begin with an idea

happy new year! welcome to 2023! 

when i saw this notebook, i couldn't resist. it seems like the perfect notebook to kick off the year. and the quote is totally in line with my philosophy that ideas in dialogue with other ideas always become something even better. it did cross my mind to question whether picasso actually said it, but never mind that, it's still great and the right note to begin a near year. 

the ideas i'm setting down in it are the ones i have for this spring's CreaGive exhibition. our theme is "totem" and i'm setting myself a 100 days project, to explore the ideas i have for the theme. they are very hazy to me right now, but i'm hoping that doing something towards them every day, they will become something else, something more concrete and hopefully awesome! 

the ideas i have are all over the place right now - hand-stitching, print-making, small sculptures, weaving, so i'm going to explore them all, doing something on a daily basis for the next few months. the exhibition is at the end of april, so i should have something to contribute by then.

it's official!

it's official! i've known for a month, but i signed my contract today! i'll officially start working at LEGO on february 3! and i'm so very excited. it's really a dream job for me - working together with all kinds of creative people who have great ideas, to bring their ideas to life as LEGO products or projects. for someone who loves ideas and loves floating them out in the world to see what happens, it's pretty much perfect. i also think it will be good for my minifigure collection.

co-creating ideas (or please help me out here!)

assembling a diverse group - practical people, experimenters, musicians,
people with their finger on the pulse of trends, nerds, children, folks from diverse cultures,
the more diversity of ideas and backgrounds, the better.

i need some feedback for a co-creation project. first a quick explanation of what i mean by co-creation. in these days of social media, there are a lot of ways that companies are co-creating together with their customers. there's crowdsourcing (which is arguably what i'm doing here) - asking an open question online or via social media, there's direct invitation to be part of an exclusive engagement with the company (what pinterest did very well with their recent translations into the scandinavian languages), there are actual gatherings of users (ala LEGO brick conferences around the world), where the company can take the temperature of what interests users. and i'm sure there are countless other ways of co-creating in this developing field.

for a presentation that's very important to me, i have to sketch out a fictional (but plausible) scenario and describe a co-creation process. the type of process i'd like to describe is one which may start with crowdsourcing, but it will end in an invitation to be part of an exclusive group and ultimately end in a new or improved product/product line, so it will actually engage several aspects of the kinds of co-creation i described above.

i believe that when co-creating, the more diverse your group, the better. i'm a believer in putting together experts, users, artists and musicians, shaking them up and seeing the magic that happens.

i'm looking for LEGO-related ideas, which is where you come in. i have several, but i would like more. i would also like your feedback on the ideas i already have. they are as follows:

~ along the lines of their architecture series, LEGO should develop a wildlife series, possibly even with a tie-in to the BBC, which produces such breathtaking nature documentaries and or/the world wildlife fund (or other organizations devoted to the welfare of the world's animals).

~ LEGO education has some pretty amazing stuff available to schools today, but it's only available in large packs, which not every school can afford. it's difficult for an individual teacher to obtain a package to investigate and look into how she can use it in the classroom without the school having a big, expensive subscription. a co-creation process together with teachers from smaller schools around the world might result in ideas for LEGO education to make it easier for teachers to use their wonderful products.

~ the LEGO advent calendars could use some inspiration - a co-creation process whereby consumers come with suggested stories/themes for the calendar. i know we personally bought two of them in 2010 - the castle-themed one and the city one, but haven't bought one since because we don't feel that the story that's there is clear or will sustain us through 24 days.

~ despite the popularity of the friends series, there is a lack of focus on girls with LEGO. i know my own girl wouldn't want the friends LEGOs. there must be another angle to appeal to girls. who should be involved in determining that?

