wonderful interview with an artist and letterpress printer

http://www.commarts.com/column/stop-calling-yourself-creative

One of my favorite quotes from this interview:

“One does not master skills. Skills allow one to interpret the world. There is an energy that flows throughout life, and skills help you understand that energy. So, I have no desire to master anything. I wish to experience it with wonder.” -Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.

An embedded librarian

In the spring semester of 2015, Baylor University offered its very first book arts course, “Typography and the Artist’s Book” (ART 4338). For this upper level elective, Virginia Green (Associate Professor, Graphic Design) and I planned the course in such a way that students would gain experience creating a number of artist’s books in various structures. In preparation for their own projects, we planned several visits to the Baylor Book Arts Collection (BBAC) for the students to experience and study various structures. My position as art liaison librarian and curator of the BBAC has enabled me to develop valuable connections in the book arts world. Throughout the semester, I was able to integrate several opportunities for the students to engage with book artists, gallery owners, and dealers from across the country. Bill and Vicky Stewart of Vamp & Tramp Booksellers (Birmingham, Alabama) came to campus and exhibited works by numerous book artists with particular emphasis on some of the types of projects the students were working on. Peter and Donna Thomas (Santa Cruz, California) gave a public talk about artist’s books, held a workshop with the class, and led a paper making experience. Alicia Bailey of Abecedarian Gallery (Denver, Colorado) shared her works with the students, talked about her work as an artist, and led a creative writing experience. Alicia worked with us to shape the final student project that would be submitted to a juried exhibition this summer where the works were all based on the Julie Chen and Barabara Tetenbaum’s Artist’s Book Ideation Cards. Even Virginia and I created artist’s books for this show! As the art liaison librarian, this was a great experience for at least five reasons:

• Collaborating with faculty to design and enrich the course was rewarding and helpful in strengthening the relationship between librarian and teaching faculty.
• Integrating the BBAC throughout the course was a great opportunity heightened awareness of the collection and how it can be useful to faculty and students).
• Embedding the librarian throughout the course experience and working alongside the students on projects allowed me to gain a much greater appreciation and more focused view of the experiences and needs of the students and faculty.
• Embedding in the course and creating alongside the students and professor gave me valuable experience as a practicing artist in book arts (where previously I had just been involved from an academic and curatorial perspective).
• Sharing this experience allowed me to build strong relationships with the students and professors (including other professors who sat in on the class or who hovered nearby, intrigued by all the excitement) and has resulted in a number of other collaborations, working relationships, and opportunities.

Sha Towers
Art Liaison Librarian and Director of Liaison Services
Baylor University Libraries, Waco, Texas

ThanksGIVE or ThanksGET?

Did you take a moment to think about what you’re thankful for this past week? At our Thanksgiving meal we have a family tradition of taking a moment to go around the table and reflect, lighting the candle of the person next to you and sharing something for which you’re thankful. Are the candles necessary? No, we have electricity. I think the candles are a visible symbol of many ideas, but maybe most importantly they are a reflection of intentionality. It takes time to light candles and not catch your neighboring family member on fire. It helps slow us down, helps us take the time to stop and reflect. If you stopped to think about giving thanks, what did you lift up? Personally, I wrestled with not wanting to say the same thing that everyone else wanted to say (even though I am very much thankful for all those things too). I didn’t want to go on with a long list, even though certainly is a long list of things for which to be thankful. There are lots of things that I probably wouldn’t even remember to be thankful for or list because the bounty that surrounds us is so plentiful. During this family ritual, our eleven year old, Carter, said he was thankful that we were able to help people that morning – taking Thanksgiving meals to less fortunate people in the community. It struck me that most of what we’re thankful for is a benefit or blessing for us. Thankful for what WE have. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that and I think we SHOULD stop and give thanks for the many blessings we have. [Insert levity here:] Carter’s reflection was followed by younger brother Max’s contribution: “I’m thankful for mySELF”! When I heard Carter’s response, my immediate reaction was “what a thoughtful and considerate young man!” and then I didn’t think about it anymore that day. But his focus on being thankful for how we can help others returned to me last night as I waited in line at the grocery store.

