Play is the central, universally significant activity of childhood. Self-directed play in which adults have a supporting rather than directing role is critical to the development and well-being of children. Yet as children have their days and nights increasingly scripted and planned for them, opportunities for play have disappeared over the last half century, especially in schools.
ArtBreak’s innovation lies in its creative framework. Former school counselor, current professor of counseling, and practicing artist Katherine Ziff developed and tested the program over five years, integrating theory and practice from art therapy, counseling, and child-centered education. The result is a choice-based, guided play experience based on the developmental and restorative possibilities of art making.
A detailed how-to guide, this book is the flexible and accessible toolbox that teachers, parents, and counselors need to facilitate relaxing, art-based play that allows children to freely explore, plan, and pursue their own interests with adult support. Easy to implement, ArtBreak can be added to the regular routines of classroom, home, therapy office, or other community setting at whatever scale suits space, time, and budget. No art training is required, only a willingness to embark on a play journey with children.
The Reverend Howard Finster was twenty feet tall, suspended in darkness. Or so he appeared in the documentary film that introduced a teenaged Greg Bottoms to the renowned outsider artist whose death would help inspire him, fourteen years later, to travel the country. Beginning in Georgia with a trip to Finster’s famous Paradise Gardens, his journey—of which The Colorful Apocalypse is a masterly chronicle—is an unparalleled look into the lives and visionary works of some of Finster’s contemporaries: the self-taught evangelical artists whose beliefs and oeuvres occupy the gray area between madness and Christian ecstasy.
With his prodigious gift for conversation and quietly observant storytelling, Bottoms draws us into the worlds of such figures as William Thomas Thompson, a handicapped ex-millionaire who painted a 300-foot version of the book of Revelation; Norbert Kox, an ex-member of the Outlaws biker gang who now lives as a recluse in rural Wisconsin and paints apocalyptic visual parables; and Myrtice West, who began painting to express the revelatory visions she had after her daughter was brutally murdered. These artists’ works are as wildly varied as their life stories, but without sensationalizing or patronizing them, Bottoms—one of today’s finest young writers—gets at the heart of what they have in common: the struggle to make sense, through art, of their difficult personal histories.
In doing so, he weaves a true narrative as powerful as the art of its subjects, a work that is at once an enthralling travelogue, a series of revealing biographical portraits, and a profound meditation on the chaos of despair and the ways in which creativity can help order our lives.
Originally released in 1980, Lucia Capacchione’s The Creative Journal has become a classic in the fields of art therapy, memoir and creative writing, art journaling, and creativity development. Using more than fifty prompts and vibrantly illustrated examples, Capacchione guides readers through drawing and writing exercises to release feelings, explore dreams, and solve problems creatively. Topics include emotional expression, healing the past, exploring relationships, self-inventory, health, life goals, and more. The Creative Journal introduced the world to Capacchione’s groundbreaking technique of writing with the nondominant hand for brain balancing, finding innate wisdom, and developing creative potential.
This thirty-fifth anniversary edition includes a new introduction and an appendix listing the many venues that have adopted Capacchione’s methods, including public schools, recovery programs, illness support groups, spiritual retreats, and prisons. The Creative Journal has become a mainstay text for college courses in psychology, art therapy, and creative writing. It has proven useful for journal keepers, counselors, and teachers. Through doodles, scribbles, written inner dialogues, and letters, people of all ages have discovered vast inner resources.
“A brilliant travel guide to the coming world of AI.”
—Jeanette Winterson
What does it mean to be creative? Can creativity be trained? Is it uniquely human, or could AI be considered creative?
Mathematical genius and exuberant polymath Marcus du Sautoy plunges us into the world of artificial intelligence and algorithmic learning in this essential guide to the future of creativity. He considers the role of pattern and imitation in the creative process and sets out to investigate the programs and programmers—from Deep Mind and the Flow Machine to Botnik and WHIM—who are seeking to rival or surpass human innovation in gaming, music, art, and language. A thrilling tour of the landscape of invention, The Creativity Code explores the new face of creativity and the mysteries of the human code.
“As machines outsmart us in ever more domains, we can at least comfort ourselves that one area will remain sacrosanct and uncomputable: human creativity. Or can we?…In his fascinating exploration of the nature of creativity, Marcus du Sautoy questions many of those assumptions.”
—Financial Times
“Fascinating…If all the experiences, hopes, dreams, visions, lusts, loves, and hatreds that shape the human imagination amount to nothing more than a ‘code,’ then sooner or later a machine will crack it. Indeed, du Sautoy assembles an eclectic array of evidence to show how that’s happening even now.”
