Category: Inspiration

Did you watch the TED talk I posted on Tuesday?  The one from Sir Ken Robinson, about how schools kill creativity?  If not, here’s the link.

I found it very enjoyable and insightful.  I’m not an educator, and I don’t necessarily have strong feelings about standardized education. But I do know that it fails many people, and as Robinson says in the lecture, “Many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not. Because the thing they were good at in school wasn’t valued, or was actually stigmatized.  And I think we can’t afford to go on that way.”  Don’t we all know someone who struggled with traditional education?

And while you could come away from the lecture thinking that Robinson is advocating for the arts and artistic disciplines, I think that’s a bit short-sighted.  Creativity isn’t limited to the “traditional” arts.  I like Robinson’s description of creativity as “the process of having original ideas that have value”.  There is room for creativity within the more “valued” academic disciplines of math and science.

What did you think of the TED Talk?  What moments stood out for you?

Next up in our list of the 20 Most Watched TED Talks (So Far) is Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight.  I’ve actually seen this one already, but it’s worth revisiting.  Let’s all watch it this weekend, and talk about it next Tuesday.

 

 

Do you like watching TED talks?  I do. I came across this list of the 20 Most Watched TED Talks (So Far), from June 2011.  I think I’d like to work my way through this list and watch them all.  Seems like a fairly achievable goal, right?  Feel like joining me?  Let’s watch them and discuss!

First up is “Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity”.  If you’d like, watch it, and then let’s meet back here (on the blog) on Friday with our thoughts.

I love this desktop (and iPad and iPhone) wallpaper by Andrew Power.  It’s a quote from Steve Jobs, who apparently said it in 1983 to his team of worn-out engineers, trying to finish the first Macintosh computer.  This excerpt from the book Insanely Great by Steven Levy explains it in greater detail:

“Perhaps the most telling epigram of all was a three-word koan that Jobs scrawled on an easel in January 1983, when the project was months overdue. REAL ARTISTS SHIP… One’s creation, quite simply, did not exist as art if it was not out there, available for consumption, doing well… to make a difference in the world and a dent in the universe, you had to ship.”

[via SwissMiss]

Last week I ordered a signed print of the above illustration by Marc Johns, and it arrived today.  I’m collecting a bunch of cool illustrations and prints to hang in my office.  This is definitely going there. If you like it, you can get your own here.

One of my web design clients, Wild Thyme, was featured today in Style Me Pretty.  Super big deal – that is the website for all-things-wedding.  Aren’t these photos (and flower arrangements) gorgeous?  See the entire piece (and more photos) here.

Congrats Wild Thyme!

Readers, I need your help.  Remember back in November when I was so excited to get a DwellStudio duvet cover for our master bed?  (okay, I don’t really expect you to remember that, so here’s a refresher).  I mentioned back then that I hated the blue walls in our bedroom, but that project took to the back burner as we moved forward with the kitchen reno.

Now that I’m home all day with Little C, I’ve been thinking about painting the walls again.  And then I saw this post on sfgirlbybay, where she painted one wall (with Benjamin Moore’s Gravel Gray) in her otherwise white bedroom.  It looks so sophisticated, which my current room is definitely not.  Do you think I could pull this off in our room?  3 white walls, and one dark grey wall?

Please comment – I really do need help with this one.