Ian Summers: Heartstorming tag:www.heartstorming.com,2007://1 2007-09-09T19:52:38Z This blog offers an opportunity for participation and dialog with Heartstorming readers and clients. It is for anyone who wishes to manifest what they love and what matters. It is for those growing their careers. Please feel free to comment on any of the articles, comments or artwork. Movable Type 3.2 Announcing Heartstorming News Blog tag:www.heartstorming.com,2007://1.163 2007-09-09T19:06:03Z 2007-09-09T19:52:38Z I am happy to announce that the last thirty Heartstorming Newsletters with Idea Stimulators have found a new home. Please visit and participate in the dialog.... Ian http://www.heartstorming.com



I am happy to announce that the last thirty Heartstorming Newsletters with Idea Stimulators have found a new home. Please visit and participate in the dialog.



]]> Telephone Number Change tag:www.heartstorming.com,2007://1.161 2007-03-26T16:06:41Z 2007-06-18T22:24:15Z Please note that my telephone number has changed to:610-438-5707All other information remains the same.Thank you.... Ian http://www.heartstorming.com

Please note that my telephone number has changed to:
610-438-5707
All other information remains the same.
Thank you.


]]> Inside Storie - Part Two tag:www.heartstorming.com,2007://1.160 2007-03-03T16:03:38Z 2007-03-23T04:13:36Z Please see the next entry for photographs of shot desks.Inside Stories - Part TwoThe second in a series of articles about storytelling(Link to Part One) Spontaneous oral storytelling exercises my creative mind. And when I became a father, I couldn't wait to tell stories to my children before they went to bed. Those stories were pure improvisations. My children loved them because they came from our every day experiences. Others were fantasies where the children were forced to suspend disbelief and to accept the world as I presented it. The stories were often interactive and participatory. I remember inventing a... Ian http://www.heartstorming.com Please see the next entry for
photographs of shot desks.



Inside Stories - Part Two
The second in a series of articles about storytelling
(Link to Part One)
Spontaneous oral storytelling exercises my creative mind. And when I became a father, I couldn't wait to tell stories to my children before they went to bed. Those stories were pure improvisations. My children loved them because they came from our every day experiences. Others were fantasies where the children were forced to suspend disbelief and to accept the world as I presented it. The stories were often interactive and participatory. I remember inventing a fantasy world without television which prompted my daughters to reinvent radio drama as a storytelling device. Neither child had ever heard a radio drama. Children love radio drama because it invites them to complete the stories in their mind's eyes.

What if storytellers presented only the basic facts? A plot for a movie might read something like this:

Steve worked at the same advertising agency for twenty-four years. He is presently semi-retired and writing a play.

It is not likely the movie would ever get made. There's just not enough information to get us interested. We don't care about Steve because his character was never developed. We don't have any information about what he did at the agency or what kept him in the same job for twenty-four years. This story is boring. What if we turned the facts into a story?

Steve's story is written in the present tense which is the preferred format for a scenario. Each action occurs in the present and builds anticipation. Spontaneous oral storytelling often follows this format. It is a natural way to build an improvisation.

Steve resembles Albert Einstein. His disheveled white hair and droopy mustache calls attention to his advancing age in this young person's fickle advertising agency world. He does not know how to tell his colleagues he has been fired after a career making award winning advertisements. Steve was once the boss - a capo di capo of copy oriented conceptual creative directors. Steve was the one who did the firing. He is loyal to the agency and expects the agency to return the favor after twenty-four years. Betrayed, it suddenly hits him that he is just one year short of being vested in the profit sharing fund which would have left him a rich man for the rest of his life. Now he will have to struggle.  Later, at the local gin mill, he sips on his seven dollar martini afraid to tell his wife. He makes her his excuse for suffering the daily abuses his bosses threw at him. Now they are gone. They sold the agency out from under him. Steve is bitter. It's ten PM. Steve has not eaten. He is ordering his fifth martini and slurring his words. He wonders what he will do tomorrow. Will he even bother to clean out his desk? He has lost any last vestige of self esteem. Steve enters into a conversation with a stranger at the other end of the bar. Steve tells the mildly interested and very polite gentleman about his dreams, he would have, could have, should have been a playwright, if it weren't for his wife who demanded money - lots of it. Later Steve pulls a cardboard box from the top shelf of a closet, he finds an unfinished manuscript, sets up his typewriter, and begins to work. The noise disturbs his wife, who insists on knowing what Steve's doing. He lies. Etc.

We are all improvisers. Richard Lederer points out in The Miracle of Language, "The most common form of improvisation is ordinary speech. As we, talk or listen, we draw on a set of bricks (vocabulary) and rules for combining them (grammar)." Think of each of your conversations as a form of word jazz. A conversation between two people is like the spontaneous dialogue between two musicians. The activity of instantaneous creation is as ordinary to us as breathing."

Lederer's computer studies have shown that it would take ten trillion years -- two thousand times the estimated age of the earth - to utter all of the possible sentences that use exactly twenty words. He wrote, "Therefore, it is unlikely that any twenty-word sentence an individual speaks has ever been spoken previously. The same conclusion holds true, of course, for sentences of greater length and for most shorter sentences. That is why almost every sentence in every book magazine, and newspaper that has been written, is expressed, or will be expressed is in its exact form for the first time. Every story you tell is likely to be told for the first time."

