Art Not Hate

Babe Ruth as Humanitarian Hero: An essay and digital media contest for Pinellas County High School Students

2018-01-04T09:01:00.005-08:00

Download a printer-friendly version of the contest description and guidelines here

Introduction

Babe Ruth in many ways adopted St. Petersburg as his “home away from home.” He played Major League Spring Training Baseball in St. Petersburg for ten years (1925-35), first with the New York Yankees and one year with the Boston Braves. It is believed he hit his longest home run ever against Major League pitching in 1934 in St. Petersburg.

Babe Ruth is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player ever. Not as well known is his work as a humanitarian, including his love for his daughters Dorothy and Julia, commitment to children and youth, charitable work, philanthropy, friendship with African Americans and other minorities, and stand against hatred as evidenced by his signature in support of the 1942 “Christmas Declaration” condemning the mass murder of Jews in Nazi Germany.

Guidelines for Educators

The contest is open to high school students in public, religious, and private schools as well as home-schooled. The contest’s goal is to engage students in thinking about justice and injustice in their world. From bullying to abuse, young people today face difficult situations and decisions. The Student handout will contain the text below to provide guidelines for creating contest entries.

Tell us about the time you stood up to injustice.

The purpose of the contest is to make Babe Ruth’s tremendous moral courage on behalf of both European Jews during the Holocaust and African American baseball players in the 1940s relevant and inspiring for today’s young people.
Essays will be judged on perceptiveness, creativity, and facility with the English language.
Please submit essay document in a PDF format with two spaces between lines. Use the standard Arial 12 pt. type font. The essays should be between 500 and 1,000 words.
At the end of the essay, please type in your name, age, grade, name of teacher or advisor and her/his preferred phone number and email.
Email PDF to BabeRuthHero@gmail.com and type “Babe Ruth Hero” in the subject line.
Videos and Podcasts will judged on perceptiveness, creativity, and facility with the digital techniques. They must be at least two minutes and no longer than three minutes. Please display your name, age, grade, name of teacher or advisor and her/his preferred phone number as a screen credit at end of entry or as a spoken word audio credit for podcasts.
For video submissions, email a YouTube web link to BabeRuthHero@gmail.com and type “Babe Ruth Hero / Video” in subject line. Submit podcast entries as an MP3 file attached to email. Write “Babe Ruth Hero / Podcast” in subject line.
Deadline is midnight Thursday, March 15, 2018.

Teacher/Advisors will receive an email confirmation within seven days of submission. If you do not receive a confirmation, please re-email submission to BabeRuthHero@gmail.com and text 215.964-3937.

This contest is presented by Keep St. Pete Lit in conjunction with the St. Petersburg Museum of History for the SunLit Festival. The contest concept was initiated by Bob Barancik. The cash awards are provided by the Blake+Barancik Design Group, Inc.

Prizes

There will be up to four Student awards of $100.00 each. There will be awards in each category (essay and new media). The teachers of students winners will each receive a gift card of $50 to use for school supplies.
There will be an official awards ceremony on Tuesday, April 17 at St. Petersburg History Museum during the SunLit Festival where checks and certificates will be presented to the winners. (Time TBA)
Winning essays and digital media will be featured on the artnothate.com, keepstpetelit.org, spmoh.com websites and possibly other appropriate online venues.
All entrants retain the copyrights to their original creative entries but permit Keep St. Pete Lit to use the material for relevant educational and promotional purposes.

Please carefully review these links before starting your creative process:

Direct any additional questions to BabeRuthHero@gmail.com. Please put “Questions / Babe Ruth Hero” in subject line.

Entry Form

Baseball legend Babe Ruth was a hero in off the baseball field. He worked to help set up baseball teams for African-American kids. During World War II, Babe Ruth courageously joined other Americans to speak out on behalf of European Jews during the Holocaust. He supported African American baseball players in the 1940s.

Tell us about the time you stood up to injustice. What does it take to speak up and speak out about something you know is wrong? Has anyone ever stood up or spoken out to help you or your family? What would you do to make a difference?

Tell us your ideas and your stories. You may submit a written essay, a podcast, or a short video.

ESSAYS

If possible, please use Arial 12 pt. type font, double-spaced.
Your essay should be between 500 and 1,000 words.
Your essay will be judged on your ideas and creativity.
At the end of the essay, please add your name, age, grade, name of your teacher or advisor, and her/his preferred phone number and email.
Please submit your essay as a PDF.

Email your PDF to BabeRuthHero@gmail.com. Please put “Babe Ruth Hero/Essay” in the subject line.

PODCASTS AND VIDEOS
Videos and Podcasts will judged on your ideas and creativity, and how well you use digital technology.

Your video or podcast must between two and three minutes long.
Please display your name, age, grade, name of teacher or advisor, and her/his preferred phone number as a screen credit at end of entry or as a spoken word audio credit for podcasts.
For video submissions, email a YouTube link to BabeRuthHero@gmail.com. Please write “Babe Ruth Hero/Video” in the subject line.

Submit podcast entries as an MP3 file attached to an email. Please put “Babe Ruth Hero/Podcast” in the subject line.

Deadline is midnight on Thursday, March 15, 2018.