There were only two people in front of me and I was elated to be so fortunate. I don’t usually have much patience waiting in line at the store. Just when I thought this was about to be my favorite (and shortest) trip ever, the woman at the front of the line attempting to pay, ran into trouble. I noticed she was using a Lone Star Card (food stamp program) and it wasn’t working. While trying not to get frustrated with her child who was getting impatient, she attempted to call someone on the phone to solve the problem. At this point, I remember thinking, “seriously, you’re calling someone?” My speedy trip through the line just ground to a halt. The person she was calling didn’t answer and she seemed panicked about what to do. She did, however, seem concerned that she was holding up the line. For that, I gave thanks. I decided that really, I wasn’t late for an important meeting or anything, so it wouldn’t hurt me to calm down and make sure I wasn’t sending any signals of being irritated or inconvenienced. The woman asked the cashier if there was anyway she could move her loaded grocery cart to the side and let the people behind go ahead while she waited for her lifeline to return her call. After all my groceries were loaded and paid for, I could tell she wasn’t any closer to a resolution and Carter’s message rang through my head again — be thankful for how you can help others. I asked the cashier how much the woman owed and if I could pay for it. He looked at me like I was crazy. I was nervous about how much the bill might be. I certainly don’t mind giving an amount that won’t inconvenience me, but if the price tag were above that, would I be able to say, “Oh, then nevermind!” without looking like a jerk? The amount was not inconsequential, but it was less than my own groceries, so I swallowed hard and handed over again my credit card. As I prepared to leave, the woman with two kids and a cart full of groceries kept trying to call someone to help with her situation. I wheeled my groceries by, handed her the receipt, and said, “Merry Christmas, you’re good to go.” I smiled and quickly went on my way, not wanting to seem like I was waiting for her to shower me with thank yous.

One of the things I didn’t say at our Thanksgiving meal was that I was thankful to have enough money to put food on the table. I never even stopped to consider it. I was too busy thinking about things more fortunate people have to be thankful for. It always bothers me when people say things like “we are so fortunate” – It feels greedy to me, but it’s true. Maybe it feels uncomfortable because it seems to demand that we take action in light of the acknowledgement. If we are so fortunate, perhaps we have an obligation to use that fortune, to share those blessings. Are we thankful for what we have (that makes our lives easier, more comfortable, more convenient, more cushy) or are we thankful for the opportunities to help other people?

If you’ve made it this far, do me a favor. I’d love it if instead of commenting on this post, instead of giving me kudos for being such a benevolent person, you do these three things. Take a moment to reflect on opportunities to give. Then give thanks for those opportunities. Then act.

Like a father…

On father’s day, we sang a hymn at church entitled “Loving Spirit” written by New Zealand hymn writer Shirley Erena Murray (b.1931), set to one of my favorite tunes, RESTORATION*, from Walker’s Southern Harmony of 1835.

Full disclosure — I picked this hymn (as the music director of our church). I should also add that I’m not a fan of letting secular holidays or observances horn in on the worship of the church. In my view, Worship isn’t about Mother’s Day, Veteran’s Day, etc. But that’s not what this post is about. It just so happens that this hymn uses father imagery (as well as mother, friend, and lover imagery) to explore the nature of the Holy Spirit. But it did seem particularly poignant to me as I stood in the pew with Ann and our two boys on Father’s Day, that this hymn included this line:

“Like a father you protect me, teach me the discerning eye, hoist me up upon your shoulder, let me see the world from high.”

