ImagineU: Imagination Matters
Imagination Matters:
A Four Week Encounter in Making
Online Course
January 29 - February 23, 2006
$225 + $35 Materials Fee*
Taught by Daniel Mack
Group is limited to 15 people.
Click here to register online.
Or email us at learn(at)imaginalinstitute.com if you prefer to pay by check.
*Note: The eagle-eyed but short-attention-spanned among us have wondered, legitimately, about a materials fee for an online course. A good question! These cover the cost of mailings of natural and joinery materials over the course of the, er, course. Read on so this makes sense!
Join bricoleur Daniel Mack and a group of 15 fellow Makers for a very special exploration of imagination through sculpting objects with natural materials. Gather materials from your own backyard, and work with collections that Mack assembles from the group. You'll explore different themes and share images of your pieces, gaining insight and inspiration from your fellow Makers as you discover making meaning through making.
What's a Bricoleur?
From the French, bricoler, meaning "to fidde" or "to tinker," a bricoleur is someone who plays with found objects to create objects. With sticks and stones and shells and bones, you can unleash the sculptor in you -- and become a bricoleur!
How It Works
You will collect natural objects from your yard, or the park down the street, or the beach down the hill, or the stream around the corner. You'll send these into the Bricoleur, and he'll reassemble all of the collections, along with various tools to join them together, and send them back out to the group. You'll then have a collection of splendiferous materials from all over the country to play with.
Then, you'll begin to play with sculptures, guided by some images and themes that Dan provides. You'll share photos, comments and journal entries with the group, exploring your process and theirs and what has unfolded in the making for all of you. Dan has some special treats planned for this process, and then, at the end of the course, images of your work, if you so wish, will be included as the very first entries in the Imaginal Institute Gallery of Wondrous Objects! How cool is that?
Characteristics needed for this course event:
- Interest in exploring an oddly collective approach to Making
- Access to a computer
- Ability to take and upload digital images
- Time for this… minimum of four hours a week for the month
- Willingness to cooperate with the weekly deadlines and costs for mailing materials and making objects
Click here to register for Imagination Matters online.
Or, email us at learn(at)imaginalinstitute.com for directions about how to pay by check.
About Dan Mack
Daniel Mack has been on the faculty of The Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, NY since 1997 where he teaches about the power of working with natural materials. For 30 years, he has been an artist, teacher, furniture maker and architectural consultant. His work is in many private and museum collections. He has written five books and is at work on The Wayward Artist, an approach to “ordinary creativity” based in archetypal psychology. He and has just joined The Imaginal Institute. He lives and works in Warwick, NY. You can find out more about Dan's extraordinary work at www.danielmack.com.
About ImagineU
ImagineU is the educational arm of the Imaginal Institute, offering distance learning experiences for adult learners, taught by Institute Fellows. We are currently offering short (4 week) "workshop" classes that are tastes in imaginal learning, offering cuirous adults a chance to explore their imaginations through a variety of modalities. We are proud to be using Moodle as our online learning system; it is a sophisticated learning platform developed by educators and technology consultants around the world. For a taste of Moodle, check out our free quick tutorial at www.imaginalinstitute.com/moodle.
We also have the following under development:
- Friends Forums: Monthly podcasts and/or conference calls by Institute Fellows on special topics in imaginal activism. These forums will be free; the only cost is to bring a friend with you!
- The Hermes Project: A year long certification program for "imaginal activists" in any discipline, bringing creative people together with the skills they need to successfully bring their work into community.
- Masters in Imaginal Studies: An accredited Masters degree in imagination, with an emphasis in imaginal activism.
Still have questions? Feel free to email us at learn(at)imaginalinstitute.com with any questions or to be added to our mailing list about upcoming learning experiences at ImagineU. (Just replace the (at) with @ in the email address.)
And check out the other course we're offering: Finding the Muses: A Four Week Meeting With Inspiration.
