os190328 Structure for collaboration - A life insurance policy for hope 

If printmaking were not therapeutic, would I be in such great health? My mental and physical health is good and it’s partly because I have spent about fifty years in the arts and, specifically, printmaking. You would not think, to watch me over the course…

“A structure for collaboration is like a life insurance policy for hope.” – Rosabeth-Moss Kanter

If printmaking were not therapeutic, would I be in such great health? My mental and physical health is good and it’s partly because I have spent about fifty years in the arts and, specifically, printmaking.

You would not think, to watch me over the course of a day, that I am an artist, however, because I don’t fit the stereotype of artist. I do not socialize with other artists. I do not attend openings and visit art museums and galleries.

If one asks me about this – as recently a woman did – I comment that I don’t really like the art world with which she is familiar. It must have sounded odd to me, surrounded as we were, standing in our family’s art gallery, with art!

I assume she would not understand, and I assume she’s not really interested because I have found peoples’ interest in the arts in the United States goes only as far as consumers. Analysis of art and its relation to the world situation is not interesting.

To me art is nothing if not something for analysis. A physicist (or is he a mathematician?) Richard Feynman, believed artists have nothing because their work cannot be measured, its matter measured in terms of Naturally-occurring phenomena and substances.

He’s correct, for the most part. However, the report of art can be measured, thanks to computers and the internet because art has emotional, sensual value and addresses that coffee-bean-sized part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens.

I will illustrate with the example of a web-based acquaintance who has recently come into my sphere of awareness (again, thanks to the Internet). We met because of a mutual appreciation for the Varkey Foundation’s Global Teaching Prize given to Peter Tabichi.[i]

Her name is Rewana Nduchwa (“You can call me May.”) and she the CEO of Chabana Farms, a farmers’ cooperative in Botswana. She noticed my comment on the announcement of Father Tabichi’s award. I had been following this award because the Global Teacher Prize matches my concept of the Gates Prize. In my comment I related this prize to my own invention of The Gates Prize.

This led to May mentioning she’s coming to Seattle in May to be part of an accelerator, Fledge and since then we’ve been exchanging notes online. Her current focus is bees because she wants to extend Chabana’s product line of honey and Fledge is investing in this, supporting her continuing education so as to increase the market for the honey.

By doing this, Chabana creates jobs and may even help solve a problem which farmers contend with: Elephants. Botswana has the greatest elephant population in Africa, and they maraud the farmers’ fields. Imagine what this means: Cereals is one of the products Chabana offers, and cornfields are a favorite of elephants. Elephants fear bees, so if there are beehives around the cornfields, perhaps the elephants will not trample the cornstalks.

My job, as a teacher, is to bring printmaking into education as a learning experience, so I suggest we form a strategic partnership and explore putting printmaking in Chabana’s marketing plan. Using our Mini Halfwood Press model, Chabana can produce prints designed around bees and elephants, deeply-embossed and colorful images printed on elephant-dung paper. The printing is carried on as entertainment, and the prints themselves are offered to tourists who use Botswana’s safari industry as souvenirs.

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[i] The winner of the 2019 US $1 million prize was announced on stage by movie star Hugh Jackman. Peter was chosen from our top 10 finalists who come from all corners of the globe. From teaching in remote towns and villages to inner-city schools, they advocate for inclusivity and for child rights, integrate migrants into the classrooms, and nurture their students’ abilities and confidence using music, technology, robotics and science. Peter has dedicated his life to helping others. He gives 80% of his teaching salary to local community projects, including education, sustainable agriculture and peace-building. He’s changed the lives of his students in many ways, including the introduction of science clubs and the promotion of peace between different ethnic groups and religions. He has also helped to address food insecurity among the wider community in the famine-prone Rift Valley.