Urban Sketching Walk in Riga

While in Riga I managed to join the Urban Sketching Summer School, however, only during one evening. It was great to finally meet Rudy Murdock from Indonesia, who was one of the mentors.

anna-sircova-urbansketching-riga - 2

It was nice to see all the different styles that people use when sketching and it was fun to try new instruments as well – Rudy brought some sticks from Indonesia to use with the ink.


I really enjoyed those – they are carved unevenly and therefore they give different thickness to the line and thus while using them there is always room for some happy and funny accidents on paper. It was very inspiring also to see the real ink on paper. Although most of the time I use close to fountain pen with ink, but there is no substitute to real ink! I loved it and I think I’ll be using it more! Time to go to the woods and find some oak sticks!

 

What I Am Working On Now – August 2017

During August 2017 I continue to be a nomad, visiting family in Chelyabinsk, Russia and Kadaga, Latvia, attending the art festival in Tunisia and getting back to Copenhagen, Denmark towards the end of August.

Time perspective related projects:

  • collaborating with Marc Wittmann on a paper: Orientation to the present and future and its role in pro-environmental behaviour and sustainability;
  • going through the material from the “Administrated Biographies” project initiated by Elisabeth Schilling (currently Germany), Tianna Loose (currently France), Inanna Riccardi (currently Denmark), Seda Özçetin (currently Denmark) and me (currently Denmark) during the Celebrating Time conference and festival last August in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Art projects:

Working on the second leg of the Indvielsen project – stay tuned to see the new portraits and some other updates on the project overall.

Making final preparations for my participation in the FESTIVAL INTERNATIONALDES ARTS PLASTIQUES DE GAFSA – TUNISIE – «Session Jugurtha» – with my photography projects and the #100daysofinnerart project, August 20 – August 27, Gafsa, Tunisia

Teaching:

Psychology of Time – at DIS: Study Abroad in Scandinavia, Copenhagen, Denmark

How do I manage all of the above and a few things that were left out? I love working with my version of the bullet journal and I also follow my own medicine regarding taking the creative breaks.

I am available for giving workshops on how to deal with culture shock and using creativity as a resource. I would be thrilled to develop a tailored talk / workshop regarding time, creativity and your field of interest.

Best ways to keep up with my progress and stay in touch with me:

  • subscribe to my newsletter with my recent discoveries and updates & invitations to my exhibitions / pop-up galleries openings, events I’m organizing / hosting, talks & workshops I’m giving, etc.
  • see my visual explorations on Instagram
  • follow my occasional banter on twitter , updates on facebook or browse my blog on Medium

Find out more about me on my about page

Page inspired by Austin Kleon and nownownow community

Page was updated in August 2017.

The Power of Vulnerability by Brené Brown

 

On courage to be imperfect. Connection as a result of authenticity.

vulnerability is the core of shame and fearand our struggle for worthiness,but it appears that it’s also the birthplace of joy, of creativity,of belonging, of love.

 

you cannot selectively numb emotion.You can’t say, here’s the bad stuff.Here’s vulnerability, here’s grief, here’s shame,here’s fear, here’s disappointment.I don’t want to feel these.I’m going to have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin.You can’t numb those hard feelingswithout numbing the other affects, our emotions.You cannot selectively numb.So when we numb those,we numb joy,we numb gratitude,we numb happiness.And then, we are miserable,and we are looking for purpose and meaning,and then we feel vulnerable,so then we have a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin.And it becomes this dangerous cycle.

 

Courage

On Becoming a Person – Reading Carl Rogers – part 2

The Person Who Emerges

115/

  1. Openness to Experience

… individual becomes more open to his experience..

if the evidence of our senses runs contrary to our picture of self, then that evidence is distorted -> we cannot see all that our senses report, but only the things which fit the picture we have.

the individual becomes more openly aware of his own feelings and attitudes as they exist in him at an organic level – he also becomes more aware of reality as it exists outside of himself… he is able to take in the evidence in a new situation, as it is, rather than distorting it to fit a pattern which he already holds.

openness to experience = more realistic in dealing with new people, new situations, new problems; … his beliefs are not rigid, that one can tolerate ambiguity.

Continue reading

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Rereading Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull as a good reminder for “Find what it is you want most in the world to do – and then do it.”

Practice it every day. Experiment. Strive to know “what I can do in the air and what I can’t” – “there is so much to learn!” And through practicing this art of being who we really are we feel alive, “trembling ever so slightly with delight” and we let go of fear. Once we find what is it that we want the most, we feel power, joy, pure beauty and “how much more there is to living!”

Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull’s life is so short, and with these gone from his thought, he lived a long fine life indeed.

On perfection and being there:

You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.

… To fly as fast as thought, to go anywhere that is, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived…

The trick was to know that his true nature lived, as perfect as an unwritten number, everywhere at once across space and time.

It always works, when you know what you’re doing.

On kindness and love

… and then you will be ready to begin the most difficult, the most powerful, the most fun of all. You will be ready to begin to fly up and know the meaning of kindness and of love.

“Jonathan, keep working on love”

And the more Jonathan practiced his kindness lessons, and the more he worked to know the nature of love, the more he wanted to go back to Earth. For in spite of his lonely past, Jonathan Seagull was born to be an instructor, and his own way of demonstrating love was to give something of the truth that he had seen to a gull who asked only a chance to see truth for himself.

On friendship

If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we’ve destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all the we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don’t you think that we might see each other once or twice?”

 

Books in my life

 

On Becoming a Person – Reading Carl Rogers – part 1

Chapter 6 – What It Means to Become a Person

108/ I know that the problem as stated in the first interview will not be the problem as seen in the second or third hour, and by the tenth interview it will be a still different problem or series of problems.

It seems to me that at bottom each person is asking, “Who am I, really? How can I get in touch with this real self, underlying all my surface behavior? How can I become myself?”

Continue reading

Bartholomäus Traubeck – Years

A record player that plays slices of wood. Year ring data is translated into music, 2011.

A tree’s year rings are analysed for their strength, thickness and rate of growth. This data serves as basis for a generative process that outputs piano music. It is mapped to a scale which is again defined by the overall appearance of the wood (ranging from dark to light and from strong texture to light texture). The foundation for the music is certainly found in the defined ruleset of programming and hardware setup, but the data acquired from every tree interprets this ruleset very differently.

More info here