"Words"

- Translations courtesy to the internet -
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By Bird

Things I Love

What inspires me?

As a project for class, we had to share things that inspired us

• Slip by PhillipChbeeb & Renee Kester
• “I’m a sharing addict...There is always a moment of extreme bravery involved in this question:...will you look?...This impulse to connect the dots - and to share what you have connected - is the urge that makes you an artist. If you’re using words or symbols to connect the dots, whether you’re a professional artist or not, you are an artistic force in the world”.
  (The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer, pg 16-17)
• Sonic Arboretum by Andrew Bird
• “Those who ask without fear learn to say two things, with or without words, to those they are facing:
  I deserve to ask
  And
  You are welcome to say no.
  (The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer, pg 303)
• Arts Integration for Deeper Learning in Middle School
• “Suitcases are interesting.”
  -Olivia B.
• Student: “Are you a slave driver?”
  Aid: “Worse. She’s a teacher.”
• “Warm-ups get us out of where we were into where we are.”
  -Suzanne H.

A Lesson in a Bird's Creativity

A Lesson Plan

Background: For this Special Topics Theater Course that I created this blog for, I had to present my independent project at the end of the semester. Seeing my project is sort of all over the place (as can be seen in my previous posts), I needed a way to find a way to unify everything for my presentation. Being a theater and childhood education major, one of the most common ways I express my creativity is through the art of lesson planning. So, I decided to create an interactive "lesson plan" for my classmates to partake in which will (hopefully) demonstrate the evolution of my creativity, as it has grown this semester.

Essential Question(s):

     What is creativity?

     How has Bird's creativity evolved throughout the Spring of 2016, due to her enrollment in TH291?

Learning Goals:

     Students will be able to:

         1. Understand how creativity is defined differently for different people

         2. Understand the importance that inspiration can play in creativity

         3. Understand Bird's process of creativity throughout the semester

Do Now:

     Think-Pair-Share:

           Students will brainstorm working definitions of "artist" and "creativity"

      How does our definitions of artist and creator differ? How are the similar?

Learning Activity:

     Human Machine - each student creates a movement and a sound, as all the students begin to group together, a "machine" is created that could serve a direct output.

     Our machine will operate using students' unique movements paired with the instructors words which define art as an act of negative energy, and again as an act of positive energy. After each circulation of the machine, Bird will read a piece she created using negative and confused energy, and then a piece she created using positive energy. Therefore making the machine's output her work throughout the semester.

Materials:

• Index cards for students to write their definitions on (one for each student)
• Index cards that have a negative word in blue and a positive word in red (one for each student)
• Print out of a piece that was created negatively
• Print out of a piece created positively

Assessment/Debrief:

     Together, the class should discuss their feelings toward each piece (being unafraid of offending the artist) after each machine cycle. 

     How does this piece make you feel?

     How do you think it would feel to create something like this?

     Which piece to you like more? Why?

A Walk in the Park

A Walk Through Central Park

October 2015

By Bird

How to Let Go - a Comprehensive List

How to let go

A Comprehensive List

By Bird

1. Scream all of the time
2. Never apologize for being too loud
3. Dance when the feeling comes
4. Wear outrageous amounts of jewelry
5. Live with the trees
6. Make friends with discomfort
7. Experience over documentation
8. Friends will always be there to welcome you home
9. Let yourself move away
10. Go somewhere new
11. AVOID ROUTINE
12. If the music isn’t right, skip the song
13. Stop telling the kids “no”
14. Say hello
15. Make s’mores
16. Who the fuck cares about a scale?
17. Experience new fabrics and textures
18. Unzip
19. Explore
20. Don’t be afraid to take your time
21. Don’t be afraid to run fast
22. Use the time you have been gifted with now
23. Do what you love - never work a day in your life
24. Try something new
25. You drown when you allow yourself to drown - learn to swim
1. How to Swim - a Secondary list
1. Don’t panic
2. Feel the water wash over you
3. Move with water and trust the water to move with you
26. Touch everything and everyone
27. What is the point, if you are not sharing positive energy
28. Appreciate differences
29. Find contrast
30. Notice small things - let them become big things
31. Be light
32. Take risks
33. Set difficult goals
34. Lay down and listen
35. Understand that life/art is about making connections, not fitting in or not being what you think is right
36. Be the only one on a beach, and be completely naked
37. Understand that everyone is over 99% the same as you
38. Understand that bananas are also very similar to you
39. Listen to the music of your body
40. Don’t disregard or discredit your thoughts
41. Don’t be consumed by negativity
42. Make yourself laugh
43. Listen to the voices of others
44. Try to climb on something when you have the chance
45. Be happy when someone else has a positive experience
46. Wonder
47. Be amazed
48. Don’t feel like you need to do something
49. Be busy without being overwhelmed
50. Appreciate flowers
51. Scream some more.

