Museum Of Kinetic Art Virtual Reality Tour is Live!

by | Jun 30, 2018 | News

In 2017, Ned Schaper received an artist research and development grant from Arizona Commission on the Arts to support development of the Museum Of Kinetic Art (MOKA) into a 360-degree virtual reality tour. Over the last year and a half, he’s been experimenting, learning and producing a tour so that people anywhere can enjoy the Museum Of Kinetic Art. Approximately 7 minutes from start to finish, the tour allows viewers to feel as if they are inside the museum and get a close look at many of the mechanized characters. The tour is now live on YouTube: https://youtu.be/L8U0pFU1hHg. Footage is also being used in classroom videos for The Universe Within, a creative thinking and world-building course developed by Mat Bevel Company. Ned’s original idea was to put a virtual reality camera on a motorized cart and move it through the museum as a person would walk through the space. But after purchasing and experimenting with a 360fly virtual reality camera, he realized the images were far more interesting when you put the camera inside the sculptures. He explains, “It looks like you’re in a city of skyscrapers. It makes the viewer feel like he/she is a small entity inside a giant warped universe of junk.” So instead of moving the camera like a normal virtual reality tour where the viewer controls the experience, for example using goggles, the camera stays still, Ned controls the virtual reality output, creating a final video piece as a normal HD video.
Ned got the idea to build kinetic devices to move the camera while in “Watch Me” editing mode. The first thing he tried was a turntable that made the camera slowly turn in a circle. He says, “This world of rotating sculptures reminded me of a spiraling galaxy of junk sculpture stars.” This gave him the idea to set the whole room of sculptures into a circular installation, packed with all the sculptures and lights in one small area with the camera right in the center. You’ll easily pick this effect up in the video. Ned went to work creating this circular installation while shooting from the same camera position. Once the installation was complete, and he got the shot he was looking for, he then began moving the camera around close to the sculptures without the rotating turntable making use of the bizarre fish-eye effect. When he started the project, the Museum Of Kinetic Art occupied the entire space, but after he built this installation, the museum was packed into a smaller circular area.
With many years’ experience shooting and editing video, the virtual reality technology represented a major step forward for his art. The project substantially expanded his knowledge of how to use virtual reality technology, how to move the camera in new ways and how to capture localized sound. The three cameras give Ned a whole new context and narrative for his theater’s world of Beveldom. This helped him establish the look and feel of Beveldom as a space junk experience in a galaxy of kinetic art stars. Ned says, “One interesting aspect of the 360fly is how it changes what’s desired for the ceiling. With 360fly the ceiling is such a big part of it, you want to work with what’s above.” This project changed his artistic path. Experimenting with the new 360fly camera technology gave him an internal perspective on the museum. It led him to design a new 360 Theater for the future, in a new location where he can combine a live and a virtual theater with a virtual reality camera in the center of a circular stage. The theater set will help establish the look and feel of Beveldom—”the galaxy of junk”—with a full sphere of kinetic sculpture and light.
Addressing A National Creative Deficit At A Grassroots Level

Addressing A National Creative Deficit At A Grassroots Level

by | May 10, 2018 | News

A Nation-wide Creativity Crisis

In Dr. KH Kim’s “The Creativity Crisis (2011)”, she reported that American creativity declined from the 1990s to 2008. Kim’s 2017 Creativity Crisis Update: How High-Stakes Testing Stifles Innovation reveals that “The Creativity Crisis” has grown worse since 2008. The results also reveal that the youngest age groups have suffered the greatest.
SOURCE: http://www.creativitypost.com/education/the_2017_creativity_crisis_update_how_high_stakes_testing_has_stifled_innov

The significant declines in outbox thinking skills (fluid and original thinking) indicate that Americans generate not only fewer ideas or solutions to open-ended questions or challenges, but also fewer unusual or unique ideas than those in preceding decades (Figure 1).

According to Dr. Ken Robinson, one of the world’s most influential voices in education, our schools are killing creativity

“America is now facing the biggest challenge it’s ever faced—to maintain its position in the world economies. All these things demand high levels of innovation, creativity, and ingenuity. At the moment, instead of promoting creativity, I think we’re systematically educating it out of our kids.”

SOURCE: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept09/vol67/num01/Why-Creativity-Now%C2%A2-A-Conversation-with-Sir-Ken-Robinson.aspx

One of the world’s top business thinkers, Dr. Teresa Amabile’s Theory of Creativity outlines three components necessary for an individual to acquire creativity, defined as the production of ideas or outcomes that are both novel and appropriate to some goal:

  • Expertise
  • Creative thinking skills
  • Motivation

SOURCE: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/12-096.pdf

A Grassroots Solution

The Universe Within is a world-building course developed by Mat Bevel Company to help solve this national creative thinking deficit at a grassroots level. Coursework integrates Mat Bevel Company President and Founder Ned Schaper’s magical world of Beveldom and his Available Resource Technology (A.R.T.) practices. Students learn how to innovate, problem-solve and navigate unknown situations through original thinking exercises and out-of-the-box approaches.

