Among the variety of reasons that human create art, one of them relates to fear of death. The impetus to make art arose from the confluence of several different urges, one of which was the desire to create something that would outlive its creator. The over nine hundred stenciled hand prints in the cave of Gargas in southwestern France, created over thirty thousand years ago, give the impression that their creators made them for the generations to come. The making of a mark that will live past one’s allotted three scored and ten is uniquely human and embodies the longing of a primate equipped with its sense of death and time to touch the hem of immortality. As poet Emily Dickinson wrote “When this you see, remember me”. Nearly everyone experiences a tingle of excitement when holding in his hand an artifact from a bygone age. Knowing that it was fashioned by someone very much like us links us to the past.

Art serves as an umbilical cord connected us to past generations and can be seen as a novel form of DNA that transmits cultural values.

- Sex, Time, and Power: How Women’s Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution by Leonard Shlain

I was downloading fonts to play around, as you do on a Saturday night, and happened across a great read in the “readme.txt” file. I love these files, sometimes they have the most obscure things. Here’s one from J.B.Thyssen.

Some more general advice

No one can teach you font aesthetics; it must be learned by example
and experience. Look around you with wide eyes and an open mind, and
soon you will find that you know what to do where, with any font.
Motivation and interest are the key-words for successful use.

Never lose track of the kind of work you’re doing. An effect that
would ruin a newsletter might be just the thing for a record cover.
Know when you can safely sacrifice legibility for artistic effect.
The ‘Immortal Galaxy’-font for example starts to be useful at 24
points size. Smaller use just does not apply for that font.

Running some comparative tests is a good idea. Better to blow off
a few sheets of paper now than to see a problem after thousands of
copies are made. Just use your thinking, that’s all we can say really..

Many people feel that bold or italic type is more legible:
“This is the most important part of the newsletter, let’s put it
in bold.” In fact, legibility studies show that such type is actually
harder to read in bulk. Keep the text in a normal style and weight,
and find another way to emphasize it – box it, illustrate it,
run it in color, position it focally.

It seems to be the consensus of the comp.fonts community that
“you get what you pay for.” This is (as of 1994 if you’d ask me)
no longer the case. If you need a professional quality font, you
do not necessarily have to get it from a so-called professional.
Font-software wasn’t made by professionals to begin with.
(You only have to look closer into the silly encoding
to know how stupid the inventors were…)

WARRANTY ?

THIS SOFTWARE CAN SUFFER ONLY FROM THE NOT-INVENTED-HERE SYNDROM;
WE ARE NOT THE CREATORS OF THE SYSTEM(S) IN WHICH THEY’RE USED,
IF WE WERE, IT WOULD PROBABLY HAVE BEEN BETTER…

=========================================================================
This text was written by J.B.Thyssen (c)1983-2004 for Men Without Plan
Enterprises. All TTF-names are TRADEMARKS of JTHZ Productions. All other
trademarks mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks
of their respective corporations, and are hereby acknowledged. The
information contained in this documentation is subject to revision
and/or alteration without prior notice. This documentation represents
no obligation, expressed or implied, on the part of the author(s).

A conversation with Katelan Foisy.

Katelan Foisy is an illustrator, self-portrait artist and all-round creative person. She started studying illustrations in PRATT in 1997 and after finishing her course did the most unusual thing of emailing art directors and actually starting coversations. Her work took off and last year she started working on a book of self-portraits called “They Be We”.

One summer evening in New York, I sat down with Katelan and discussed her work, her lust for life and her latest book, “They Be We”, a self-portrait project that 15 independent, creative women took on.

Notice how I was so nervous I didn’t even look at the camera. Wow, go Tash! I should have done broadcast journalism instead of print.

Click on the image to be redirected to They Be We.

I haven’t sat at my desk for months. Not because I haven’t been working, I’ve just migrated to the couch for the summer. My desk has stacks of loosely gathered clutter and it rather overwhelms me. Reading Leo Babauta has made me analyse my work area so much that I can’t concentrate at my desk – which sometimes works against me, after all, clutter is my middle name.

When I lived in Bathurst I had strewn on my desk jewellery, photos, books, CDs, the pill, business cards. And I was happy. My clutter served as visual reminders of what I needed to get done. But now, I am neither here or there.

Clutter is great if you’re constantly looking for inspiration. I’ve read many bloggers that dedicate posts to inspiration walls. Looking at photos can change your mood. If you’re a negative thinker, a great quote could snap you out of your bad thoughts. Clutter, when done correctly, can act as a reminder of warm occasions and change your train of thought to happier things:

Post-tequila shots while playing Uno. That's how we roll.

New Years Eve 09. Clearly, my brother and I are breaking out the moves.

The downside of clutter is that you’re always jumping here and there with your visual reminders.

I’ve become a believer that a clear desk encourages a clear mind. Through a year of training myself to focus at the task on hand, I can no longer watch T.V or talk on the phone while I’m writing a blog post. It’s all or nothing. They say women can multi-task, that’s bullshit. I have the multi-tasking skills of an amoeba.

