1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.

Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.

2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives.

One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.

6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects.

The arts traffic in subtleties.

7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material.

All art forms employ some means through which images become real.

8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said.

When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.

9. The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source

and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

10. The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young

what adults believe is important.

SOURCE: Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press. Available from NAEA Publications. NAEA grants reprint permission for this excerpt from Ten Lessons with proper acknowledgment of its source and NAEA.

Please permit me to add that the Arts teach these things to ALL of us at ALL ages. We are never too old to learn new tricks.

Yesterday my friend Tamara Moan took me and another friend, Frances Hill, on a trip around Whole Foods in Kailua to teach us the ins and outs of keeping an Artistic Travel Journal.

Here you see Tamara showing us one of her many travel journals; this one is an accordion book. She's been creating her travel journals for at least 14 years, and has stacks of them. Whenever she leafs through them, she is transported back to the time and place of her trip.

A Travel Journal is the perfect way to record a trip, stay creative, and have fun, all at the same time!

Frances, Tamara, and I wandered around Whole Foods for an hour, recording what we saw. I can honestly report that the people working at Whole Foods do an amazing job creating beautiful visual displays! I wandered through twice and look at all that I found:

I started out sketching really really fast, unsure of what I would find, I wanted to capture as much as I could. I soon realized that if I wanted to recognize anything at the end of the journey, I would have to slow down a bit.

Sure enough, if you look closely, you will find tropical flowers, beets, peppers, fish, cheese, loaves of bread, even a baby that was sitting in one of the carts (yes, I asked permission first).

If you've ever thought of keeping a travel journal, I highly recommend it. Obviously you don't have to go far from home to find something interesting to record! We had a great time, the hour flew by, and we treated ourselves to a glass of wine and a slice of pizza at the end. Thank you Tamara and Frances for a truly memorable morning at Whole Foods!

First I must thank Scott Adams for the cartoon he published earlier this month. Brilliant! I am a sucker for cartoons pertaining to all things art/artist/creativity related. Humor, like creativity, is essential to life.

Whenever we feel the calling to create, we must answer. Sometimes we don't respond to it with pen and ink or paint and brush. Sometimes we use yarn and needles or sugar and spice. No matter, answer we must.

Creativity is a calling, an urge, and a muse that must be followed. It is the mystery and magic of life itself, the substance of spirit flowing through our lives ... sometimes even at four in the morning :-)

I've been a fan of Christine Kane'sblog and eZine for about a year. On December 31, 2009, I worked an exercise she offered her readers: The Word of the Year Discovery Tool.

Wow, I mean, WOW!!!!!!! What a wonderful tool!

Through a series of questions, Christine guided me to discover the word that would intuitively propel me into 2010 in a powerful way. I journaled for about thirty minutes and when I was finished, I was energized! I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my word for 2010 is Connection.

I intend to powerfully feel my connection: to my inner self; to my art; to my family and friends; to YOU, my collectors; to the Universe; to all things and all beings.

On New Year's Day, Keanu and I went to see the movie, Avatar. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I realized the powerful theme throughout the movie is the interconnection of all things.

There I sat, beaming at the screen, feeling my connection to this fascinating movie!

The next evening, my friend Diana came to paint wine glasses with me and Keanu. Together we painted a collaborative glass in memory of the Tree of Life in Avatar. It's a bit difficult to see in this photo, but the tree itself is painted in black and the luminescent leaves are white.

If you haven't seen the movie, watch it in 3-D. The graphics are amazing; it's a lot of fun! Go ahead, watch the movie and let me know what you think. Imagine how connected we will feel.