Even stories about common occurrences are unique. In our lifetime we collect sensory experiences about people, places, animals, landscapes, events large and small. We store factual and reactive data in our subconscious. None of us sees the same events in the same way. Couple that with the infinite ways of expressing ourselves and Richard Lederer's calculations are most believable.

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Storytelling is a lot easier when you have two hours of film, actors, costumes, lighting, a large crew, and a variety of cameras and angles. Even a television commercial director has ten to thirty seconds to get his or her story told. What if you were a visual communicator like a still photographer or an illustrator and had only a single frame or canvas to tell your story? Remember the bell curve your junior high school English teacher used to demonstrate the energy of a short story? Many creators are driven to use the climax as their picture choice. That is usually the most obvious and often least interesting image. Fragments of the story just before or after the climax are much more interesting. That's because they are incomplete. There is a sense of anticipation. The viewer feels something has just happened or is about to happen. The image requires and, if it is dynamic, demands the viewer's participation. This may get the viewer to spend a little more time with the image. Get people involved by coaxing them to participate.

During the seventies I believed it was essential for every viewer of an advertisement to get precisely the same message. How is that for arrogance? Consider the concept of the television commercial. Media buys often include the times a commercial will be aired. Clients could literally measure how that specific commercial increased sales.

Glance through any popular magazine published in the last three years and you will notice some provocative advertisements bordering on fine art. Remember the memorable award winning Timberland campaign which displayed photographs of lakes and woodlands which helped us to dream. A tiny product shot of shoes broke the border. We remember these ads because they invited us to participate. Each of us brought our own experiences to them. They present incomplete stories and we are compelled to complete them in our mind's eyes. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, we demand involvement or we will turn the page.

Back in the early seventies, my creative team tried to convince a men's fashion client that radio was a visual medium. The client, who traditionally advertised in Esquire and Playboy, thought the agency was out of its collective mind. The client was a a high end conservative shirt company wishing to increase profits by introducing a less expensive hipper garment appealing to hippie wannabes. The agencies account executives and media buyers were able to prove their target audience listened to lots of radio and were less inclined to read magazines. We demonstrated the efficiency of radio delivering the client's audience on a much more frequent basis and a lower cost than television. This was an era when advertising tried harder. Our client took the risk.

 We named the shirts Them. We named the ties Those. We set the commercials in a department store. We cast Second City actors and encouraged them to improvise. The commercial opened with sound effects; the familiar sounds of bells and chimes peculiar to department stores. Then we threw the script away. The first actor asked, "Do you have Them?" The salesperson replied, "This Them or that Them? Some Thems come with blue stripes on red. This Them has red stripes on blue." The customer said, "This Them is for me and that Them is a gift. Please gift wrap that Them, but not this Them." The salesman doing his job said, "May I show you Those? Those are designed to go with Them. And this Them goes with Those..." Sure, it's corny. But it is also fun and memorable. Listeners saw the farce in their mind's eyes. When the commercial was tested most listeners insisted they saw it on television. They did - the television of their minds.

(to be continued)

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]]> Chaos - Shooting Your Desk tag:www.heartstorming.com,2007://1.159 2007-02-07T16:45:05Z 2007-09-09T20:02:28Z Ian http://www.heartstorming.com




I  d  e  a  S  t  i  m  u  l  a  t  o  r  s

Chaos

In a recent Heartstorming Newsletter now published with Weekly Idea Stimulators
I included some thoughts on Creativity and Chaos.

I invited people to
SHOOT THEIR DESK!
How Does Your Desk Reveal Your Personality?
Read this article first.

That's right. As is. No cleaning up.
Chaotic or Orderly or Some Place in Between.
Send me a low res JPEG and I will place it on this blog.

Chris Bonney

Chris Bonney Desk
Copyright 2007 Chris Bonney
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cbonney/



Emmanuel Faure's Desk
www.emmanuelfaure.com
Copyright 2007 Emmanuel Faure

widoff desk

Steve Widoff's Office
www.widoffphoto.com
Copyright 2007 Steve Widoff


]]>

New Matura's Desk
www.Nedmatura.com
Copyright 2007 Ned Matura



Tim McGuire's Desk
www.timemcguireimages.com
Copyright 2007 Tim McGuire



Eliott Kaufman's Desk
www.ekaufman.com
Copyright 2007 Eliott Kaufman


grants desk

Grant Heaton's Desk
www.utahstudio.com
Copyright 2007 Grant Heaton


carter

Marc Carter's Desk
www.marccarter.com
Copyright 2007 Marc Carter

none


Yvonne Muller's Desks
Copyright 2007 Yvonne Muller




Larry Price's Desk
www.pricephotography.com
Copyright 2007 Larry Price

Byers Desk

Bruce Byers' Desk
www.streetmoments.com
Copyright 2007 Bruce Byers

ej carr's desk

EJ Carr's Desk
www.ejcphoto.com
Copyright 2007 E.J. Carr



Ian Summers Desk - As Is



Doug Workmaster's Desk
www.workmasterphoto.com
Copyright 2007 Doug Workmaster


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Ian Summers
610-438-5707

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]]> Guidelines to Idea Stimulators tag:www.heartstorming.com,2006://1.157 2006-12-28T17:51:16Z 2006-12-28T18:02:56Z Thousands of people having been receiving my Free Weekly Idea Stimulators. Some examples are here at this blog. The only way to receive them after today is by request. Please Add me to Ian Summers Weekly Idea Stimulators List. Guidelines for Using Idea Stimulators Be Positive - Suspend disbelief and keep a positive attitude. This world is filled with enough nay-saying.Limit Judgment - Judging your ideas as you are producing them is like driving the car with the brake and accelerator on at the same time. While you are producing ideas, the pedal should be to the metal. The time... Ian http://www.heartstorming.com Thousands of people having been receiving my Free Weekly Idea Stimulators. Some examples are here at this blog. The only way to receive them after today is by request.

