Crucible x 2

Larry Wolf, Crucible of Attention - Cool (2023)

Larry Wolf, Crucible of Attention - Hot (2023)

A crucible that holds our attention protects and nurtures fresh modes of being.

Our attention is the energy that transforms and extracts essential elements.

Untitled x 2

Larry Wolf (2023)
[at Wrightwood 659]

Larry Wolf (2023)
[at Wrightwood 659]

Crucible of Attention - a mindful viewing group

This will be offered through Latitude starting February 5, 2023

A crucible is a container of energy within which substances can be transformed. We bring our attention, our awareness, into this group with a commitment to be present for each other, to allow for the possibility of change in how we perceive art and, for those who are artists, how we make our art. 

What happens as you spend time with a work of art? When you discuss that art with a trusted circle of other people? 

Participants in this workshop will: 

• Meet every other week to discuss an image of their choice. This image can be a part of a personal project, an image they have encountered in a book, or one from social media.
• Learn to talk about their own artworks and respond to the work of others.
• Get feedback from peers.
• Be provided readings to expand on ideas brought to the workshop by the instructor and peers. 

This is an experiential, participatory program. It builds on approaches of slow looking and appreciative inquiry. We’ll begin each session by establishing our container, welcoming each other, and then take a few minutes to further settle, to be present to our minds and our bodies. There will be a short teaching segment about looking at art and how we interpret it. Each of us will bring art, whether created by us or by others. During each session, we will spend fifteen minutes with each artwork.

We each offer the gift of our attention. From this place of not-knowing and discovering, surprises of all kinds may arise.

This class will be meeting on Zoom on February 5th, February 19th, March 5th, and March 19th from 2:00pm-5:00pm!

Space is limited to 10 participants total so grab your spot!

Questions? Contact us at education@latitudechicago.org

Register at Latitude

Across the Caldera

Larry Wolf, Across the Caldera (2000/2022)

Holding Space

Larry Wolf, Collaboration - Holding Space (2022)

Who Is This?

Molly Maline Cook & Mary Oliver, Our World (2007)

In a letter

Photographer Unknown, 
Molly Malone Cook, Europe 1950s

My mother was an infant,

my father was a child,

so I grew up immensely dour

and wild... wild... wild.

Molly Maline Cook

Whistler

All of a sudden she began to whistle. By all of a sudden I mean that for more than thirty years she had not whistled. It was thrilling. At first I wondered, who was in the house, what stranger? I was upstairs reading, and she was downstairs. As from the throat of a wild and cheerful bird, not caught but visiting, the sounds warbled and slid and doubled back and larked and soared.

Finally I said, Is that you? Is that you whistling? Yes, she said. I used to whistle, a long time ago. Now I see I can still whistle. And cadence after cadence she strolled through the house, whistling.

I know her so well, I think. I thought. Elbow and ankle. Mood and desire. Anguish and frolic. Anger too. And the devotions. And for all that, do we even begin to know each other? Who is this I've been living with for thirty years?

This clear, dark, lovely whistler?

 Mary Oliver 

Molly Malone Cook, Walker Evans at the bookshop (1967)

I discovered Our World at Uncharted Books, Chicago

also On Being with Krista Tippett: Mary Oliver "I got saved by the beauty of the world." (2015/2022).

Noticing

Rob Walker, The Art of Noticing (2019)
Borrowed from the Chicago Public Library

Quotes

"For anyone trying to discern what to do with their life, pay attention to what you pay attention to. That's pretty much all the information you need." Amy Krouse Rosenthal

"Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Mary Oliver

"Notice what you notice." Allen Ginsberg, Cosmopolitan Greetings

School of Visual Arts - Fourth Annual Phil Patton Lecture (2019)