21st Century Life

Jonathan Moran

Efficiency is simplicity. Breaking things down to the least common denominator and operating with grace, easy and apparent effortlessness is a remarkable goal yet mostly an illusion. An image conjured up by a world full of pleasure.

Nothing remarkable and graceful is effortless, but it is simple. The simple is in the doing not the feeling.

What we do, not what we think or feel is what is changing our world. Maddy Dychtwald proves this in her demographic study Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better, an inspiring wake-up-call that is her third book.

Fear of change is irrelevant once we understand that putting one foot in front of the other every day is doing change, and in that doing, there is nothing to fear. Sam Sparrow says it best when he opens his 21st century life by saying:

Jonathan Moran

“When I was a little boy
Living in the last century
I thought about living in the future
Then it occurred to me
I turned around the future was now
The future was all around me
Nothing like I imagined
It was totally confounding

21st century life
I got swept away
I got 21,000 things that I got to do today
21st century life
Well what can I say?
The new world got me feeling so dirty
Think I need to get down and play”

The future is now and we are influencing everything around us and why not have fun doing so! Gone are the days where we can lay in wait for a white knight or a caped super heroine to come do anything for us. We already influence others around us constantly and it’s our choice to what degree we will do it. We can stop with our family or the world, it’s up to us, our own imagination and ability. This is a much less daunting and more doable when we think about it in these immediate terms. The least common denominator is you.

Authentic Influence

Jessika Cardinahl

Open space and a limitless mindset is the framework that gains authentic influence. Virginia Woolf argued, “a woman needs a room of her own and an independent income if she is to write.” In Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better, Maddy Dychtwald asserts that, “a woman needs psychological room of her own and economic independence if she is to inscribe herself on the world.

Women’s minds are certainly more free from fear of financial ruin in the 21st century than 100 years ago; this is what the data is proving. But we’re not out of the woods completely. It makes sense, as humans living on earth, that we would need this to realize our true potential and make our mark on the world.

On the other hand, we’re all influencing others all the time. The way we carry ourselves, raise our children and treat each other makes huge impacts on society. Simply opening our minds to endless possibilities and enjoying all that life is, without fear, can make this influence positive.

Jessika Cardinahl will be showing at Bleicher/Golightly Saturday, April 17, 2010. Please come join us for the opening!

We’re not alone with “Influence”

Making changes to live a life that worked for me was intuitive and seemed more a necessity than a bold choice. When my career ambitions within the traditional constructs left no room for my family or my development as a human, I opted-out of the construct. Society’s definition of what it meant for me to work in my chosen field seemed stifling. Of course, my “intuition” struck at the height of the economic downturn. Thanks to an amazing support network, no one said that I was an insane person; but I suspected I might be and I certainly felt alone.

Why had my mother and grand mother filled my head with such fantasies about career and family when the reality is almost impossible to maintain? Was I the only women in the world that felt work was a “soul crushing” experience, like someone was going to tap me on the shoulder one day and say, “you’ve been found out, we know you don’t belong here?”

So you can imagine my elation when I read these exact words in Maddy Dychtwald’s Influence: How Women’s Soaring Economic Power Will Transform Our World for the Better. It will be available May 4, 2010, but I have an advance copy because a natural series of events has led me to work with Maddy on the launch of this ground-breaking book. I say it was natural because her message is in exact proportion with how I’m choosing to earn a living today. My personal experience with Maddy is that not only is her message “bright” and true, but Maddy is true to her message.

When I finished Influence I felt a part of a whole; inspired to do my best work and empowered to be who I am while doing it. I had confirmation that others were behind me, lot’s of others, from all over the world. I was no longer moving alone but a part of a movement. Maddy Dychtwald’s research proves the countries that harness women’s economic power thrive globally and human economic success now depends on it. Once more, she asserts in the book, I have influence and I’m doing myself and this world a disservice if I don’t use it!

Influence is chock full of women’s stories detailing how they’re changing society as we know it. I guarantee you’ll find yourself in this book.

Pre-order Influence and become a part of the movement by sharing your experiences with Maddy and the rest of the world on how you are using your influence to make changes in your daily life. Join the conversation on Twitter, Facebook and the blog about women’s economic emancipation and how it’s changing our homes, our workplace and our society for the better.

Artoholic

Jeff Koons - Rabbit - 1986

I devoured My Name is Charles Saatchi and I Am an Artoholic; a late Christmas gift from someone who knows me well. I’m not a reader; a reader of books that is. I’m an information fiend. I’m curious by nature about art and marketing and am like a dog with a bone when I get a whiff of anything intriguing. I’ve always critiqued commercials for their intrinsic entertainment value and efficacy. It’s a hobby of mine.

