Our School of the Art Insitute Creativity Class Adventure

In the quest to have a truly awesomely creative 50th year- Eileen and I signed up for a 10 week adult continuing Ed art class at the school of the Art Institute of Chicago. We just came back from week 3s class. It is FABULOUS. We are meeting interesting new people, being challenged in the creative process and the best part is we get to spend a whole evening together - just us 2 -
We race out of work to catch the 4:00 PM train and have 45 minutes to discuss life. Our train gets us to the big city at 4:45 and we leisurely walk to class. Along the way we have stopped at "pop up art" store fronts, art supply stores, and of course a couple of different cafes for a bite to eat. Class is from 6-8. We have had wonderful discussions and fabulous projects to get our creative juices flowing...some questions posed have been: Can a museum be a democracy? What is an evocative object? Can architecture be democratic? SO THOUGHT provoking-absolutely nothing to do with "the Common Core and what a 3rd grader needs to succeed in the 21st Century!"(What my work life asks of me the rest of the week.)
Two projects which I have experienced through this class thus far are a DRIFT and creating an evocative objects museum. The assignment for the drift was to take a walk with absolutely no destination for no less than 90 minutes. I was able to "drift in the city" last Monday before class. It was an exercise in observation and so very peaceful. I came away with many observations; "People will smile at you if you smile first-the same can not be said about a 'hello'...maybe that is because you have to have eye contact with a smile?" "I love the sounds produced by different languages even if I do not know what is being said." "A park bench allow for unquestioned contemplation."
The evocative museum was a group project which forced me to work with people I did not know to create and then present our ideas. The objects that we brought to share were varied and unique to our own life-we had to put the objects together in a way that would present itself as a "democratic museum." It was a wacky project that at first I was uninspired by, BUT after working through the process I learned about myself and other's perceptions about my work-FASCINATING!
I am so very lucky to have a friend that I can talk into taking art classes with, a husband who does not care that I am away from home on a weeknight, a job which allows me to catch a 4:00 train, a city that provides interesting cultural opportunities....the list goes on and on- My 50th year adventure is turning out to be pretty wonderful!    Lucy

These are just a few books suggested by our instructor John.

My ID card...haven't had a school ID in 20 years!

 Objects from the "evocative museum"

A store front with a picture of Mikhail Baryshnikov-which I passed on my "drift."

A water feature also from the drift.