The Art of Wonder

A Brown University/Rhode Island School of Design Dual-Degree student (BRDD, 2017), artist, writer, scientist, and explorer of the world dedicated to finding Wondrous things. Art, design, science, literature and the connections between them. For my original artwork see http://arianamakesart.tumblr.com/

Posts tagged work

Jul 4

What can artists and designers do…

To raise awareness for issues in public health, economic policy, education reform, gender equality, LGBT rights, food distribution and agriculture, environmental conservation, and other social concerns?
To bridge gender, race, and socioeconomic gaps in education and employment?
To increase literacy rates at home and abroad?
To spark interest in science, math, and technology and to make scientific knowledge publicly accessible?
To make housing affordable and aesthetically pleasing for people at all income levels?
To make schools and workplaces more efficient and the acts of working and learning more personally fulfilling for students and the workforce?
To foster innovation, networking, and entrepreneurship?

These are questions—as an artist and designer, as a student, and as a human being—I am attempting to answer. Because of the educational opportunities I have recently been presented with, I am in a position to find solutions and cause change. I have been granted the time, space, and resources to study art and design alongside academic disciplines. I want to use this opportunity to its greatest potential. I want to be a productive member of today’s growing creative population. The global economic downturn presents us with both incredible challenges and remarkable opportunities. The product designers, illustrators, architects, animators, filmmakers, painters, sculptors, poets, story-tellers, and music-makers of today are in a unique position to challenge the traditional school of thought that tells us the safe road to success is paved in analysis and dissection rather than creation and experimentation. We are in a position to show that both are needed; both computation and composition, both thinking and dreaming, are needed to push society forward.

In writing this, I am hoping to hear about ideas, ongoing projects, lectures, books, movements, exhibits—anything that embraces the idea of the artist/designer as an agent of change. Tell me what goes on in your school, workplace, and community. Tell me what artists and designers can do.

Mar 5

“Art and artists are very much misunderstood in our culture… Because we have this ethic of purpose and utility, and art is not useful in a very direct way. And I think that, also, our concept of artists is that they’re lazy somehow and that they don’t want to work hard… In fact, what I discovered in working with artists is that most artists, by and large, are not doing it because they want to be the next Andy Warhol — they’re doing it at huge personal expense and struggling to keep a practice going while trying to figure out how to make ends meet. They’re not making art because they want to make money, they make art because they have something to say that they want to share with the world.” 20x200 founder Jen Bekman, one of the Internet’s pioneering creative entrepreneurs, on Design Matters – the entire interview is very much worth a listen. (via explore-blog)