Questions? Please send your questions to BabeRuthHero@gmail.com. Please put “Questions/Babe Ruth Hero” in the subject line.

The Latest from Art Not Hate

2011-06-15T07:15:00.000-07:00

Young Voices & Visions

A moving series of videos produced produced by 6th and 7th Graders that creatively explores difficult societal issues facing America.

Voices of Faith & Doubt

An eclectic short video that mixes the 23rd Psalm and excerpts from Ecclesiastes.

Postcards From Hell

The Warsaw Ghetto remembered through art, poetry, and scholarly essays.

Jan Karski: Messenger of the Holocaust and Warsaw Ghetto

Saving Remnants

A short award-winning video that explores the memory of the Warsaw Ghetto through dance, piano music, and art.

The Future of Holocaust Memorialization: Altruism in Extremes

2011-05-16T10:02:00.000-07:00

Introduction

With the passing of more and more elderly direct survivors we who are spiritual survivors of the Shoah must assume greater-than-ever responsibility for the character and impact of the Holocaust Narrative we pass along. For nearly 70 years since the war’s end we have emphasized the Nazi Story, one of unforgivable Horror. At great cost to our grasp of history and our self-esteem we have minimized attention to the Jewish Story, that of the remarkable effort of victims to help one another despite fierce Nazi opposition to any evidence of the humanity of “sub-humans.” It is time to rebalance attention, and renew Holocaust education and memorialization content; we owe this to the 6 million, to our progeny to our religious faith, and to posterity. – Art Shostak (Bio)

Summary by Theresa Willingham

In his essay “The Future of Holocaust Memorialization: Altruism in Extremes” (Philadelphia Jewish Voice, April 2011), Dr. Arthur Shostak, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Drexel University, calls for a new, more powerful and sustaining way to frame the Holocaust story, one that puts a higher emphasis on the strength of character and spirit that guided the Jewish people through the atrocities of the time.

Dr. Shostak’s work focuses on “Stealth Altruism,” also the title of his upcoming book, which looks at the myriad ways that concentration camp prisoners and others defied the inhumanity thrust upon them in countless subtle but powerful ways. He cites examples of people shielding one another from capture, at risk to their own lives; of teens in Terezin who, despite sure death sentences, created a literary magazine that focused on everything but life in the concentration camp; adults who created an informal university with over 500 lecturers (of whom less than 200 survived) and more than 2400 “courses.”

These instances of human perseverance and strength of character under the most inhumane of conditions, Dr. Shostak believes, create a far greater and more enduring story on which to build and sustain a religious and cultural future. Without refocusing the Jewish collective memory on a more positive and uplifting story of the Holocaust, Dr. Shostak believes the Jewish community is in danger of what Harvard Professor Ruth Wisse calls “substituting a cult of martyrdom for the Torah's insistence on life.”

Dr. Shostak believes Rachel Korazim, director of Education at Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial museum, sums the problem up well when she says, “We’ve managed to place images like barbed wire and crematoria as central Jewish images. This is not Jewish history, this is Nazi history.”

“In the very near future the last of the direct survivors (and perpetrators) of the 1933-1946 Holocaust will pass away,” Dr. Shostak writes. “In the aftermath we will inherit responsibility for shaping a fresh telling of the greatest crime of the 20th century, a persuasive re-telling that should lend a special meaning to 21st century life. We could break with memorialization tradition and adopt a new approach, one that emphasizes not the Horror of Nazi insanity, but instead the Help that victims shared with one another. Were we to do so Jews here and elsewhere would finally understand how very much we have to be proud of in the record of our co-religionists in extremis.”

Relevant Links

The Future of Holocaust Memorialization: Altruism in Extremes
The Holocaust: Crimes, Heroes and Villains
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Reimagining the Museum at Auschwitz

Art Not Hate Seen in Tampa

2011-01-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

Illuminating the Spirit

Art speaks to us of spirit. This is a major theme of Bob Barancik’s Art Not Hate, a multimedia exhibit at the Carrollwood Cultural Center in November and December, 2010. In the photo, Adrienne Hutelmyer and Paul Berg, Executive Director, examine a portrait of Raoul Wallenberg from the exhibit.

Some individuals, like Wallenberg, live forever as examples of the greatness of the human spirit. Wallenberg was a Swedish architect and businessman, recruited in 1944 for a rescue mission to help the Hungarian Jews. He was given a minor diplomatic post in Budapest, and used it to pass out fake passports—even to people already in detention—and provide refuge in buildings that he declared to be Swedish property. He saved the lives of about 15,000 people.

Wallenberg’s own fate remains a mystery. He was detained by the Russians in 1945 and is believed to have died in Lubyanka prison in 1947.

Spirit Figures

The figures in Barancik’s paintings are stripped down to their essence—they are glowing energy fields, standing against a background of darkness and chaos. These works amplify the difference between life and an environment that seeks to deny it. Mary Ellen Bitner (left) and Evelyn Bless examine two of these spirit works, each depicting three figures that draw strength from each other against the emptiness around them.

Integrity

We all need examples of how to live life with integrity. In the photo, artist Bob Barancik and Mary Ellen Bitner, Art Curator, look at two portraits of people who spoke out about the human condition: Jan Karski and Andrei Sakharov.