Please Add me to Ian Summers Weekly Idea Stimulators List.
Guidelines for Using Idea Stimulators

Be Positive - Suspend disbelief and keep a positive attitude. This world is filled with enough nay-saying.

Limit Judgment - Judging your ideas as you are producing them is like driving the car with the brake and accelerator on at the same time. While you are producing ideas, the pedal should be to the metal. The time to put on the brakes is when you are choosing which ideas to produce. Beware of inner voices of judgment. How many times have you had a good idea you talked you out of?

Detach from an Outcome - I recommend that you detach from a specific outcome when you creating new work. This means that when an idea comes up which produces the Eureka! response, execute the idea because your heart tells you to do it. Do not measure ideas by whether they will appeal to your stock agency, your portfolio, art buyers, picture editors, or... The only criteria ought to be that you love the idea enough to do what ever it takes to bring it into being.

Hitchhiking - Allow others to add to your idea. Your idea may stimulate something in a collaborator. Do not have so much pride in your idea that you think you own it. Give it away. There is an endless supply of ideas in the universe. As you can see by my entries, each concept may generate dozens of additional concepts. No two creators would interpret them the same way. And the purpose of this program is to stimulate you to produce your own concepts. And hitchhike on your own ideas by going back to your idea journal and reviewing and harvesting. One idea will often produce others related or not.

Quantity - Go for quantity. The more ideas the better. You have a better chance of coming up with an innovation, if there are dozens of ideas rather than just a few. Studies show that the first idea is rarely the best. The first half of ideas produced in a prolonged period of time were compared with those of the second half. The later contained 78% more good ideas. Imagine there are two sealed paper bags. One has one hundred ideas. The other has ten. Each bag costs $5.00 and you may only choose one. Chances are you would pick the bag with a hundred ideas because there is a better chance of finding a stimulating idea.

Write it Down - Write everything down as you are processing or you will forget it. Even the best human brain can not hold more than seven variables at a time. I like to keep a large pad with juicy markers handy. It helps me think bigger. When you have an idea write it down quickly. Trying to hold onto a thought may prevent you from coming up with your next idea. It contributes to creative block. Keep an idea journal.

Limit Editorializing - Many of us love our ideas so much that we feel a need to explain them over and over to ourselves and perhaps others. Don't waste time and space explaining your ideas until you have chosen one to produce.

Incubate - This means sleep on it. When you begin ideating you may come up with hundreds of ideas. They will come to you when you least expect it like when you are driving and taking a shower or that moment of somnolence just before you fall asleep. Keep your journal at the side of your bed so you may record those moments or you will forget them. Include your dreams in this journal.

Have Fun - Creating should be a celebratory experience. Be playful.

Be Conscious Of Your Body - Problem solving is an activity that originates in the brain. Heartstorming comes from the body. We feel in our bodies not our heads. Use your body to check-in: to focus on your feelings. For example, I often have a burning sensation in my throat when I am feeling fear. It reminds me that I am not saying something that represents my truth.]]> Ways to Get Attention tag:www.heartstorming.com,2006://1.156 2006-10-19T15:39:24Z 2006-11-16T16:17:16Z Ian http://www.heartstorming.com Ways to Get Attention
Idea Stimulator #13
I just read that someone surveyed a group of art directors and buyers who advised  photographers seeking their attention to send postcards -- and to send them without envelopes or it will make them angry. It occurred to me that these people do not believe in advertising. If they did, they would be impressed with how promoters get their attention. While it may be easier to send a postcard of your work from time-to-time or even an e-mail with your latest picture, the likelihood is that it will not be looked at and remembered. Advertising people know that after identifying a market, they need to get people's attention with a message that appeals to their needs and desires. If you are using e-mail, your message ought to provide information in some form. Perhaps a newsletter containing information that your audience wants. Or perhaps your promotion may entertain. However you promote, it has to relate and reinforce the ways that you see. A gimmick for a gimmick's sake will not work. Your promotion should have some kind of call for action or a promise or... It should complete the Oh Yeah Response:

Oh Yeah! I love this work. It stirs my soup. I will remember the photographer's name and images. I understand the ways this photographer sees. I will save it. And I will keep this photographer in mind for the next opportunity to work together.

]]>
I warn you! This is not the ordinary approach to getting attention in this industry or any other for that matter. Here are the results from a Heartstorming session done in one of my teleconference groups. Make a list of all the ways you can think of that people and animals get attention. Do not edit as you go. Be silly. Have fun. We are looking for ways to get off the point -- to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. Think of this as a creative exercise. Go for quantity of ideas. Add at least two dozen of your own concepts to this list of Ways to Get Attention.
For Example:
Peacock plummage
 lightning bugs
 Pissing on a fire hydrant
 Cockroaches in a portfolio   
Firing a gun
 Screaming/roaring/growling
 Puffing up your chest
 Fighting
 Rutting
 Bee stinging
 Honking a horn
 Cross dressing
 Wearing a clown suit to an office
 Tattoos
Outrageous hair
 Playing dead
 Threatening
 Whoopee cushions
 Rage and anger
 Skunk spraying
 Crickets
 Have a temper tantrum
 Make fake fart sounds
 Walk backwards all day
Invite people in an elevator to sing along with you in public
 Entertaining in a karaoke bar
 Flashing
 Heckling a comedy act in a nightclub 
Then ask the question, what is a __________ promotion? Do not necessarily take the idea literally.