—The Times
The first English-language collection to establish curiosity studies as a unique field
From science and technology to business and education, curiosity is often taken for granted as an unquestioned good. And yet, few people can define curiosity. Curiosity Studies marshals scholars from more than a dozen fields not only to define curiosity but also to grapple with its ethics as well as its role in technological advancement and global citizenship. While intriguing research on curiosity has occurred in numerous disciplines for decades, no rigorously cross-disciplinary study has existed—until now.
Curiosity Studies stages an interdisciplinary conversation about what curiosity is and what resources it holds for human and ecological flourishing. These engaging essays are integrated into four clusters: scientific inquiry, educational practice, social relations, and transformative power. By exploring curiosity through the practice of scientific inquiry, the contours of human learning, the stakes of social difference, and the potential of radical imagination, these clusters focus and reinvigorate the study of this universal but slippery phenomenon: the desire to know.
Against the assumption that curiosity is neutral, this volume insists that curiosity has a history and a political import and requires precision to define and operationalize. As various fields deepen its analysis, a new ecosystem for knowledge production can flourish, driven by real-world problems and a commitment to solve them in collaboration. By paying particular attention to pedagogy throughout, Curiosity Studies equips us to live critically and creatively in what might be called our new Age of Curiosity.
Contributors: Danielle S. Bassett, U of Pennsylvania; Barbara M. Benedict, Trinity College; Susan Engel, Williams College; Ellen K. Feder, American U; Kristina T. Johnson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Narendra Keval; Christina León, Princeton U; Tyson Lewis, U of North Texas; Amy Marvin, U of Oregon; Hilary M. Schor, U of Southern California; Seeta Sistla, Hampshire College; Heather Anne Swanson, Aarhus U.
Contributors. Zygmunt Bauman, Janet Bergstrom, Christine Brooke-Rose, Hélène Cixous, Tibor Dessewffy, Marianne Hirsch, Denis Hollier, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Linda Nochlin, Leo Spitzer, Susan Rubin Suleiman, Thomas Pavel, Doris Sommer, Nancy Huston, John Neubauer, Ernst van Alphen, Alicia Borinsky, Svetlana Boym, Jacqueline Chénieux-Gendron
Television, video games, and computers are easily accessible to twenty-first-century children, but what impact do they have on creativity and imagination? In this book, two wise and long-admired observers of children's make-believe look at the cognitive and moral potential--and concern--created by electronic media.
As Dorothy and Jerome Singer show, violent images in games and TV are as toxic as many observers have feared by stimulating destructive ideas and troubling aggression. But should all electronic media be banned from children's lives? Calmly and authoritatively, the Singers argue that in fact some screen time can enrich children's creativity and play, and can even promote school readiness. With guidance from parents and teachers, empathy, creativity, and imagination can expand and intensify in the electronic age.
2019 National Parenting Products Award Winner
Even the best talk-based practices in parenting can be limiting. How can art help parents temper storms of emotion, defuse sibling conflicts, get teeth brushed, and raise happy, successful kids? In The Innovative Parent, Erica Curtis and Ping Ho integrate cutting-edge research, years of clinical expertise, and their own parenting experience into a revolutionary yet practical guide to creative parenting. Plentiful illustrations and anecdotes bring concepts to life and show art in action with kids and parents.
Together, Curtis and Ho let parents in on art therapy trade secrets to help children make sense of emotions, build connections with others, develop problem-solving skills, resolve day-to-day conflicts, process and retain information, confront fears and anxiety, and much more. These are complex tasks for something as seemingly simple as making art, yet therein lies the beauty of The Innovative Parent: its down-to-earth approach is simple, doable, and fun.
At a time when the traditional sheltered workshop model has fallen under rightful criticism, and a new paradigm for disability programming is not yet in place, Upcycling Sheltered Workshops offers a revolutionary alternative. As many push to dismantle sheltered workshops, Susan Dlouhy and Patty Mitchell present the Creative Abundance Model, a proven method that redirects sheltered workshops from routine to creativity, putting participants in the driver’s seat.
The Creative Abundance Model does away with the repetitive tasks that characterize traditional workshops. Instead, it is a structured but more open program that incorporates art, music, and other creative pursuits, freeing participants to discover their individual skills and talents. The authors both advocate for the model and provide instructions for implementing it, outlining such steps as obtaining funding, gaining the support and participation of the surrounding community, and preparing studios. Case studies from around the nation and inspiring photographs illustrate Dlouhy and Mitchell’s methods and document the many ways in which participants in Creative Abundance thrive.
READERS
Browse our collection.
PUBLISHERS
See BiblioVault's publisher services.
STUDENT SERVICES
Files for college accessibility offices.
UChicago Accessibility Resources
home | accessibility | search | about | contact us
BiblioVault ® 2001 - 2024
The University of Chicago Press