Jan Karski, a Polish Catholic, was a resistance leader who entered the Jewish ghettos to observe first-hand what was taking place. In 1942, he was the first person to report to the Polish, British and U.S. governments on the slaughter of Jews in Poland. He continued to urge heads of state to act; at the time, no one would listen to him.

Andrei Sakharov, known as the father of the Russian atomic bomb, became a spokesperson for human rights and against development of atomic weapons. Despite official Soviet opposition, Sakharov spoke out about the dangers of totalitarianism. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.

For more information on the Carrollwood Cultural Center, see www.carrollwoodcenter.org. For information on upcoming art shows at the Center, see www.carrollwoodcenter.org/art-exhibits.html.

When Art Foretells the Future…of oil spills

2010-07-08T05:01:00.000-07:00

Iconoclastic artists and intellectuals often have their ears to the ground, nostrils sniffing the wind, and eyes scanning the horizon…or sidewalk for pennies.

It is often an uncomfortable lifestyle. But it does serve a useful societal function.

Image-makers in a digital age can readily communicate their unease, anxieties, speculations to a global audience through the internet. It is a truism that highly creative people often view the world through childlike eyes and are prone to state the obvious.

In the classic childhood fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” it was a little boy (not the prosperous and serious courtiers) who yelled “the emperor is naked!” Perhaps truth telling is connected to arrested social development and not knowing when to shut up.

Nearly four years ago, I was at a wonderful concert at the Palladium Theater in St. Pete featuring pianist Paul Wilborn and his sizzling songstress. Their rendition of “You Give Me Fever” just about burnt the house down.

It certainly got me to thinking about sex…and the burning of fossil fuels…and perhaps doing a slightly titillating video on the subject of global warming.

The legal complications and expenses of trying to use Peggy Lee’s hit standard of “Fever” put it out of bounds for an indie artist/producer like myself. It was easier and a lot more fun to hire my longtime music mavens Phyllis Chapell and Dan Kleiman in Philly to make some new music. I chose a hot Latin sound and name (Mundo Caliente: It’s a Hot World!) for the project.

My video-magician in Rochester Dave Puls and digital print guru Brad Erickson in St. Pete also jumped into this hot creative world.

We created an award-winning video that was screened at numerous international film festivals over the last several years, as well as a series of 30 striking digital prints.

In the print series, I never liked nine of the images and refrained from exhibiting them. They made me genuinely uncomfortable. There was a hellish quality to them.

Likewise, there is a hellish quality to our national addiction to Gulf of Mexico deepwater rigs and despotic Middle East oil. The out-of-control spills and fires, resource wars, episodes of epic corporate and governmental incompetence, and the global reality of smog-choked cities together create a devilishly depressing vision.

I look at the images at the side of this blog and am genuinely surprised what my unconscious mind painted years ago. These images are evocative warnings of today’s predicament.

As the great cartoonist, Walt Kelly, said through his alter-ego Pogo character over 40 years ago:

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Below are links to key articles and imagery about the BP gusher-oil slick:

Top Florida Marine Biologist does Q&A
(Florida Thinks website)

Controlled burn of BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico
(YouTube)

View of oil slick from low flying airplane
(YouTube)

Is Climate Change Worth Tackling? A Reply To Jim Manzi
(The Atlantic magazine)

Deepwater Explosion and key photo
(Wikipedia)

Action is the Antidote to Despair: A photographer confronts the BP oil disaster
(YES! Magazine)

America in the 1920s and 1930s: The Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism

2010-06-28T06:45:00.000-07:00

For most of its collective history, American Jewry has enjoyed the full benefits of all that this nation has offered to those immigrant groups seeking a freer and better life. Unlike their European experience, Jews in America did not have to face the wrath of an established anti-Jewish religion or the whims of a government or national leader who decided they were no longer a part of the “nation.”

But that was not always the case. Anti-Semitism in America reached dangerous levels in the years between World War I and World War II and was practiced in different ways by highly respected individuals and institutions. By 1939, one researcher estimated that at least 800 organizations in the United States were carrying on “a definite anti-Semitic propaganda.” Private universities, summer camps, resorts, and places of employment all imposed restrictions and quotas against Jews, often in a public way. Jews were accused of a lack of patriotism and character by American titans of industry and leading religious voices. Jews faced the threat of physical attacks and often were the victims of vicious beatings. It was a time of terror for the American Jewish community.

The Art Not Hate Rogues Gallery allows the reader to encounter just some of those who were responsible for this time of terror. They are not relics of an ancient and bygone era. Their ideas and their calls for action against what they perceived as the destructive influence of American and world Jewry contributed to the murder of six million Jews during the terrible years of the Holocaust. And while they are gone, their beliefs are not. They live in the hundreds of internet sites devoted to hatred of Jews and Judaism; they live in the pages of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion readily available in bookstores around the world; and they live in the efforts to de-legitimize the State of Israel and in the calls for its destruction. They live as a warning to us all.

Visit the Rogues Gallery

Jean M. Peck is a writer, editor, and educator who lives in Portland, Maine. She is the author of two books: At the Fire's Center (University of Illinois Press) and, with Abraham Peck, Maine's Jewish Heritage (Arcadia Press). She is an adjunct professor of English at the University of Maine, Augusta.