For example, What is a fart sound promotion? What is a bee sting promotion? What is a temper tantrum kind of promotion?


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]]> Inside Stories - Part One tag:www.heartstorming.com,2006://1.155 2006-10-16T17:08:53Z 2006-10-19T16:37:06Z Inside Stories - Part OneThis is the first in a five part series of articles on storytelling By now you probably realize how much I love to tell and listen to stories. It comes from inventing ways to be noticed in a household where four generations attempted to grow up at the same time. Our two family home was the headquarters for hungry friends, neighbors and relatives who visited every Sunday in swarms. There were bottomless bottles of bourbon, scotch and rye whiskey. There was lamb barley soup, brisket, lumpy mashed potatoes with brown gravy, crusty breads from Brooklyn, homemade... Ian http://www.heartstorming.com
Inside Stories - Part One
This is the first in a five part series of
articles on storytelling
By now you probably realize how much I love to tell and listen to stories. It comes from inventing ways to be noticed in a household where four generations attempted to grow up at the same time. Our two family home was the headquarters for hungry friends, neighbors and relatives who visited every Sunday in swarms. There were bottomless bottles of bourbon, scotch and rye whiskey. There was lamb barley soup, brisket, lumpy mashed potatoes with brown gravy, crusty breads from Brooklyn, homemade cole slaw, vegetables, salad, and Jell-O molds, followed by triple layer all chocolate cake, cake resembling a twelve inch cheese Danish, ice cream, coffee, tea, and chocolate egg creams for the children made with Fox's U-Bet chocolate syrup, milk, and seltzer from a syphon bottle. In this house, food was love. But mostly, I remember the noise. What started out as a drone rose to shouts, shrieks and bellows as family and guests all spoke at the same time.

Great Uncles and Aunts told classic family stories embellished and distorted beyond reality. In the retelling stories grew to mythic proportions and we believed them. There was the story about Uncle Harry who worked for my Great Grandfatheat a ship outfitting store at the turn of the last century near South Street in New York. No one ever explained why the sailors thought Harry was a doctor, but they did. And when a merchant marine came to the store drunk and presented Harry with a hangnail, my uncle cut off the sailor's finger. Uncle Leonard, one of my great heroes, was raised in New York City. He moved to Washington D.C. just before World War II and became a taxi driver and tour guide.

Lenny-the-Hack had a devoted following of people who came back year after year for his informative tours. When I discovered Lenny made the whole thing up I was appalled and elated - appalled because of his lack of integrity and elated because of his creativity. I was the one who caught him. One spring when I was about eight years old, I visited Lenny at the nation's capital and accompanied him on a bus tour. He was the guide.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he sang in a convincing southern accent in front of the Washington Monument. "Count up fourteen stones and two over. That stone was carved by hand in the great state of Wisconsin by a man named Horowitz It weighs exactly sixteen thousand four hundred eighty-nine and three quarters pounds."

I went back again when I was nine. Lenny had his customers count up fourteen stones and two over. This time the stone was brought from the great state of Montana and was carved by a man named Schwartz.

Those may have been the good old days. But, nothing so grand ever happened around me when I was a boy. So, I reinvented my family. Dad ran a foundry making shells for the war effort during World War II. On the side, he sold life insurance. The man worked very hard to support four generations. I loved my father and I know he loved me. however, it wasn't enough for this creative adventurer. I turned my father into a gangster and a crusader for human rights. First, I recreated him as a journalist whose dreams were broken when textile unionists destroyed his printing presses and his heart after he ran a union busting editorial. Later, I fantasized Dad as the leader of a gang of Robin Hood thieves who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. I believed my lies were far more interesting than the truth. I told my tales with great conviction and often defended them against my friends who recognized my embellishments. On the other hand, they often requested me to tell them stories and I was rather popular. As an adult, I realized the lies kept me from really knowing a great man. He was a major influence in my life and a colorful joke teller himself.

There is solace in the thought that lying is instinctive rather than learned. For children, there is only the vaguest dividing line between true and false reporting. Truth is a moral concept which needs to be taught. George Steiner said, '...alternity is the greatest of man's tools, by far. With this stick, he has reached out of the cage of instinct to touch the boundaries of the universe and time." Creating alternative worlds can help me cope with and understand reality. Someone once claimed that storytelling is the lie which tells the truth.
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]]> Enlightenment tag:www.heartstorming.com,2006://1.153 2006-10-10T14:45:51Z 2006-10-19T16:40:20Z Ian http://www.heartstorming.com Logo
Enlightenment

Here is a dialog I have been part of numerous times -- slightly exaggerated for effect:
Q. Who Are You? What Makes You Different?
A.  It's My Lighting, Dude. My Lighting!
Q. 9 out of 10 People Tell Me It's Their Lighting. What About Your Lighting Defines Your Work?
A. It Brings Out Emotions, Man.
Q. And What is It About the Your Lighting That Brings Out Emotions, That Makes You Different? What Do You Mean by Light?

