Posts tagged cultivation and creation

13 October 2008

I think this is getting at something important, though perhaps from the wrong angle. I feel like the dignity of plants (and, I think more usefully, that of landscapes and ecosystems) can only have meaning when you approach it with a view towards relationships: creation/creator, creation/cultivator. The relationship, not the plant, is what has or can be denied dignity. Two other notes: I don't think the "interference with the plant's ability to reproduce" is a great litmus test in any case, since most domesticated plants have lost the ability to make it without human help (and we with their help). And finally, fittingly, it's worth remembering that Switzerland was the setting for Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, that great and terrible tale of a creator's failure to love his creature.

agriculture, biology, cultivation and creation, dignity, ethics, europe, food and drink, frankenstein, horizons of the possible, law, switzerland

Nate

from "Switzerland's Green Power Revolution: Ethicists Ponder Plants' Rights," by Gautum Naik, The Wall Street Journal, 10 October 2008 :: thanks Emily!

For years, Swiss scientists have blithely created genetically modified rice, corn and apples. But did they ever stop to consider just how humiliating such experiments may be to plants?

That’s a question they must now ask. Last spring, this small Alpine nation began mandating that geneticists conduct their research without trampling on a plant’s dignity.

“Unfortunately, we have to take it seriously,” Beat Keller, a molecular biologist at the University of Zurich. “It’s one more constraint on doing genetic research.”

Dr. Keller recently sought government permission to do a field trial of genetically modified wheat that has been bred to resist a fungus. He first had to debate the finer points of plant dignity with university ethicists. Then, in a written application to the government, he tried to explain why the planned trial wouldn’t “disturb the vital functions or lifestyle” of the plants. He eventually got the green light.

The rule, based on a constitutional amendment, came into being after the Swiss Parliament asked a panel of philosophers, lawyers, geneticists and theologians to establish the meaning of flora’s dignity.

“We couldn’t start laughing and tell the government we’re not going to do anything about it,” says Markus Schefer, a member of the ethics panel and a professor of law at the University of Basel. “The constitution requires it.”

In April, the team published a 22-page treatise on “the moral consideration of plants for their own sake.” It stated that vegetation has an inherent value and that it is immoral to arbitrarily harm plants by, say, “decapitation of wildflowers at the roadside without rational reason.”

On the question of genetic modification, most of the panel argued that the dignity of plants could be safeguarded “as long as their independence, i.e., reproductive ability and adaptive ability, are ensured.” In other words: It’s wrong to genetically alter a plant and render it sterile.

9 October 2008

Perhaps my title's a bit hyperbolic, but writing today's other smell-related post got me fondly recalling my favorite sentence (and there was good competition) from Nicholson Baker's 1997 essay collection, The Size of Thoughts, which is—with a few diversions—a string of celebrations of commonplace cultural objects, often starting at the point before the starting point: the smell of a fresh book, the friendly rattle of a model airplane kit still in the box.

books, cultivation and creation, slang, smell

Nate

from "Leading with the Grumper," by Nicholson Baker, The New York Review of Books, 11 August 1994, collected in The Size of Thoughts: Essays and Other Lumber :: via New Scientist

This may be the funniest and best-smelling work of profound lexicographical slang-scholarship ever published. Some may respect the hint of Elmer’s glue in recent printings of Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (8th ed.), or the faint traces of burlap and cocoa-bean that linger deep in The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang, or even the fume of indoor swimming-pool that clings to the paper-bound decolletage of Slang!: The Topic-By-Topic Dictionary of Contemporary American Lingoes. But a single deep draught of J. E. Lighter’s magnificent Historical Dictionary of American Slang (volume I, A-G) is a higher order of experience: it smells like a high-ceilinged bare room freshly painted white - clean and sunlit, full of reverberative promise and proud of its mitered corners, although with a mildly intoxicating or hyperventilational ‘finish’…

2 October 2008

by Andy Crouch for Culture Making

In December I will have the great delight of helping give away $6,000 to three individuals or teams who have innovative ideas for integrating their Christian faith with their vocation. The Bosscher-Hammond Prizes, sponsored by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Graduate and Faculty Ministries, are a juried competition that will culminate during IVCF’s Following Christ 2008 Conference, 27–31 December 2008.

But for the jury I’m chairing to have the maximum delight, we need some really good submissions—and the deadline for initial entries is Wednesday, 15 October.