Hillel Students Find Expression and Meaning in Art, Not Hate

2010-05-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

Sarah E. Gerard

A way to express what matters to them; a creative solution to real conflict. This is what students at The Hillel School of Tampa found recently in art, not hate.

For the last two months, Fine Art and Judaic Studies middle school students at the Hillel School of Tampa have been working on “social commentary” art — that which encourages its creator to interpret the world he or she lives in, not just portray it. The unit began after middle school students visited the “Art Not Hate” exhibit at the Florida Holocaust Museum this past March. They were intrigued by the theme of “creative solutions to conflict.” The students were asked to reinterpret the exhibit’s focus on the Holocaust and Post-Holocaust genocides, and apply it to their own 21st-century lives.

When they returned to school, students were asked to think of an issue that was important to them. This is what your art class will center around for the next two months, Hillel art teacher Debra Campbell told her students. One student, Matthew, picked fear. Shelby picked nutrition in America. Yoni picked racism. All of the students worked hard to transcend the surface of their topic, communicating the emotions that lie beneath.

Matthew’s sculpture explores the topic of fear. Fear is an obstacle blocking personal accomplishments. In order for an individual to self-actualize, he says, they have to break through the wall of fear.

“Shelby’s collage is illustrating how America has ignored nutrition and exercise and has become a country of couch potatoes. Kids especially have to be careful not to exist on fast food and junk food. She believes we are creating a society that it is susceptible to disease and ill health.”
– Debra Campbell

“Although it is portrayed here as racism against African Americans, Yoni believes that is only one example. So many races have been discriminated against that it is important to take a stand whenever people attack others because they are not of the same background or race.”
– Debra Campbell

“Forced to Hide by Sydney shows how Blacks and Jews have been demeaned throughout history and forced into hiding. Her collage has a video of the Alvin Ailey Dance Company performing ‘Revelations’ that is superimposed over the art. The dancers are dancing to coded slave songs that told slaves where to hide.” – Debra Campbell

“It was really hard for them to see the difference between graphic art and (fine) art,” said Campbell, “something that will evoke an emotion rather than just tell the audience literally how to view the artwork.”

Campbell let students use whatever materials they wanted — a carry-over from the workshops that inspired the idea.

Campbell had worked with Barancik a few months beforehand at the Art Not Hate workshops at Creative Clay, a St. Petersburg organization providing equal access to art education for disabled citizens. The workshops were designed to teach problem-solving skills to middle- and high-school students by promoting understanding through artistic interaction. Campbell just so happened to be launching her social commentary unit at the time and wasn’t sure how she wanted to approach the topic.

The Art Not Hate workshops jived perfectly with what she was trying to teach, and she decided to get more involved. When she heard about the exhibit at the Florida Holocaust Museum, she knew what she wanted to do.

Using materials they selected themselves, each students’ artwork was made unique to the issue it surrounded and the emotions it expressed. One student, Nicole, made a torch-shaped sculpture she calls “Sacrifice By Fire.” An homage to lives lost in the Holocaust, Campbell says Nicole’s message is that, “If humanity is not vigilant, it can happen again.”

Nicole created this piece as an homage to lives lost in the Holocaust. The burning torch is symbolic of rememberance. If humanity does not remember the consequences of its negligence, we may experience a horror like the Holocaust again.

Talia's piece is a red and black stand against gossip. Words can be used like weapons to injure a person's self-esteem. We have to treat gossip like violence and be conscious non-participants.

Alex constructed a book in sections like the walls of hatred, or the black and white systems of thought that separate people.

Talia’s piece, “Words Can Hurt,” is a red and black stand against gossip. Talia chose to make a collage, which allowed her to use a lot of type in her design including phrases like “Did you hear…?” and “She is so…”

After five months of studying the Holocaust in Judaic Studies class, Amy Wasser’s students came back from the “Art Not Hate” exhibit with a focus on the concept of memory. “As Jewish citizens in contemporary America, we have no memories of the Holocaust,” Wasser says, “because we never experienced it. We know we need to remember what happened, lest we let it happen again, but how can we remember something we never experienced?”

Like Campbell, Wassser asked her students to use art as a medium to express their feelings. Each student chose a different topic of memory and created an original piece of art. One student constructed a wooden table, painted with names of victims and splatters of bright red paint. Tiny figurines scatter across the length of the table toward a rainbow pattern, symbolizing freedom. Another student constructed a tree-like sculpture, tall as an eight-year-old, and hung a poem on the wall beside it. Another made a concrete wall with swastikas on it, reminiscent of the walls of the ghettos that kept his ancestors inside.

Amy Wasser's class chose memory as the topic of their social commentary unit. This student crafted a long table, symbolic of Holocaust victims' long trek toward freedom and humanity's journey toward peace.

This student of Amy Wasser's constructed a tall tree with real wooden branches and placed a poem on the wall beside it. Many of Wasser's students incorporated text into their work.

This Judaic Studies student constructed a ghetto wall out of salvaged wood and desecrated it with swastikas like the ghetto walls that kept his ancestors prisoners.

When they finished their projects, students wanted to test their pieces out in the Rembrandt in Hightops Youth Art Competition, held annually at the Old Hyde Park Gallery in Tampa. They wanted to see if anyone would “get it,” says Campbell — if they had done a good enough job getting below the surface of their topics and still having people viewing it as a work of art.