Without light, you could not make a photograph. In fact, without light we could not see. Life could not exist. What is the most frightening experience you have ever had of darkness. For me, it was being alone in a forest at night. The night was moonless. Stars were hidden behind a dense blue-black fabric of clouds. I was eleven. I was lost. I did not know which direction to travel. I fell and skinned both of my knees. There were no light rays to bounce back at my eyes. Without light we can not see. So let there be light!:
In Natural History of the Senses, author Diane Ackerman writes an essay on light:

...Even people who have been blind since birth are greatly affected by light because although we need light to see, light also influences s in other ways. If affects out moods, it rallies our hormones, it triggers our circadian rhythms. During the season of darkness in northern latitudes, the suicide rate soars, insanity looms in many households, and alcoholism becomes rampant...

 Read this book if you can find a copy on Amazon or E-Bay. It is out of print and published by Vintage in 1991.

 ]]>
Please don't take this lightly. Light has many meanings. Do you see the light? Are you feeling light right now? What time is it? Is it dawn or dusk? The sweet light? Daylight. I know someone who is light in character. You may have an easy, graceful, delicate manner. You might call that a light touch. Sometimes being happy is referred to as light spirited.

Skylights. Windows. Do you know what a mullian is? Some people light up our age or history. Light can show the way. Some other words that refer to light are: prosperity, happiness, joy, felciity, trifling, frivolous, unsubstantial. Please don't take this lightly. Light may mean inemcumbered, unembarrassed or clear of impediments. Being light may include being active, nimble or swift.

A color that is not of a deep shade is often referred to as light. Light brown. A light complexion. Light may refer to the brightness of the eyes.

That agent, force, or action in nature by the operation of which upon the organs of sight, objects are rendered visible or luminous.

Do you have a light? It might mean to illuminate or ignite. My brother baked two breads for my birthday one was heavy and the other was light. Yesterday the light rain built up strength and there was a heavy downpour. Light is breaking through the clouds. To illuminate. To light up. Am I putting this in the right light? He never had a heavy thought.

Oh yeah. There is the way light falls on a subject.  Lots of photographers apply a chiaroscuro method of portraiture going back to the Rennaisance painters especially Leonardo Da Vinci.

Are you carrying a light load or burden?

By now you may be illuminated. Are you clear in mind? Enlightened? Knowledgeable? Informed? Whoops! I just made a slight error. The crow lighted on the top of a tree. A lighter than air flying machine is house in photographer David Zimmerman's van which is often effected by a light wind.  

Light can render form, enhance textures, provoke emotions, lift us up, and set us down. It can provide drama and emphasis. There are all kinds of shadows. Dark cannot exist without light. What is dramatic lighting? It may mean an event or series of events marked by emotional conflict or by evoking the keen interest of onlookers.

Light refers to a variety of sources. The Sun, candlelight, starlight, a lighthouse. She lights of a room. You light up my life. It make me feel light-headed, dizzy and a little giddy. I better lighten my load.

Shine , illuminance , glare, brilliance , sunshine , phosphorescence , radiance , moonlight. Glow little glow worm glimmer glimmer. How many song titles can you think of with the word light in the title. You light up my life.

Is this casting light on the subject. Shall I elucidate? I want to set a good example, be a paragon, a luminary. I believe that when I am true to myself, I become a kind of beacon ]]> Annie Liebovitz tag:www.heartstorming.com,2006://1.152 2006-10-09T14:43:03Z 2006-10-19T16:42:52Z Ian http://www.heartstorming.com logo

A Photographer's Life 1990 - 2005
Annie Liebovitz
The photographs, published earlier this month by Random House in a book titled A Photographer’s Life 1990-2005, will be shown at the Brooklyn Museum in an exhibition opening Oct. 20. For those of you in town for Photo Plus, make some time to see this show. There will be photographs of her family and personal history including her fifteen years with the great photography essayist and novelist Susan Sontag. There will be a collection of some of her best images from Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. Read Janny Scott's feature in the October 6th edition of the New York Times.

In the days after the death of Susan Sontag in December 2004, Annie Leibovitz began searching for photographs for a small book to be given out at the memorial service. She started with other people’s photographs of Ms. Sontag, then turned to her own, taken during the 15 years they spent together. That exercise turned into what she has described as an archeological dig: an unearthing and sifting of a decade and a half of work, love, family life, illness, deaths and births, adding up to “my most important work,” she said in an interview this week. “It’s the most intimate, it tells the best story, and I care about it.”
Janny Scott, NYTimes, October 6, 2006

“I don’t have two lives,” Annie Leibovitz writes in the Introduction to this collection of her work from 1990—2005. “This is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it.” To read reviews and to order a discounted copy of A Photographer's Life 1990-2005 visit Amazon.com.
]]>
Some Quotes by Susan Sontag
(From 1001 Quotes Questions and Pondering by Ian Summers)

... the force of photographic images comes from their being material realities in their own right, richly informative deposits left in the wake of whatever emitted them, potent means for turning the tables on reality - for turning it into a shadow. Images are more real than anyone could have supposed.
Susan Sontag, On Photography
 
...the main difference between a painting and a photograph in the matter of portraiture still holds. Paintings invariably sum up; photographs usually do not. Photographic images are pieces of evidence in an ongoing biography or history. And one photograph, unlike one painting, implies that there will be others.
Susan Sontag,  On Photography

For much more on Susan Sontag visit her website.

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 1001 Quotes Questions and Pondering on the Creative Process
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]]> Maira Kalman tag:www.heartstorming.com,2006://1.151 2006-10-04T18:29:44Z 2006-10-19T16:43:33Z Ian http://www.heartstorming.com
Maira Kalman

In the NY Times (October 4, 2006) , author/illustrator/humorist Maira Kalman touched my heart. 

