concept of creativity and how we are bludgeoning it out of our educational systems.

Let’s get real about true intelligence, knowledge and the skills we need to survive and thrive. Problem solving with divergent and convergent thinking are way up at the top. I think our culture and our schools are bludgeoning creativity to death.

Think about creativity. Watch the video on TED.com and think about what we each can do to put the emphasis on the right side of the brain in our schools and in our society.

"Bird with Sensible Shoes." Watercolor painting by Jane M. Mason, (C). This series of bird paintings popped into my head. It's a whimsical example of how creativity can be a stress reliever as humor for the artist and the viewer-- another true benefit in the world today.

 

Collaboration and Participation

Collaboration and Participation

These are hot words in museums today—how can museums engage visitors? How to share both knowledge and experience via participation? These words suggest exuberant sharing, anticipation of cumulative strength, and perhaps naive fearlessness. Yet, correct design of the collaboration is vital for success.

Nina Simon, a museum visionary and independent museum consultant, asks in her book, The Participatory Museum, “How can cultural institutions use participatory techniques …to develop experiences that are more valuable and compelling for everyone? This is not a question of intention or desire; it’s a question of design.”

Nina’s book itself is participatory: you can read it on-line and comment. http://www.participatorymuseum.org/read/

She includes examples of well-designed participatory projects that succeeded at museums and are described for others to share and replicate.

My favorite well-designed participatory project is “Drawing Club,” Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, at which collaborative drawings are being created by artists and members of the community during weekly open-ended drawing sessions summer 2010.

http://blogs.walkerart.org/mnartists/2010/05/25/join-the-open-field-drawing-club/

“Drawing Club,” is an astonishingly simple idea. The Walker provides art materials (paper, crayons, pencils, charcoal, etc., and collage materials), tables, and staff members for support (and gentle supervision if needed). Anyone can attend at no charge and work on as many pieces of art as he or she wants. And, here’s the slogan, “What happens at Drawing Club, stays at Drawing Club.” So all the drawings stay at the Walker.

A Drawing Club participant from Austin, TX, working on a drawing started by another participant.

Every drawing is available for any participant to work on during Drawing Club. As soon as the mood strikes the artist, the drawing goes back in the pile, and any other participant can work on it. The Walker Art Center is collecting an ongoing list of the participants and at the end of the Drawing Club project, the Walker will mount an exhibit of an assortment of the drawings and post a list of the participants.

For me as an artist, and with the other artists I have spoken with, “Drawing Club” is refreshingly liberating. It is remarkably relaxing with no expectations to start or finish a drawing. Not having a plan is fine! What a refreshing splash of freedom for participants at Drawing Club. Doodling is fine. I feel like a six-year old again – and that is exhilarating. It absolutely clears the artistic “palate” so to speak. And, having the materials provided to the drawing participants is a decadent luxury for artists—professional or amateur. Bravo Walker! Drawing Club is great fun!

Announcements of activities at Open Field at the Walker Art Center, and info on how to schedule your own event for the venue. Photos (C) Jane M. Mason.