So, are you, or someone you know, thinking about a project that demonstrates the integration of faith, learning, and practice and that in some way shows “how the academic disciplines and professions can contribute to human flourishing”? And are you, or someone involved with the project, actively affiliated with an institution of higher education or a 2008 graduate of one? Then get yourself on over to the Web site for the prize and send off an executive summary by the deadline, followed by the full submission no more than a month later. (By the way, in additional to the cash prizes for the winners, 26 semifinalists will receive free registration for the Following Christ conference.) I’d love to help recognize your work and vision for cultural creativity, so do apply and—unless your innate competitiveness hasn’t been properly sanctified!—spread the word to others as well.

re: campus ministry, cultivation and creation, education, universities

30 September 2008

On world-making and Muppet origins.

children, cultivation and creation, cultural worlds, puppets, television

Nate

from "The Woman Behind Miss Piggy," by Anika Gupta, Smithsonian Magazine, October 2008, photos from Wikipedia :: via Boing Boing

Bonnie Erickson designed and built the inimitable Miss Piggy in 1974 for an early “Muppets” television special, produced by Jim Henson. Puppets, props and storyboards from Henson’s prolific career are featured in the traveling exhibit ”Jim Henson’s Fantastic World.” Anika Gupta spoke with Erickson.

You’ve been designing muppets and mascots for years. What attracts you to them?
The creation of worlds—the whole process of designing characters, putting together a back story, giving the characters an environment in which they can thrive and casting performers who can bring them to life.

Why do puppets appeal to adults as well as children?
They’ve been a tradition across the world for thousands of years as a form of storytelling. But, until recently, they have’t been appreciated in the United States. Now, however, puppetry is finding a niche in the arts—dance, theater and even opera. I think people appreciate the performers’ skill as well as the artistry of the puppets themselves. We owe a lot of that to [Muppets creator] Jim Henson’s vision.

Who inspired the character of Miss Piggy?
My mother used to live in North Dakota where Peggy Lee sang on the local radio station before she became a famous jazz singer. When I first created Miss Piggy I called her Miss Piggy Lee—as both a joke and an homage. Peggy Lee was a very independent woman, and Piggy certainly is the same. But as Piggy’s fame began to grow, nobody wanted to upset Peggy Lee, especially because we admired her work. So, the Muppet’s name was shortened to Miss Piggy.

28 September 2008

God’s first and best gift to humanity is culture, the realm in which human beings themselves will be the cultivators and creators, ultimately contributing to the cosmic purposes of the cultivator and creator of the natural world.

—Culture Making, p.110

23 September 2008

from "Cutting Peats," by lyndafiddle/YouTube, 10 July 2007

I'd memorized Seamus Heaney's wonderful poem "Digging" (from Death of a Naturalist, 1966) some time before I happened upon footage of what turf-cutting actually looked like. It struck me as simultaneously more noble and artful and more humble than what I'd imagined from the poet's words alone. Here's a section from that poem:

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

cultivation and creation, cultural worlds, europe, poetry, tradition

Nate

18 September 2008

Lovely exhortation to his students and colleagues from the newly installed president of the Rhode Island School of Design. Don't you wish your college president posted blog entries like this?

cultivation and creation, design, education, nature

Andy

from "Thinking is Making, and Making is Thinking," by John Maeda, Our (and Your) RISD, 17 September 2008

hand holding a grass sculpture

In the moments when I can attend one of my children’s soccer games, I find great pleasure from sitting in a field of grass. Since I was a child I have been making little sculptures out of blades of grass … as I did so just this last weekend during a match. Coming off of the inauguration, it made me think of our Provost Jessie Shefrin’s phrase, “Thinking is a kind of making, and making is a kind of thinking.” I make. Therefore, I think. I hope you make something interesting today.

17 September 2008

"All I Want to be," origin unclear, ReubenMiller, 12 May 2008

Just need to add: love, community, and maybe a bit of typesetting.

cultivation and creation, signs

Nate

16 September 2008

I think the Cartographic Society's argument only carries so far—first, because any map-making is by its nature an act of editing, simplification, stylization, and erasure; and second, because as the technology improves, we'll start to see more ways of accessing the info included on the old maps as well as the new.

cultivation and creation, maps, space, technology and change, uk

Nate

a NYTimes.com Ideas Blog post, 12 September 2008

The president of the British Cartographic Society says Internet mapping (Google Maps etc.) is wiping away the richness of Britain’s geography and history. She says “corporate cartographers” are leaving off landmarks like churches, ancient woodlands and stately homes. And history out of sight is history out of memory. [BBC]

