Dave’s Third Grasp – final version (3)
Per the previous post, here’s the fix for the ugly fleshy protuberance situated in the original photograph.
This piece will end being printed to aluminum and enlarged to 32 x 54 inches; thus will be four-and-a-half feet in height.
My art is posted online at the main gallery, My Naive Art, and, on Symmetry-Hypothesis at Tumblr.
Filed under art, artists, visual experiments, my art
Dave G. helping the artist realize a dark vision in the journey from disorder to pattern.
The question is. . .
IN DAVE’S GRASP
Is this too grotesque?
Dave and I mused together about how the reality of his beat-up thumb and its fleshy coloring stick out amidst the surreal scenery of the photograph. My own sense is that the photograph is powerful, it looks wonderful printed to metallic paper, but, it is very grotesque, and this quality literally sticks out like a sore thumb!
Yet, I can fix this problem and amputate the thumb.
ouch
Filed under art, artists, visual experiments, my art
Wait for the low pitch, keep watching, try not to maim the pitcher. (I handed Andre my camera and he managed to capture a sequence of ol’ Cap himself plotting and releasing a single up the middle.) I have been a singles hitter since my first serious softball game in the spring of 1970. Because I am probably at least half as fast as I was when I was 15, I have to be twice as crafty.
We followed a 22-21 nailbiter 9/13 with a 19-19 tie this week. Kiss your sister, lads.
Filed under play
Peter Honey and Alan Mumford’s revision of the learning typology of David Kolb substitutes Activist for concrete experience, Pragmatist for active experimentation, Theorist for abstract conceptualization, and Reflector for reflective observation. Their theory seems to me to mix a more tangible conception of acting in light of cognition, in learning.
Dialectical differentiation:
I found the self-scoring forty question H&M assessment hanging out there on the internet. I filled it out and scored myself.
The stark black and white quality ofembedded in some of the questions in the short form H&M typological assessment seem to shout out their context-free ground. #32-It is best to look before you leap. #36-I’m usually the ‘life and soul’ of the party. (Yes/No)
The descriptions below strike me as being so idealized as to tilt toward the ridiculous. The characteristics of the four learning styles (Honey, P. & Mumford, A. (1982) Manual of Learning Styles):
| Learning style | Attributes | Activities |
|---|---|---|
| Activist | Activists are those people who learn by doing. Activists need to get their hands dirty, to dive in with both feet first. Have an open-minded approach to learning, involving themselves fully and without bias in new experiences. |
|
| Theorist | These learners like to understand the theory behind the actions. They need models, concepts and facts in order to engage in the learning process. Prefer to analyse and synthesise, drawing new information into a systematic and logical ‘theory’. |
|
| Pragmatist | These people need to be able to see how to put the learning into practice in the real world. Abstract concepts and games are of limited use unless they can see a way to put the ideas into action in their lives. Experimenters, trying out new ideas, theories and techniques to see if they work. |
|
| Reflector | These people learn by observing and thinking about what happened. They may avoid leaping in and prefer to watch from the sidelines. Prefer to stand back and view experiences from a number of different perspectives, collecting data and taking the time to work towards an appropriate conclusion. |
|
Honey and Mumford’s original definitions are as follows.
| Learning style | Honey and Mumford definition |
|---|---|
| Activist | Activists involve themselves fully and without bias in new experiences. They enjoy the here and now, and are happy to be dominated by immediate experiences. They are open-minded, not sceptical, and this tends to make them enthusiastic about anything new. Their philosophy is: “I’ll try anything once”. They tend to act first and consider the consequences afterwards. Their days are filled with activity. They tackle problems by brainstorming. As soon as the excitement from one activity has died down they are busy looking for the next. They tend to thrive on the challenge of new experiences but are bored with implementation and longer term consolidation. They are gregarious people constantly involving themselves with others but, in doing so, they seek to centre all activities around themselves. |
| Theorist | Theorists adapt and integrate observations into complex but logically sound theories. They think problems through in a vertical, step-by-step logical way. They assimilate disparate facts into coherent theories. They tend to be perfectionists who won’t rest easy until things are tidy and fit into a rational scheme. They like to analyse and synthesize. They are keen on basic assumptions, principles, theories models and systems thinking. Their philosophy prizes rationality and logic. “If its logical its good.” Questions they frequently ask are: “Does it make sense?” “How does this fit with that?” “What are the basic assumptions?” They tend to be detached, analytical and dedicated to rational objectivity rather than anything subjective or ambiguous. Their approach to problems is consistently logical. This is their ‘mental set’ and they rigidly reject anything that doesn’t fit with it. They prefer to maximise certainty and feel uncomfortable with subjective judgements, lateral thinking and anything flippant. |
| Pragmatist | Pragmatists are keen on trying out ideas, theories and techniques to see if they work in practice. They positively search out new ideas and take the first opportunity to experiment with applications. They are the sort of people who return from courses brimming with new ideas that they want to try out in practice. They like to get on with things and act quickly and confidently on ideas that attract them. They tend to be impatient with ruminating and open-ended discussions. They are essentially practical, down to earth people who like making practical decisions and solving problems. They respond to problems and opportunities ‘as a challenge’. Their philosophy is “There is always a better way” and “If it works it’s good”. |
| Reflector | Reflectors like to stand back to ponder experiences and observe them from many different perspectives. They collect data, both first hand and from others, and prefer to think about it thoroughly before coming to a conclusion. The thorough collection and analysis of data about experiences and events is what counts so they tend to postpone reaching definitive conclusions for as long as possible. Their philosophy is to be cautious. They are thoughtful people who like to consider all possible angles and implications before making a move. They prefer to take a back seat in meetings and discussions. They enjoy observing other people in action. They listen to others and get the drift of the discussion before making their own points. They tend to adopt a low profile and have a slightly distant, tolerant unruffled air about them. When they act it is part of a wide picture which includes the past as well as the present and others’ observations as well as their own. |
My typological result is interesting to me because it captures the activist aspect that comes to the fore in my creative work, inasmuch as there exists a kind of elemental creative processing which seems to oscillate between reflection and experiencing. But, this typological result is not very accurate in my other learning realms, and this echoes in reverse the inaccuracy of the result shown by my Kolb learning Style Inventory, that captures accurately my style in expressly cognitive learning, yet completely misses the mark set by my learning style as a creative actor/agent.