They had. Out of 15 awards, five of them were given to Hillel students (four of the awards for their social commentary art).

Campbell says she will definitely teach the social commentary unit again in her class, because “using the theme of ‘creative responses to conflict’ enabled the kids to talk about things that were important to them and present them in their own, independent style.

“Rather than teaching techniques and materials,” she says, “this was one time that the kids were able to take everything they learned and turn it into a very personal work of art.”

The fabric of this piece suggests lives weaving together, flexible ways of thinking, or the multi-colored flags of a planet sewn together. Wasser's students chose mediums appropriate to their topics of choice.

These ghostlike figures are lost against a black background, separated by barbed wire and captioned by bright red letters, spelling out their ultimate fate, as if to say, “This is the fear we need to remember.”

This blog has moved

2010-04-12T07:37:00.001-07:00

This blog is now located at http://blog.artnothate.com/.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://blog.artnothate.com/feeds/posts/default.

Infinite Creative Games: Why simply playing is winning

2010-04-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

What is an infinite game?

And why should you, as a creative professional, care?

Let’s begin with “finite games,” because that is what our commercial culture is all about.

There are a few exalted winners and vast hordes of losers/strivers. Here are just a few obvious examples of our national finite games:

The Super Bowl, World Series, the NBA playoffs, flipping condos, stock speculation, consumer marketing, the Oscars, Tonys, Emmys, Obies, Golden Globes, Nobel Prizes, Indie 500 and Nascar, Pulitzer Prizes, Wimbledon, MacArthur Genius Grants, Sundance Indie Film Awards and Hollywood deals, Olympic gold medalists, Project Runway, American Idol, Congressional filabusters, offshore drilling, and strip development…

Conversely Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired Magazine and digital guru, defines Infinite Games this way:

“The game is to keep changing the nature of change. And that infinite game is my view of holiness. You play the game not to win, but to continue to play to make room for all expressions of truth, good, and the beautiful. You are opening up the world to possibility.”

This was slammed home to me just a few weeks ago. My longtime music guru, Dan Kleiman, unexpectedly died of a massive stroke from out of the blue. He was just 55. Dan seemed in good health and in reasonably good spirits when I saw him last October in Philly.

He composed, performed, and handled the post-production of twelve of my award-winning experimental videos over a period of a dozen years:

http://artnothate.com/friends/dan-kleiman.php
http://creativeledge.com/video/index.php

One of the things we talked about (perhaps the one thing that we always talked about) was the apparent unfairness and arbitrary harshness of life in the creative economy. As middle-aged working creative professionals, we were both experiencing the frustration of always being on the edge of big things. As the saying goes, always a bridesmaid and never a bride. With the collapse of both the stock and housing markets, we saw a lot of our savings and net worth evaporate and the prospect of easy money disappear.

Dan was vexed by the possibility of many more years of creative struggle and the uncertainty of any financial reward. I was less worried about things and more sanguine about the future (at least at that moment) and tried to cheer him up with my usual philosophizing. In my circle of friends and colleagues, I am often the resident skeptical optimist. I adopted this cast of mind when dealing both with a serious chronic illness for nearly twenty years and a life-threatening colon lesion. For the most part, my health situation was not talked about, but was always the 800-pound gorilla in the studio. Consequently, I am genuinely grateful for the good days when there is energy and creative flow.

Recently, Dan and his longtime creative partner and singer, Phyllis Chapell, finished a magnificent CD titled “Vision of the Dry Bones.” It combined their virtuosity with Jewish, Latin, and world culture into a delicious and fully realized whole.

http://artnothate.com/friends/phyllis-chapell.php

It had a genuine artistic integrity that can only be achieved by decades of practice, experimentation, and committed creative collaboration. Here is a link to some clips from the album:

http://artnothate.com/friends/projects/dry-bones.php

One of the things that I mentioned to Dan last fall was that the web might provide artists (particularly musicians and performers) a modicum of immortality. One might yet be discovered posthumously on the Internet and find an enthusiastic audience that could span generations.

This did not give my gifted friend much succor or solace. He was still playing the finite games of the mercurial creative marketplace at our last meeting, trying to figure out how to get fame, fortune, security, and unconditional love through one’s art.

Now he is part of eternity…as we all shall be…sooner or later.

But let me leave you with images from a favorite infinite game—Nantucket Sailboats!

It was one of the very first videos that Dan and I worked on together.

http://creativeledge.com/video/mainely-creative/nantucket-sailboats.php

Anger as Agent of Creativity: A report from the “Art Not Hate” project by Bob Barancik

2010-02-10T11:29:00.000-08:00

Some Buddhist sages have equated anger with insanity. I agree with that sentiment in many aspects of life…but not all.

Anger can be an agent of positive creative change and an impetus to the creation of profoundly unsettling but life-affirming art forms.

As part of my forthcoming “Art Not Hate: Creative Responses to Conflict” exhibit at the Florida Holocaust Museum, opening in March, I worked with young people from Community Tampa Bay and various other organizations in the metro area. In the workshops, students came to understand the anger they experienced in various situations, and then used that anger as a creative energy.

