[[Leap Before You Look (2015)]] ###### By Helen Molesworth ![[Book-LBL-LeapBeforeYouLook-HelenMolesworth-BookPhoto.jpeg]] I haven’t bought a book that cost this much since university, but it is a beauty. (If you’re interested in reading I’d suggest checking out an interlibrary loan or trying library at your nearest art museum.) But compared to going back to school for a Ph.D., which I briefly considered this Spring, this book is basically a steal. 😉 Here are my notes from my first reading session. --- ## Reading Notes These early index cards were specifically collected for ideating Neurokind and the type of community I want to cultivate. ![[Index-LBL-Molesworth-Note1.jpeg]] There are a lot of threads to pull on here. The first is a useful guidepost whilst considering the mission and direction of [Neurokind](http://neurokind.art/). > “the aspirations of Black Mountain College: namely to inspire us in an expansive notion of the arts and creativity through close observation, physical engagement, service, and play…” > > Jill Medvedow (p. 18) Keeping an expansive view of art and what it can do and be. It also feels important that creativity can both be of service and play which so often seem at odds with one another. ![[Index-LBL-Molesworth-Note2.jpeg]] > "artistic exchange" and "the cultural ecosystem is a theme" Jill Medvedow, p. 18 > "the effect of a long gestation period cannot be under estimated" p. 20 > "Josef Albers insisted that art display a rigorous understanding of its material properties." p. 25 ![[Index-LBL-Molesworth-Note3.jpeg]] This quotes are at the heart of a desire for social change. It still feels very radical to value the wisdom of youth. And also the focus on practical learning. > "We must realize that the world as it is isn't worth saving; it must be made over." John Rice, p. 30 > "We should realize there is a wisdom of youth as well as wisdom of old age." John Rice, p. 31 > "There are things to be learned through observation (that) cannot be learned any other way." John Rice, p. 31 ![[Index-LBL-Molesworth-Note4.jpeg]] And this ties in to a [conversation I had with Morgan Harper Nichols](https://sarahshotts.substack.com/p/mhn) and this idea that art is a form of communication. It feels very relevant to [Neurokind](http://neurokind.art/) as platform to share experiences that may transcend or defy language. --- ![[Screenshot-BMC-john-andrew-rice-and-student-david-bailey-blue-ridge-campus-black-mountain-college-circa-1933-or-34_29287248690_o.jpg]] <small> John Andrew Rice and student David Bailey, Blue Ridge campus, Black Mountain College, circa 1933 or '34 </small> [^1] > “…there is something of the artist in everyone and the development of this talent, however small, carrying with it a severe discipline of its own, results in the students becoming more sensitive to order in the world and within himself than he can ever be through intellectual effort alone.” John Rice, Black Mountain College Bulliten, 1935 (p. 34)  <small>Bucky Fuller, Elaine de Kooning, Josef Albers, students, and a thing that would become, a year later, the first geodesic dome</small>[^2] > “THE SUMMER SESSIONS PERMITTED AN EXTRAORDINARY FORM OF CROSS-POLLINATION.” 🐝🐝🐝 > “Almost none of the summer faculty was paid a salary but received instead room and board and some relaxing time in the country.” Helen Molesworth , p. 42 > “The summer sessions modeled a form of artistic community, one that de Kooning took with him to New York in 1950, when he helped to found the Artists' Club, a gathering dedicated to the presentation of avant-garde ideas.“ > “Black Mountain helped to establish the idea that an art school is a place of competing and diverse ideas, where the task of the faculty is to commit to a sense of rigor instead of personal taste, and the job of the students is to navigate the complexity of the options, in the hope of finding their own paths through what John Cage called "the big question," namely, "What are you going to do with your time?"