Imagination in Focus

Eli Whitney Museum

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The 22nd Leonardo Challenge

Imagination in Focus

Thumbnail of Imagination in Focus project

Thank you for a Stellar Event.

Mike Dunn’s Rubble Telescope is an apt post script for the 22nd Leonardo Challenge: a new way of seeing things made out of found objects, wit and talent. The evening was a constellation of glittering creations – some small, some large that together assemble a story....and an enthusiastic audience. The story is that the risk taking and joy of creating is essential and should be shared.

Last night’s event will fund, in part or fully, workshops for 422 children: children from IRIS (Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services); children from the 5 clinics of the Fair Haven Community Health, children from the many Title 1 schools we serve, children from families whose resources are too stretched to cover adventurous summer programs.

Constellations should be seen from every neighborhood.

A Clean Lens
A long time Board member has the motherly habit of taking off my glasses to wipe away the sawdust while we talk. An unconscious gesture perhaps, but with the certain message that seeing clearly has both practical and philosophical value. The Apprentices and staff welcome the ambitious labor of cleaning and organizing our site and spaces to welcome you. What we do, day-after-day, is unusual. The Leonardo Challenge is a rare opportunity to share the power of our workshop clearly. (Enhanced generously by visiting talents.)

The Extra Dimension
Artists contribute the vision that makes the evening memorable. Artists contribute the taste that makes the evening luxurious. Doug Coffin’s glorious Big Green Pizza Trucks and Catering, Caseus’ exquisite cheese, figs and Black Hog Beer, Small Kitchen, Big Taste’s elegant salads, Whole G’s fabulous breads and desserts, Koffee’s delightful new cocktails and, of course, robust coffee, the wine, 14 Hands from Chateau St. Michelle and Allan S. Goodman, Inc.

Focus
The Challenge succeeds efficiently because it is so thoroughly integrated with our work. Tomorrow the tents will move to the spaces in which they will shelter the summer programs that have adorned them with paint smudges. The small lights will be cut up to illuminate 3000 ElectriCity kits for schools. The design skills that created the invitation and installed the show – that’s just what Sally does. Her magnificent Camera Obscura invitation has already inspired a new design for our school programs and may find its own life in Museum Stores. With the Challenge, we earn and we learn.

Eye Contact
We come to the close of each Leonardo Challenge grateful for the ample crowds but frustrated that we cannot connect with each and every guest and contributor with sufficient focus. Please accept that your presence and support lingers. It will animate our workshops daily.

The show will remain up through May 15th and is available to view on Saturdays from 10-3 or Sundays from 12-5. Or call the office to see if you can come by another time when there aren't 65 children in that space.

Next Year! 4.27.17 – The 23rd Leonardo Challenge

And, yes, we hope to see you again then.

Bill & Sally

April 28th, 2016, 5:30 – 9pm

The Lens

The arc of a raindrop on a leaf magnifies its veins and our understanding of seeing.

Egyptian artisans mimicked the curve of eyes in glass to give their statues uncanny spirit. Assyrians in Nimrud may have used a rock crystal to concentrate the sun’s rays into a spot of fire. In the Middle Ages, the polymath Abas ibn Firnas crafted reading stones of glass. Refined lenses awakened the sciences, explorations and arts of the Renaissance.

You may have explored the ancient wonders of lenses amongst your grandmother’s treasures: a magic lantern, a stereoscope, opera glasses or a slide projector. Now there are Apps for those. We take and manipulate more pictures each day through the tiny lenses of phones than the entire pre-digital century captured. We alter the focus of eyes with surgery and their hues with contacts in designer colors. We may not now see the lenses through which we see everything.

As an artist, as a scientist, as a philosopher, Leonardo revered the authority of the disciplined eye.Nature was Leonardo’s subject. He aspired to be a lens without distortions. As an anatomist, he disassembled eyes to examine their mechanics. He drew disconcertingly modern lens polishing machines. He proposed lenses to shape the light of lanterns. He constructed a rudimentary telescope. Leonardo’s eye is a lens
through which we see genius at work.

The Lens shapes perception. The Challenge: shape the perception of the Lens.
You may find your lens abandoned in a desk drawer or in an obsolete projector or watch. Or start with a clear marble or a water filled sphere as the Romans did. Consider a less familiar refractor.

Or: consider the Lens’s perception: light or image bent by accident or intention to inform, tease or deceive our eyes.

Celebrate the lens as an object, as an instrument, for its transmissions, or for its symbolic voice or perspective. Experiment with an unfamiliar setting, use, or meaning of the Lens. Lenses can capture or project light.They can clarify or distort. They can reveal the invisible or misdirect attention. Choose your focus.

Leonardo da Vinci painted with unrivaled vision, explored science with modern logic and invented with pure imagination. The Leonardo Challenge celebrates one of his inventions: improvisational creativity. One hundred artists, designers and playful spirits will transform a common object – this year, the lens– with wit, whimsy and artistry.

The April 28th benefit will revel in those artists’ visions. Through their generosity and yours, the evening will support workshops and outreach to train the next generation to explore their world in all of its dimensions with focused and attentive eyes.

Tickets are $75 per person at the door or you may call 203.777.1833 to pay by credit card ahead of time.

A Stellar Event1200

Illusory Vision

Perspectives outside the box1200

Save the date

Leo looking thru lens

Google entry Leonardo 800


Depth of Field Book signed by John T. Hill

Depth of Field Book signed by John T. Hill

Walker Evans Poster

Walker Evans Poster "Penny Picture" printed/signed by John T. Hill

Leonardo 2016 0012

Foton Disruptor by Jamie Burnett

Foton Disruptor by Jamie Burnett

Aperture by Beth Klingher

Aperture by Beth Klingher

"Seeing is not always believing (MLK quote)" by Amy Peters


Birds Eye View by Francine Giaimo

Birds Eye View by Francine Giaimo

Gallery of Iconic Lenses by Sarah Sorenson

Gallery of Iconic Lenses by Sarah Sorenson

Table Centerpiece by Sally Hill and Judy Rosenthal

Table Centerpiece by Sally Hill and Judy Rosenthal

Rubble Telescope by Mike Dunn

Rubble Telescope by Mike Dunn

Rubble Telescope by Mike Dunn

Rubble Telescope by Mike Dunn

Icarus by Susan Clinard

Icarus by Susan Clinard


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