Tea + Ink: The Empty Space Inside the Mountain
by Dorothée Royal-Hedinger, guest contributor
An intimate portrait of ex-Yugoslavian émigré artist Slobodan Dan Paich, Silent Crescendo follows his daily ritual of creating simple drawings with tea and ink. In response to the modern pace of the art scene, Slobodan has embraced these fluid works of art to express his searching approach to life.
Dorothée Royal-Hedinger is a producer at the Global Oneness Project, which produces and distributes films, media, and educational materials that challenge people to rethink their relationship to the world and connect them to our greater human potential. She lives in San Rafael, California.
Illustrating Alzheimer’s Disease
Andy Dayton, Associate Web Producer
Not too long ago I was looking through our Flickr account when I came upon a series of beautiful charcoal drawings. They were sent in a few months ago by Laurie Kugner, who responded to our invitation for listeners to write in about Alzheimer’s disease.
The images are of Laurie’s father, and they really deepen the story of his struggle with Alzheimer’s. Looking at this image, I see the loss of her father’s independence:
Rarely a man to watch television, except briefly as he passed through the room while executing various self-assigned maintenance tasks, he was undone when he could no longer perform even the simple fix-it jobs. There was no longer any way for him to feed his spirit, to feed his soul through his intellect that often lived through his hands.
And while the subject is difficult, Laurie’s essay isn’t without an understanding of the growth that came from dealing with her father’s disease. She also writes about the familial bond strengthened by shared pain:
My parents never really had needs of us, or even requests. They very much believed in letting us live our own lives without interference from them. This experience changed that and though it was difficult, it was also beautiful. We were re-forged as a family. Our personalities became more intense, more saturated, and our relationships evolved as we moved through the life cycle of the disease.
Read Laurie’s full illustrated reflection, and find other stories in our feature, “Acts of Remembering: Alzheimer’s Stories.”
How To Draw Anything
Shiraz Janjua, Associate Producer
This week’s show is with fisher, writer, and painter James Prosek. As he says in his interview with Krista, “Creativity is my faith. That’s my way of stopping time. Making stuff with my hands, that tactile quality of even running a pencil across the paper… Making a mark on that paper is really important to me.”
Through my many years of obsession with drawing, comics and cartoons, I understand what he’s talking about. Making a mark on a page takes skill, concentration, and an observant eye. Even then, you can’t always render what you see adequately. So what to do? This hilarious post on art/design blog Aviary solves all your drawing problems.
(via kottke.org)
