Talking about my work as a way of clarifying thoughts, ideas and direction.....

Last Saturday I had the priviledge of giving a gallery talk to 100 visitors at the Oceanside Museum of Art - it was also the opening reception of my new solo exibition: A Matter of Space.  The backstory is that putting together a "talk", per se, is a process of organizing my thoughts, ideas and concepts - It forced me to clarify exactly what i believe to be true about my work - about this current exhibition but also about priorities.... like what is important to me about being an artist, what concepts inspire me, artists who inspire me, as well as people in general who have influenced my work. It is an invaluable process of sifting through time's memories and bringing to light things that ask to be heard. It is nice to  be able to share my ideas about being an artist.

I hope to post a video of my talk soon.....

Two Wonderful Talks (about Expanding Our Minds and creating a company) to Listen To on Ted.com

I am a sucker for reading or hearing about a person's personal story and that is why I enjoy listening and watching to Ted talks.  In the last few days I found a few that were very thought provoking  and interesting.  One was by a Nigerian woman
writer named Chimananda Adichie and the title of her talk is "The Danger of Telling a Single Story" which basically focuses on the idea that we all have "one story" that we play in our heads about a particular person, culture, country or concept and tend not to expand that story by learning and reading more. It made me think about how limiting my ideas may be and makes me want to read and research more about everything!
The other talk is by a plastics engineer, Mike Biddle, who started a worldwide recycling company called MBA Polymers, located in various countries around the world. He was motivated to start the company by his overriding need to get rid of waste.  Its really an amazing story about his "story" and how his company evolved.
See below for links for both talks:

http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_biddle.html
www.facebook.com/cathybreslawcontemporaryvisualartist

World's Most Powerful Ground Based Telescope, named "Alma", has begun showing images....

Alma, the world's largest land based telescope, still under completion is already producing amazing images of galaxies in outer space - take a look at lots of videos - The telescope is in the mountains of Chile.  I can't help but feel how much our perspective on the world will change as a result of Alma's images and new knowledge gained from it's work.