Off to practice the art of Open Space again
I’m on the road again, travelling to Burlington Vermont to Open Space at the CommunityMatters07 conference. This is a great conference, working with really interesting people focused on innovative and artistic practices for community planning.
It seems that I’m doing a fair amount of work these days with artists and with those who see themselves as practictioners of an art, whether it is my colleagues in the Art of Hosting, the community artists from the Art of Engagement or these community planners. I have a sense that there is an emerging consciousness around work: that people increasingly see themselves as practitioners and as artists, even in traditionally scientific disciplines like community planning.
I’m curious if you are thinking of your practice as an art, or, if you are an artist in other aspect of your life, what does it mean to bring your artistic sensibility to traditionally “non-artistic” fields?
this post sparked a whole host of thoughts for me, primarily because this is exactly the journey I find myself on–not separating work from art, but infusing work with art for the first time. i did an interesting collage a few years ago that had three sections – one was about business, one was about my art, and the middle was the transition from one to another, the bridge between. what was so striking was my unconscious gathering of images for business that were cold, barren, steel-like, metal, cogs, machinery. my images for art were light, color, energy, movement. i recognized in that moment how much i needed to bridge the two.