Students stretch their imagination during classes by watching footage from Beveldom—the museum’s whirling fine-art sculptures and the theater’s funny characters. Classroom instruction teaches students how to capture, connect, test and activate their original ideas through a series of classes: The Daily Doodle, Corrugated Headgear, Story Book and Pedestrian Carnival. 

Students play the part of a central character in a unique imaginary world of their own making all while learning art, science and English language arts lessons.

With the addition of The Universe Within TV show that will launch in the fall of 2018 in partnership with Creative Tucson. new inspirational educational programming will be used in the classroom and for long-distance learning.

Sponsor "The Universe Within"
Read The Course Overview

Stage Stop Inn and Wild Horse Restaurant & Saloon

Stage Stop Inn and Wild Horse Restaurant & Saloon

by | Apr 30, 2018 | Blog

Mat Bevel Company Educational Sponsor Highlight:

Meet Lynne and Gerry Isaac, entrepreneurs and philanthropists

Lynne and Gerry Isaac (the two touching fingers above) own the Stage Stop Inn and Wild Horse Restaurant & Saloon in Patagonia, Arizona. Since they purchased the hotel in 2010, there isn’t anything they haven’t retouched, replaced, retextured—the ceilings, walls, floors, furniture, fences and doors.

The 35,000 square-foot property, with 30 fully restored rooms, is part of a remarkable story that dates back to 1960 when the avid horse lover Anne Stradling moved to dusty little Patagonia and opened her Museum of the Horse. Admission to this amazing collection of anything horse related was only $2, yet no one came to visit the museum. Anne surmised that it was due to lack of lodging. So, this wealthy East Coast family heiress built the Stage Stop Inn. It was completed in 1969.

When Lynne and Gerry purchased the property, they named their restaurant Wild Horse Restaurant in her honor.

Hear the authentic Mariachi music of “Mariachi Penumbra de Nogales, Arizona” on Sundays at The Wild Horse Saloon

Several months ago, Lynne and Gerry expanded the Wild Horse Restaurant, with the opening a new Saloon that connects street-side, indoor and courtyard patio bar and dining areas. The new Saloon is the former place where Anne stored her extra wagons and stage coaches in the hotel, just a few steps away from her Museum of the Horse.

It was Lynne’s sleuthing that led her to design the Saloon as an open breezeway leading from the street sidewalk to the poolside courtyard in the center of the hotel. She realized that when Anne built this part of the property, she made it so that the horse-drawn vehicles could roll directly from the inside room onto the street.

And just a few weeks ago, a new tradition began at the Saloon. Every Sunday, and occasionally on Saturdays, from 1 to 4 pm guests can enjoy the authentic Mariachi music of “Mariachi Penumbra de Nogales, Arizona” on the sidewalk café. Members of the band are Carolina Yadria Sanchez, Salma Diaz Zdunczyk, Jesus Abraham Figueroa, Maria Siquerios, Luiz Andres Chavarria and Dionicio Figueroa (pictured above).

When you go, check out the stunning back bar mirror in the saloon. Lynne repurposed it from Anne Stradling’s bedroom head and foot board, refinishing the wood and adding beveled glass. The door to the wine room in the saloon is an historic jail door from Santa Cruz County. There’s fine art, historic relics and special touches throughout the hotel, conference room, restaurant and saloon.

Lynne and Gerry are creating a totally unique Patagonia experience. Lynne explains, “We’re keeping the history of Patagonia alive by memorializing its people and places in each of our guest rooms. We’re creating themed guest rooms that honor Anne Stradling, John Wayne, Patagonia Lake, the Railroad and much more.”

Anne’s museum and hotel would change Patagonia forever, creating a new “main” street on McKweon Avenue. Lynne says, “Without Anne the town would not exist. She invented something out of nothing because she could.”

Lynne and Gerry are following in her footsteps. Their generous labor of love is creating another Patagonia treasure, a gift and a gathering place for people who live here and visit.

For more information:
303 McKeown Ave, Patagonia, AZ 85624
(520) 394-2211
www.stagestophotelpatagonia.com

 

Doodle Your Ideas Into Reality

by | Apr 17, 2018 | Blog

When most people think of doodling they think of a way of passing the time, escaping from boredom. In reality, doodling is a powerful way to capture your ideas. Doodles are idea snapshots that can be connected through time so that your ideas can become reality.