This work should be shared. If you like it, go back and look at her previous columns. Then take a look at her history on her website.

In today's story, and she is a remarkable storyteller, she searches for the answer to the question, "Who am I?" At one point she begins to describe herself through her collections. Her illustrations are excellent. And her subjects include everyday objects (sort of), people she has known, historical figures including Abraham Lincoln, Goethe and even her father-in-law.

Maira was the wife of the late great designer Tibor Kalman.

Make sure you see her New Yorker covers especially this collaboration with Rick Meyerowitz called New Yorkistan.

]]> Star of Your Own Soap Opera tag:www.heartstorming.com,2006://1.150 2006-07-18T02:23:42Z 2006-10-19T16:44:39Z Idea Stimulator #12You Are the Star of Your Own Soap Opera The term soap opera originated from daytime radio when these serial dramas which were largely aimed at housewives. Many of the products sold during these commercials were laundry and cleaning items, and included a jingle praising the product. This specific type of radio drama became associated with particular commercials, and thus gave rise to the term soap opera. Generally soap operas were melodramatic stories that were sponsored by soap products.The soap opera form originated on U.S. radio in the 1930s, and expanded into television starting in the 1940s. Radio... Ian http://www.heartstorming.com Idea Stimulator #12
You Are the Star of Your Own Soap Opera

The term soap opera originated from daytime radio when these serial dramas which were largely aimed at housewives. Many of the products sold during these commercials were laundry and cleaning items, and included a jingle praising the product. This specific type of radio drama became associated with particular commercials, and thus gave rise to the term soap opera. Generally soap operas were melodramatic stories that were sponsored by soap products.

The soap opera form originated on U.S. radio in the 1930s, and expanded into television starting in the 1940s. Radio soap operas began in Chicago in 1930 when WGN broadcast the fifteen minute drama Painted Dreams, about the trials of an Irish-American widow and her daughter. By the start of World War II there were dozens of popular soap operas. The first concerted effort to air continuing drama on television occurred in 1946 on the DuMont television series Faraway Hill. (Wikipedia)

Louise Lasser as Mary Hartman


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Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was a satire of all soap operas and credited by many as the first soap opera on evening television. Mary Hartman was a typical American housewife living in the small town of Fernwood, Ohio. She was totally impressionable and rather slow-witted, with the most significant things in her life coming from television commercials, which she believed totally. One of her early concerns was the prospect of "waxy yellow buildup" on her kitchen floor and how to avoid it. Pigtailed and plain, her life was full of one crisis after another--her father disappeared, her daughter was held hostage by a mass murderer, her husband (Tom) was impotent, and her best friend (aspiring country music singer Loretta Haggers) was paralyzed. Eventually Mary's implacable calm collapsed and she had a nervous breakdown, as well as an affair with local cop Dennis Foley. Mary's grandfather, Raymond Larkin, was known to all as the Fernwood Flasher for his penchant for exposing himself in public; her sister, Cathy, was a local swinger; and her mother, Martha, was decidedly flaky. Tom Hartman was an assembly-line worker at the local automobile plant where he worked with Loretta's husband, Charlie. Jimmy Joe Jeeter was an eight-year-old evangelist whose career was cut short when he was electrocuted by a television set that fell into his bathtub. His father, Merle, was Fernwood's mayor.
 
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was the creation of producer Norman Lear. The novelty of a satirical soap opera attracted many viewers after the late local news in most cities.
Start watching some soap operas. What do they have in common? Then imagine that you were able to project yourself into the soap opera. How does your presence change the story? How might the characters effect your life? You are the star of your own soap opera.]]> Hey Tony! tag:www.heartstorming.com,2006://1.149 2006-07-11T18:42:10Z 2006-07-17T20:37:40Z Hey Tony! This is my story of how I became an art director and developed an adrenaline addiction. Five years out of college, I decided to leave a career as a high school art teacher and to make some money. I had a child on the way, lived in New York City, and could no longer support my family on a teacher's salary. I remembered counseling my students against the commercial arts believing it was a sell out. However I was desperate. My portfolio consisted of an art student's frayed zippered bag, some wrinkled figure drawings, and a #10... Ian http://www.heartstorming.com
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Hey Tony!

This is my story of how I became an art director and developed an adrenaline addiction. Five years out of college, I decided to leave a career as a high school art teacher and to make some money. I had a child on the way, lived in New York City, and could no longer support my family on a teacher's salary. I remembered counseling my students against the commercial arts believing it was a sell out. However I was desperate. My portfolio consisted of an art student's frayed zippered bag, some wrinkled figure drawings, and a #10 envelope containing thirty over or underexposed dusty scratched slides of my paintings. No one taught me about presentation in art school. I dragged this portfolio all over town and talked my way into interviews with creative directors and personnel managers at advertising agencies. They thought I was charming, but they had a large pool of well-trained young graphic designers to choose from.

There was an ad in The New York Times classifieds for an Assistant Advertising Manager at a company called Lightolier. I called. Lightolier was located in Jersey City. I lived in New York. There was no way I was going to reverse commute. My concerned wife thought it would be a good idea to get the experience of a genuine interview. I went reluctantly via buses and trains. Lightolier was located in a huge brick factory building of Civil War vintage. It was not my idea of glamour and I knew somewhere in my bones that I would sabotage this interview.


