Vasarely: The Visionary

I'm helping my daughter with a little research on Victor Vasarely, "the father of Op-Art." We came across the following quote from Vasarely from 1960. Quite a statement and prediction of our reality from half a century ago.

The individual will never be capable of knowing it all. Therefore, electronics will always help us more and more to hem in the contours of this vast heap of knowledge, to locate the ones in relation to the others, and obtain an intuition of synthesis. No artistic creation of value is any longer conceivable without this global idea of the living world. We must therefore completely rethink the reasons of the creative step and its effect on fellow men. We now know that through the successive levels of the processes of complication of the unit-particle-wave we arrive at the human phenomenon. Art can no longer have a divine explanation, just a beautiful and very materialistic one.

Image by Váradi Zsolt from the Wikipedia Commons.

Searching for artistic inspiration

[A few weeks ago, I gave myself permission to post random, incomplete thoughts. This looks to be one of those.]

Over Spring Break, C. (my wife) and I browsed through a local gallery and talked about the idea of incorporating more art into the life of our family. We discussed the idea of a making a place for our kids to create art that we could use alongside them.

Along with having a place for art, I talked about the idea of finding sources of artistic inspiration. I set out to find a few blogs that may provide a little daily inspiration. Thanks to a friend and colleague of C.'s (who is also an amazing photographer), I began following the Herman Miller Lifework blog. In the past month I have enjoyed being exposed to talented artists and inspiring workspaces.

One of my colleagues frequently mentions the work of Daniel Pink so last weekend I checked out A Whole New Mind (AWNM) from the library. I was captivated from the first page. I have since jumped ahead to his chapter on Design. In it, he offers suggestions for exploring and experimenting with design. Great resources - highly recommended.

Ironically, at the same time I was reading AWNM, C. was having fun in NYC with her mom and aunt for six days. She, too, had art and design on her mind as she explored many of the amazing stores in the city. When she brought back souvenirs for the family, the kids received Central Park t-shirts and I received a copy of simple home: calm spaces for comfortable living which she purchased at Ochre. Now I'm inspired to repaint our home's interior and get rid of half of what we own.

These are a few places I've found inspiration over the past month. Where do you find inspiration for your own creative pursuits?