Ephemera Newsletter Iss Feb.2

(Creativity and Motivation Weekly)

Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter, Snēhitulu! (Telugu for “friends”).

Dear Readers,

Some Housekeeping Notes:

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Merci. Danke. Kiitos. 고마워 Go-ma-wo, Xiè xiè.

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Ephemera

We’re taking note of limitations, particularly the disadvantage of blindness and how that might affect one’s art, one’s thinking and perception. While most of us are not literally blind—no sight—we all suffer from a type of non-seeing and can likely effect what it might be like to go forever without the sense. Ever closed your eyes and walked around your house? Taken a risk on the beach or a hiking trail and kept moving relying on your other senses? We have the utmost empathy for those folks who cannot see, and a super appreciation for any art they nevertheless create (whether writing, music, or painting), gobs of respect and marvel for virtuosity, the superlative. Can we learn from such artists? Of course, their perseverance is laudable. What else can they teach the non-blind regarding how to think askance, how to compensate, how their truth enables, ostensibly, a deeper creativity? Our selections this week fascinate and inspire us. Epiphany often comes at the other end of a type of struggle. Spirit be their, our, eyes.

Ephemera delivers to your senses inspiration and pragmatism: 3 zines, 3 opportunities, 3 jobs. This week, we’re feeling out Art Tatum’s blindness-enhanced jazz piano ‘vision,’ which borrowed widely to concoct a unique and precedent setting style. We’re marveling at the electric bright colors of blind painter John Bramblitt, who learned to see with his hands after half a life of eyesight. Also, an Interesante regarding whales, how they use air bubbles as tools! A book rec: a novel written by a blind author. Never let a physical limitation control what you achieve. Explore & expand within your bounds, exceed them by any means. Be more. Think beyond…

…Limitations of the physical variety in others reveal to us how we might overcome. Identify your roadblocks. Know everything about it. Lean in to any perceived deficit and master the space it allows. Then, exceed. Grow beyond. Refine senses that you can use and marvel in how far they’ll take you. Limitation of the senses aren’t dissimilar in concept to artistic forms, media: a structured poem versus free verse: a short story without using the letter ‘e.’ Learn from limits, from the limited. Often, new thought patterns emerge, ways of viewing an art form. Try writing with your eyes closed for an entire sitting. Try embalming yourself with white noise. Change and challenge your sensory apparatuses. Think a poem. Feel a poem. Perform a poem. Memorize a poem. Black-out a poem. Find a poem. At the core of limitation is challenge. The brain will work to overcome when encumbered, and in that struggle we can find a type of creative epiphany. Always appreciate, too, those who yield at any level, particularly in the face of considerable odds against. Go there yourself, for your art, for your humanity.

“I see the world differently now than when I was sighted, both in a physical way but also emotionally…. When I lost my sight I thought I would be cast into a world of darkness; to my surprise…. Being an artist this gave me a way to explore this new perceptual world that I found myself in, and more importantly a way to reach out and connect with those around me.”
—John Bramblitt, Painter

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Kr̥tajñata!
(Gratitude)

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~We’re so happy you’re here!~

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