]]> The personnel director gave me a preference test. One of those which would you rather do multiple choice formats. For example and with only a slight exaggeration: Which would you rather do? Eat pizza? Play tennis? Work at Lightolier? The back page was blank except for simple instructions to draw a man and a woman. I saw my opportunity for sabotage. I drew a nude couple standing in an embrace, his penis went through her legs, wrapped around them a few times and turned into a winking serpent. I passed the test paper to the bureaucrat and waited. He told me, "Good answers." Then his face turned from scarlet to purple. When I reckoned it was about to burst, he shouted in a very New Jersey accent, "Hey Tony!"

Tony came running. He passed the test paper to Tony saying, "Hey Tony, huh Tony, heh!" Tony looked at the drawing and shouted, "Bobby com'ere! Hey Bobby!" When Bobby saw my test he shouted for Stewie. Stewie shouted for Abe. Before I knew it, half a dozen men in suits were looking at my test paper excitedly.

Something incredible and transforming happened to me. When people looked at my paintings they would say, "Very nice. Very interesting. Nice colors." This was different. An adrenaline rush raced through my body. It felt great. It was different. I wanted more of it. And I spent the rest of my career as an art director and creative director looking for it. I call it the Hey Tony Response! Oh yeah! I got the job. It lasted about six months. I learned a lot and decided working at an agency might give me more of what I craved. I moved on.

What gives you your Hey Tony's? Can you recall what made you choose to become a creator in the first place? When was the last time you received a Hey Tony!? In what ways do you sabotage your career? Make an entry in your journal. In what ways can you commit your Hey Tony's to creating a new piece of art? Can you visualize a series of life style images of a young man or woman on an interview?

I was able to channel my adrenaline addiction for quite a few years. But the pressure and speed became a habit. It gave me juice, however I became a workaholic. The more I achieved the more I wanted. Remember, speed kills. If one's inner fire is burning all the time at full blast, you will burn out. Sure, I still love my Hey Tony's. But today I look inside and give myself time to reflect, incubate and relax. ]]> The Definitive Pez Collection tag:www.heartstorming.com,2006://1.148 2006-07-10T16:34:31Z 2006-07-17T20:07:07Z Idea Stimulator # 11 The Definitive Pez Collection When my wife and I moved to Easton PA in 2001, we came across a new museum being built just a few blocks from our loft. The founder, owner, and curator Tim Coyle turned out to own the loft below ours. In 1927, Austrian Edward Haas came up with a new peppermint candy.The word Pez comes from the German word for peppermint (pfefferminz). It was an adult breath mint that he decided to market as an alternative for smoking. From the word pfefferminz they took the first, middle and last letter and... Ian http://www.heartstorming.com Idea Stimulator # 11
The Definitive Pez Collection

When my wife and I moved to Easton PA in 2001, we came across a new museum being built just a few blocks from our loft. The founder, owner, and curator Tim Coyle turned out to own the loft below ours.




In 1927, Austrian Edward Haas came up with a new peppermint candy.The word Pez comes from the German word for peppermint (pfefferminz). It was an adult breath mint that he decided to market as an alternative for smoking. From the word pfefferminz they took the first, middle and last letter and came up with the word Pez. Pez was carried around in pocket tins. Then in 1948 they came out with the "easy, hygenic dispenser" that we all recognize now to be a standard. In 1952 Pez was introduced in the United States. Package designers placed heads on the dispensers and marketed the newly positioned Pez to children...
About 1,500 Pez dispensers, all nestled in creative landscapes, fill the Easton Museum Of Pez Dispensers. Disney Pez sit in a 10-foot-high castle. Halloween-themed Pez are displayed in a haunted house. Psychedelic Pez are set beside a real Volkswagen Beetle that appears to be crashing through the wall. There are NFL Pez and superheroes, Star Wars and Charlie Brown, Elton John and Santa Claus. There is also a "Where in the World Is Waldo" game set up on a wall display containing more than 500 dispensers.
This got me thinking about how the candy bars of my childhood have evolved; package design, product extensions, flavors, ingrediants, logos, advertising, &c. Of course, some of my favorite candies disappeared. Take a trip back to your childhood and make a list of the candies that you remember. Go to a supermarket and see if that product is still made. Can you recognize it? What’s different? How does this stimulate your imagination.

My Childhood Favorites
Bazzini Nuts
Baby Ruth
3 Musketeers
Bit O' Honey
Good & Plenty
Oh Henry!
Peanut Chews
Jujubes
Jujyfruit
Necco Wafers
Planter’s Peanut Bar
Snickers
Bonomo Turkish Taffy
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
]]> Snickers and Walnettos tag:www.heartstorming.com,2006://1.147 2006-07-08T15:28:10Z 2006-07-11T19:06:39Z Idea Stimulator # 10 Snickers and Walnettos When I was an elementary school student my grandmother prepared a brown bag lunch each day sparing me from the cafeteria. Lunches included a healthy sandwich (roast beef, meatloaf, egg salad), a fun sandwich (peanut butter or cream cheese and jelly), a slice of homemade chocolate cake, a piece of fruit, and enough money for an ice cream and container of milk. I was not small. However if I knew someone had it, I would often trade my entire lunch for a Snickers Bar. SnickersThe Best-Selling Candy Bar of All Time... Ian http://www.heartstorming.com Idea Stimulator # 10
Snickers and Walnettos

When I was an elementary school student my grandmother prepared a brown bag lunch each day sparing me from the cafeteria. Lunches included a healthy sandwich (roast beef, meatloaf, egg salad), a fun sandwich (peanut butter or cream cheese and jelly), a slice of homemade chocolate cake, a piece of fruit, and enough money for an ice cream and container of milk. I was not small. However if I knew someone had it, I would often trade my entire lunch for a Snickers Bar.

