Michael Strauss will be giving presentations about his new book, "The Mind at Hand: What Drawing Reveals / Stories of Exploration, Discover, and Design" (Brown Walker Press, January 1, 2013) at the Essex Art League on May 2, 2013 at 9:30 a.m.; at Burlington High School later in the summer; and at UVM in the Fall. Stay tuned.
Advance Reviews
As
even a casual reader of The Mind at Hand will quickly discover, Michael Strauss possesses that rare
combination of variegated talents that make him a contemporary version of the
Renaissance
Man. Strauss ranges
deftly between
both hemispheres of the brain--from the analytical to the
imaginative, from the
sciences to the arts--with an appreciation for each that is
infectious. He is
equally at home exploring
theories of cognition and discovery as he is explaining the
process of creation
and re-creation in a century-old painting. - Tony
Magistrale, Professor and
Chair, English Department, University of Vermont
Michael Strauss argues
that scientific
and artistic endeavors are integral to each other. In The Mind at Hand he provides
many examples and sources, blending genres by immersing himself
in both science
and drawing, personally demonstrating the social construction of
disciplines. In this new book he helps yet more of us expand
our horizons
through first-person vignettes, stories and testimonies that
embark into
qualitative inquiry, an elaboration of the work of people who
use drawing as an
integral part of thinking and learning. - Corrine Glesne, Author of Becoming
Qualitative
Researchers, 2011 (4th ed.)
You may think of
drawing as a form
of creating or re-creating, but Michael Strauss shows how
drawing can be a
powerful form of learning. Through a host of compelling
examples--from his own
life, from classrooms at all age levels and in many
disciplines, and from the
work of famous artists and scientists--this book demonstrates
how drawing and
revising drawings can benefit teachers and learners, inventors
and researchers--virtually
all of us. It's a fascinating read! - Glenda L. Bissex, Ed.D., Educator and author
The
Mind at Hand offers a uniquely functional perspective on
that most basic
aspect of the visual creative process, drawing. Much in the
spirit of
Focillon's The Life of
Forms in Art,
but offering examples from all aspects of life, Michael
Strauss explores the
territory of creative revision – the development of an initial
idea through to
its conclusion – with an infectious enthusiasm for the
creative process as a
powerful tool that we all can share. - Tad
Spurgeon, Artist
and Author of "Living Craft A Painter’s Process," 2012 (3rd
ed.)
There aren’t many
research
scientists like Michael Strauss, an accomplished artist who writes
well about
the relationship between art and science. His latest book, The Mind at Hand, is in
part,
autobiography -- about an interesting life lived in two different
worlds.
The non-artist reader can learn about drawing and painting, and
the
non-scientist might come to understand the physical world a little
better.- Willem R. Leenstra,
chemistry professor
and former chair of the chemistry department at The University
of Vermont
Contact the Essex Art League for details of the presentation on May 2:
For a review and summary of the book:
About The Author
Michael Strauss was a professor of chemistry at the University of Vermont (UVM) from 1968 to 2003. His academic life focused on teaching chemistry and on research in physical-organic and medicinal chemistry. Since 2003 he has been teaching drawing for the Honors College, the College of Arts and Sciences, and Continuing Education at UVM. He has also been involved with outreach efforts in grade schools and high schools around Vermont, focused on science education. In all of his classes, both art and science, the iterative process of learning how to see, draw, and revise was paramount. There was considerable overlap between his university teaching and his outreach efforts in community schools. He had, along with colleagues in the College of Education at UVM, a National Science Foundation grant from the Teacher Enhancement Program to help train teachers in both active learning pedagogy, and content in chemistry, physics and geology. And for about a decade, he was also heavily involved with the Writing-to-Learn and Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) movements, traveling around the country giving workshops and meeting with educators in both elementary schools and colleges to talk about science education.
Strauss
realized that part of the pedagogy of Writing-to-Learn elaborated in
those workshops was happening in both his elementary school science
workshops, and university science classes. The realization was simple
enough. The term "writing," when considered "writ large," could
encompass any kind of mark making: mathematical and chemical symbols,
musical notation - drawings of any kind. The learning part of
Writing-to-Learn was happening as part of a very important feedback loop
of creation, observation, and revision. This process can be done with
texts in order to learn how to write better, but also with marks,
images, and symbols of any kind, to learn their meaning and
relationships better, and to solve problems.
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