For all of his adult life Mat Bevel Company president Ned Schaper has rarely let a day go by without a doodle. He says “It’s the daily doodle that has enabled me to record my thoughts and construct ideas through time.”

Our thoughts evolve every day but it’s impossible to see this progression or do anything with it if we leave those ideas in our brain. To actualize our ideas, we must put them on paper and refer back to them. The doodle is a great way to do this.

In fact, a study published in the Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology found that doodling can improve the ability to remember information by nearly 30%. Doodling can free up short- and long-term memory, improve content retention and increase attention span. Doodling can also produce creative thoughts and problem-solving insights, because it stimulates default networks in the brain that help us analyze information differently.

To support The Universe Within program in schools, consider making a donation or purchasing a fun doodle shirt like this one from the World of Beveldom.

Sunni Brown, author of The Doodle Revolution, teaches “applied visual thinking”– a.k.a doodling–to coders, designers, and even journalists. She says, “[Doodling] gets the neurons to fire and expands the mind.” Just why and how this happens is the topic of Brown’s recent book, The Doodle Revolution. Here, she shares her doodling “dos.”

Doodling can also produce creative insight, because “when the mind starts to engage with visual language, you get neurological access that you don’t have when you’re in a linguistic mode,” says Brown. Most of us use reading, writing, and talking to brainstorm, but “the human mind is very habit forming,” she says. To break that habit, you have to think in an unfamiliar medium–a visual medium.

Doodling has practical and powerful applications. Mathematicians and scientists use doodles to explain complex theories and equations. Business people use doodles to map business plans and strategies. Across the globe, people from all walks of life doodle to give visual representation and meaning to their ideas. Visual aids help us communicate and help others.

Doodling helps us focus and recall information. A large body of research indicates that visual cues help us to better retrieve and remember information. Our brain is mainly an image processor, not a word processor. In fact, the part of the brain used to process words is quite small in comparison to the part that processes visual images. You may be on the verge of a daydream when you start doodling, but the simple act of doodling will help you concentrate and kick you into visual learning mode as you create visuals.

Doodling helps us find creative solutions to problems. Not only does doodling light up different parts of the brain that could spur an ah-ha moment, it also allows you to record potential solutions. You can refer back to doodles to find answers to a problem that has been in the background of your brain.

Doodling helps us reduce stress and deal with tough challenges. Sometimes, life’s challenges can create emotional stress and impair our ability to deal with the situation at hand. Spontaneous doodles allow us to find lost puzzle pieces of memories, bringing them to the present, and making the picture of our lives more whole again. With this greater sense of self and meaning, we may be able to feel more relaxed, define the problem and figure out a way to handle the situation.

Prolong those consonants but don’t encourage misdirected faith. At the Daily Doodle the story is how you tell it.

The great thing about doodling is that you don’t have to know how to write or draw well to use its power. Schaper has been doing his daily doodle routine for 40 years, and it has never been about perfection.  He wants to capture his ideas every day. He attributes his prolific body of work to the doodle, and says, “The only way to fail is to give up.”

Diane Bleck has spent almost 20 years studying and teaching doodling. She launched The Doodle Institute following the publication of her book, Discovery Doodles: The Complete Series, which reached #1 on Amazon for Education & Professional Development the week it was released.

Bleck says, “I believe visual learning is a powerful tool for strategic thinking, brainstorming and business planning, for real life applications like math & science, or even in your personal life to help you imagine your hopes and dreams. Other applications also became apparent through my students. I saw them using doodling for health and healing. It is a tool to relieve stress and to attract positive energy into their life.”

The Universe Within is a grassroots solution to a national creative intelligence deficit that increases student capacity to innovate, problem-solve and navigate unknown situations through original thinking exercises and out-of-the-box approaches.

The Daily Doodle is part of a suite of creative thinking skills taught by Mat Bevel Company as part of an educational worldbuilding series called The Universe Within. This specific class teaches students visual thinking and the importance of recording thoughts and ideas using drawings and words. Students are encouraged to pick up where they left off the day before so that they can tackle life’s challenges, big and small, with greater imagination.

For more information contact:
Paula Schaper, Vice President 
Mat Bevel Company
520-604-6273
pschaper@matbevelcompany.org

Additional references:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2076785/?page=1
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4324396/
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-thinking-benefits-of-doodling-2016121510844

Mat Bevel Company Takes Students into The Universe Within

by | Apr 11, 2018 | News

In early April, Mat Bevel Company’s Paula Schaper and Lars Marshall met with Patagonia Public Schools art teacher Elizabeth McCowin and School Superintendent Rachell Hochheim to plan the new world-building educational pilot called The Universe Within. Classes with students in 6th through 8th grade art class began on April 16.