Here is a short video that conveys the flavor of the workshops: http://artnothate.com/workshops/

I enjoyed working with the teenagers, but as a person on the brink of his 60th birthday, I have a compelling need to collaborate with both emerging and mature artists and performers. Together we can create art that might speak across generations.

I was especially interested in collaborating with Gen Y (under 30 adults) and fellow Boomers in projects that incorporate both traditional art forms and new electronic media.

As I see it, Tampa Bay’s future economic growth will be driven more by the silicon in computer chips than by our broad sandy beaches. Here is a link to a prescient column that I wrote for the Creative Tampa Bay Buzz a few years ago:

New Media vs. The Movies

The “Art Not Hate” project weaves together various strands of the creative economy ethos—the cultivation of diverse people and ideas, the humanization and monetization of digital technology, and the desire to foster genuine community (with all its conflicts, contradictions, and promises of creative human connectedness).

This short “Anatomy of Anger” video clip was written and performed by Aleshea Harris, accompanied on congas by Nery Arevalo, produced by Mark Maynor, and managed by Sarah Gerard.

The piece was inspired by a series of mixed media collages that are part of the “Art Not Hate” exhibit.

Please visit the exhibit website at www.artnothate.com and read the informative online press release.

The free public reception at the Florida Holocaust Museum is Sunday March 14th from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Piano jazz great Stan Hunter and classical piano virtuoso Judith Alstadter will be performing. RSVP required.

Email Amy Blake at floret55638@mypacks.net to be put on the guest list. Spaces are limited.

The “Art Not Hate” exhibit runs from March 6th to March 30th.

Studies show compassion is a human instinct

2010-01-21T05:54:00.000-08:00

Dacher Keltner, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, says that contrary to long-standing assertions that humans are inherently self-serving, new evidence suggests that we’re actually wired to be compassionate. Studies conducted by a number of preeminent specialists and universities demonstrate measurable responses in the human anatomy including changes in brainwaves, oxytocin levels, and non-verbal communication, suggesting that, “Compassion is deeply rooted in human nature; it has a biological basis in the brain and body.” Certain parenting styles help the behavior along, particularly what the psychological community calls, “inductive parenting,” in which parents encourage children to consider the reasons why they have done harm and the kinds of effects their behavior has on others. “Parents can teach compassion by example,” Keltner says, explaining, “Human communities are only as healthy as our conceptions of human nature.”

Read “The Compassionate Instinct” at Greater Good Magazine

The Vision of the Dry Bones brings SIORA world jazz sound to Hebrew classics

2010-01-15T07:56:00.000-08:00

World-acclaimed SIORA founders Phyllis Chapell and Dan Kleiman are all over the map with their international flavor and percussive instrumentation and Phyllis’ full-bodied vocals in eleven languages. Their latest release, "The Vision of the Dry Bones," a transnational representation of the Hebrew canon, departs from any classic interpretation into hip-shaking, body-swaying, soulful swings and jazz-centric beats. SIORA isn’t afraid to use a Samba style to spice up an Israeli ballad in MaNavu, or give a plaintive Yiddish song a heartbeat with rhythms from across the Jewish Diaspora in Papirossen. Inspired by a vision of the prophet Ezekiel of a vast expanse of dry bones gradually forming flesh and coming back to life, the message of "Dry Bones" seems to be that of tradition reinvented, breathing new and delicious breath, moving into the future with renewed vigor. Says Kleiman, “First the Jew in us asks why, then the jazz musician asks why not?”

Listen to Dry Bones here

Florida Holocaust Museum curator wins FAM’s Innovator Award

2010-01-13T10:18:00.000-08:00

Florida Holocaust Museum curator Erin Blankenship won 2009’s Florida Association of Museums (FAM) Innovator Award for her work curating the museum’s Courage and Compassion exhibit about the Bielski family, who saved over 1,200 Jews from certain execution during the Holocaust. The exhibit opened at the same time as the movie “Defiance”, telling the story of the Bielski brothers, premiered in theaters. Brendon Rennert, grandson of Tuvia Bielski, approached the museum about compiling the exhibit after hearing that the movie was in production.

The exhibition includes survivor testimonies, intricate models, and original artifacts, requiring extensive research by Blankenship to locate and build partnerships with family members, institutions, and survivors in order to acquire the right pieces. She even went as far as to coordinate an archeological dig of the Bielski family campsite in the Naliboki forest of Belarus.

“It is very rewarding being recognized by your peers,” Blankenship says, “so while it was a huge effort that really required a small team of people, I was very happy with the outcome and I feel very honored to have been given the opportunity to tell the story (on behalf of the FHM) of these extraordinary men and to have met the survivors and family.”

Read the press release about the award

Read Erin's bio

Philadelphia choreographer gives Rwandan youth a reason to dance

2010-01-12T09:59:00.000-08:00

Rebecca Davis is the founder and Artistic Director of Philadephia’s non-profit Rebecca Davis Dance Company. In 2008, she traveled to Rwanda to teach dance to child survivors of the 1994 genocide that annihilated over 10% of the country’s population in less than three months. When she returned last year, she found that the project’s sponsoring group was closed, the safe house where the boys were living was gone, and many of the children she taught were once again living on the streets. Together with a volunteer friend, Rebecca vowed to raise the mere $2.50 per day that it takes to send at least one of her students to boarding school, asking, “Why can’t we, as an international community, prevent mass murder, or at least protect its survivors?”