~ an environmental angle on LEGO. despite being a plastic toy, they are a plastic toy that lasts and that people save and hand down to the next generation. LEGO should take advantage of this and have an environmental themed series. but what should that contain? and who should be involved? (can you tell that this is the one that interests me the most).

so, please, please leave me your thoughts and ideas in the comments or email me directly jknachti (at) gmail (dot) com (sorry, had to write that way to protect from the spambots). please do let me know your thoughts, i really need and appreciate your help! the sooner, the better!

creativity and co-creation

this morning an article with the shocking headline of ted talks are lying to you caught my eye. my initial thought was, "say it isn't so!" but then i remembered that brené brown drivel on which i once spent 20 minutes of my life that i'll never have back. brené - what kind of a pretentious crap name is that? but thomas frank lays out a pretty good case for the pop phenomenon of self-help/business books on the topic of creativity. they're formulaic (like most business books), they're filled with the same stories (invention of the post-it with a few bob dylan lyrics thrown in) and they're not really about creativity at all, but about conformity and societal norms. and that made a lot of sense to me. because i've experienced myself how truly thinking outside the box will get you thrown out of the club, because what people really want is to be surrounded by people who think as they do, not by people who push them to think differently and behave in new ways.

it's an interesting read and it makes a lot of sense to me and articulates the aversion i've found that i have for books on cultivating creativity, without really knowing why i found myself rolling my eyes at them. what he doesn't go into is something i've been pondering of late and that's whether it's even possible to be truly creative and think outside of the box (i hate that phrase)? i'm beginning to think that creativity has much more to do with regular, even dogged, practice than it has to do with any epiphanies. the possibility of developing something unique and which is truly yours or truly an expression of what you'd like to, well, express, is nearly null. anything we make is somehow a conglomeration of influences and experiences and contains grains of them all, rather than being something completely new and unique. even a post it is really just weak tape and a small piece of paper, it's not anything new.

but that said, i do believe in a creative practice, tho' i admit that i do it myself in fits and starts and not very consistently. and i believe in the power of co-creation - where a group of people from different, seemingly diverse fields, come together and put their ideas into one big pot, where they are stirred together and become new and improved ideas. and i'd say that one of my main talents lies in an ability to put such groups together and have magic come of it. but it's unpredictable and the magic is always, always different than you imagined it would be. that's actually the magical thing about magic. to co-create ideas with other people also means being very open and willing to throw an idea into the mix and see it change and morph and become something else that only carries a kernel of what it originally was. and it's there that a lot of people have problems. they're not willing to let go of their precious baby ideas and really let them outside of their original box. i think that's where the dogged persistence and the actual nitty, gritty work come in. you have to keep going and pushing and seeing what happens. just like in real life.

and ultimately, it's why i still think ted talks are a good thing - ideas are floated into the world, consumed by people, who combine them with their own ideas and they become something else entirely. life, it's an act of co-creation.

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always pondering libraries, so i liked this guardian piece by neil gaiman.

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fantastic photos and stories of a forgotten russia.

MAD: ID - co-creating the future of local food

last week, i participated in a co-creation event called MAD:ID (food (mad in danish), identity and design) at a place called spinderihallerne - a converted factory that's coworking, museum, café and event space all in one. madværket, a collective of local food producers (farmers, berry producers, breweries and even a whiskey maker), was behind the event. they were all there, along with politicians, people like me who do communications and happen to be interested in food (and who isn't?), bloggers, cooks, chefs, designers and events producers.

we were divided into several groups and asked to workshop various questions for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. throughout the day, we were fed these gorgeous little tidbits of local produce made by local chefs, who had spent a couple of days slow cooking pork bellies and making hawthorne sirups. an area woman who both grows unusual herbs and forages for them provided all of the beautiful flowers and herbs that decorated the food. she was also a participant in one of the groups.

my group was given the question of how to make the unusual and often wasted cuts of meat marketable and appealing to an enlightened audience. we discussed ways of enlightening that audience (who we determined to be busy families who cared about the food they put on the table), as well as down to the details of packaging and even the whole supply chain - as one of the premises was that it would be grass-fed, organic, local beef, slaughtered at a nearby butcher and then somehow made available to a discerning consumer. so, as you might imagine, we talked a lot about the whole rising trend of farm to table, wherein people want a relationship with their food. we actually discussed ways of giving calves instagram accounts and facebook pages, so people could follow the life of their beef, quite literally, from when it was born.

one thing our group was missing during the morning was one of the farmers. we were a group of rather affluent women with lofty notions of what we'd like to put on the table and how it should be delivered to our doors. but we didn't really know that much about the reality of getting the steer to the butcher and from there to further processing if that were required. in the afternoon, we were joined by a down-to-earth beef farmer (who is also a politician), who helped us anchor our ideas a bit more in reality. i think that helped us and we would have been more productive had he been with us from the beginning.

