kp221109 Into STWEAM

Getting into the STWEAM of Things

Discovering there is a “seal of approval” for STEAM-based toys and games, the maker of Kids with Presses is reminded of a company CEO he met recently whose APP helps kids write stories. She may modify STREAM to read STWEAM and extend her offering and his. 488 Words

Gimme the seal

From Give me the Brain game – a horrid little video game invented in the Pacific Northwest – I think of “Give me the Seal.” For our printmaking games and toys company, I want the TOT Association – The Other Thing. It may be called STWEAM.

Inured as many entrepreneurs are to seals, buttons, badges and such like rewards and approval, a seal like this on the box of the Printmaking Teachers in a Box would be helpful in marketing and selling PTIAB.

Recently I met a woman who provides a writing APP to her subscribers. Her point is that what has been STREAM – Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math – should emphasize the importance of Writing. Thus it should be STWEAM.

Besides, STREAM is taken. It refers to how people get tied to the screens by STREAMing video movies, sports, news, etc. STREAMing is pushing cable aside as the preferred means of using media.

Reading is a consumer activity, and tethers people to screens; her goal is to slacken that tether by putting young peoples’ hands to the task of writing – a producer activity. Only by production can kids help save their world, the world into which they are bound to grow.

As I am thinking it is good strategic planning to put the cart before the horse and visualize the end goal in mind, then I suggest we must see this seal STWEAM on our products and services’ packaging as part of our brand. It does not exist as yet, but I can – in under an hour – create one suitable for screens and, given a couple more hours – a real brass badge.

Add some more time I can make copper and brass printing plates for printmaking as I am a PTIAB. Papermaking, too, is in the deal.

I digress.

Better yet, we invent our own STWEAM Toy Association, aiming for the niche market of which PTIAB is part. Where the existing, conventional association – with all its top-heavy administration and government institutions tethers – we live in a new space of children who are under twelve years old.

They own the future, and that is where they cannot afford fools. A glance a morning TV news show where the top winners of the seal shows the foolishness of the Toy Association – toys designed by grownups with all their old-world ties to wasteful, conspicuous consumption.

In a world that is ending under the old centralized practices overload of backward-facing frames of reference, I feel it is incumbent, under my DIY future Declaration of Interdependence (designed and signed in 2004) to do this myself.

Cover illustration for "Kids with Presses,"
thanks to Mario Betta and his grandson.

RI221027 Kids and Grandparents with presses

From RIISMA, the "think tank" of Emeralda Region the real author experiments with AI assistant on the platform known as Moonbeam. For one-dollar, he signs on and samples, using keywords like "grandparents," "presses," "homeschooling," etc. The following is the lightly edited result.

What is printmaking?

Printmaking is one of the oldest and most popular forms of artistic expression, dating back Millennia. It can be used to create anything from simple designs to complex works of art, and can be a highly rewarding experience for both youngsters and adults alike. For grandparents, printmaking is a great way to bond with grandchildren and teach them about creativity, art, and technology. Many youngsters go on to pursue careers in the arts and technology thanks to their early exposure to printmaking. So if you're looking for an interesting activity that will keep your grandkids entertained while also teaching them something valuable, printmaking may just be the perfect choice!

The benefits of printmaking for grandparents and kids

Printmaking is a great way for grandparents and kids to get together and have fun and have something to show for it. It can help kids develop transferrable, fine motor skills, as well as creativity, problem-solving skills, and communication abilities. Printmaking can be used as a tool for making images for storytelling, writing, and art appreciation. There are also sciences, technology, engineering, and math concepts to be discovered in printing and related crafts.

How to get started in printmaking

For children, learning printmaking can be a rewarding experience that helps them develop strong work ethics and in combination with innovation. Printmaking is also an excellent way for children to express themselves, as it allows them to create works of art from scratch - literally! Grandparents can play an important role in helping children learn how to make presses, plates, paper, and prints by providing guidance and support all the way. There are many materials and resources needed, but with a knowledge base and a grandparent or parent to help, getting started is easy.

The different types of presses available for printmaking

A press is a machine that can be used to print by transferring ink from a plate, stencil, or block to paper. There are different types of presses available, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

Relief presses are the simplest type of press and are best for printing woodcuts and linoleum cuts. They require less force than other types of presses, making them good for beginners. Intaglio presses are more complex as well as the plates made for them. They can also be used to print engraved images or words, letters, and symbols. Lithographic presses are the most complex type of press and use a series of plates that transfer an image onto paper using heat and pressure.

