It's with great excitement that we embark on our search for the 2016 Kevin Workman Foundation Sponsored Artist. All systems are go, FTL drives spun up, warp engines engaged, flux capacitors fluxing, heighliners ready for boarding, alert Vipers ready for launch. Let's do this!
Each year we sponsor an artist to attend San Diego Comic Con International, which unless you've only recently been decanted from a Carbonite slab you'll know as the most storied and sought-after convention of its kind in the known universe. The Foundation's program provides a Sponsored Artist with up to two (2) 4-day badges for access to the sold out convention along with an opportunity to showcase their portfolio, sell product, and network from the KWF booth. For more details, check out the Sponsored Artist Program overview, and be sure to read the FAQ. Keep your hailing frequencies open and join our mailing list to hear the latest. But most importantly:
If you're an artist, a fan of an artist, or friends and family of an artist, we want to hear from you! Go here to submit an application or nomination.
And as we pause here, in late November, to consider the approaching holidays, let's also be thankful. Let's be thankful for all the artists and their creations that have inspired us.
Look around, watch the news. Our planet is a big, sometimes rough, often chaotic place, where too few of us sit high enough on the rungs of Maslow's Hierarchy to regularly create and appreciate art. In too many places, the season is neither happy nor abundant with reasons to be thankful. With so many pressing needs, we might wonder, why focus on art? Well, to get that answer, we have to start at first principles.
Each year we sponsor an artist to attend San Diego Comic Con International, which unless you've only recently been decanted from a Carbonite slab you'll know as the most storied and sought-after convention of its kind in the known universe. The Foundation's program provides a Sponsored Artist with up to two (2) 4-day badges for access to the sold out convention along with an opportunity to showcase their portfolio, sell product, and network from the KWF booth. For more details, check out the Sponsored Artist Program overview, and be sure to read the FAQ. Keep your hailing frequencies open and join our mailing list to hear the latest. But most importantly:
If you're an artist, a fan of an artist, or friends and family of an artist, we want to hear from you! Go here to submit an application or nomination.
And as we pause here, in late November, to consider the approaching holidays, let's also be thankful. Let's be thankful for all the artists and their creations that have inspired us.
Look around, watch the news. Our planet is a big, sometimes rough, often chaotic place, where too few of us sit high enough on the rungs of Maslow's Hierarchy to regularly create and appreciate art. In too many places, the season is neither happy nor abundant with reasons to be thankful. With so many pressing needs, we might wonder, why focus on art? Well, to get that answer, we have to start at first principles.
By first principles, we're looking at the fundamentals that govern our perception and understanding of the universe. As in, "F = ma", "E = mc²", and "Only even-numbered Trek movies are good". As in, "What motivates us to do things of importance." The answer resides in this question:
When did you first feel inspiration?
Rocket Ship Galileo - Original Printing Cover - Kosmosaic Books
For me, it was the moment I picked up a dog-eared copy of Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo at the school library. It was the moment I read the first words of an adventure where American heroes and Nazi villains used science and engineering to uncover mysteries and battle adversaries on the surface of the moon. Definitely some uncomplicated steak-and-potatoes 50's sci-fi themes, to be sure. But to me it was also an introduction to the wow-we-can-really-do-that world of aerospace engineering. To me, this moment of inspiration was the beginning of a personal narrative that would lead to careers in aviation and engineering. In that moment-- and all subsequent moments like it-- inspiration was synthesized, created, and mediated by art. Artists and their creations were the vehicles that brought inspiration to me. And judging from the amount of mileage I get in project teams by dropping Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, and other references, I'm not alone in my Rocket Ship Galileo moment.
Inspiration is what fuels us to action. Actions, large or small, are what change our world. Inspiration comes from art; we see it again and again. Even technological and scientific inspiration finds its origins in art. Einstein attributed his scientific insight and intuition mainly to music. The structure and cadence of poetry inspired Ada Lovelace, a 19th Century mathematician and champion of Babbage's Analytical Engines, to develop the concepts of algorithms and computer programming that would eventually underpin all of computer science. Inspiration for social and political change comes from art, often the pragmatic artistry of a photojournalist. A haunting photo shot by Steve McCurry for National Geographic Magazine in 1985 inspired a cynical Cold War world to shake off its torpor and consider the human cost of an ongoing war in Afghanistan. A heartbreaking photo shot by Daniel Etter in 2015 will inspire a war-weary world to stand up and address the legacies of Afghanistan throughout the region-- we hope.
And even where we might fail to act, the art remains, creating those moments of inspiration, those calls to action. These moments launch narratives, the stories of our lives, and what we'll do with them.
Joss Wedon, sci-fi poet laureate of the arcane language of Firefly Chinese Curses, said it best in a panel at Con this year:
Inspiration is what fuels us to action. Actions, large or small, are what change our world. Inspiration comes from art; we see it again and again. Even technological and scientific inspiration finds its origins in art. Einstein attributed his scientific insight and intuition mainly to music. The structure and cadence of poetry inspired Ada Lovelace, a 19th Century mathematician and champion of Babbage's Analytical Engines, to develop the concepts of algorithms and computer programming that would eventually underpin all of computer science. Inspiration for social and political change comes from art, often the pragmatic artistry of a photojournalist. A haunting photo shot by Steve McCurry for National Geographic Magazine in 1985 inspired a cynical Cold War world to shake off its torpor and consider the human cost of an ongoing war in Afghanistan. A heartbreaking photo shot by Daniel Etter in 2015 will inspire a war-weary world to stand up and address the legacies of Afghanistan throughout the region-- we hope.
And even where we might fail to act, the art remains, creating those moments of inspiration, those calls to action. These moments launch narratives, the stories of our lives, and what we'll do with them.
Joss Wedon, sci-fi poet laureate of the arcane language of Firefly Chinese Curses, said it best in a panel at Con this year:
The world is a random and meaningless terrifying place and then we all—spoiler alert—die. Most critters are designed not to know that. We are designed, uniquely, to transcend that, and to understand that—I can quote myself—a thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts.
...the main function of the human brain, the primary instinct, is storytelling. Memory is storytelling... My idea is that stories that we then hear and see and internalize—and wear hats from and come to conventions about... We all come here to celebrate only exactly that: storytelling, and the shared experience of what that gives us. The shared experience of storytelling gives us strength and peace.
Every story, every action, every invention has at its origin a Big Bang of inspiration, a flash of insight brought about by a condensing cloud of art and creativity. Artistry is everywhere, mediating and inspiring our experience with the world-- Even more so in a networked age of digital photography, social media, blogging, and social video. Artists are there with us, inspiring us every step of the way, as fundamental, universal, and cross-cultural as mass, magnetism, gravity, the exponential spread of Con Funk, and other first principles.
So art is important. Artists are important. Be thankful for both, celebrate both. And if you're an aspiring artist, or know one, get in touch with us. And join our mailing list.
In the meantime, attack the holiday banquet trenchers with the sublime confidence of knowing that mass is neither created nor destroyed. Have an inspired Thanksgiving!
So art is important. Artists are important. Be thankful for both, celebrate both. And if you're an aspiring artist, or know one, get in touch with us. And join our mailing list.
In the meantime, attack the holiday banquet trenchers with the sublime confidence of knowing that mass is neither created nor destroyed. Have an inspired Thanksgiving!
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