Your Daily Insight as told by William Faulkner

The artist doesn’t have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don’t have the time to read reviews.

Kickstarter Pick: SparkLab Aims to Bring the Maker Community to Underprivileged Schools

There are only a few more days left to help fund SparkLab's very deserving Kickstarter campaign, one geared towards bringing hands-on making to the children of underfunded schools. After investigating classrooms as part of their thesis at Stanford, Jason Chua, Eugene Korunskiy and Arron Peck discovered that--in addition to the commonplace pitfalls of contemporary public education ("slashed budgets, a rigid curriculum and an environment more geared towards standardized testing than student engagement")--many schools didn't have the space or resources to allow their children a place to physically make things; a proven and essential part of any truly comprehensive education.  

Driven by these findings, Chua, Korunskiy and Peck founded SparkLab to not only bring that crucial building space into schools, but also the necessary equipment and materials. Obviously these supplies cost money, but in addition, SparkLab needs wheels to even bring their mission to school systems. Funds from the Kickstarter campaign will go towards the purchase and renovation of an old delivery truck, as well as gas on which to run, 3D printers, laser cutters and hand tools. Incentives include a day in the park where you'll use a laser cutter to build your own kite.

Where was SparkLab when we were in grade school?!

Feeling inspired? Get ye to their Kickstarter page and help them make this happen.

-- Perrin Drumm

For The Young Entrepreneurs Of The World: A Contemporary Guide To 'Making Good'

 

When something attracts praise that ranges from Van Jones to the Freelancers Union to Forbes, our ears perk up. When that something turns out to be a new book co-authored by Billy Parish, the Yale dropout turned Energy Action Coalition founder, we really start paying attention. When the title of that book is Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money, and Community in a Changing World, we're pretty much sold. Who doesn't want to do meaningful, world-changing work while also making money?

Hot off the press from Rodale Books, Making Good is the result of three years of research, interviews and analysis by Parish and his fellow co-author Dev Aujla, with the goal of outlining "step by step how any person can achieve financial autonomy, capitalize on global changes to infrastructure, and learn from everyday success stories—providing the skills and insights this generation needs to succeed." Dubbing itself as the "What Color Is Your Parachute? for the Facebook generation," the book has also been compared to 1989 self-help tome The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Job-seeking and self-help books can often be empty marketing ploys or unhelpful volumes of outdated advice, but Making Good promises to be different. The Facebook generation has everything constantly at its collective fingertips, and maybe Making Good is just the sort of guidebook needed to help see the forest for the trees. "This book cuts through the illusion of the quick fix and offers real solutions to help you create a life that both makes money and changes the world," says Freelancers Union president Sara Horowitz. Sounds like it's worth a read to us.

For an idea of what you'll find in Making Good, check out this Huffington Post article by Billy Parish and this Forbes article.

-- John Ruscher

Your Daily Insight as told by Dolly Parton

Find out who you are and do it on purpose.

Cowbird: An Online Audio Storytelling Community

If you've ever listened to an episode of This American Life and thought, I could do that (or maybe, more realistically, I wish I could do that) then you might just find a home at Cowbird, an online community of storytellers. Users record stories based on their personal experiences and share them with their fellow Cowbird urders and the wider Internet community.  

"Cowbird is a small community of storytellers, focused on a deeper, longer-lasting, more personal kind of storytelling than you’re likely to find anywhere else on the Web...The storytelling format we're trying to coalesce around is a single photograph accompanied by an audio or written vignette, the more personal and authentic the better." 

You don't have to be a user to listen in, but if you want to get the most out of the experience you can request an invitation and start "loving" stories (way better than Facebook's "Like") and discovering authors you admire. When you join someone's audience you get updates when they record a new story. When you're ready, you can begin your own audio-visual diary. 

"Our short-term goal is to pioneer a new form of participatory journalism, grounded in the simple human stories behind major news events. Our long-term goal is to build a public library of human experience, so the knowledge and wisdom we accumulate as individuals may live on as part of the commons, available for this and future generations to look to for guidance."

Find out more and listen to a few stories to undoubtedly get inspired.

-- Perrin Drumm

Bike Safe: Pick Up The NYC Bike Accident Report Card Right Here At 3rd Ward

In January we told you about the Bicyclist's Accident Report Card, a compact, well-designed card with visual diagrams demonstrating bike-related laws as well as a form reminding cyclists what information they should collect following an accident.

We also told you that, while Boston and California cards were already completed, a NYC edition was still in the works. Now we're thrilled to say that not only is the NYC edition finished, but you can pick one up right here at 3rd Ward.

Tee NYC Bike Accident Report Card is printed and distributed by NYC art collective Article, whose other projects include releases from Brooklyn bands like and Japanther and Ninjasonik. If you snag something from their online store and you're in the New York area, they'll throw in a card with your purchase.