It caught my attention for a number of reasons– the joy and responsibility that comes with being a parent, that parents are called to protect and to teach. But what really moved me was this idea of helping our children (as well as God helping us as God’s children) to see the world in a different way, from a larger, higher-altitude perspective than a child could on his or her own. The image of hoisting up on our shoulders is beautiful. It also made me sad to think of all the times when Max (our now six year old) has asked me to put him on my shoulders and I’ve said, “you’re too heavy” or “it’ll hurt my back” or “we’re too busy for that right now.” I’m going home after work today and putting him on my shoulders just because I can and to think about what such an act means. I’m also thinking about what such an act looks like with our oldest, Carter (now eleven and almost as tall as me!)– perhaps more figuratively than literally! This act is not just about the mechanics of one person sitting on top of another person’s shoulders. It’s about connecting, doing for others, of partnership, of being a servant, of lifting up another, of sharing an experience and view of life.

*Here’s a link to an organ arrangement of the tune by Herbert Colvin, who was my music theory professor during my undergrad.

IMG_1188

what I had for lunch today (4.22.14)

a three-mile run along the Brazos River trail in Cameron Park, filled with dappled shade, great tunes, bird song, walkers, runners, mountain bikers, a skink, a family with a little person and one on the way that were going on a hike that i stopped and took their photo for them, thoughts about grace, beauty, calm, and gratefulness.

manuscripts and melismas

Today I worked with Jann Cosart and her Medieval music history course to facilitate the exploration of Baylor’s Medieval music manuscript collection (the Jennings Collection). It’s always a joy helping introduce students to these amazing artifacts, dating from the 11th to the 16th centuries. It’s hard to get their heads (and mine too!) around the idea that we’re looking at a document that’s nearly 1,000 years old.

For whatever reason, sleep slipped out of my grasp about 4am this morning and no matter how much or how long I tried, I couldn’t go back to sleep. Instead I got up and relished the quiet, dark, drinking an unhurried cup of coffee and re-acquainting myself with a book I rediscovered on our bookshelves just yesterday but fondly remembered from fifteen or so years earlier. The book was Meditations On the Monk Who Dwells in Daily Life by Thomas Moore.

Two meditations caught my eye as I thought about meeting with the class today:

What is the difference between an illuminated manuscript created by a monk and a page freshly spewed out of a modern word processor? The computer page is eminently legible, quickly produced, perhaps beautiful, and created by the collaboration of human and machine. The illuminated page is beautiful, slowly produced, not terribly legible, and printed in solitude. The monk works with his hand, close to his ink, ready for a slip of the pen, meditating as he works. Is there a way to bring the spirit of the monk to the computer, and by extension to all our machine work, without making either an anachronism?

And one that was perfectly fitting for the day and the way it started:

Sometimes in their chanting, monks will land upon a note and sing it in florid fashion, one syllable of text for fifty notes of chant. Melisma, they call it. Living a melismatic life in imitation of plainchant, we may stop on an experience, a place, a person, or a memory and rhapsodize in imagination. Some like to meditate or contemplate melismatically, while others prefer to draw, build, paint, or dance whatever their eye has fallen upon. Living one point after another is one form of experience, and it can be emphatically productive. But stopping for melisma gives the soul its reason for being.

on capturing life

while i really like the idea of a journal or diary, i’ve never been very successful at it. i’m still not, but i’ve been using an online tool that has certainly helped and has shown me a benefit of journaling: http://ohlife.com/. each evening, i receive an email saying “how’d your day go?” and by replying to the email, i’ve added an entry to my online journal at ohlife. i like the reminder and the ease. sometimes i write a sentence, sometimes more, sometimes i delete it feeling like i’m too busy or my inbox is stressing me out. most times i don’t reply until the next day (who knows what’ll happen latter that night you’d want to write about!) and sometimes (though i don’t recommend it), i catch up on replying to several days worth of emails all at once.

here’s what i really love about this tool though. the “how’d your day go?” email always includes this: “remember this? one month ago you wrote… [along whatever you submitted that day]. the time machine varies, sometimes it’s a month ago, a week ago, a year ago, etc. i’ve even seen things like “800 days ago you wrote…”. pretty cool. but the part i love the most is that i am reminded of really great moments of life, that quickly get lost in the busyness and tedium of life. i’ve realized that often, no matter how meaningful a life moment might be, that it is so easy for it to get buried under layers and layers of other life, and then in many ways, lost. here’s a an example that arrived in my inbox recently that resurfaced the kind of thing i want to remember. to me, this is the real beauty of recording life in a journal.