Grandparents can help their grandchildren learn about printmaking by sharing their own experiences with different types of presses and working with other family members to design improvements. Relief prints made on a simple relief press look almost like illustrations in books, while intaglio prints created on an intaglio press often have intricate details in line drawings or etching. Lithographs typically show scenes from everyday life rather than people or animals, making them popular among collectors.

How to use a press for printmaking

If you’re interested in learning how to create prints using a press, there are a few things you need to know. Printmaking is hard fun – even beginners can do it – and presses are versatile tools that can be used for a variety of purposes. Like a musical instrument, a press requires practice.

Manual presses are the simplest type of press and can be used to create prints with simple designs or patterns. If you would like to try something more complex, consider investing in a personal press that has more features and capabilities. Regardless of your level of experience, printing is an excellent way to teach kids about art, creativity, problem-solving, and more. By sharing your own printmaking experiences with your grandchildren, you may give them a gift that will last a lifetime!

The benefits of homeschooling with a press

Homeschooling with a press can be a highly rewarding, intergenerational experience for families with children. It can give children a head start in learning about printmaking, which can lead to exciting and well-paid, fulfilling jobs later on in life. Grandparents can use their life experiences to help guide children through the process of printmaking, passing forward the family legacies, and instilling valuable skills along the way. Homeschooling with a press also allows for more bonding time among grandparents, parents, and their grandchildren, fostering closer relationships. Ultimately, homeschooling with a press can be an incredibly enriching experience for all involved, providing numerous benefits that extend far beyond simply learning about printmaking itself.

Networking opportunities for grandparents and kids with a press

Introducing kids to printmaking early on can help them to develop important skills that can lead to careers later in life if printmaking is associated with networking. Grandparents can play a key role in helping their grandchildren develop these skills by trying printmaking experiences together with them, and by networking with other grandparents and kids who have presses - or who can make presses. There are many different types of presses, some of which are not mechanical - that can be used for printmaking, so it is important to find the right one for your needs. With the right press, any grandparent or kid can create beautiful works of art that will be cherished for years to come and can be shared anywhere in the developed and developed nations of the world both digitally and for real.

 

 es220813 China calls

Emeralda Works in China, too?

Someone, Steven Liu, from China Registry, called, and then emailed me with a question. He said:

"We are the domain registration and solution center in China. On August 13, 2022, we received an application from Hongfeng Ltd requested "emeraldaworks" as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (emeraldaworks.cn, emeraldaworks.com.cn, emeraldaworks.net.cn, emeraldaworks.org.cn). But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it's necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your distributor in China?"

Initially I thought it was a scam and I deleted the telephone call. Then the email came, to which I could only respond, "No, I do not use this name to distribute in China."

Still, I wish I could! As I am a sole worker in our company, Emeralda Works, LLC, what can I do?

Today I learned the following:

"The unsolicited email you receive is from a Chinese domain registrar (could be a certified registrar, agent, affiliate or private person). In the email they explain that a supposed company (try to Google the name) is interested in some available domain names (typically .hk, .cn, .tw), which correspond with your brand name. In only a few days the other party will register these domains, unless you secure them first. The domain registrar can even send you an email from the interested third party (it comes from a hotmail address) claiming that they want to register your domain names, and they are only waiting for approval from Mr. Jim or whatever his name is.
"There is a similar domain name: www  . chinaregistry.org.cn. In trying to connect to this my anti virus protection gave the following message so beware:
“When we visited this site, we found it may be designed to trick you into submitting your financial or personal information to online scammers. This is a serious security threat which could lead to identity theft, financial losses or unauthorized use of your personal information”.
"It can be very expensive if you fall for it.  Just ignore it."

 

 

ri210120 Negotiable Persistent Anticipation: Keys to artiscrip design  

“A transmitter encodes information into a signal, which is corrupted by noise and then decoded by the receiver.” This is the explanation of Claude Shannon’s information theory, which is the basis for information age digital communication and includes art.

Claude Shannon and games  

David Tse gave us an article about Claude Shannon and several points stood out - sentences that struck me like flags in a downhill ski course, marking the way to the design of artiscrip as my game.

One such statement is, “A transmitter encodes information into a signal, which is corrupted by noise and then decoded by the receiver.”

The image this makes in my artist’s mind is, “The artist publishes a work of art like a signal for a phantom audience’s benefit. The work is corrupted by the environment, society, economics, politics, and psychology. A real audience decodes it – however corrupted it is.”

For example, I make a print, I show the print in an art gallery, people come and see it and form their opinion and, sometimes, they buy it. Or I put the print in the window of our Mini Art Gallery and a passerby notices it and buys it.

There is a persistent notion in our society that art is at once a consumable. To most people who are not artists it is a mysterious world tinged with persistent envy. They respect those who are judged to be artists, evident in that their work is published, prize-worthy and shown inside galleries, museums, books, and collectable.

