Archive for network with other artists
Upcoming FeaturedArtists…
Posted by: | CommentsI’m really geeked about the lineup of new FeaturedArtists that are coming up on WOP… Here’s a sneak peek:
Jason Tockey is an amateur photographer who’s gorgeous sunsets first caught my eye back in the spring. I’ll be talking with Jason about his art and a vision he has to connect artists in an online community… August 23.
Mary Freeman is a mixed-medium artist who created striking collage work for visual journaling. She also does seminars to teach her techniques to other artists and hobbyists in her community… September 6.
Troy Rowe is a professional portrait and event photographer who is using his considerable gifts to serve children at a local foster-care home. I’ll be talking with Troy about this unique ministry and other ways he uses his gifts… September 20.
Hannah Krohn is a dancer and dance teacher. I’ve worked with Hannah in some of my own projects at LVC. She has a great gift and heart and we’ll be talking together about unique ministry and missions opportunities that dance has opened up for her… October 4.
Jim Holt is sketching his way through the Bible… I found his pen and ink sketches on Tumbler.com. I’ll be talking with Jim about this project and his insightful visual blog… October 18.
Philip Davis is a graphic artist and photographer. We’ll be talking about an interesting project that he’s working on as he designs through the book of Psalms… November 1.
WOP on Tumblr.com…
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Follow WOP on Tumblr.com...
When I started blogging, I used Vox.com and I really enjoyed the social media aspect of the site… The problem was that there were fairly strict limitations on formating, sidebar content, etc… And as I developed WOP, it became apparent that I would need to find a more flexible platform…
So, I switched to WordPress…
Anon comes Tumblr.com… which is a kind of what would happen if Vox married Twitter and had a baby…
It seems like a good fit for WOP to have a mini-blog over at Tumblr… If you follow over there, you’ll get truncated posts from the RSS feed and will be able to link back here for complete posts…
If you use Tumblr, feel free to add a link to your Tumblr bog in the comments…
JESUS WEEK at LVC…
Posted by: | CommentsUp to my eyeballs in JESUS WEEK activities… Original drama for Good Friday, creative arts ministry’s first gallery exhibition… Here’s another peek at the great graphic art from Kelly at Korak Design…
The Shape of Creativity…
Posted by: | CommentsI spent some time today with an abstract artist that describes his personality as a “bubbly circle.” For someone who is 15, he is pretty amazingly self-aware. We spent some time talking about personalities, how we work together… and how we have conflict and it reminded me of a sort of unscientific personality assessment that I heard about a few years ago…
Now, for the record, I think that ALL personality assessments are unscientific… So, this one has the benefit of taking about 10 seconds, as opposed to the Meyers-Briggs that takes half a day…
Pick the 2 most appealing shapes from the following:
The most appealing shape is your primary type… the second most appealing is your secondary type…
You have now completed the assessment.
Squares, Rectangles and Triangles are convergent personalities. In other words, they tend to move in the direction of their goals. They are generally systematic, logical and like specific and finite activities.
Rectangles are task oriented and relational. They like to work in groups to solve problems, complete projects and accomplish tasks. Squares are task oriented but not relational and prefer to work alone. Triangles like to take charge, set goals and make sure that the goals are achieved.
Circles and Squiggles are much more interesting to creatives… since we tend to fall into one of these categories and find the convergent types rather boring.
Circles and Squiggles are divergent personalities… our tendency is to move outward from the current paradigm or structure. Finite goals are uninteresting to Circles and Squiggles, who would much rather spend their mental energy trying to get OUT of the square, rectangular or triangular box that our bosses want to squash us into…
By the way, you might as well come to terms with the fact that Circles and Squiggles tend to be employed by Squares, Rectangles or Triangles…
Circles and Squiggles are also extroverted, creative and intuitive… and tend to be asystematic and undependable…
Circles are relational. They are social and communicative. Give a Circle a task to complete and he will talk about it. I once worked with a pastor who would talk a project to death. After one particularly long meeting, our administrative assistant looked at the two of us, shook her head and informed us that “talking is not the same as working.” She was a Rectangle.
Circles also like for everyone to get along… Harmony is essential to their work environment… They don’t generally recognize structure as essential to harmony, but are not averse to the idea of adding structure as long as it doesn’t cut into their Facebook time…
In case you didn’t see this coming, a Squiggle is an off-the-wall creative. Give him structure and he will invent creative work-arounds so that he can do things his own way. Squiggles are people that get described with metaphors about “different drummers” and are often complaining about how boring their jobs are.
If you give a task to a Squiggle, he will generally come back to you with a counter-proposal. The current paradigm is ALWAYS too restrictive…
There is certainly more to be said about these types, but that’s it in a nutshell… So, what shape are you?
LeadershipIssues: When to Collaborate…
Posted by: | CommentsMy wife and I were talking about project management last night… In my defense, she brought it up… And she said something very insightful that I thought was worth sharing:
All good leaders have 2 ways they like to lead…
The first is collaborative… Get the team together, brainstorm, find the best solutions. After all, maturity teaches me that I don’t have ALL of the good ideas…
The second is authoritative… Get the team together, give them instructions and send them off to do their part… After all, I am the leader because I know what I’m doing…
The trick is knowing when to be collaborative and when to be authoritative…
Because I’m a creative and because I generally work with creatives, I tend to lean towards the collaborative style… but sometimes, I have a clear vision and I don’t want to be forced into a creative compromise…
Because sometimes I believe that compromise undermines the objectives and goals of the project…
And (honestly) because sometimes I like to be in charge…
And since creative ventures are intrinsically subjective, there’s almost never a conclusive right or wrong way to implement them…
With a few (occasionally significant) exceptions, I know my team. I know their strengths and weaknesses. I have come to anticipate the kinds of suggestions and ideas they have…
So sometimes I don’t ask for ideas…
Maybe that’s bad, but sometimes the old adage is true:
Too many chefs DO ruin the soup…
I used to work for a guy that had a blended approach… but it was all wrong… He liked to have “brainstorming” sessions where he flagrantly discarded every idea that didn’t align with his own… At one retreat, the entire staff seemed to have ideas that ran afoul of his… That was particularly frustrating for everybody…
He would have been better off making authoritarian decisions and selling the outcomes rather than asking for our opinions… We might have hated his decisions, but instead we grew to hate him personally…
If we had been volunteers, we would have abandoned that ship at the first opportunity… Some of us did anyway…
If you work with creatives, you’ll already recognize that they like to be heard… They like their ideas to count…
One of our great artists at church approached me with an idea for a project… I like the idea at face value but I have some concerns about the impression that it might leave with a particular group of people that our church is trying to reach. It’s not poorly conceived or poorly motivated, it’s just poorly timed…
But I hate to put people off… I don’t know a single creative that likes to hear the word “wait”…
This is a great opportunity for collaborative leadership: Can we work together to find an outlet for this idea?
Here are the talking points I like to use in a decision about whether to collaborate:
1. Can I do it better by myself? I have a pretty broad artistic capacity, but I wouldn’t claim to be “the best” at much of anything. In many cases, though, my efforts are good enough. When I really want a project to be outstanding, I need collaboration.
2. Will collaboration negatively impact the goals of the project? When I’m putting together a program, I often have a vision for the emotive impact that I want the program to have. When people want to add elements that don’t contribute to that emotive impact (or worse, distract from it), I want to take a more authoritarian position.
What are your touchpoints for collaboration? What sorts of situations make you want to “take charge”?
