GOING BACK,
I realize those that inspire me, those that have taught me all — brought me into their fold.
In where I am, I make real what I learned from them. Being here, now — I am what I am.
Listening to the filtration of time, the strata of learning — I go back.
One mentor: Jack Lenor Larsen at his apartment, 55 Park, NYC
There are influencers in life — people that connect with you, and connect you with others, that are profound change agents in your experience. I can recount a number of them — people that generously did things for me, with me, that changed me forever.
I walk back through four and more decades, in my mind, and think: who changed my life? Surely I’d count my parents as key inspirators.
In no sequence, then…try this yourself. Define your inspirators, your mentors, your minding agents — people that have changed your mind. I look back, thinking about powerful changes, the alchemy of amazement — enchantment, engagement, momentary or longer running embracement. And finally evolution.
That string aligns the sentiments — how inspiration can work, the magic of that string to human connection, leadership, discovery:
• amazement — is the beginning the start of astonishment. “Wow, this person — I can learn something here, come into this world?” Drawn into the maze, the miracle of the puzzle might be found — in solving its complexion; sharing: drawn in.
• enchantment — is the second tier of experience: the chant draws me in. “That character, that draws me in, holds me — there is a spell that is a continuing draw.” There is a musical notation, that rhythm, that beauty — there is a dance in the song as to be told and held. And danced.
• engagement — is the third layering; beyond fascination, there has to be commitment; mentoring is moments, hours, days, months, years. “I’m hearing, I’m listening, I’m learning — I’m beginning the process of engaging, connecting, moving into learning.” In the matter of connection, the linking of the nexus of one to another — the crossing ground of learning; it’s there — the leap beyond inspiration.
• embracement — the fourth step: “I believe.” Any exploration, any examination of beauty, learning, ideation and what might lie beyond; there will be questioning, personal distraction — a fracturing of uncertainty — but in the passing of this point of examination of self and mission, there is an embrace; it’s either on. Or it’s off.
• evolution — this is the moment in which the idea transforms — and it’s passed along; it’s the final and most realistic spirit of sharing, teaching, transferring. What that really comes to is the heart of the relationship, since surely relationship is — relating; which is the “carrying” — it is, inherently, the journey of the heart-ful story, told.
I remind my self of — each and every story, every encounter — in no order — but continually inspiring.
And I aspire, that greater breath — in these people that I’ve met, learned from, embraced:
George & Lila Girvin | Surgeon, farmer & painter, pianist / Spokane, WA
Ivan Chermayeff | NYC designer
Lloyd Reynolds | Professor / Reed College, Portland OR
Steve Jobs | Apple founder
Mircea Eliade | Professor of Comparative Religions / University of Chicago
Adrian Frutiger | Type designer (Univers) Bern | Sw.
Tom Ford | Designer / NYC, NY
Donald Jackson | Official Scribe to the Royal Family of the United Kingdom | London
Tess Gallagher | Poet / Port Townsend, WA
Sam Hamill | Founder, Poet, Translator / Copper Canyon Press / Port Townsend, WA
Jim Olson | Architect / Seattle
Dr. Richard Evans Schultes | Ethnobotanist / Harvard University / Cambridge, MA
David Kindersley | Stone cutter | Cambridge / Uk
Clint Eastwood | Actor, Director, Pianist / Los Angeles, CA
Joseph Campbell | Myth master / NYC
Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi | University of Chicago
Hermann Zapf | Type designer / Darmstadt, Gr.
Karlgeorg Hoefer | Type designer & artist / Offenbach, Gr.
Dr. Hans Halbey| Museum director / Offenbach, Gr.
Brian Eno | Musician / London
Friedrich Neugebauer | Calligrapher & bookmaker / Salzburg, Austria
E.O.Wilson | Professor / Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Elaine DeKooning | Painter / NYC
A.G. Lafley | CEO / Cincinnati, OH
Herb Lubalin | Graphic & type designer / NYC
Milton Glaser | Graphic designer & illustrator / NYC
Diane Von Fürstenberg | Designer / NYC
James Hayes | Calligrapher / Woodland Park, CO.
Idries Shah | Sufi scholar & qutb / London
Dale Chihuly | Artist / Seattle
Leslie Wexner | Storeman / Columbus, OH.