Personally, I accomplish more when I take down things from my wall and see only the black varnish of my table. But it took me a while to realise that everything has it’s place. For Tash Clutter Jayasinghe, it’s a constant up hill battle that I’m glad I’m fighting.

Understand when I say workplace, I imply somewhere that you work, which more often than not, can mean the couch. As long as you can work, I’d count it as an office.

The majority of my readers work from home, a magnet for clutter. I’d like to hear if you prefer clutter or clear work areas and why.

A Wired interview/shoot with Clay Enos. I love this man’s no bullshit approach. The sun is his light, he’s anything but shy and he uses a 50mm lens to get what he wants.

Notes I made in 2006 about the changing media. It seems that in 2009 there is a slow blending of the two; new, evolutionary media and the old media playing catch-up.

• Old Media: Pre-internet era; film, T.V, radio, print. Big business and big money.
  In a formal and instructive tone, tell your audience the definitive truth. This media has the capacity to publish large amount of facts and data.

• New Media/We Media: Internet-based for production, delivery and storage. Small business, no or minimal money.
  In an informal and conversational tone. Audience will share items they find interesting within their own trust network, thus creating their own truth. We media tools are used to facilitate trust, transparency, engagement and communication. Dig journalism: A discussion in which readers may know more than the journalists. The audience will act as a “smart mob” to fact-check stories (Just like Twitter now, I suppose). Multiple first sources and select facts and data.

Old VS New

Tell Your Audience  VS Build Community

Transmitting Stories VS Engage + Participate

Formal + Instructive VS Informal + Conversational

I guess my years at university paid off if these were the notes I was making three years ago in a digital journalism class.

You could write the bones of an essay in under five minutes if you know what’s required. Here’s the skeleton to get you started.

An essay is made of three things, an introduction, body and conclusion. When compiling your essay, even if it’s a timed test, jot down five strong points and four not so important points that will expand on your idea. Under each point write down one or two references or case studies, the less words you write now, the better. This is meant to sort out your head.

Once you’ve vomited your train of thought onto the page, write down numbers next to each point so you can build your essay into an argument strong wall.

One example would look like what I jotted down for my critique of T.S Eliot’s the Hollow Men:

Start on your introduction by addressing the essay question in your first sentence. The whole point of an intro is to say, I’m going to change your mind by presenting these points of argument. It shouldn’t be longer than four sentences and should always be straight to the point.

Every idea you present in the body should be included in the introduction.

T.S Eliot drew on his lifelong research on Dante and his new found anglo-Catholic beliefs to compile his poem; the Hollow Men, a more cynical take on the Lord’s Prayer. Guy Fawkes, a figure in history that tried unsuccessfully to overthrow his house of parliament, is referenced throughout the poem as well as Joseph Conrad’s tale of isolation, Heart of Darkness. T.S Eliot uses these sources to build a compelling story of angst and dispair.

The body paragraphs should be an outline: the first sentence is what you believe, the second, third, fourth and fifth sentence should be sources, quotes and references. The sixth sentence should bring your first idea and combine it with the sources to bring about an argument that leaves no room for doubt.

Prior to writing the Hollow Men, T.S. Eliot wrote extensively about Dante, particularly the great masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, this would have influenced his own writing. The Cambridge Companion to T. S. Eliot (Moody, 1994, p. 19) informs that “Eliot’s time at Harvard furnished a sum of intellectual capital – Dante – that he drew on for the rest of his life. He also relied on its resources as he wrote his first mature poetry”. Unlike the Divine Comedy, T.S. Eliot’s characters never reach the comforting arms of Beatrice, which he portrays as a shallow sham that offers no real peace.

“Those who crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us – if at all – not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.” (13 to 18, Section I)

Eliot’s lack of romantic views when describing those that have gone to heaven illustrates how he has taken Dante’s idea and turned it on it’s head.

Your conclusion shouldn’t be longer than five sentences. Never, ever introduce a new idea in your conclusion. It’s better to create a whole new paragraph into your body than to introduce a new train of thought. Summarise what you’ve already said and leave the essay with your strongest point.

In conclusion, [insert points]. Eliot drew on several rich with mythology sources that he twisted into a morbid and empty story that showed his view of the Christian after-life.

Pointers:

• Never say “I” or “in my opinion” in an essay, this is supposed to be an objective argument. This is a golden rule and if you break it, the English gods will smote you.
• Never say “you”, this is not a conversation, people.
• The more formal the language, the better.
• Even though you’re showing your side of the case, it helps to include other train of thoughts, to build your credibility more than anything else. Only do this if you have the extra time and word count and prove why you’re dismissing the other side by saying your point/sources are stronger.
• Always take the time to reference correctly, this gets you easy extra points.
• Don’t use shifty sources that contradict themselves.
• That being said, don’t contradict yourself either, stick to a game plan.

If I’ve missed a crucial element, let me know and I’ll add it.

© Tash Jayasinghe

Sublime: that which is profoundly beautiful.

It can be terrifying or disturbing. It will certainly be challenging and extremelly well wrought.

It is not the only form of beauty but it is one of the most important as it evokes issues held somehow sacred. Thus, it entails the wider axiological triangle of ethics, morality and aesthetics.