Where the embodied and contextualized ‘agentic’ act fits, exemplified by committing to and instantiating a second order choice, remains under-conceptualized in both Kolb and Honey and Mumford’s related theories. Honey and Mumford were more on this case of deconstructing the element of embodied agency within experience back in 1982. Thirty plus years later the lack of the body, and thus the lack of an embodied mind, remains one of several weak spots in Kolbian theorizing about learning. Another weak spot is the inability of both instruments to flex for the sake of being able to encompass different modal learning contexts.
Filed under adult learning, experiential learning, self-knowledge
h/t Mike Dickman for sharing the cartoon on FB
Filed under experiential learning, philosophy, psychology, self-knowledge, zen
When I returned to the softball diamond at the age of 48 in 2002, I claimed left field as if it had been left to me in a will or by contract. I had my old Wilson glove from 1968, a mitt so large it could envelope most of my head, and I figured–like riding a bike–my ability to judge a fly ball, let alone a dipping line drive, would instantly return.
It did. All those years covering the left field for the Abernathy Special Collections challenge team on the makeshift diamond behind Middlebury College’s field house turned out not to be wasted, even after 18 years had gone by.
Then came my nose’s $6,000 dollar encounter with a falling line drive in October 2005. I got over it soon enough, but I never regained my sense that I could trot out to left field and own it.
Then, my speed slowly disappeared. This left me with right field. This season I have also played first base, a position I am configured to perform very well at, but first is also the position where less versatile players gravitate to.
With a slim turn out this week, I threw caution to the wind and did so also hoping I wouldn’t throw the ball over the first baseman’s head. I ambled out to short stop for, I guess, the fourth time in my long ‘career.’ I thought to myself that my arm was strong and might turn out to be accurate too. I zinged every warm up grounder into the first baseman’s mitt. I figured I had a chance to not make a fool of myself.
What did worry me was the fast grass surface, and, how bumpy the infield had become by September.
What happened is I threw two runners out at third, one runner at second, held up two throws to first against fast hitters, made an error on a bad bounce, and, successfully semi-dove (!) for a looping infield fly, and caught a gimme infield fly to end the game.
This would count as my best performance ever at this demanding position. Of course ‘best’ in my case means ‘mediocre.’ The reality is, I can play all ten softball positions in a mediocre way. I’m versatile!
Filed under play
Joanne & Crede Calhoun
This photograph of my father and his wife Joanne is my favorite photo taken of my dad. Why? He’s smiling. He’s seated next to the love of his life. Joanne was the huge hearted gal who not only was devoted to my father during their brief years together before he drowned in a sailing accident, but was the women who fully accepted his devotion to her.
Joanne peacefully passed away August 25. She told me the last time I visited with her, five days earlier, that she was looking forward to being rejoined with my father. For the last time, she told me “You are an angel.” I lay my head down and she stroked my hair.
I remember meeting Joanne for the first time in the fall of 1994, when my dad had invited Susan and me to dinner at his apartment. (First impression? Tall, vital, glamorous, warm.) She took me aside and told me she was working on my dad to step up and “be a father again.” I was forty years old at the time, and welcomed her effort–and it proved so successful that we shared a Christmas the next year with the newly married Joanne and Crede, and, with my mother Jean, and with Joanne’s sons and their families, and with my brother and his family, and my own family .
It was the first time my divorced parents had celebrated a holiday in the same room in over twenty years. Likewise, it was the first time I had celebrated a holiday family style in over twenty years. My mother Jean thought Joanne had, literally, “worked a miracle.”
My mother loved her ex-husband’s third wife, and she thought Joanne was an angel too.
Joanne ‘s devotion to my father, friends, and her family simply and also directly expressed her deep nature.
Her attitude echoed Meister Eckhardt, ‘One must not always think so much about what one should do; but rather what one should be,’ yet maybe goes farther because she was naturally devoted and didn’t have to think about it.
. . .an angel.
Filed under personal
GEOLOGY, n. The science of the earth’s crust — to which, doubtless, will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well. The geological formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one, consists of rocks, bones or mired mules, gas-pipes, miners’ tools, antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railway tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.
SATAN, n. One of the Creator’s lamentable mistakes, repented in sashcloth and axes. Being instated as an archangel, Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from Heaven. Half-way in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a moment and at last went back. “There is one favor that I should like to ask,” said he.
“Name it.”
“Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws.”
“What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soul — you ask for the right to make his laws?”
“Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself.”
It was so ordered.
via The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
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