Category Archives: Departments

Radical Openness: Andrea Lijoy Shields

For Andrea Lijoy Shields, radical openness becomes the shield for the inner most self against the monster called “society’s expectations.”  She explains: There is something about vulnerability that is inviting. When you read these stories (in why i write, why i create), each person becomes a little more human and you can see yourself in them. When someone is so willing to be open, you want to enter in. Even if you don’t have it all together, that fact that you are trying to find yourself is most important. It’s the pursuit that matters.

Mentor Edward Monovich

Andrea Lijoy Shields’ philosophy of “Radical Openness” opposes today’s prevalent, winner-take-all attitude. In contemporary mass media culture and in geopolitical struggles, it strikes me how easy it is to tear down Art, culture, tradition and diversity. Vulnerability can be difficult to cultivate, especially when media channels define success as taking what is yours and humiliating the competition. By contrast, Art is a place where all boats can rise simultaneously, where I don’t win because you lose. Rather, we win together. This is the key to creating good Art and the antidote to the “rawness of mass society.” Andrea Lijoy understands this, both in concept and in practice. Through her willingness to share her explorations and to listen to new approaches, Andrea makes herself vulnerable. Her “evolution of self” benefits the community. Art’s magical lens inverts intensely personal efforts (like why i write, why i create) and self-expression becomes universalized.

Opportunity

Andrea offers us the opportunity to view vulnerability as neither good nor bad. She provides hints on the upcoming generation’s lack of interest in traditional ways of categorizing experience in dualistic terms: good/bad, winners/losers. She invites us to look at the limitations of our social conditioning and come back to choice—the choice to show up with our full humanity. Poet David Whyte writes: “To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our nature…The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate.”

Andrea-Lijoy Shields, Fashion Designer, 2015 Participant

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Generous Listening: Nicholas Collazo

Nicholas Collazo created a quiet place where he could listen to himself for his response to why i write. why i create. He explained: I stopped worrying about the outside—about other people judging me. I started the first sentence with a personal feeling: “I’m starting to like my nose.” Then I found I was thinking about so much more. When it is just you, your thoughts and the page, you are your most vulnerable. That’s when it [new thinking] begins—in the silence between you and yourself. The page is open to whatever you have to say. It’s just there to listen. What surprised me in this experience with why i write was feeling confident enough to put myself out there with no fear of being judged. Everybody does have confidence. Sometimes it’s buried or locked away. You also need to have confidence in your awareness of your connection to everyone around you—to hold awareness of the impact you may have on others.

Mentor Daphne Santana–Strassmann

Nicholas Collazo shows us that if you cannot listen to yourself, you might not be able to show the world what you are meant to share. When we allow for an immersive, quiet and intimate space to work, we create connections that prime us to listen to our authentic and pure self.  Such moments surprise us, and we are able to bring forward the story that matters most to us. Nicholas also highlights his responsibility to be mindful of the impact that he may have on others. In doing so, he reveals that our awareness of others widens when we practice empathy. This intimate relationship with listening and writing opens paths to those around us. Confidence grows with deeper connections to our experience, to ourselves, and to our community.

Opportunity

“Forced solitude,” is the way that many young artists described their initial experience with the Covid pandemic. Yet, they came to share Nicholas Collazo’s experience where generous listening during solitude provided an opportunity for deeper conversations with one’s self. Lu Chi wrote on the importance of silence in The Art of Writing first composed in ancient Chinese literature: “Eyes closed, we listen/to inner music,/lost in thought and question:/our spirits ride/to the eight corners of the universe,/mind soaring a thousand miles away;/only then may the inner voice/grow clear/as objects become numinous.”

 

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Nicholas Collazo, Animator, 2016 Participant

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WELCOME

Art invites us to connect a sense of wonder and curiosity with our everyday experiences. And isn’t that what we long for, the opportunity to savor a feeling from our experiences with each other? These connections are vital for our practice of compassion.

In the annual show why i write, why i create, the expressive voices of artists and designers—sharing joys and worries, appreciations and frustrations—show how they cherish moments in their lives. Their stories are displayed on large banners along with images of their visual art and designs. In the 5th year retrospective (2015-2019), this collection of stories represents participants from more than 10 countries, working and middle class backgrounds, rural and urban, as well as first generation college students. The show was interrupted from 2020-2022 due to the Covid pandemic, and beginning in August 2022, will continue with a retrospective traveling show to sites in Boston and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Please join us and explore how artists, designers and mentors reflect on what is needed to bring forward every story for a thriving world.

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Humility and Imperfection: Leena Cho

Wabi Sabi embraces humility and imperfection, and Leena Cho admires these qualities. They inform her thinking on her relationship with the viewer. She tries to keep her lines simple so the viewer can imagine what is not there. For example, focusing on negative space might involve looking at the beauty that’s not there. Leena Cho hopes her paintings and other artistic work will serve as windows to see through and discover something new that is empowering for the viewer’s life.

Mentor Edward Monovich

Leena Cho’s observations have particular relevance to contemporary culture. Through advertisements, talking heads and political figures, we hear rapid-fire, hermetically sealed arguments- opinions without openness. Now more than ever, we need a dose of Leena’s space. Contrary to loud and authoritarian sources, ambiguities in Art encourage listening and empathy.

To grasp spatially active art, one must observe at a crawling pace. A slow reading of painterly space reveals multi-faceted possibilities, which are a reflection of the high potential of humanity itself. Through Leena’s “window,” we see our best selves. Where the “dance” between negative space and positive shape is pliable, possibility thrives. Works are incomplete, until viewers contribute to Cho’s vision. This spirit of generosity invites all who enter to be transformed. Leena’s pictorial strategy links beauty to imperfection, process and experience, where Art facilitates exchange and growth.

Opportunity

Leena Cho honors the integrity of both the artist and the viewer as makers of meaning; neither is required to be the bearer of someone else’s meaning. This approach to beauty enlivens the viewer’s curiosity. Reflecting on this approach to beauty, poet John O’Donohue wrote: “It calls us ever towards a greater fullness of presence.”

Leena Cho, Painter, 2016 Participant

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