Holiday Greetings to All.
Picture Courtesy of Franz Wurm, Executive Director of Wintergarten-Fashverband of Germany Austria
Tanglewood Conservatories Home > Blog
December 27, 2009
December 21, 2009
Art, some thoughts…
My earlier comment about “most books being like skeletons in a graveyard…” is related to my experiences as an artist.
To me, the most important aspect of creating art, is the experience that I encounter as I confront the creative process.
Years ago, I discovered that there were several ways that my mind could work. At the “lowest” level, the ideas that come out are simply an automatic regurgitation of preconceptions. In this way, I am not really seeing anything about the particular project itself or anything new, but just working from memory of things I’ve seen or heard before with no sense of what is appropriate at this moment.
It seemed to me that a good word to describe this level of interaction was: automatic. I also saw that unfortunately, most “artistic” endeavors happen at this level.
I thought: “If I want to design a chair for example, where do I usually begin? Where do most of us begin something like this? With what we already know. I have seen hundreds of chairs in all sizes, shapes, designs etc., so presto, into my mind comes a favorite and off I go with my design!
A step or more up from this is what seemed to be denoted by the word: sensitive. Suddenly, my mind would “see” the relationships that were specific to this particular thing and I was able to use my sensitivity to arrange them in a way that made it more itself in a way. It was as if I woke up. I can see that what I was doing before was only working from something very automatic.
So I might suddenly begin to think about the question: What is this thing, a chair? What need is it trying to fulfill? How can I design something that best fills that need, even if it looks nothing like the “chair” in my mind, and I start to solve the problem of “a chair” for and of itself, not related to the hundreds of preconceived notions of a chair that are in my “automatic” mind. This can not only lead to some very interesting and creative outcomes, but is also an interesting exercise to be tried for itself.
Most of the time, I find it very difficult to make this mental leap and get below the surface. Even when I am thinking about it and trying to do it, I am just only “thinking” about it, not “doing” it. Even when I see this, other preconceived thoughts come up to take their place.
Something usually has to happen to jolt me into seeing it in a different way. I think that many good artists are able to work at this level with out the struggle, it just seems to come about naturally.
For me, the process of challenging myself is far more important than the final result of the creative process, no matter how great the outcome. That is why the result, the finished design or piece of “art” I consider really only incidental. It is only what remains after the spark of creativity. It is the just the skeleton left over.
On some rare occasion, another way of “seeing” appears by itself and there is something so new that it would be as if it did not come from my mind at all. This is what I thought to call true creativity.
Happy Holidays to all.
Alan
December 12, 2009
We have the BEST team!
Set to lift the cupola into place with crane.
Icy trim parts.
I was inspired this morning when on opening my email, I found these pictures of a conservatory greenhouse project we are currently building in the frigid Northeast along with a note from our lead installer on the project, Jim.
Our clients, hopeful that we could design, manufacture and actually complete the installation of their new greenhouse before winter set in begged us to work expeditiously towards that end. They dearly wanted to be able to start to use the room this year. It might actually have been a Christmas present for someone – I don’t know, but that has been requested of us before.
His note: “Team, Crane arrived on time and lift (of cupola) proceeded without incident. Started exterior cornice and pilasters. Had a big daytime high of 28 degrees (F) with a significant wind chill. That stuff you see hanging off the pilaster is solid ice. Jim”
Normally, we would not tackle an installation of one of our conservatory projects in wintery weather unless there was an overriding reason. A project can be successfully built in the cold, even in the snow (we completed an installation in a blizzard once), however the going is much slower and extra special attention must be paid to everyone’s safety and the sequence of assembly steps. Our extremely dedicated team however is up to the challenge when required.
All of us here at Tanglewood realize that the satisfaction of our clients is the most important thing in the end and we are willing to pull together to do what ever is asked and to work a little extra to make them happy, even if it costs us a bit more to do. This is the way I believe a business needs to treat people if it wants to build itself into a great company.
One of the next jobs the team is scheduled to tackle is in Hawaii so we hope that thought helps to keep them warm.
Great job, everyone on the Tanglewood team, thank you!
“Enlightenment is not about becoming something different than we are, but seeing what we already are.”
Alan
December 5, 2009
Some Thoughts on Building a Team
The thought occurred to me as I was recently reading, that most books are like skeletons in the graveyard. The flash of creative life that was genesis of the work (if there was any to begin with) is long gone and only the words, empty of that force, remain.
Words seem to mean something entirely different for each person. Sometimes I’m reminded of that Sunday school story of the Tower of Babel, (if I remember it correctly), where they were trying to build a tower up to heaven until God made them all speak in different languages at which time their work came to an immediate halt.
It seems that we are all still speaking in different languages even though we are using the exact same words – and we don’t normally realize it, and we get really upset with other people when they don’t agree with us!
It’s not surprising that there is so much discord in the world, if you look at it from this perspective.
One of the most important things we are working on here at Tanglewood is communication. The perspective that we have focused on is that of personality types. It seems that compounding the “language barrier”, (or maybe being part of it), is the difference in how each of us relate to the world based on our particular personality type. No matter which personality typing system that you use, the basic concept is the same.
It seems that people “see” and relate to the world around them through the particular color of their own “glasses”. We all come to the world pre-programmed in this way both by our heredity (nature) and our upbringing (nurture). Each personality typing system seeks build some sort of classification system that groups certain traits together and hopefully helps us understand and make some sense out of our similarities and differences.
The aim, I think is, if we can understand more objectively what and who we are and what and who others are, we might have a better chance (on a good day!) of communicating more effectively and less destructively.
One other thing about all this that I recently noticed is about working together in a group. It seemed to me that my own particular way of being connected to the world (my personality type) offers me up both a potential benefit as well as a trap. If I can learn what my strengths are, what I can rely on in myself to get right in a situation, I have a valuable, powerful asset. But, unless I can also see where my blind spots are, what do I continually, almost by nature, miss in situations, I will forever go round in circles.
This is where the study of personality types might be of some assistance, since if I can identify with a particular “type”, then I might be able to benefit from a more objective view of myself. I would guess that the best of systems would also come with some tools in addition,to help one build on ones strengths and mitigate one’s weaknesses.
If I can gain some degree of objectivity, then I might actually be able to “listen” more objectively to other people and find a benefit in their alternate perspective on a situation.
At Tanglewood, we are working in just this way to be able to build a team in which people understand the limitations of their own perspective and value the perspective of others. If we can do this, our team can become infinitely stronger and more effective because we have the potential to see an issue from many more points of view than just our own personal limited one (no matter how great it is).
We have seen breakthroughs here as a result of this process and continue to push forward building a truly great, world class company, and learning something about ourselves in the process.
Well, I didn’t really mean to talk about this when I started writing today, but there it is! I’ll get to the other stuff later.
Alan