Whitney Dail spends most of her time daydreaming about space, especially anything sixties Space Age. She rides her bike almost every day, loves researching and staying informed about current issues in contemporary art, enjoys watching road-cycling races (grand tours), and has a vast knowledge of British subcultures. Whitney is currently seeking her masters in Arts Administration at SCAD.
If I’ve learned one thing this entire quarter, it’s how to ask for money. The class Raising Funds for Arts Organizations has primed me for a position in fundraising. But how many different ways can you ask for funding? I’m in the beginning stages of writing a grant to the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. I wish cover letters were like ad copy because all I want to say is, “Give me money.” With an explanation, of course. What would Andy do?
My favorite comic book artist (besides Jamie Hewlett) is drawing female astronauts. These are all by Philip Bond. Bond worked on many Vertigo comics titles including Kill Your Boyfriend, The Invisibles, Hellblazer, Deadenders, Shade the Changing Man, etc. He was also part of Deadline magazine and collaborated on Tank Girl too. I hope to eventually own one of his comic pages.
Valentina Tereshkova orbited the Earth 48 times during her three day spaceflight in Vostok 6 in 1963. First woman in space!
Svetlana Savitskayabecame the second woman in space when she flew the Soyuz T-7 to the Salyut 7 space station in 1984. First woman to perform a spacewalk!
The third woman in space, and the first American woman in space. Sally Ride rode the Space Shuttle Challenger on the STS-7 mission in 1983.
Delta Tau Delta sweetheart Judith Resnik became the fourth female astronaut when she flew as mission specialist aboard the maiden voyage of the Shuttle Discovery in 1984. Judith was killed during the launch of her second spaceflight aboard the Shuttle Challenger in 1986.
Kathryn Sullivan flew alongside Sally Ride aboard Shuttle Challenger mission STS 41-G in 1984. Fifth woman in space!
Metallocarbonane enthusiast Anna Fisher flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-51-A in November 1984. Fisher became the sixth woman in space. Bonus: first mother in space!
Margaret Rhea Seddon flew as mission specialist aboard Shuttle Discovery flight STS-51-D in 1985, the first of her three spaceflights. Tennessee native and seventh woman in space!
Born in Shanghai to missionary parents, Shannon Lucid became the eighth woman in space when she flew aboard the Shuttle Discovery mission STS-51-G in 1985. Shannon made four more spaceflights including the 1989 Atlantis mission to launch the Galileo probe to Jupiter, and a stay aboard the Russian Mir station saw her break the record for the longest time spent in orbit by a woman. 188 days in space!
Bonnie Dunbar served as mission specialist on Shuttle Challenger’s STS-61-A flight in 1985, becoming the ninth woman in space. Bonnie flew on a total of five shuttle missions and is now president of the Museum Of Flight in Seattle.
Mary Cleave became the tenth woman in space when she flew aboard Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-61-B in 1985.
Ellen Shulman Baker flew aboard Shuttle Atlantis mission STS-34 in 1989, which deployed the Galileo probe to Jupiter. New York Queens Zoo’s resident bald eagles Mel and Claire are named after Ellen’s parents. Eleventh woman in space!
As soon as the clock hit 7:30p tonight, I bolted from class. I rode to the Trustees Theater to hear Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, present his “Atoms are the New Bits” lecture. Anderson wrote the article for the February issue of Wired (read the article here). The article presents the new industrial revolution of manufacturing your ideas - from conception through completion - through use of the internet. Anderson made several points. In essence, this is what I took from the lecture:
1. Tap into the DIY spirit
2. Align yourself with the culture of the community
3. Create an ecosystem of creators
4. Don’t ask for advice, just do it
5. Geek innovation, great hats, and Google PhDs
Also, the idea that educational institutions are in place to teach you how to learn—not to teach you skills and techniques. The rest is just finding the tools and applying it. What a breath of fresh air. It’s great to hear encouragement for creative communities reaching their ultimate potential.
"We should be looking at technologies that might lead to really big breakthroughs. As a starting point, let’s just go back to the science fiction novels of the 1950s and 60s and try to run the past 40 years again."
— Peter Thiel on the state of the economy in an interview with Wired
Thanks to technology, there are many ways to donate money. The American Red Cross raised $32m through their strategic texting campaign of donating $10 to Haiti. $32,000,000 is an enormous gift. Other a than natural disaster, what else is there to give money to? Well, I certainly didn’t have a problem finding something.
I gave $40 to help fund the final visual effects for the science fiction film, Similo. I never heard of it before watching a video on Kickstarter, which directed me to the short (above). As described on the project page, “SIMILO is a science fiction love story set in the year 2064.” I was hooked and I wanted to see more.
In yesterday’s Raising Funds for Arts Organization class, someone offered Kickstarter to the discussion of philanthropic trends. Kickstarter is a website for project-based funding of “creative ideas and ambitious endeavors.” The concept is clear: donate money to a creator to kickstart a project. After choosing a project, make a pledge. If the goal is met, the creator can finish it. If the goal is not met, your pledge is cancelled. It’s like placing a bid on an idea and hoping it meets the reserve to become tangible.
What a way to motivate creative types. The downside to Kickstarter is: 1) your donation is only tax-deductible if the person or organization has a 501(c)(3) status; and 2) even if the goal is met, there is no guarantee that the project will be executed. If you don’t feel comfortable with Kickstarter, there’s always Charity Navigator or even Pepsi’s Refresh Project.
"To patronize the faculty of taste is to patronize oneself. For taste governs every free — as opposed to rote — human response. Nothing is more decisive. There is taste in people, visual taste, taste in emotion - and there is taste in acts, taste in morality. Intelligence, as well, is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas. (One of the facts to be reckoned with is that taste tends to develop very unevenly. It’s rare that the same person has good visual taste and good taste in people and taste in ideas.)"
"Instead of awakening us to new possibilities, popular art tranquilizes us; it is our aesthetic valium. Think of the examples I have cited: no matter how skillfully and shrewdly constructed, popular art always offers what we already know, or less. Popular art dumbs us down."
— from “Dumbing Down Art in America” by David Swanger. (Access it on JSTOR). I read this article three times today. Swanger articulates everything I have thought and debated through my journey into Arts Administration. His argument is powerful. I wish I wrote this article!
In an effort to release my frustrations, I photoshopped my own dummies book. Just for a joke. I feel like this is what is happening in the arts. Tell me I’m crazy.
* Links to “Dumbing Down Art in America” by David Swanger.