Not only is the artwork consumable and may be purchased, but they may also negotiate to own this artifact, this desirable object from the world of art.

In addition to its being an object of negotiable value, the viewer also feels anticipation. If they go to an art gallery, they anticipate enjoying what they see – and it is free. Although a museum charges to enter, it’s worth the money because the art has been edited and polished. The environment is like that of a church. Guards are stationed here and there. An art museum has the air of a place of worship, socially elevating and respectful.

For the few visitors with disposable income, there is anticipation that they might buy art and take it home or make it part of their corporation’s holdings as investments – real assets of blue-chip valuation. Legends of buying low and selling high raise anticipation – like betting on a horse. Fear accompanies the feeling because they might be mistaken.

It is like a game where there are winners and losers. How can I make artiscrip work the same way?

Rarity, scarcity, and money

Art galleries and museums have more value as generators of negotiable, persistent anticipation because rarity enters in. Unlike entering a clothing store where racks of clothing and surprising colors are tempered by the fact the clothing is mass-produced. A designer’s studio, however, promises one-of-a-kind clothes a wealthy person anticipates will be seen as a high-ticket consumable only a few can afford. Such designers are considered to be artists because of negotiable persistent anticipation.

It must be like this for artiscrip. But how?

Some people consider me an artist, but I consider myself to be a teaching artist – a half-breed living among the artists’ tribes. As the saying among artists goes, “If you can’t make it as an artist, you teach.” Naturally, I am an outsider to whatever side there is because I am a half-caste of whatever the art world fashion is.

To think about Claude Shannon and analyze David Tse’s article is evidence of this. Artists might say I have left my mind! In my mind, it’s not unusual at all for an artist to vacillate between two minds about the art world. He or she sees evidence that the greatest artists veered away from the conventions prevailing in their day in order to do great things.

Artiscrip, therefore, is a work of art. Part physical, part digital, a hybrid of the world that was with the world that is trying to be born. My analysis of Claude Shannon’s contribution to science, engineering and math will continue as my search for the game mechanic of artiscrip (and emeralda.games) continues.

The object is negotiable persistent anticipation. Only by working on artiscrip – in a community of distributed investors and producers – can we build a better world.

 mr201227 Specifying the Printmaking Teacher in A Box: On the advice of Mary Burns  

An educator named Mary Burns listed her recommendations for teachers to use as they plan for school starting in six months under COVID-19 restraints. As he read her list it seemed she was describing the specifications for the Printmaking Teacher in A Box.  

Mary Burns’ advice

Mary Burns wrote the specifications for the Printmaking Teacher in A Box, although she never heard of it. Her specifications were in an article she wrote for Edutopia, getting teachers ready for autumn quarter, 2020. He advice was to find balance between the old and the new.

As I read her recommendations, I could see her words apply to the specifications of the Printmaking Teacher in A Box, and I had a strong urge to copy-write over her advice and adapt them to my Printmaking Teacher in A Box. Now that ZOOM has been adopted as a platform-of-choice for many people, and with my escape game concept, it is time to take her cue.

Not only ZOOM, but another aspect impinges on the specifications: money. Though I may not be the only printmaking teacher who thinks about money beyond my personal needs, I may be the only one with a business plan and a product to sell.

Educators, and this may be especially true of art educators, raise their eyebrows at this. For the most part, money is not their immediate concern because they are paid. Their paycheck and the prospect of some security for the coming year allows them to shop for art supplies. It is not so for the students – especially now in America.

Not only the immediate costs (these should be taught to be investments), but he ripple effect of the art materials, tools, supplies and related industries effect the students’ ability to do the work the teachers expect.

Printmaking industry

Every art medium has associated manufacturing industries. Printmaking is not unique in this; however, it is the one field with a unique position in education. In my opinion, printmaking is as much a performing and social art as it is a visual art. This means printmaking invites the teacher and learner to break out of the bounds of the visual arts.

Because printmaking is the ancestor of all science, technology, literature, engineering, and mathematics education, teachers and students can break away from the art school and enter the other domains.

Etching, for example, involves chemistry. Press design involves engineering. Reading has become universal, thanks to printing technology. Mathematics is difficult for me to pin down – weak as I consider myself here.

We realize we are living in a time when science, technology, reading, engineering, art, and mathematics – STREAM – might be experiences in teaching and learning settings if printmaking is the “A is for Art” in the acronym.

It might be, too, that the concept is in itself a work of art, an abstract art of the dynamic kind one experiences in the performance, the act of maker, making and made.

os201023  What I Wrote Today: And this day in the past  

Putting my theory to the test

My theory is that I can put in eight characters in the search window of my computer and the engine will display what I wrote on this day going back as many years as those years in which I did write on that day.