12 September 2008

*culture is not optional is an endlessly inventive network of friends who create some truly wonderful cultural goods. Among them is the current issue of their magazine catapult. There are several treasures here—don't miss Tala Azar Strauss's spare and eloquent meditation, "Nameless community," or Meredith Kathryn-Case Gipson Hoodendam's column "Community is bullshit" (not least its arresting and hopeful final line). Then there's this short essay by editor Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma (yes, the folks at *cino do tend to have complicated, hyphenated Dutch-inflected names). It sums up what I love about *cino: their patient attention to particular things.

community, cultivation and creation, family, home, writing

Andy

from "A history of tables," by Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma, catapult magazine, 12 September 2008

A photo is floating around our attic somewhere, probably in a Converse shoebox. In it, I am just barely fifteen years old, a sophomore in high school, wearing an oversized green sweatshirt, jeans, and perhaps the shoes that came in the box that now holds the photo. The setting is my school library. I am sitting at a table where I appear to be studying, but across from me is Rob, another fifteen-year-old sophomore. The look I’m giving the yearbook photographer is an exaggeration of innocence. Though our books are open, pens in hand, Rob has just finished giving me directions to his house for the party he plans to have while his parents are out of town.

At twenty-eight years old, nearly eight years in to my marriage to Rob, I can see this sly study hall meeting around a library table as a fulcrum on which much of my life story turns. I can also see tables—those ubiquitous pieces of furniture that invite gathering by their nature—as a key image for exploring where I’ve been and where I may be going.

10 September 2008

Posting about Benched reminded me of this encouraging article by Corby Kummer about the Neustras Raíces community garden program in Holyoke, Massachusetts—a place where neighbors have taken ownership of long-term transformation.

agriculture, communities, cultivation and creation, gardens and cities

Andy

from "A Papaya Grows in Holyoke," by Corby Kummer, The Atlantic, April 2008

Even in the middle of winter, when I visited, it was apparent how meticulously the gardens are maintained—unlike many other urban gardens I know, which out of season can resemble the trash heaps they started out as. Everything looked freshly groomed: the wooden fences separating individual 15-by-20-foot plots, the gaily painted casitas, tool sheds that are “artistic statements,” Ross told me, and gathering places like stoops. Several gardens had plastic-covered hoop houses, greenhouses that in the dead of winter can get pretty grungy. I didn’t detect a rip.

“We have nine community gardens in some of the toughest neighborhoods in the city if not the country,” Ross said, “and the incidence of vandalism has been almost zero.” Joel Cortijo, a colleague along for the tour, said simply, “It’s ours.” . . .

Gardens are the heart of everything Nuestras Raíces does. Children can often be found playing in vegetable patches and in adjacent playgrounds built on land cleared of needles, broken glass, and brush that gave dealers a place to hide their drugs. Grandfathers and fathers, many of whom grew up on farms in Puerto Rico, teach schoolchildren how to grow peppers and eggplants and experiment in greenhouses on the farm with exotics like papayas and avocados, to see what they can get to grow in the New England climate. “During the summer you’ll find a dozen guys sitting on tables and benches,” Ross said, “shelling beans and telling lies about the size of their tomatoes.”

10 September 2008

Christianity Today has an extended interview with me on its Web site, much longer than could fit in the magazine . . . read it all for some good thoughts provoked by my exceedingly capable interviewer, Derek Keefe. By the way, I expand quite a bit on the transition from consumption to creation in my contribution to the subscription-only Q Words series, "From Purchases to Practices."

citizenship, consumption, cultivation and creation, evangelicalism

Andy

from "Cultivating Where We're Planted," interview by Derek R. Keefe with Andy Crouch, Christianity Today, 8 September 2008

If cultivating and creating are so central to our biblical vocation, why have they been put aside?

The disenfranchisement of conservative Christians from cultural power at the dawn of the 20th century elicited strong reaction. Just two generations after evangelical Protestants had been intimately involved in building almost every major post-Civil War cultural institution, they either were kicked out or left voluntarily. People who wanted to hold on to theologically conservative beliefs thought you couldn’t do that and participate fully in mainstream culture. We’ve spent a century working our way back from the fallout of that.

Last century we also saw the rise of mass consumption as a way of life in America. When you look at newspapers from 100 years ago the principal word used to refer to Americans in general was citizen. Now the word USA Today uses most often to refer to all of us is consumers. And if we want to talk about people in their civic role we don’t usually call them citizens but voters. Think about how different those words are, how much thinner a word voter is than citizen. It’s not just Christians but Americans in general who have adopted a posture of waiting passively for cultural offerings. We think it’s our job simply to figure out what we like and buy it.