Article also kindly dropped some cards off at 3rd Ward, and they're ready to slip into your pocket or wallet. Stop by and get yours!

-- John Ruscher

Your Daily Insight as told by Oscar Wilde

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.

Pictures of the Year Winners Announced

When the winners of the 69th Pictures of the Year International were announced recently, some people may have been surprised by the great differences between the two men who won Photographer of the Year in the newspaper and freelance/agency category. Craig Walker of The Denver Post won the former for his daily assignments as well for a photo essay about a veteran suffering from PTSD. Yuri Kozyrev, on the other hand, traveled extensively in 2011, moving from Moscow and Slovenia to Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt and Libya, covering the Arab Spring for TIME. You can see his winning photograph, "Shark," above. "I try to be on the road," he told The New York Times. "I try to follow the news."

Most of Walker's images were taken right in Denver, four within walking distance of The Denver Post. "Because of the amazing work done internationally this year by magazine and newspaper photographers, I feel humbled by the award," he said. "But it does say something about what you can do in your own backyard."

His PTSD photo essay, "Welcome Home: The Story of Scott Ostrom," was key to his win. In 2010 Walker was awarded with a Pulitzer Prize for "Ian Fisher: American Soldier," which follows a teenager as he joins the Army, deploys to Iraq and returns home.

You can read more about the winners on The New York Times excellent photo blog, The Lens, or check out some of 3rd Ward's photography classes to start working on your own Photographer of the Year award.

-- Perrin Drumm

A Cut Above: Kai Margarida-Ramírez de Arellano's Intricate Artwork, From Papel Picado To Downton Abbey

"Skeletons in the Closet' by Kai Margarida-Ramírez de Arellano

3rd Ward member Kai Margarida-Ramírez de Arellano can trace her artistic roots back four generations. "None of my family members would identify themselves as artists, but they are all intuitively creative people and they have always nurtured my passion for art," she says. "My great-great grandmother was an amateur photographer, she choreographed elaborate scenes with members of her family during the 1920s, and these photos are definitely a source of inspiration for me. Her daughter, my great-grandmother, made collages and was often the model of her mother's photographs. My grandmother (a nuclear physics professor) used to draw and paint, and my mother (a law professor) creates found-object art, collages, and graphic art."

Kai Margarida-Ramírez de Arellano"My family also has a tradition of story telling that has deeply informed my aesthetic and identity," she adds. "These stories tell my family history, but also the family mythology which in turn has informed our family consciousness. This unique relationship to my roots plays a huge role in my work."

Growing up in New Mexico, Margarida-Ramírez de Arellano was exposed to the Mexican folk art of papel picado, or paper cutting. "In 2008 I took a workshop at a local art center with papel picado master Catalina Delgado Trunk," she says. "The medium came easily to me, and I realized I could really use this technique to combine my multi cultural roots with my interest in politics and popular culture." Read more about Margarida-Ramírez de Arellano below and hit the jump to see more of her intricate work (including some fantastic embroidery pieces).

"I use this ancient art form to discuss sex, politics, pop culture, my family history and my own experience of walking the line between cultures, while maintaining a sense of wit and irony," she explains. "I also establish inter-generational collaborations by referencing photographs taken by my great-great grandmother."

3rd Ward has inspired Margarida-Ramírez de Arellano to further expand her skills. "I wish I could take every class!" she says. "The great thing about taking so many classes is once in a while you really find something that speaks to you, that's what happened when I took Extraordinary Embroidery with Iviva. I never embroidered before, and now I can't stop."

"I am finishing two embroidery series of Downton Abbey and Parks and Recreation which I'll submit to Bust Magazine's Craftacular fair this spring," she tells us. She just completed artwork for Brooklyn band Elliot and the Ghost and is brainstorming with her mother on some collaborative projects. Her work is also currently featured in Cutting Edge: Contemporary Paper Cutting at the Boise State University Visual Arts Center. "This is particularly exciting for me because it includes such paper cutting greats as Beatrice Coron and Nikki McClure!" she says. "It is a huge honor to be showing with these talented women."

And now for two of Margarida-Ramírez de Arellano's Downton Abbey embroidery pieces, the awesomeness of which we can't begin to adequately describe, followed by a couple of her equally amazing papel picado works:

'The Dowager Countess' by Margarida-Ramírez de Arellano

'Lady Cybil' by Margarida-Ramírez de Arellano

'Manchild' by Margarida-Ramírez de Arellano

'Ozon' by Margarida-Ramírez de Arellano

-- John Ruscher

Your Daily Insight as told by Susan Meiselas

The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don't belong. It gives me both a point of connection and a point of separation.