A Warm Day in a Cold City

A Warm Day in a Cold City

By Bird

Clouds move lazily through the sky

The air smelt like magic

In the way only the first few warm days can.

And the magic sparkled around me

The bird flew past and sang me a morning lullaby

And I felt connected to that bird

Because he is me. And I am him

So we sat together and he sang and I listened and I fell in love.

But then the city sounds scared him away and I was alone again.

But I am not ever truly alone

Because I know, when I go home,

There will be mountains and trees

There will be sky and stars

And that magic that only comes during special times

Will dazzle me everyday

I will wake up,

And just like an old friend

She will come to me

And wake me with a kiss on the cheek

We will go on an adventure and fly together

And fall in love with birds and toads

And splash through water with bare toes.

Together, we will never have responsibility

Except that which allows us to be free

I can feel my heart wanting to run

Feel it beating against my ribcage

Asking to be let out

But it is like when I sing

And my teacher tells me to let the sound out

And I thought I was

Because I was trying

But something was holding me back, and it is always there

Holding my back

So, now I am going to let go.

She Saw

She Saw

A spoken word poem

Dedicated to all of the big sisters of little sisters

By Bird

I used to have the best eyebrows.

They were big and bushy.

The were uncontrollable.

They were crazy and lush.

And I was taught to hate them.

I had them waxed on my 13th birthday

A Bat Mitzvah side bonus

No different than getting my ears pierced or having a party.

She was 7.

And she saw.

My mother is beautiful.

She has bright blue eyes and a perfect complexion.

More importantly, she is kind and generous.

She has a beautiful soul.

And she cannot leave the house without

A painted face.

She hates to go places without makeup.

It makes her feel like she is not put together; uncomfortable.

She was a toddler.

And she saw.

The first time I shaved, my legs felt like Heaven.

They were smooth and everything was new.

First, it was just me and my mum.

Then Jenna joined the game.

And I always say I shave for me and no one else.

Yet, I still told a boy:

“We can’t hook up. I haven’t shaved in a week”.

I feel dirty if I don’t.

She was 8.

And she saw.

Every girl in my family has such thick hair.

Some is curly, some is wavy.

But it is so full of life and personality.

I love my hair today.

It is one of my favorite things about me.

And in middle school, I loathed it.

My friends would help me straighten it.

It took hours.

She was 6.

And she saw.

I go home and see her.

She is the most beautiful girl I know.

I tell her as often as I can.

She has that perfect middle school fashion, now.

And she is as beautiful now as she was when she was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12...

So why do I only tell her now?

Where was my motivation to tell her before?

What message am I giving her?

She is 13.

And she sees.

Her hair is curly and fun.

Her eyes are beautiful.

She is youthful and bright.

She is energetic and passionate and curious and creative.

And she used to try and wax her eyebrows with tape in the bathroom when she didn’t think anyone would find her.

She has been sneaking makeup to school since Kindergarten.

She didn’t wait to be taught to shave. She figured it out on her own...a few years ago.

She wants to straighten her hair everyday that she finds the time.

I am her big sister.

And I am only beginning to see.

My Turn 3

My Turn 3

The third in a series of reflections 

Inspired from a night at the MoMA PS1 and a search for oneself

By Bird

When will it be my turn

To stand up without

Permission?

When will I be so confident

As to not need to worry

About denial or acceptance?

When will I have the ability

To think for myself

“Go for it!”

Without listening for approval first?

Will it ever come to that?

Do you feel that?

I am always told how confident I am,

How little I care about what others think of me.

That I do what I want, when I want to do it.

Apparently I have a plan and know what I’m doing.

Hahahaha….no.

Not quite.

Good try though.

Little did you know

I didn’t feel like I could write this

Until my professor told me

Everyone is creative

Even me.

I didn’t feel like an artist

Until a someone told me

Anyone and everyone is an artist.

I wouldn’t chose a school

Without my mother helping.

I couldn’t even chose a prom dress

Without checking with 5 people, first!

But I am still told I have my shit together

They say they can count on me for when

They fall apart.

Maybe their need is permission enough.