Finally, being an effective cultivator and creator requires certain disciplines—cultivating a certain awareness and willingness to work at things in the world. Consumer culture has made it easy to get along in many spheres without learning basic skills, whether it’s how to keep the garden growing or how to cook. Although technology gives us an amazing sense of power and infinite capacity, it does so by taking over all these things that our parents and grandparents knew how to do. But there is a backlash. People are starting to realize that we’ve lost some capacities that we don’t want to lose.

Your book returns us to a much older story—the biblical story—and shows where humans stand in that greater, ancient narrative.

One of the things that has hindered evangelical cultural creativity has been a nostalgia for the nineteenth century when we were dominant culturally in a way that we will probably never be again. Ancient Israel is a much better place to start because it was so small, always beleaguered, always overwhelmed by empires around them, and yet they sustained this incredible, world-changing culture. That’s a much more instructive picture than hoping that we can reclaim the kind of cultural control that evangelicals briefly had at one point in American history.

9 September 2008

from "Benched," by Brandon McCormick :: via Jeff Shinabarger

A group of friends—including one of Culture Making's "early adopters," Jeff Shinabarger—makes a small good thing at an Atlanta bus stop. And then they make this video, which spreads the word. Sometimes cultural creativity is terribly complex and challenging. But sometimes it's so simple you wonder why we don't all spend our days off doing beautiful, fun things like this. Of course, the challenge will come over the coming months and years—will Jeff and his neighbors keep the paint fresh, the flowers watered, the mulch raked? That will be the true sign that this became a lasting cultural good. I hope they make a film about that, too.

atlanta, cities, cultivation and creation, neighborhoods, transport

Andy

30 August 2008

"Red Earth," by Erika Larsen, Women in Photography

From Larsen's series of photos of child hunters. She writes, "[f]or them, the thrill is learning to follow their instincts and being immersed in nature. All these children have something in common, they are at home in nature." And yet hunting is, as ever, a deeply cultural activity, full of specialized equipment, specific rituals, and purposeful tradition.

children, cultivation and creation, hunting, nature, parents, photography, wilderness

Nate

29 August 2008

by Andy Crouch for Culture Making

Today marks the launch of a new online magazine from the New York-based International Arts Movement, The Curator. As editor-in-chief Alissa Wilkinson writes, The Curator will seek “to encourage, promote, and uncover those artifacts of culture . . . that inspire and embody truth, goodness, and beauty.” Amen to that, sister—expect us to follow The Curator’s progress with great interest in the coming weeks and months, and no doubt to steal, er, I mean, excerpt and repost, some of its best material.

Alissa was one of the early readers and reviewers of Culture Making, and I’ve been grateful for her intelligent enthusiasm for the book, and more importantly for her discerning eye for signs of hope and opportunities to cultivate and create. Best wishes, Alissa and team!

re: critique, cultivation and creation, imagination, journalism, visual arts, writing

27 August 2008

As Stephen Webb observes in this short but substantive commentary, "the status of taxonomy is pretty low. . . . Why be content to describe the world when you can develop theories to explain it and, better yet, change it?" Yet being able to name and order the world is one of our distinctively human qualities. The Encyclopedia of Life is an invitation to cultivation, and to contemplation.

animals, cultivation and creation, names, natural sciences, nature, stewardship

Andy

from "Completing Adam’s Task," by Stephen H. Webb, FIRST THINGS: On the Square, 27 August 2008 :: via Alan Jacobs

Far from being an ancient myth with no contemporary relevance, the story of Adam’s task has inspired and shaped human endeavor throughout the centuries. Modern science got its start in the golden age of exploration, when collectors began cataloging exotic plants and animals in the hope of restoring Adam’s complete knowledge of the world. Some sixteenth-century scholars, like Benito Montano (1527–1598), gave Hebrew names to the places Columbus discovered, because they assumed that the Bible must contain all the words we need to understand the New World. Others realized that there were more things to know and to be named than they ever imagined. Francis Bacon exhorted gentlemen of means to build gardens “with rooms to stable in all rare beasts and to cage in all rare birds . . . so you may have in small compass a model of the universal nature made private.” Adam’s sin, Christians believed, not only expelled the first couple from the Garden. Plants and animals too had been dispersed, but now scholars could imagine a return to paradise by achieving universal knowledge.

If God were to bring all the animals before man today, the line would be too long. This scene could only take place on the computer, which is exactly what the new Encyclopedia of Life proposes. This remarkable project aims to gather descriptions of every species known to science on a single website. Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson has been the driving force behind the Encyclopedia, and his enthusiasm for it is unbounded. “It’s going to have everything known on it,” he said, “and everything new is going to be added as we go along.” Nearly two million species are known, but scientists estimate that ten times that many are yet to be discovered. Most of these unknown species are bacteria, fungi, and insects. We can name them because we know, or want to know, everything about them.