[^3] Helen Molesworth, p. 45 > “the relation is not so much of teacher to student as of one member of the community to another.” Black Mountain College Catalogue _Leap Before You Look,_ p. 80 > “In essence there exists the utmost freedom for people to be what they please. There is simply no pattern of behavior, no criteria to live up to. People study what they please, as long as they want to, idle if they want to, graduate whenever they are willing to stand on examination, even after only a month here, or a year, or whatever, or they can waive all examinations, and graduations. They can attend classes, or stay away. They can work entirely by themselves, or they need not work whatever. They can be male, female, or fairy, married, single, or live in illicit love.” Jack Tworkov , p. 42 These examples highlight an egalitarianism and exchange of ideas that I’d like to foster in creative spaces I facilitate. ---  <small>John Andrew Rice holding court with students (including Dave Bailey, in hat), Black Mountain College, circa 1933 or '34 </small>[^4] > “What you do with what you know is the important thing. To know is not enough.” John Rice, pg. 77 > “There were no letter grades at Black Mountain College, nor were there required courses, set curricula, standard examinations, or prescribed teaching methods.” > “When John Rice established Black Mountain College in 1933, he sought to create a school that dissolved distinctions between curricular and extracurricular activities, that conceived of education and life as deeply intertwined, and that placed the arts at the center rather than at the margins of learning.“ > “For Rice, education was registered not by grades or other standard criteria but in a heightened desire to learn and to question, which would lead students to an expanded aptitude for solving a range of problems and to a richer sense of self.” Ruth Erikson, p. 77 --- > “WE DO NOT ALWAYS CREATE ‘WORKS OF ART,’ BUT RATHER EXPERIMENTS; IT IS NOT OUR AMBITION TO FILL MUSEUMS: WE ARE GATHERING EXPERIENCE.” Josef Albers, p. 33  <small>Josef Albers giving Nan Chapin (and others) painting pointers, Lee Hall porch, Blue Ridge campus, Black Mountain College, spring 1936 </small>[^5] > “Josef Alber’s thought of teaching art as analogous to teaching a language, hence the students had to begin with the building blocks of aesthetics; he called drawing a ‘graphic language’ that was both a ‘visual and manual act.’ “ > **“Alber’s color course… proved that the experience of color was ultimately fungible.”** For example: Cutting up and collating bits of paper to see how they change in relationship to each other. Helen Molesworth, p. 34 > “The relativity of our experience of color has philosophical and ethical implications, as well. If our experience of a piece of colored paper can change so demonstrably, then what side footing do we have when we appeal to ‘common-sense’ truths like color?” > “forms are subject to perception - what Albers calls experience.” > **“The task of training students to see, "to open eyes," as Albers often said, was to facilitate their critical awareness of the made qualities of the world around them, to make them self-aware of their own experiences to better prepare them for the democratic work of making considered choices.”** > “Rather Albers insisted on the relativity of color, the perceptual instability of human experience, and the need for a constant performance or testing of innumerable variables.” Helen Molesworth, p. 41 This basis for experimentation is really key to BMC - although every artist interpreted that in their own way. Albers’ way was questioning your own perception and experience as a lesson to think deeply about the world. ###### Footnotes [^1]: Image Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidsilver/29287248690/in/album-72157673611048125/ [^2]: Image Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidsilver/7364006522/in/album-72177720312993838/ [^3]: John Cage question from interview in 1968. Interviewer: "But does that alter the fact that you might have preferred going to a different happening?" Cage: "That's not an interesting question; for you are actually at this one where you are. How are you going to use this situation if you are there? This is the big question. **What are you going to do with your time?