To create means to relate.

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"Creativity belongs to the artist in each of us. To create means to relate. The root meaning of the word art is 'to fit together' and we all do this every day." - Corita Kent

A notebook about how we work, learn, love and live.

The life of Roman Catholic nun, artist, and educator, Corita Kent, is inspiring. Her ability to blend art, spiritual connection, social activism and support for personal agency are a model of how to find hope in a changing world.

"In this speedy world of ours," she said, "when facts are multiplying rapidly and giant rearrangements are happening all around us, it seems dangerous to be made nervous by the new - to want what we can never have, to want things not to be rearranged. It would be better to be able to take the leap, which is to be able not only to live with change and newness, but even to help make it."

A lot of people are helping to make change and newness. Here's a few examples I found this week.

Happy Friday.

Learning, Personal Development
"Rule 4: Consider everything an experiment."

I've talked with you about Sister Caritas Kent's ten Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules. They are inspiring and relevant to anyone interested in personal growth, learning, and teaching any subject. This week I stumbled upon a video by curator Sarah Urist Green. In it she holds up each of the rules, and uses their insights as jumping off points to celebrate Kent's whole life.

Video: Art + Life Rules from a Nun

Learning, Creative Process
It seems that creative people don’t see unusual information as quite so unusual.

Robert Delaunay, 1913, Premier Disque.

"My work explores the ways in which creative individuals prioritise information differently to their less creative counterparts. In one of our studies, my research collaborators and I used a classic task to see how the brain responds to another type of high priority information: surprising information. Participants listened to mostly repetitive auditory tones with the occasional rare – or ‘oddball’ – tone, while their brain activity was recorded using an electroencephalogram. Typically, individuals’ brains respond to the rare stimulus with a well-defined spike in neural activity, known as the P300, which indicates surprise. But for creative individuals? We find this spike is less pronounced.

"In other words, it seems that creative people don’t see unusual information as quite so unusual. This may offer a big advantage for creative thinking because it blurs the line between what’s typical and atypical, allowing unusual ideas to be considered – and ensuring that the most obvious parts of a problem do not take up all the attention." - Madeleine Gross

Article: A Key Part of Creativity is Picking Up On What Others Overlook.

Habitat, Public Spaces
A crochet teacher and her students replaced plastic awnings with beautiful recycled fabrics.

"Southern Spain is no stranger to hot weather, and the town of Alhaurín de la Torre, in Malaga, has used plastic awnings to shade its walkways for years. But three years ago, the City Council's Department of the Environment wanted to ditch the plastic in favor of a more eco-friendly solution. They found their solution-provider in Eva Pacheco, a local crochet teacher.

"Pacheco and nearly a dozen women, all students of hers, used recycled fabric to crochet this eye-catching assemblage of sunshades for the town. Rolled out each summer for the past three years, the sunshades—which are added to by Pacheco and her students each year—is now up to roughly 500 square meters (5,381 square feet) of fabric." - Rain Noe

Article: From Spain, a Creative and Eco-Friendly Way to Beat the Heat

Advertising, Social Messaging
Ads that speak clearly with just an image and a headline.

This ad campaign by Shiyang he of advertising agency Ogilvy’s Beijing office is strikingly simple. By positioning the phone as a physical wall in a living room, a kitchen and a bedroom, the ads help client Shenyang Center For Psychological Research make a powerful statement: smartphones can have detrimental effects on human relationships.

Article: The More You Connect, The Less You Connect

Civics, Social Messaging
Across the country, women are reminding each other to cast their vote freely and privately—regardless of the political beliefs of their spouse or partner.

"In a world where the political gender gap is growing as women become more liberal, a clever grassroots campaign is reminding women of a fundamental truth: Their vote is private. This guerrilla movement uses a simple yet powerful tool—Post-It notes—to reach women whose partners may disagree with their political choices.