Remember this? One month ago you wrote…

easy start to the morning everyone in the kitchen eating at roughly the same time. running some errands before our trip. after we got home, carter and I stood in the garage with the door open watching the rain and talking. it was clear it was a moment that I want to remember and cherish. carter was carrying some stuff in from the car and said, “I’m going to take this inside and then I’ll come back and we can talk some more.” 🙂 he’s already not that talkative at age 10, so this was a really great moment.

making a difference

Today I received an email from a student that caused me to stop and reflect. Well, to be fair, I read it and quickly shot off an email response and didn’t give it much thought. But then it occurred to me that there’s plenty to reflect on here. First, I’m not at work today (well not the usual sense of work)- I’m in another state, at a library conference. So kudos to me for my timely response to a “reference question”, right? [insert glowing compliments here].

But more importantly, the question tells a story. The question came from a music grad student at Baylor with whom I’d worked in the past. Each Fall, for more than a decade, I’ve been fortunate to be a part of the School of Music’s graduate research methods course, working alongside wonderful colleagues from the SOM who see the value of libraries and librarians and who are willing to share the stage with me to help guide their students through the morass of electronic tools and resources that can help them navigate through the metaphoric sea of information. More on that later.

Here’s the email I received (name withheld to protect the innocent) and below it, my reflections.

From: IDENTITY REMOVED@baylor.edu>
Date: April 11, 2013, 2:55:54 PM EDT
To: “Towers, Sha”
Subject: Google Reader is closing!

Hey Sha,
You got me hooked on Google’s RSS in Research Methods last semester and now they’re closing it! I’m heart-broken! It’s so sad. What am I supposed to use now? What would you recommend?

Anyway, I hope you’re having a great day!

As I thought more about this email, there were several things that stood out to me.

  • That the student paid attention to what I was teaching (that is amazing enough!)
  • That nearly a year later, she remembered it was me that taught her about this tool
  • That it made a difference for her way beyond the assignment and the course
  • That she turned to a librarian to help her with the next chapter of her information gathering needs
  • BTW, I told her to check out Feedly.com – where I just finished moving my own google reader universe.

    So you if you’re still reading and you happen to remember (or glance back up at the title of this blogpost), you’re probably thinking I’m patting myself on the back for “making a difference” in the life of this student. But that’s only part of the story. The other part is that this email, this experience of helping people, this “being a librarian” is rewarding…fulfilling…meaningful. This email made me stop and realize that this work, this job, this vocation, makes a difference to me.

    The Most Beautiful Place in the World

    Ann asked me to check a book out from the library to read to her class and she shared with me this beautiful ending to the book:

    I started to wonder if San Pablo really was the most beautiful place in the world. I wasn’t sure my grandmother had ever been anyplace else, but I still thought she’d know.
    “Grandma,” I said, is it?”
    “Is what?” she said.
    “Is San Pablo the most beautiful place in the world?”
    My grandmother made a little face.
    “The most beautiful place in the world,” she said, “is anyplace.”
    “Anyplace?” I repeated.
    “Anyplace you can hold your head up. Anyplace you can be proud of who you are.”
    “Yes,” I said.
    But I thought, where you love somebody a whole lot, and you know that person loves you, that’s the most beautiful place in the world.

    The Most Beautiful Place in the World, by Ann Cameron

    twenty years ago…

    Twenty years ago, I embarked on a journey with my best friend, Ann. Way back then, I knew I loved her, but like all twenty somethings, I had no idea what I knew or didn’t…no idea what depths and heights were even possible in anything. And while all these years later, I certainly don’t profess to be an expert at anything, this journey has taught me much about life, love, and relationship…about hardship, pain, immense joy, soul crushing heartache, selfishness, selflessness…about laughter and forgiveness, about companionship, and grace. Thank you, Ann, for being my partner on this wonderful journey. I love you.