other groups worked on topics like how to expand local food tourism opportunities, since there are a lot of exciting things happening in our area food-wise, at least where production of interesting, local food products are concerned. another group worked on connecting foragers to chefs and i learned that you don't have to have foraged in an enormous amount for it to be interesting to local chefs, you just have to establish contact and let them know when you've found something interesting (e.g. mushrooms). in the presentation round, i found myself wishing i'd been in that group. a couple of groups worked on the question of making obscure cuts of meat more commercially viable, as we did and interestingly came up with solutions we didn't - like starting already in school, teaching the very youngest children the importance of using the whole animal and not letting any go to waste. that makes good sense to me.

in the middle of the day, after lunch, we took a break to listen to a lecture by the utterly amazing dutch eating designer marije vogelzang. i was very disappointed when her lecture ended, as i could have gone on listening to her and being inspired by her for at least another hour. i came home and ordered her book immediately. she has put together the most amazing food-related projects that are part art, part happening and part design, with a whole lot of history and thought and emotion thrown in. she will make you think about eating in whole new ways.

it seems that co-creation is the new black, but it's risky business. you don't really know what will come of it and you have to be open to that. they opened the doors to this event (which was free) and hoped that everyone came with their own particular angle and view on things, as well as a willingness to share their ideas. it seemed to me that they did. hopefully madværket can go further with the beginnings of ideas that were shared and begin to make a real difference for local food producers and consumers alike. i know i'd love to know that the beef (or pork or chicken) i buy was locally produced and i'd go out of my way to obtain it. we all have to start thinking more about the food we consume. the future of the planet may very well depend upon it.

this little savory "dessert" was served late in the day - tender, long-cooked strips of shredded beef and a savory, cool green ice cream. a twist on dessert and a festival of flavors that made me stop and think about what i was eating. we all need more of that in our lives.

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marije vogelzang's dinner at spiers.

i so wish i were going.

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stuck for what to read next?

this just might help.

what a difference a day makes

oh my, what a difference a day makes. my day started with an email from an old friend. and then an invitation from a more local friend for a spontaneous road trip. so i spent the day in århus today. the sun shined a little bit on the way there (but not long enough for me to get to photograph it). but it turns out that a simple change of scenery, an encounter with art (we picked up my artist friend's paintings from an exhibition), a trip to the most fabulous leather store and an even better art supply store (swoon) plus lunch with the best waiter i've ever encountered in denmark will really make you feel better and get you back in the zone. and get your clogged-up idea channel flowing again. and by you i mean me. 

so get out there. change your scenery. you won't regret it. i promise.

~~~

ahh notes, that lovely intervention between what we read and what what we write (and if you're me, what we think). i'd love to have attended a conference on notes. and marginalia.

when rivers of ideas begin to flow

here's what happened with my green felted stone - in fact, in this shot, it's not even dry yet.  if you recall, i used lisa's stone felting tutorial. and i fussed about worried about over-thought pondered how to make it my own. with a little viking helleristning (petroglyph), i think i managed it. i'm not done with this idea yet.

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i have spent a couple of very energizing days with a friend with whom i feel very much in synch. so many ideas surfaced and best of all, it feels like there is action and impetus behind the ideas, so some of them may even materialize. i had the strangest feeling after we met last friday (what i thought would be a 2-hour meeting turned into 5 because we were so crazy in flow)...it felt like a dam had been released inside me and all of the pent-up ideas and thoughts i had had in recent months just began to surface and tho' they were coming quickly, it feels like it's at a pace where i can grab and examine them. some of them had been there for awhile, but some were entirely new. it was positively elating. it's odd how you can get all blocked and not even realize it until you're not blocked anymore.

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things i'm pondering:

what it might mean to be a social artist

community gardens.

art walls.

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i think my keyboard may be menopausal - the period is getting pretty unpredictable.

sorry. bad joke. couldn't help myself.

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what's your type?

find out here.

apparently i'm architype van doesburg (a brutally fair typeface).

play the game, if only to hear the narrator's awesome accent.

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the p boards on pinterest: patchwork. peacocks. personal style. photos that make me think.