The program is inspired by Mat Bevel Company President Ned Schaper’s world of Beveldom–a fine-art mechanical land teeming with inspiring characters–and his Available Resource Technology process. Students participated in a four-part introduction to world-building where they played the part of a central character in a unique imaginary world of their own making.

The Universe Within taught students specific hands-on skills to help them tackle life’s challenges with greater creativity. Skills were developed through journaling, doodling, and mask making. Stories were created, told, and performed. Students learned how to create and share their own novel characters, scenarios and plots to learn grade-relevant English language arts, listening, writing and speaking skills, as well as science-based design, construction, observation and presentation skills.

Mat Bevel Company Vice President Paula Schaper says, “Traditionally education emphasizes the importance of achieving goals. Students strive to achieve perfect grades, win at contests and sports, and finish what they start. While good grades and high achievement are important, if we’re too focused on the goal, we lose the creative ability to see all the possible solutions. The Universe Within encourages students to let their minds open up to less obvious possibilities so that, in the long run, they have a larger universe of solutions for life’s toughest challenges, those challenges that require them to think out of the box in order to adapt and succeed.”

Mat Bevel Company Vice President Paula Schaper says, “Traditionally education emphasizes the importance of achieving goals. Students strive to achieve perfect grades, win at contests and sports, and finish what they start. While good grades and high achievement are important, if we’re too focused on the goal, we lose the creative ability to see all the possible solutions. The Universe Within encourages students open their minds up to a larger universe of answers and solutions.”

If you’d like to support The Universe Within educational program, please consider making a donation or purchasing a shirt.

Each of the four classes started with a 5-minute inspirational and instructional video. Students will be encouraged to open their minds to fantastical concepts from the world of Beveldom. Then, step-by-step instructions outlined specific classroom activities.

The first classroom script asks students:

Do you know where one of the best sources of creative problem solving comes from? Inside of you. There’s an entire universe within just waiting to be discovered. We’d like to introduce you to someone who found his universe and created his own world, just like you can. Meet artist and scientist Ned Schaper. He made a magical world called Beveldom from thousands of recycled items.

After the video, school teachers and Mat Bevel Company staff guided students as they created their own world. Class one was The Daily Doodle. By using the art of doodling, students developed the basic elements of their world, determining what their world looks like, what it’s made of, who lives there, what character they’ll be in their world and the rules of their world. The lesson focused on giving students a daily routine of activating and capturing their ideas in a “doodle” notebook through words and drawings. This activity will helped students develop the capacity to draw out and express creative ideas for themselves, serving as an outlet and brainstorming tool throughout their lives.

Class two was Corrugated Headgear. Students developed the features of the character they wanted to represent from their world. Using the ancient art of mask making, students created a unique sculptural helmet or headdress from recycled corrugated cardboard and wrapping paper to represent their character. The headgear helped students slip into character and transports them into their world. This lesson focused on teaching students spatial-mechanical aptitude skills as they created functional art from recycled materials.

Class three was Story Book. Students got ready to share their world and articulated their ideas to other students, teachers, family and the community. They brought together meaningful elements of the world they created through their doodles, words and headgear in a story board format. This lesson focused on teaching students how to refine, organize and present their original ideas so they could make important points and communicate what’s meaningful to them.

Class four is Pedestrian Carnival. Student will get into character, step into their world and take the show on the road. Wearing their sculptural headgear, costumes and accessories, students parade around campus, creating a pedestrian carnival so that teachers and the student body can see their creativity and original ideas in action. Students gain valuable feedback as they see people’s reactions to what they created.

You can never look an idea straight in the eye for invention lies in the periphery of distraction.

Nonprofit Mat Bevel Company created The Universe Within to increase students’ creative thinking skills and give them flexible and imaginative approaches to problem solving throughout life.

The Universe Within is a grassroots solution to a national creative intelligence deficit. It increases student capacity to innovate, problem-solve and navigate unknown situations by providing original thinking exercises that encourage imaginative approaches to solving problems in a playful and supportive environment.

Support for The Universe Within comes from Mat Bevel Company Educational Sponsors:

Elizabeth Eynon Wetherell (FL)
William Taft (MI)
Gerry Isaac and Lynne Weatherby, Stage Stop Inn & Wild Horse Restaurant (AZ)
Santa Cruz Foundation for the Performing Arts (AZ)
Kathleen James and Gary Retherford, La Frontera Realty (AZ)
Sonoita-Patagonia Rotary Club (AZ)

To learn more about the importance of teaching your children creative thinking skills, read this article that provides good advice on how they can succeed: https://qz.com/1021749/a-leading-happiness-researcher-says-were-giving-our-kids-bad-advice-about-how-to-succeed-in-life/