27 August 2008

Two design consultants offer simple ideas for how to cultivate the discipline of noticing—which, of course, is such a foundational skill for our big and small efforts to create and cultivate (and, for that matter, just enjoy) culture.

cultivation and creation, design, disciplines, noticing

Nate

from "Ever Notice?," by Steve Portigal and Dan Soltzberg, AIGA Journal of Business and Design, 18 July 2008 :: via kottke.org

Soltzberg: So given that there are all these patterns and themes around us, yet being adept at noticing requires practice, how can people sharpen their noticing “chops?”

Portigal: I’ve assigned students to routinely maintain a noticing log, either a blog (words with pictures) or a Flickr account (pictures with words). The exercise helps sharpen noticing skills by giving people permission to simply observe and document. There’s never any requirement to suggest a fix; indeed what they observe may not be broken in any way. It just has to arouse their interest, and in documenting it make the details of that interest explicit. Establishing some discipline for this behavior can be very helpful.

Soltzberg: Sometimes I do an exercise with workshop groups, which works in a similar way. Everyone takes a turn describing something they saw or experienced between the time they got up and the present moment; something that they haven’t talked about with anyone that day. It could be something unusual or something really mundane—just a quick description with maybe one or two details. People are always surprised when they realize how many things they are actually experiencing but not really noticing. It’s such a simple activity, but people have told me later on that they felt much more awake after doing it.

Portigal: That’s a good place to be solving problems from. Well, let’s get out there and keep noticing.

24 August 2008

from "Creative Color Wheels," Tori's Pics :: via FFFFOUND!

I like this because it shows simple response to what nature presents us: a catalog of noticing and arranging that gets to the heart of a sort of simple everyday creativity we can all, with a bit of intention and a bit of patience, practice.

cultivation and creation, nature, photography

Nate

23 August 2008

There's a wide yet tempting gap between copying or consuming (in this case, passively watching) culture and putting in the practice and discipline to genuinely cultivate and create it.

cultivation and creation, dance, disciplines, exercise, performing arts, practice

Nate

from "A Disciplined (disciple) Artist: Part 1," by David Taylor, Diary of an Arts Pastor, 23 August 2008

This is the first portion of the talk I gave in Nashville this past week. I began the talk with a kinetic visual. For 30 seconds I danced in front of everyone. It was a very ridiculous-looking version of modern dance (and, c’mon, that’s a long time to look ridiculous). Then a professionally trained modern dancer (with Stillpoint Dance Theater) danced for 30 seconds. Hers was beautiful. I said, “Folks: exhibit A, exhibit B, this is the summary of my talk.” And with this my talk officially began.

She keeps the disciplines of a dancer. In her words:

“I start with Pilates warm-up in the mornings. I take 2 ballet classes per week and 3 modern dance classes per week along with improvisation and composition. I rehearse approximately 12-15 hours a week with StillPoint. I also use the YMCA 1-2 times per week for extra cardio and weight training. I teach dance as well so I am in the studio creating classes or working on choreography many hours of the day.I have to keep an anti-inflammatory diet in order to keep inflammation down in my body due to minor injuries and the intensity of the rehearsing. This means staying away from sugar, dairy and wheat, and it means eating lots of “superfoods,” such as blueberries, walnuts, and salads. I require more food and sleep whenever we are in an intense rehearsal season.”

I do none of them. She is free. I am not.

She has obeyed the laws of her craft, its “order,” and so earns the right to improvise in a way that reveals the beauty of the craft. I have obeyed none and so earn the right only to look like a fool.

My temptation based on my minimal experience and training is to say: “I caaan’t do it. It’s too hard. You can do it because of course you’re better than I.” In saying this I sanction both my ignorance and my unwillingness to learn about the craft.

Maybe if I simply imitate her movements, I say to myself, then perhaps I can dance like her. But without adopting the disciplines of modern dance I will not become a person for whom the movements and graces of modern dance come “naturally.” I will simply be attempting to behaviorally conform.

21 August 2008

"Biology #1," carved textbook, by Brian Dettmer, from the show "Book Work: Dissections and Excavations," at Aron Packer Gallery, Chicago :: via wood s lot

I like the tension between destroying the book and revealing its contents -- it's fun to think of all the images hidden in so many books on my own shelves.

books, cultivation and creation, natural sciences, visual arts

Nate

< 1 2 3 4 >