So when I received this book about an ad man with a wild passion for art I started to salivate. Lucky for me the book is in simple question and answer format. Nerd that I am, I sat perched in front of my laptop, pouncing on my search engine every time the man lay mention of an artist. Lucky for you I captured my journey with him through the book and shared the images I found in this post.

Untitled Film Still #7. 1978 - Cindy Sherman

Saatchi apparently had been unwilling for years to grant interviews, but this book was an answer to the press and a lead up to his TV show airing on BBC now; in search of the new Brit Art bunch.

My favorite quote because it sums me up too: “I liked working in advertising, but don’t believe my taste in art, such as it is, was entirely formed by TV commercials.”

I’ve written about my love of art and marketing and even touched on the “mad men” era in advertising we are so enthralled with today. Saatchi was part of an era in advertising when people looked forward to the commercials, though he gives most of the creative credit away to his peers, all of whom went on to become great film makers.

He makes it clear that none of us need be self-conscious about the art that we like because, “By and large talent is in such short supply, mediocrity

Untitled Film Still #50. 1979 - Cindy Sherman

can be taken for brilliance rather than genius can go undiscovered.” This says to me, the more we follow our own instincts and taste, the better chance we give artists to generate income. After all; WE ARE THE MEDIA now.

Saatchi is also asked about the changing aesthetics of art galleries and I liked that he pointed out “using the money to actually buy some art,” was more important than building more galleries. Just before he plugged Frank Gehry.

Artists need as many collectors as possible, we are their collectors; each of us. We don’t need Saatchi’s money and great influence to make change in an artist’s life.

Marlene Dumas - Jule-die Vrou - 1985

@140hours recently started following me on Twitter. They are self described as “The World’s 1st Twitter Art Auction & Supporter of International Charities.” This is a real live example of how our social media is changing the art industry and our influence on artists. This of course doesn’t touch the larger entity; the art world.

I’ve recently become friends with the local artist Matthew Heller, who began to give me some clues into the illusive art world. I’ll be speaking with him again soon to expand on what I’ve learned.

This whole notion of individual influence vs. mass appeal brings to mind a program on NPR I only caught the middle of while I was in my car. Something about the decentralization of the television media influence with the shift from network to

Donald Judd - Copper Box - 1972

cable viewing and the effect it has had on our culture. We all know the “Soup Nazi” from Seinfeld even if we didn’t see the episode because the last episode of that show was watched by 60% of Americans, juxtaposed to the last episode of a current top rated show, American Idol, only watched by 16%. I couldn’t tell you the last name of that Chris guy. More eyes watching the same thing leads to more people spreading the word about the same thing and more cultural influence.

My point. What about the masses? Now we have better media to promote art and find

Pair of Rock Chairs - Scott Burton - 1980-81

audiences who love it, but what about art’s influence on culture? It’s seems we are moving into this system of underground tunnels of culture with pass codes at the entry gate for each. We are becoming a culture of subculture; a nation of “pickle ice cream” lovers. Saatchi’s book bolstered my belief that this is important. You like what you like and who cares what others think, the artists

will be grateful in the end and that’s what matters.

Paula Rego - Olga 2003

The images in this post are a hodgepodge of artist, going against what Saatchi might have done himself I’m sure. I just wanted to share a little about each of these artists with you. Saatchi stated that in his own home he generally shows one artist at a time, Paul Rego, when he gets around to hanging pieces at all. I’m happy to say my house is filled with the works of Journey Streams.

I hope you read Artoholic, if you’re passionate about marketing and art like me, you will fall in love with this man. If you’re passionate about honesty, then it’s simply refreshing.

Broken String

Lucy Campbell, Libertad

Someone recently gave me the Eckhart Tolle book with the Oprah book club sticker on the front. I’m not finished yet, but I read in the beginning that a bird, a dove specifically, is the symbol of enlightenment and the evolution of human consciousness. So when I came across this piece of art my knees buckled. The image of the closed eyed dove and the bleeding heart brings together the concepts in the Tolle book and what I believe about string theory.

I’m a Virgo, so I don’t have much patience for theories. I like to think about things in a practical sense, so this is how the string theory translates for me. It’s a fluid connection between one point in time and space and another point. To take it one step further, it’s the connection of you at one point reaching around and connecting with you at a different point in time and space. I’m sure there are scientists out there itching to correct me, but I’m okay with this understanding; it’s comforting.

I like to think there is some alternate version of me that I am connected to that makes me a more enlightened person. The girl’s expression in the painting says to me that she was cut off from that other part of herself in that other space in time. How did this happen? How will she come back from here? She’s so utterly alone, cold, and lost without it.

It’s important to connect with others, but imperative to stay connected with ourselves. No matter how tenuous the string, don’t let go.