For example, to write this essay I used eight characters and numbers (and two question marks to represent wildcards for the two digits that meant the year. This string of eight is os??1023.

Literally this means, on the island of Open Studios and Hospitality, on years indicated by the wildcard question marks, on October 23, what did I write about? In addition to this one which I am writing at present, three articles are indicated, two that are doubled for 2008 and one for 2004, and their titles.

In 2008 one of the two titles is, “Plotline for Amina: Where does she go from here?” referring to Amina Seattle, the avatar of Janet Fisher which she used in Second Life. This virtual world was in our search for a metaphor fitting the plan for Emeralda, a platform for my distance learning plan for printmaking. Amina was the protagonist in the story of a woman who is given a year to live in Emeralda to develop her printmaking. She uncovers a plot to end Earth’s human and other life sustainability. The subject line of the essay says:

“Writing for a video game is not like writing a story or a screen play. Reading has told this author that fact, yet it is not clear just how to do it. It’s straightforward to write for video cut scenes, but a game is interactive, which challenges a newbie.”

The second one for 2008 is titled, “Professor McGee's Message for Amina: An example of transfer,” referring, to James Paul Gee, author of, “What Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy “ - a book about learning games. Its subject description says:

“From reading What Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy, the artist/teacher may determine how his game resembles one of the entertainment games already on the market—a game called System Shock II. Transfer is key, the book’s author says.”

Four years earlier, in 2004, the title, "Losing my Grip: Between a hard place and a soft place,” has the subject description:

“The author has spent many years considering the software that has grown up around him and his devotion to education—too many years perhaps. Now he’s got a hand on a piece of hardware, and an opportunity to make art instruments. It poses a dilemma for him.”

Skimming this article was valuable. It is one of the examples that enlightens me, like a parable that teaches how an old man learns from a youngster, and he old man and the youngster are both me. One, the younger, sixteen years ago, lucidly explains the logic of a learning game for printmaking which can be adapted to online games.

The other, an old man, grasping at straws to learn how this can be achieved. This date in October of 2004 when I was preparing for my first demonstration of the Legacy model of the Halfwood Press – which would turn into a business. It is the “art instrument” referred to in the subject description. The Halfwood Press remains part of the theories touched upon in this essay and matured into the Teacher-in-a-box.

 pp200924  Press Saves the Earth’s HOLS:  Human and other life sustainability in the balance 

 Imperfect people in a perfect world

Al Gore was an imperfect person. His book title, Earth in the Balance, was not the perfect title, for it implied that mankind could somehow save the Earth. Obviously, it is mankind – among all the living things – destroying only Earth’s human and many other kinds of life sustainability.

I appreciate and admire his effort, however. He was naïve, like me, putting his trust in the wisdom of Americans and trusting that the Republicans would do the right thing. History teaches he was wrong, that there are many humans who hate and fear others and above all they fear they are wrong.

The Dunning-Krueger effect is strong in people who face uncertainty and lack understanding of that which they cannot see or touch. They fear surprises and not knowing what lies around the next bend, over the hill, and the end of their life.

The Earth will go on after mankind is extinct, as it has since other species did. That’s why I always say, let us try to save Earth’s human and other life sustainability. The Earth does not need saving, it is us and our children that we can try to save by helping Earth’s human and other life sustainability.

Face your fears day

October 14 is National Face Your Fears Day. What am I afraid of? Chiefly I am afraid I cannot change Americans who are afraid of things they cannot see or even languages spoken that they do not understand. In their fears and paranoia, they often think something is being said about them! I remember that feeling and I face the fear, studied a few languages and, although I didn’t learn any of them well, the exercise taught me I am not the center of anyone’s attention nor target of derision or jokes.

The Dunning-Krueger effect does not work on me. Yet, when it comes to saving the Earth’s Human and other life sustainability, the effect is fatal, pervasive as it is in the educational systems of the U.S.A. Teachers, even, too often who are trained in institutions where fear wreaks havoc on evaluation systems and teaching philosophies.

Reinhold Niebuhr said: “Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Who was he? A public intellectual and philosopher of theology with sympathies for the poor working class. He is ranked highly among America’s thinkers and his books are widely read.

I think of his famous quote often when I see I cannot change things, that I can see the difference, and I feel the strength to change what I can. It is the how of changing things that I focus on. How can I change the way printmaking is taught in high schools and colleges, for example?

One action at a time, I believe, and the tenacity to stick to my premise – that printmaking is the ancestor of all things STEM and the artform most likely to benefit young people facing the task of saving Earth’s human and other life forms’ sustainability.