J.J. Abrams | Filmmaker, Writer, Storyteller / Santa Monica, CA
Dr. Annemarie Schimmel | Islamic scholar / Fogg Museum / Cambridge / MA.
Villu Toots | Designer / Tallinn, Estland
Paul Brainerd | Aldus founder / Seattle
Scott Oki | Technologist & Philanthropist / Seattle
David Fincher | Filmmaker / Hollywood, CA
William Cumming | Painter / Seattle
Philippe Starck | Designer / Paris, Fr
Ray DaBoll | Designer / Newark, AR
Pir Vilayat Khan | Sufi / London
Jorge Luis Borges | Editor, Writer & Poet / Buenos Aires, Argentina
William Burford | Poet / Dallas, TX
Kenneth Callahan | Painter / Seattle
George Tsutakawa | Painter & Sculptor / Seattle
Gordon Wasson | Banker & entheogen scholar / Danbury, CN
The Wachowski Brothers | Filmmakers / Los Angeles, CA
Pierre Dinand | Perfume bottle designer / Paris, Fr
Harold Balazs | Artist / Mead, WA
Richard Sapper | Industrial designer / Milano, It
Tony Callison | Architect / Seattle
Harriet Bullitt | Visionary & Philanthropist / Leavenworth, WA
Guy Anderson | Painter / La Conner, WA
Roshi Harada Shodo | Zen Master / Osaka, Jp
Richard Meier | Architect / NYC
Jacob Lawrence | Artist / Seattle
James Turrell | Artist / Flagstaff, AZ
Will Carter | Fine printer / Cambridge, Uk
Chris Anderson | TED / NYC
And Jack Lenor Larsen.
These are some of the people that I’d connected with, over the past 40 years — amazing people that I’d reached to, in the interests of learning more, visiting them, being with them, talking to them, writing to them, or working with them. And some were clients. And others were teachers. And others who I just connected with — all with instances of linkage that were profoundly changing in my perspective – my sighting of things. And, importantly, the siting of those “arrangements” — the new configurations of ideas and learning, in my life.
The keystone, to any of this, is the sense of absolutely undying curiosity. Surely there are more, many people and influencers, that I never met, that changed me forever. But these are the closer ones to my experience in the living world. And this world is mostly the space of creativity and intelligence.
What I learned from Jack was a deepening of the love of the international, the crafts scene, the character of the artisanal endeavor. And that’s when I first met him — in Portland, the Oregon School of Arts & Crafts. On the Board there, as well as Board of the American Crafts Council. I’d been commissioned to create the identity and the signing — I did them both, drawing the logotype with a brush, in all capitals, loosely packed together — almost as if an unskilled renderer had drawn the art. These were then applied elsewhere. Ceramics, weaving, paper, signing the other modern buildings — all of porcelain enamel. And then, interestingly enough, they were all stolen. And since that time I stayed in touch, speaking with him, visiting now and again, downtown Manhattan – just south of Grand Central, on Park — as well as being out at Longhouse, listening, learning, examining.
Sharing…
Longhouse and Larsen: you can explore more — holism, visioning, amazement: design.
The point to his efforts here, at Longhouse, is a kind of conceptual containment to everything that he is — a man of profound connoisseurship, in the classical if not Chinese tradition. One learned in the historical, the artful, the unassuming in a sense of scholarly understanding and thoroughness of study. So being with Jack is like being ambushed — the knowledge, the experience, the connections, it comes at you from all sides. Anywhere he’s been, he seems to triangulate on the best connections, the most interesting people, the most amazing things. He goes in, he comes out. With magic.
And the legacy of his work, his inspirations, the influences and what he’s brought to market are remarkable, detailed, fascinating and endlessly curious and diverse.
http://www.cowtan.com/ (see Larsen)
The man:
http://www.artsmia.org/Larsen/intro/index.cfm
There is more, all ways.
And more is rarely enough.
TSG | rewritten: Icicle Creek Wilderness Area (The Enchantments)
THE STUDY OF BRANDSCENT: EXPERIENCE,
MEMORY AND PLACE | http://bit.ly/fqHmEd
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