Rebecca has choreographed and taught in Canada, Russia, Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and the United States. More than your average dance company, Rebecca founded her namesake four years ago with the mission of deepening the public’s knowledge of classic literature, significant historical events and social issues, and to provide a pre-professional dance-theater training program for young dancers. In the summer of 2009, Rebecca lived in Brcko, Bosnia-Herzegovina, developing a creative movement program for youth, which focused on the theme of reconciliation in a post-conflict country. The Rebecca Davis Dance Company is soon to offer a dance-exchange program with students from that country.

Read her story in Broad Street Review

Watch kids of the Unity Hip-Hop Group of Rwanda perform

Visit the Rebecca Davis Dance Company website

Read Rebecca's bio

FYI: Thought Provoking, Useful, and Inspiring Items on the Web

2010-01-07T13:10:00.000-08:00

Bard Prison Initiative helps prisoners choose better futures

Knowing that education is the best way to build peace, Bard College began Bard Prison Initiative in response to Congress’ 1994 elimination of Pell grants. The program encourages student prisoners, some of them serving life sentences for murder, to think objectively about the choices they make, and the ones they see others making, while enabling them to work their way toward college degrees. Prisoners take the same classes as other Bard students and earn the same degrees, reminding us that at any point in our lives, despite choices we’ve made in the past, we can choose an upright path.

Read the Jewish Daily Forward article

Chief investment strategist says Think Twice about the choices we make

Despite what our mothers tell us, following our gut is not always the best idea says Michael J. Mauboussin, chief investment strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management and author of Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition. Called “an insightful, well-researched discussion of our all-too-familiar cognitive failures,” the book springboards from America’s current financial crisis to discuss what Mauboussin pinpoints as our nation’s eight most common mistakes. Mis-skills include looking for answers in the wrong places and misunderstanding cause and effect. "To make good decisions,” Mauboussin writes, “you frequently must think twice—and that's something our minds would rather not do."

Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition
By Michael J. Mauboussin
Harvard Business Press; 208 pp.; $29.95

Read the BusinessWeek review

Former Navy lieutenant smuggles Iraqi art out of Green Zone

Of all the hundreds of stories we read each week while carrying out the Art Not Hate mission, there are some that just really make our hearts pound. At a time when their nation is being ripped apart by war, Christopher Brownfield, a former Navy lieutenant, smuggled paintings by Iraqi artists out of the Green Zone, risking life and career for the betterment of these artists’ livelihood. After auctioning the paintings at New York’s Pomegranate Gallery and sending all of his proceeds back to the artists, he launched an online gallery (below) to sell the artwork. Not just a story about helping one’s fellow man, Brownfield’s actions are evidence of the persistence of the human spirit in the face of impossible odds.

Read the Forbes article
Visit Christopher’s online gallery

Scientists say human kindness is nature, not nurture

Human kindness: nurture or nature? These days, scientists across a spectrum of schools are saying nature. New evidence suggests that infants display helpful behavior even before their parents begin teaching them social norms. Furthermore, humans’ innate helpfulness may have stemmed from ancient humans’ need to cooperate in finding food and shelter, and protecting the safety of the group. “Humans putting their heads together in shared cooperative activities are thus the originators of human culture,” Dr. Tomasello, a developmental psychiatrist, writes.

Read the New York Times article

‘Hebrew Mamita’ spreads spoken-word against Jewish stereotypes

Spoken word artist Vanessa Hidary is inspiring beaming shmaykhels on the faces of audiences all over Manhattan and the Web. Calling herself The Hebrew Mamita, Hidary aims to shatter stereotypes about the daughters of Abraham, “Bigging up all people who are a little miffed, cause someone tells you don’t look like, or act like your people. Impossible. ‘Cause you are your people. You just tell them they don’t look…PERIOD!” Hidary’s solo show, “Culture Bandit”, garnered attention at festivals and playhouses from New York to Los Angeles, including The Roar Theatre Festival at Nuyorican Poets Café and The Los Angeles Women's Theater Festival.

Watch Vanessa perform
Visit her site

What A Wonderful World it is that brought us Louis Armstrong

Nothing speaks to the beauty of imperfection and inspires hope in the human heart like Louis Armstrong singing “What A Wonderful World.” The gravel of his voice set aloft over airy strings, singing, “I hear babies cry/I watch them grow/They’ll learn much more/than I’ll ever know,” restores a certain sense faith in humanity’s ability to mend the wounds of hatred. Not all is lost, it says, Don’t lose hope. These are only growing pains.

Listen to “What a Wonderful World”

US futurologist says innovation is the economic way forward

The relationship between the human brain and the technology it creates is symbiotic, dynamic, and tied inextricably into world economy. US futurologist Jamais Cascio says in a culture like America’s, where innovation is the driving force of our economy, not only is failure inevitable—it’s necessary. In an interview with Viennese newspaper Die Presse, Cascio discusses America’s new wave of personalized technology, the necessity of trial and error, the future of the human brain, and the death of industrial Capitalism.