Snickers
The Best-Selling Candy Bar of All Time
]]> Snickers was first introduced to the public in 1930 and is now the number one selling candy bar in the United States. In fact Snickers is the best selling candy bar of all time and has annual global sales of $2 billion. Snickers is made of peanut butter nougat, topped with caramel and roasted peanuts and covered with milk chocolate. The peanuts are crisp-textured special grade which have good flavor and keep well. Snickers is a global brand, however, in the U.S. they are made in Chicago, Illinois and Waco, Texas. Snickers was named after the Mars family's favorite horse.

And while we are on candy bars, my Grandfather, Ruben Popkins always had a package of Walnetto's in his pocket to share. Walnettos were a great tasting walnut chew. Remember the Artie Johnson - Ruth Buzzy skit on Laugh-in... "Want a Walnetto?"

Some discontinued brands include Beeman’s gum, Black Jack gum, Bonomo's Turkish Taffy, Butternut, Clove gum, Forever Yours, Pepsin gum, Powerhouse, Regal Crown Sours, Reggie Bar, and how can one forget, Wax Mustaches, Pan Pipes and bloody Fingernails. What was your favorite candy bar? How did it fit into your life as a child? Do you eat candy today? What is your relationship with sweets? ]]> Spanners tag:www.heartstorming.com,2006://1.146 2006-05-03T15:04:29Z 2006-05-13T13:54:47Z Ian http://www.heartstorming.com logo
Spanners
The Characteristics and Attributes of Artists
Whose Careers Span Fifty Years or More
I recently introduced a discussion in my teleconferences about artists whose careers have flourished for long periods of time. We considered the careers of Picasso, Matisse, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Norman Mailer, Paul McCartney, and others. In a couple of months Paul McCartney will be – you guessed it – 64 years old. And what a career he has had. I believe he is as vital today – maybe even more so – than he was in his time as a Beatle. He wrote his first song in 1956; fifty years ago.
Richard Avedon's career spanned 60 years.
Pablo Picasso's career spanned 77 years.
Henri Matisse's career spanned 65 years.
Irving Penn's career spans 63 years and he is still at it.
Norman Mailer's career spans about 60 years - still going strong.

I call these people Spanners. Some questions:

What are the attributes and characteristics (A's and C's) present in Spanners? How do you measure up?  Few have all the A's and C's. Many of us have a little of each. Some may be worthwhile to focus on and to improve. Others may just be considered genetic.

Go through the list. (see the full article for the list) Define the terms for yourself. What is talent? It is defined as a natural apptitude. However, if you have it, are you using it fully? If you do not use it, will you lose it?

Are you inspired and do you inspire others? When was the last time you surprised yourself while creating? Do you love your dream strongly enough to apply the energy required to bring it into being -- no matter what?

Obsession is a common attribute of Spanners. Matisse was so obsessed by his calling to make art that he told Amelie when he proposed that his love for his art will always come before everything else. And that is the way he lived his long and productive life. I just finished reading an insightful and extremely informative two volume biography of Matisse. Read it. Matisse had most of the A's and C's most of the time. As in most of us, A's and C's oscillate: they wax and wane.
A Life of Henri Matisse
Hilary Spurling
Volume One: The Unknown Matisse 1869-1908
Volume Two: Matisse The Master 1909-1954
(Alfred Knopf)



Henri Matisse
Self-Portrait in a Striped T-Shirt.
1906.
Oil on canvas.
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark

From the dust jacket: ..."If my story were ever to be written down truthfully from start to finish, it would amaze everyone." ...With unprecedented and unrestricted access to his voluminous family correspondence, and other new material in private archives, Hilary Spurling documents a lifetime of desperation and self-doubt exacerbated by Matisse'sattempts to counteract the violence and desperation of the twentieth century in paintings that now seem effortlessly serene, radiant and stable.
I have provided a matrix to help you ask yourself questions like these. You will see the attributes and characteristics which we identified on the left side of the matrix. If there are A's and C's not represented, add them. There are three columns immediately to the right. Using a scale of 1 – 10, how would you rate yourself right now. Be fiercely honest. The next column marked with an F is for feasibility. Using a scale of 1 -- 10 and considering everything you know and believe about yourself, how feasible would it be to raise your score. And finally, the third column marked with an E is for effectiveness. How effective would it be for you to focus and put energy into raising each A and C?
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Attributes and Characteristics
   Now  F    E
Curiosity      
Courage      
Committment      
Drive and Energy      
Open to Learn - Growth      
Passion      
Belief there is More      
 Ability to Stay in the Present When Working
      
 Natural Curiosity and Interest in Many Things
      
 Ability to Stay Focused
      
 Risk Taking
      
 Strong Sense of Self
      
 Knows What He or She Stands For
      
 Inspired and Inspirational
      
 Obsessed
     
 Sense of Adventure
      
 Deliberate and Intentioned
      
 Spontaneous      
 Surprises Themselves and Others
      
 Highly Talented
      
 Visionary      
 Craves Action
      
 Considered 'Weird'
      
 Welcomes Pressure
      
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