** If you use it negatively, you really are not consuming. You're rather doing some other kind of thing which, as I've explained just now, loses tempo. You have somehow to use it posi-tively. We have illustrations of how to get at this, and it would be part and parcel of the new ethic or new morality or new aesthetic." Source: p. 28 in [_John Cage: An Anthology_](https://archive.org/details/johncageantholog0000unse/page/28/mode/1up?q=Time&view=theater) (1991) [^4]: Image Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidsilver/29523433136/in/album-72157673611048125/ [^5]: Image Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidsilver/18655203702/in/album-72157673611048125/ --- Below you’ll find my initial notes on BMC and links to various YouTube videos. --- *Originally published to self hosted microblog October 10, 2023 This week I’ve been doing a deep dive into Black Mountain College. It’s definitely an instance of [orbiting ideas](https://www.sarahshotts.com/blog/orbiting-ideas-) as Black Mountain College and artists have caught my attention many times over the years. This is my first deep dive and I’m fascinated that so many things I’ve been studied and been drawn to over the years: [[Buckminster Fuller]]’s visionary design, [[John Cage]]’s Happenings, [[John Dewey]]’s educational approach, [[Ruth Asawa]]’s interaction of life and art) all converged in these mountains. I want to really go deep this time as I draw inspiration for a new project. I’ve ordered some books, but in the meantime I’ve been watching YouTube videos. Here are 3 of my favorite quotes with the videos they are from below. ![[Screenshot-BMC-Quote.jpeg]] "We do not always create works of art, but rather experiments. It's not our intention to fill museums, we are gathering experience." [[Josef Albers]] [^1] ![[Screeenshot-BMC-Note2.jpeg]] "At Black Mountain there was no distinction between life and art."[^2] ![[Screenshot-BMC-Note3.jpeg]] "The experiment was what would it mean to teach everyone to think critically."[^3] I watched the third mini documentary this afternoon while Davy made LEGO art. I’m struck by how the concept of hands on learning through art aligns with my own views about home education. It’s all very exciting. ![[2023-10-Davy-LEGO-parallelplay.jpeg]] --- ### Learning by Doing October 11, 2023 And then I found this video which linked Dewey and Freire in the [progressive education movement](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning-by-doing#:~:text=Learning%20by%20doing%20is%20a,%2Doriented%2C%20process%20to%20education.).[^4] Which ties nicely to this short video about handwork vs brain work.[^5] And another Black Mountain College documentary. This one is dated, but has an interview from an actual student (Jonathan Williams), “What appealed to me immediately was that everyone was available to each other and time seemed to be no problem. I had left Princeton because time was very much a problem. It seemed almost impossible to reach the faculty who were set up to do their one lecture or two lectures a week. And then suddenly they disappeared.” Jonathan Williams founded Jargon Press which is “predicated on this idea that there are voices and poetry being ignored which deserve to be heard.” On his process editing / curating, “You have to do the doing.” “Being self initiating. I don’t sit around waiting for these people to materialize. I mean I go out and find them.” He ties this to walking and hiking and Black Mountain College.[^6] --- ###### Footnotes [^1]: TATE. "Black Mountain College – A School Like No Other." 16 Dec. 2016 (Accessed 11 Febuary 2024.) [https://youtu.be/ManNYunSYkQ](https://youtu.be/ManNYunSYkQ) [^2]: Carolina Finds. “Black Mountain College: The Most Influential School That Vanished.” 9 Feb. 2022 (Accessed 11 Febuary 2024.) [https://youtu.be/C7foVazThjE](https://youtu.be/C7foVazThjE) [^3]: Craft in America. “Black Mountain College, VISIONARIES Episode.” Jan 7. 2019 (Accessed 11 Feb. 2024.) [https://youtu.be/IKnmWmQi5Ew](https://youtu.be/IKnmWmQi5Ew) [^4]: ICA Boston, Helen Molesworth. "Life at Black Mountain College: Learning by Doing." 7 Dec 2015. (Accessed 11 Feb. 2024.) https://youtu.be/Mze1rtN1OXA [^5]: Craft in America, Helen Molesworth. "Helen Molesworth on handwork." 22 August. 2018. (Accessed 11 Feb. 2024.) https://youtu.be/NxBZqA-Asvw [^6]: "Black Mountain College: a Thumbnail Sketch." Produced by Monty Diamond and South Carolina ETV. Documentary, 1989. (Accessed 11 Feb. 2024.) [https://youtu.be/G3xSAew7vEU](https://youtu.be/G3xSAew7vEU) --- ###### Cross Pollinate 🐝 [[Leap Before You Look (2015)]] --- ###### 🌱 Gardener’s Notes Transplanted: April 24, 2024 Tended: July 1, 2024 --- ##### People #ruth-asawa #josef-albers #john-cage #john-dewey #buckminster-fuller #helen-molesworth #charles-olsen --- ##### Tags 🍄 #blackmountaincollege #experimental-artist #role-of-an-artist #northcarolina #education #learning-by-doing #handcraft #analogue #self-publish #independent-press #purpose #research #experiment #experience #orbiting-ideas #LEGO #DUPLO