Read the interview

Six Mistakes Mankind Keeps Making Century After Century

2010-01-04T07:25:00.001-08:00

Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others;
Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected;
Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it;
Refusing to set aside trivial preferences;
Neglecting development and refinement of the mind;
Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.

– Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, lawyer, philosopher, 106 BC to 43 BC

These clear-eyed and crystalline words were written over 2,000 years ago by one of ancient Rome’s most revered and influential legislators. I often muse on these six points and try to embellish his simple litany of human blindness and stupidity…to no avail. The “Art Not Hate” project is a response to point five— it attempts to refine and develop our perception of both others and ourselves in the mix and mayhem of life. But, ironically, creative people can be as prejudiced and spiteful as those who do the world’s more mundane work (think Michael Richards [aka Kramer] on African Americans, and Mel Gibson on Jews). Nonetheless, when we create with others who are different from ourselves, there are inexplicable moments of empathy when we know that the person next to us shares our feelings and fate…and we are changed for the better.

Art Not Hate: Creative Responses to Conflict

2009-10-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

Our times and our selves are defined by conflict.

We are highly evolved mammals with big brains that can do the most ethereal abstract mathematical reasoning, produce masterpieces of music and art, envision astounding future possibilities — including our own mortality.

Still, we are sensate and aggressive creatures who crave the tactile intimacy of our clan and fear outsiders — and will not hesitate to violently attack perceived strangers.

This issue of Views From CreativeLedge explores the tension between our conflicting human tendencies to create and collaborate or to kill each other and destroy the hard won achievements of human culture.

In a world that has witnessed between 119,000,000 and 265,000,000 state-sponsored homicides (depending on who is doing the counting) between World War I and the present, this is not an academic question.

Perhaps the most compelling quote on the subject of overcoming our conflicted nature is from Charles Darwin:

“In the long history of humankind, those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have always prevailed.”

Leopold Engleitner's Story of Optimism

2009-10-10T10:06:00.000-07:00

Leopold Engleitner is the world's oldest known male Nazi concentration camp survivor whose experiences have been documented in the award winning book and film Unbroken Will.

For refusing to join Hitler's Army, Leopold Engleitner, an Austrian born in 1905, was interned in three of the most infamous Nazi Concentration Camps in Germany. His refusal to sign a simple declaration denouncing his religion and swearing his allegiance to the Reich put him in a collision course with Nazi Germany that nearly cost him his life. His iron will and his determination to stand up for just principles have become a role model for all. An old tattered suitcase became a symbol of hope for a long and impossible journey back home. At his release, he weighed less than 62 pounds, but today at the age of 103, he still lives to share his story of optimism.

Fresh from his lectures at Harvard University and in Florida, Leopold Engleitner will be visiting Los Angeles and appearing at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (May 14 and 24) the Moorpark College (May 22 and 23), UCLA (May 20) and the Lammle's Sunset 5 Theatre in West Hollywood, where his prize-winning documentary Unbroken Will and his 2006 USA Lecture Tour film will be screened from May 15 to 21, 2009 at 1:00 PM, 4:30 PM, 7:30 PM, 10:00 PM.

These excellent articles covered his first event on May 4, 2009 at Harvard University:

Holocaust survivor, 103, tells students of resisting Nazis
The Boston Globe

Oldest living Holocaust survivor speaks at Harvard
The Harvard Gazette

For further information please visit www.unbrokenwill.com.

6 Views of an Apple

2009-10-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

I photographed this apple about six years ago just outside of rural Bethel, Maine. It was a real visual cliché but I still like the image.

But even a simple piece of fruit can provoke some creative musings on the nature of human perception.

Consider these six views of an apple:

The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-Tse saw an apple hanging from a branch and was reported to have said — “Let it ripen and let it fall.” He would perceive the essence of all human existence with an unflinching eye.
A hungry hiker gazing upon the apple would see a free snack. Maybe it was planted by Johnny Appleseed for famished wayfarers.
A local journalist might scribble some snappy free associations for an autumn “local color” piece for the Sunday paper or a blog entry: Apple of my eye, An apple a day keeps the doctor away, etc.
An 18^th century Eastern European rabbi might see the fruit and coin a catchy proverb for his congregation: “To a worm in an apple, the whole world is an apple.” The same insight also apparently applies to horseradishes.
A natural scientist wandering by would probably want to know the Latin name of this particular tree, how old it is, and if the roots are shallow or go deep.
An economist or business person might survey the unblemished apple and start posing these hard-headed questions:
Can the tree pay for itself? Is it worth investing in fertilizer, pruning, insecticide? Is it worth the effort and money to grow certified “organic” fruit? Does it make more sense to cut it down and mill it into boards for high-priced apple wood tables, chairs, and cupboards?

With oil at well over a $130.00 per barrel, is firewood a better bet than fruit? Can the digital photo of the apple be sold to a stock photo company and then marketed to art directors worldwide?

Can it be pressed into cider or made into apple sauce and put into glass bottles or cute plastic cups with eye-catching graphic labels that proclaims to the world that this is “Bob’s Best Old Tymie Natural Apple Sauce: Good for the Stomach & Spirit & Planet.”

Who we are and what we do in life determines so much of how we see an apple…or the world.

It is inherently difficult to believe that what we see is not what others see. And, of course, we are entitled to the first and biggest bite!