Unfolding Practice

Unfolding Practice: Reflections on Learning and Teaching is a conversation between two artist-educators. Flowing across five chapters, the double sided accordion book has been curated from ten years of recorded conversations, field notes, planning, sketches, reflection, and teaching. The front of the book weaves text, illustration, cutouts, and screen prints, journeying through artistic process and educational practice. The back of the book is a guide, expanding on the practice of using accordion books as a tool for capturing, visualizing, and building upon reflective thinking. The brown paper alludes to the craft paper that is ubiquitous in schools and captures process more than the preciousness of a final product.

The keys to self-knowledge and deep contentment are right here before us, in this very moment—if we can simply learn to live with presence and open awareness In The Unfolding Now, A. H. Almaas presents a marvelously effective practice for developing the transformative quality of presence. Through a particular method of self-observation and contemplative exploration that he calls inquiry, we learn to live in the relaxed condition of simply “being ourselves,” without interference from feelings of inadequacy, drivenness toward goals, struggling to figure things out, and rejecting experiences we don't want. Almaas explores the many obstacles that keep us from being present—including defensiveness, ignorance, desire, aggression, and self-hatred—and shows us how to welcome with curiosity and compassion whatever we are experiencing.

This classic text on psychosynthesis counseling and psychotherapy is for individuals who want to challenge their clients and students to more fully use their creative and healing powers. Key concepts covered include essential being and motivation of the individual; Assagioli's psychological laws; the psychosynthesis model of human growth; and specific problems that psychosynthesis addresses in the various stages of the human development. This book helps guide individuals toward greater health, creativity, and fulfillment.

A sensible and compassionate book that will help those involved in any form of therapy make the best possible use of their time, effort, and money. "A fascinating blend of Eastern spirituality, Western psychotherapy, feminist consciousness, and real caring."--Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade 35 black-and-white photographs.

With the rapid proliferation of distance education and e-learning courses, the need is growing for a comprehensive, professional approach to evaluating their effectiveness. This indispensable book offers a road map to guide evaluation practice in these innovative learning environments. Providing practical, step-by-step guidelines and tools for conducting evaluation studies—including how to deal with stakeholders, develop surveys and interview protocols, collect other scientific evidence, and analyze and blend mixed-methods data—the work also features a template for writing high-quality reports. The "unfolding model" developed by the authors draws on Messick's influential assessment framework and applies it to program evaluation. Two case studies of actual programs (a distance learning course and an e-learning course) demonstrate the unfolding model in action.

This book addresses the temporal significance of specific topics such as notation, tempo, meter, and rhythm within broader contexts of performance, composition, aesthetics, and philosophy.

The first publication to fully survey Louise Bourgeois's printmaking, a major component of her artistic practice. Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait explores the prints, books and creative process of the celebrated sculptor Louise Bourgeois whose printed oeuvre, while lesser known than other aspects of her work, is vast in scope and comprises some 1,400 printed compositions. Over the course of her career, Bourgeois constantly revisited the themes and motifs of her art - all of which emerged from troubling emotions she struggled with for a lifetime. This investigation reveals the creative process underlying her artistic practice through evolving states for print compositions, as well as through the juxtaposition of works in different mediums and from different periods of her long career. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, the book features over 250 prints organized thematically and placed within the context of the artist's sculpture, drawings and paintings. The book also sheds light on the collaborative relationships between Bourgeois and her printmaking associates who often came to her home studio to work with her there - sometimes on a daily basis - pulling trial proofs from printing presses she kept in her basement. Interviews with Bourgeois's primary assistant, with whom she worked for decades, as well as with a printer and a publisher, each of whom helped foster her creative engagement with the medium, provide insight into her working process.

The acclaimed bestseller about visual problem solving-now bigger and better "There is no more powerful way to prove that we know something well than to draw a simple picture of it. And there is no more powerful way to see hidden solutions than to pick up a pen and draw out the pieces of our problem." So writes Dan Roam in The Back of the Napkin, the international bestseller that proves that a simple drawing on a humble napkin can be more powerful than the slickest PowerPoint presentation. Drawing on twenty years of experience and the latest discoveries in vision science, Roam teaches readers how to clarify any problem or sell any idea using a simple set of tools. He reveals that everyone is born with a talent for visual thinking, even those who swear they can't draw. And he shows how thinking with pictures can help you discover and develop new ideas, solve problems in unexpected ways, and dramatically improve your ability to share your insights. Take Herb Kelleher and Rollin King, who figured out how to beat the traditional hub-and-spoke airlines with a bar napkin and a pen. Three dots to represent Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Three arrows to show direct flights. Problem solved, and the picture made it easy to sell Southwest Airlines to investors and customers. Now with more color, bigger pictures, and additional content, this new edition does an even better job of helping you literally see the world in a new way. Join the teachers, project managers, doctors, engineers, assembly-line workers, pilots, football coaches, marine drill instructors, financial analysts, students, parents, and lawyers who have discovered the power of solving problems with pictures.

The Kingdom of God is within you. As a matter of fact, you are the individualization of all that god is. "All that I have is thine." Of course, it is not a human being at all. It is a divine being. But the world interprets the human scene as a human one, so that what is appearing to the world as a human...as you or as me...is now receiving from within the depth of its own being, the revelation of its true nature. And truth that is true is universal.

"Drawing Your Own Path is a smart, subtle, sophisticated, compassionate, radically eye-opening and mind-altering guide to creative and artistic liberation. Thank you, John Simon!"—Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being "John F. Simon, Jr., widely recognized as an early pioneer in the use of computer-generated imagery in contemporary art, has turned his attention to the act mark-making as a doorway into self-awareness and the essential touchstone of visual creativity. He leads us through a sequence of meditative drawing exercises, and shares insightful, touching anecdotes of his many years of experience as a practicing artist."—Peter Halley, Artist "The mysteries of the mind and universe are coupled with a very practical guide to drawing. It is an unlikely but wonderfully fruitful combination, a step-by-step approach to awareness and art."—Lawrence Rinder, Director, UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive "John’s marvelous artwork emerges from a deeply inspired and intuitive unfolding. His gift of finding one’s own creative process is beautifully transmitted in this delightful guide."—Jon Bernie, Ordinary Freedom "Drawing Your Own Path is an invitation to those who have never drawn before and a warm, informative, intelligent and lovely book to read. It offers refreshing, new ways to look at and experience the steps to make drawings today."—Sharon Louden, Artist, Editor of Living and Sustaining a Creative Life Drawing Your Own Path is an account of how multi–media artist John Simon’s daily drawing discipline became a meditation practice, and how that meditation illuminated his creative source. A practical guidebook full of Simon's own art, Drawing Your Own Path offers meditators an alternative path to ‘just sitting’ and offers artists a way to mindfully examine and deepen the source of their creative ideas. Readers are guided through thirty–three meditation and drawing exercises, exploring concentrated looking, mindful sketching, and improvisational awareness, all designed to help practitioners discover the vast creativity within themselves and in their daily lives.