"The premise is simple: small, brightly colored notes discreetly placed in public spaces, like bathroom stalls, libraries, cafes, dorm buildings, workplace lounges, doctors’ offices and community boards. Each note carries the message that every woman has the right to cast her vote freely and privately." - Roxanne Szal

Article: Women, Your Vote Is a Secret, Says New Guerrilla Post-It Campaign

Habitat, Public Spaces
A design to "reinstate the library's relevance in the 21st century"

Photo by Yumeng Zhu.

"International studio Snøhetta has completed Beijing City Library in China, a glass-lined building filled with towering tree-like columns and rooms disguised as hills."

"Its design is based on natural landscapes and prioritizes helping visitors to connect to the outside, enticing them away from their screens."

"The heart of Beijing City Library is Valley, a 16-metre-tall atrium filled with a series of hill-like mounds that are lined with tiered seating, stairs and bookshelves. A winding walkway runs through its centre." - Lizzie Crook

Article: Snøhetta Creates Library to Emulate Feeling of "Sitting Under a Tree".

Culture, Bookstores
Books + ephemera for collectors just like me

Last weekend Debbie and I visited our son Devan and his family in Portland, OR. Devan insisted that we see this store while we were there. I get why. If I were to turn my personal library and collection of ephemera into a store that store would look a lot like Monograph. If you geek out on design, architecture, hippies, counterculture, mid-century anything and the folk art made by outsiders from beatniks to punks, drop in. If you can't their website has the goods, but you'll miss the spontaneous joy of meeting likeminded collectors. We made new friends. We'll be back.

Monograph Bookwerks, 5005 NE 27th Avenue at Alberta, Portland, Oregon 97211 USA

Website: Fine Art Books, Objects + Ephemera
Instagram: @monographbookwerks

One-liners

Article: London saw a surprising benefit to fining high-polluting cars: More active kids

Article: Wind and solar generated more electricity than fossil fuels in the EU during the first six months of 2024 for the first time ever in a half-year period.

Article: In Detroit, a developer has turned Quonset huts—better known for their use on farms and military bases—into affordable, efficient housing.

Article: Forest restoration can boost people, nature and climate simultaneously.

Article: Furf Design Studio introduces the world’s first mycelium facade for Crema Lab in Curitiba, Brazil, blending sustainable architecture with innovative material use.

Playlist

Video: Abou Diarra | Né Nana | Loustic Sessions

"From the Wassalou region in Mali, Diarra began playing music at a young age when he would accompany his mother to ceremonies and traditional festivals. His musical training came from an ngoni master, Vieux Kanté, who was blind. He began his career in an unusual way. He literally walked from town to town on the roads between Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Bamako (Mali) and Conakry (Guinea) for several months. In this way, he discovered and was subsequently influenced by traditional and contemporary urban music.

"Diarra adds extra strings to his ngoni so that it goes beyond the classical scale of the instrument. He can play it as a traditional instrument or as a drum, as a bass, or as a guitar. He is known as the 'Jimi Hendrix of the ngoni.' His skill with the instrument is indeed stunning." - Maria Noel

Article: African Roots and Rhythms: Abou Diarra (Mali)

Weekly Mixtape
Blues music transcends the boundaries of time and geography.

Playlist: One world blues

Image of the Week

An unattributed photograph of a Crinkle Crankle wall posted by Praxis Builders.

"In England you sometimes see these 'wavy' brick fences. And curious as it may seem, this shape uses fewer bricks than a straight wall. A straight wall needs at least two layers of bricks to make is sturdy, but the wavy wall is fine thanks to the arch support provided by the waves. They can be built one brick wide, therefore requiring less bricks when compared to a straight wall."

Article: 15 Examples Of British “Crinkle Crankle” Walls That Take Fewer Bricks To Build Than Straight Ones

What's Love & Work?

Love & Work is the weekly newsletter by me, Mitch Anthony. I help people use their brand - their purpose, values, and stories - as a pedagogy and toolbox for transformation.

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