Recently at The Toby we hosted a talk by an expert on beads named Lois Sherr Dubin. Referencing the Native American art, Nigerian art, and fashion art on display at IMA right now, she led us on a mind-bending trip through time and place, reflecting on these diminutive glass, ceramic or bone doo-dads that humans have endowed with the power to signify social status, connect to the spirits, and more. The earliest known beads, made from seashells, date back to 100,000 BC.

What about the earliest-known drawings? They exist in a cave in France, and are believed to be more than 30,000 years old. The newest film by documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog (of Grizzly Man fame) is a journey into the Chauvet Cave, and a reflection on the profound urge to represent reality—with pigment on a surface.

image courtesy IFC films.

Egged on by Herzog’s rapturous narration, the film’s camera washes over the cave paintings with lavish attention. Beasts of all sizes are depicted. Charcoal brush strokes capture the grace and strength of a horse in motion. Footprints hint at rites of passage and perilous journeys. The film is immersive; the drawings are ghostly, and yet so there. (Read reviews of the film here).

Cave of Forgotten Dreams premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. I saw it at the 2011 South by Southwest film festival and fell in love.

You can see it here at the Indianapolis Museum of Art any of four times between Christmas and New Years. Use it as an excuse to get out of the house and get a fat dose of profundity.

Katherine Ball, intrepid resident of Indianapolis Island, wants you.  Come and learn from your fellow citizens—including those who are extra funny, such as Indy Fringe favorite Phil Van Hest— about new ways of thinking about water this Friday night, Sept. 16, at Big Car’s Service Center for Contemporary Culture and Community in Lafayette Square:

Katherine’s calling this free gathering Public Social University (PSU).  It’s a concept borrowed from friends in Portland, Oregon, from whence she hails.  PSU puts a unique twist on learning by combining it with other (often seemingly unrelated) subjects, encouraging non-experts to speak about their experiences, and adding a playful energy.

Learning from non-experts.  How refreshing is that?   This Friday, the poetry, history, reality, and politics of water will abound. Check the flyer above for the workshops being presented, or download your very own copy and please share it with others.

Bonus: come to PSU, and you will also see a watery art & design show: ten designers’ responses to the shapes and patterns of the White River watershed.

Want to reduce your carbon footprint while attending Public Social University?  Meet Katherine and other avid cyclists to bike over to the Service Center.  They’ll be convening at Freewheelin’ Community Bikes’ new workshop, 3355 N. Central Ave., at 5:30 pm.

See you Friday.  If you’re craving more aqueous-ness, don’t forget the FLOW project and its multitude of events…

Designer Emily Pilloton is the most practical of prophets: her life’s work is to engage people with the transformative power of design.  First she founded Project H Design: “design initiatives for Humanity, Habitats, Health, and Happiness.”  Then she worked in the developing world making products to improve the quality of life.  Now, having traversed the US evangelizing about design, given a TED talk, and written a book, Pilloton’s latest effort is no less than redesigning public education and thereby reviving a struggling southern community.

Pilloton speaks this Thursday as part of the IMA’s Planet Indy series.  Here, she muses on a few questions in advance of her visit:

Q: What have you learned about the relationship between thoughtful design and the solving of large social problems?

We have learned that thoughtful design can address large social problems, but works best on a small scale. Instead of saying “how can design solve homelessness?” we’ve found that the best design initiatives are actually micro-local, that they address things on a very small scale for a defined group of people in our own backyards, and these solutions can serve as models for others to do the same in their own backyards. One million people with one design solution each will always be better than one person’s solution for one million people.

Q: In 2010, you toured the country in an Airstream trailer engaging with people about design.  What did you learn from that experience?

We learned a lot about how misunderstood design is among the general public, and how disconnected that is from the desire of the next generation to do good. People viewed examples of brilliant humanitarian design as “inventions,” or “the next million dollar idea,” rather than the result of a human-centered process that really does have impact. Students, on the other hand, took to the road show naturally, seeing the power that creativity can have on everyday lives. On a more practical note, we learned that two people and a dog, for 75 days in a confined space with no water or kitchen, is not a fun way to live. But we definitely have some good stories.

Q: As a designer and educator, what are you up to right now in Bertie County, North Carolina?  And why did you choose to take your energy to a rural community?

My partner Matthew Miller and I both have resumes that say we’re designers/builders, and the day-to-day schedules of high school shop teachers. We teach our Studio H curriculum within the public high school, offering students one year (two semesters + summer build) intensive design and construction education, put towards big built community architecture projects. We love working in a rural place like Bertie County because the impact we can have is exponential. There is such a need to do things differently, and to break the instinct to do the same things done in the same ways since the 1800′s. Design is an opportunity to shift the ways in which we view the future of Bertie County, or any place labeled economically challenged or resource-poor.

Pilloton’s talk at the IMA is also part of the fascinating IndyTalks series.  The post-talk Q&A period will be focused on Indianapolis specifically: how can design thinking make this city a better place to work, learn and live?

Nothing like an ice storm to make you dream green.  It’s hard to fathom the audacity of this amaryllis on our kitchen counter right now:

Fathoming, though, is a big part of sustainability – that’s why we love it at the IMA.  Green thinking demands an experimental spirit, and usually reflects a nod to smart design.  The status quo (pollution, wastefulness, inefficiency) has got to go.

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Sometimes manna drops from the sky.  As when I get an e-mail from an agent in Chicago seeking concert venues for 23-year-old Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds.  This fair fellow composes delicate pieces for chamber ensembles, tinted with a hint of electronica.  I tell the agent: you had me at Iceland.

Angelic sounds from the mystical country that produced Bjork, in the month of January, in The Toby, made by a musician headed for Istanbul and London once his US tour is done?  A poetic no-brainer.  So it stands to reason: you must join us at the IMA for Ólafur Arnalds this Saturday evening.

Here’s a sample from Arnalds’ new record, …And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness:

I find these sounds delicate as a paper-thin sheet of ice on a lake.  Resplendent as white fondant on a winter wedding cake.  Patterned like lace, or bird tracks in the snow.  At the concert, there will be long-haired ladies playing cellos.  And moody sweetness with the lights low.  A little peace; a fairy-tale feel.

Read what one concert-goer had to say about the show in Detroit on Wednesday night.

Oh, I’m supposed to also tell you that you can enter a sweepstakes to win a trip to Iceland, courtesy of Iceland Naturally.

So, tomorrow, our crack IMA public programs team will fire up the lights and sound in The Toby, tune up the Bösendorfer, provide plenty of smoothies and beer (as requested in the rider), tear the tickets, and then let Arnalds’ sonic sheen wash over us all.