by Marty Coleman | Oct 17, 2014 | Conscience - 2014, H. L. Mencken |
It’s been weighing on my conscience to do a series on Conscience so here is #1
Rationalizing
Some say humans would not be moral without God, that that is where our conscience comes from. I don’t tend to believe that, I think many non-believers are quite more and conscientious. But I do think there is a basic understanding of right and wrong in most of us (barring mental illness for the most part) and that we know when we aren’t doing right. We may quickly rationalize not doing right, after all most of organized humanity has rationalized incredibly immoral behavior, but deep down we know what we are doing is wrong.
Guilty Before or After?
Not wrong enough to change mind you, but wrong enough that if you get caught you will immediately be repentant and contrite, apologizing profusely. Yes, you are doing all that because you got caught, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t feeling the immorality of what you did. It’s just that the switch was turned on for you to feel that immorality without the buffers and blinders of your rationalization.
Where?
So, where does our conscience come from? Is it inherent or learned, from a God / spirit being or society or?
What do you think?
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Drawing by Marty Coleman
Quote by H. L. Mencken, 1880-1956, American journalist and critic
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 16, 2014 | Architecture Is - 2014 |
Tonight I am going to be part of CHiTCHaT&11. It is a program put on twice a year by the Young Architects Forum of the AIA of Eastern Oklahoma. The post care below explains how it works.
This is the reason I did the drawings on Architecture last week. I am showing them in my presentation.
I have been practicing my timing yesterday and today. Luckily the slides automatically advance so I don’t need to worry about going to long. I just need to work on fitting everything I want to say into 20 seconds per slide!
If you are out and about feel free to come by and sit in on our presentations!
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Here are the Architects and historians I’ve written about so far:
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Here are some of the products available from this presentation
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 15, 2014 | Sketchbook History Tour |
Yesterday I posted a napkin drawing of Nissi, who I met and drew at Starbucks while waiting for my car to be serviced. Here is the other drawing I did of her, this one in my actual sketchbook.
After I had finished the first drawing on a napkin I showed it to her and asked her if I could draw her again, this time in my regular sketchbook. Nissi was very kind to allow me to draw a second drawing. I gave her my card and told her the drawings would be up on my site in a few days. Hopefully she will come see them.
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Drawing by Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 14, 2014 | Sketchbook History Tour |
Almost a year ago someone sent me a link to a cool site that was selling an actual napkin sketchbook. I tried to buy one then but they had just sold out and had not made any new ones yet. I forgot about it until recently when I was going through old emails and saw one from that store. I wrote back and found they had them in stock and off I went to order it.
Nissi at Starbucks
Nissi
My first opportunity to use it was, no surprise, at a Starbucks while my car was being serviced. I love drawing in coffee houses because you are going to find people who are still. They are engrossed in their world and that makes for unconscious poses, expressions, postures, and habits. I found Nissi studying and she became my model for the day. I drew her on one of the napkins that came with the sketchbook. They are cocktail napkins, smaller than my usual lunch napkins and absorbent in a different sort of way. I also drew her in my regular sketchbook and will show that one to you when it is complete.
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The Sketchbook
Here is the drawing right after it was done in the coffee house. Since the napkins aren’t attached to the sketchbook I took mine out to draw on it. I am sure others do it the other way but I need a harder surface underneath than a pile of napkins.
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Here is the sketchbook closed.
And here it is open
Baum-Kuchen
The company selling the sketchbooks is Baum-Kuchen, located in the Glassell Park area of Los Angeles. They have this and other cool products, some of which would be perfect for a Christmas gift. I plan on shopping online at their store in the future.
Screenshot of the Baum-Kuchen Napkin Sketchbook page
You can find them online at this location: http://www.baum-kuchen.net/
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Drawing by Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 8, 2014 | Architecture Is - 2014, Spiro Kostof |
Hello Napkin Kin! Here is the last of my series on Architecture. Next week I will use these 4 images (among others) in a short presentation to a group of architects here in Tulsa.
Spiro Kostof – 1936-1991
Honestly, I didn’t know who Spiro Kostof was when I chose the quote. I assumed he was an architect. I liked the quote and so I used it. When I came to post this morning I looked him up and lo and behold, he is not an architect, he is an architectural historian. That sounds kind of boring compared to an actual architect, right? That’s what I thought. Then I read up on him and it turns out he was a ground breaking academic and writer on architecture who departed from the typical academic review of styles and individual pieces removed from their context. Instead he wrote about architectures place in the world of society, culture, history, and art. He explored the development of architecture in it’s greater context.
Once I learned that I reread the quote and it made even more sense. It was written by someone who studied specifically not only how it develops but how it influences the world it inhabits. Basically he seems to be saying architecture is never in isolation. It can be an actor on the human stage and can also be the stage itself.
I have found the videos from the last class he taught at UC Berkeley, where he was a Professor of Architectural History. I am thinking it would be fun to watch the videos. I will let you know how they are. http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/kostof.html
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Here are the other Architects and historians I’ve written about so far:
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Here is a poster of all four architecture drawings available via Zazzle.
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