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marypmurphy · 12 years

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An IBMer's own Slow Art Day

When I brought my colored pencils and sketch pad to SlowArt Day in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute last year, I sat for about 20 minutes and sketched a modern sculpture, Chromatic Modernism (Yellow, Blue, Red) by Josiah McElheny.

Normally I would have walked past and thought it was just plain strange. But I learned by actively observing.

The discipline of SlowArt Day, a crowd-sourced movement designed to get people into art museums, slow them down so they study just a few selected pieces and then get together in a coffee shop to talk about it, plus my taking the time to sketch the piece, helped me discover things I never would have seen otherwise.

[Another painting in our Slow Art Day was a Piet Mondrian, No. 7, 1937-42, see sketch below with the museum education director at left.]

And it’s made me think a lot about how art has had an impact on me both personally and professionally, where art and my company -- IBM -- intersect, historically and currently, and the role art can play in a global corporation.

This past year, I worked on IBM’s Smarter Planet Leadership Series, where we identified one of the traits of smarter planet leaders (and one of our IBM competencies) is systems thinking. “Aha!” I thought, “What happened to me during Slow Art Day – carefully observing, being willing to step outside of preconceived ideas, prejudices and tastes to open yourself to something new – is exactly the kind of experience that makes for better systems thinkers.” Maybe that’s one of the things that attracted people like Winston Churchill and Steve Jobs to art.

Art opens us up to new ways of thinking in other ways. Our corporate archivist told me that IBM's founder, Thomas Watson Sr, felt that art was an important adjunct to progressive business. As reported in an online encyclopedia, "Watson’s principal interest outside of business was as a patron of the arts. He began acquiring paintings when he was only 24, and was an outspoken advocate of the mutual benefit in joining the world of art with business. At the 1939 New York World’s Fair he exhibited paintings by artists from 75 countries and a collection by American artists that IBM had acquired."

IBM's corporate archivist, Paul C. Lasewicz., commented, “The initial rationale for IBM's fine art collection in the 1930s under Watson Sr. was as a tool to break down cultural barriers. By collecting art from all 79 countries we did business in and putting it on display, people could learn a little about the world around them. The notion was by using art to promote understanding of other cultures, it would make the world a more peaceful place ....”

While we sold much of our collection in more recent history, we continue our interest in diversity and world integration through programs like the Corporate Service Corps. There are also some very interesting links between IBM and art, for example...

IBM and design -- "Good design is good business"

Artist Noma Bar's smarter planet designs -- click on "The Artist Behind"

MADE IN IBM LABS: The world's tiniest art

Watsonline at the Metropolitan Art in New York, NY

Fractal geometry

[Shown below -- atomic art from "the world's tiniest art"]

[Shown below -- Fractal geometry has been applied in fields ranging from aerodynamics and art to astronomy, linguistics and metallurgy.]

I love Watson Sr.'s idea of using art to break down cultural barriers, and it seems even more appropriate today, when IBMers are over 433,000 strong and operating in over 170 countries around the world.

As an amateur painter (see a recent watercolor, at the bottom of this blog), my experience tells me there's also a strong corollary between our IBM motto, "THINK," and the type of discipline that goes into creating art. As Watson Sr. said,

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of "crackpot" than the stigma of conformity.

As artist and mentor Martha Deming told me (quoting Jerry Stitt AWS), "You must be willing to risk the painting with every brushstroke."

So here’s an artistic challenge for my colleagues at IBM:

Reply to this blog with a sample of your art, whether it's a painting, drawing, photo, picture of sculpture, etc. Make sure you protect your copyright! Suggest a watermark and posting on Flickr.com with the appropriate settings.

Visit your local museum on SlowArt Day, April 28 by checking out slowart.com to find the closest participating museum.

Throughout the year, take advantage of free access to many museums using your IBM badge. It's in your IBM genes!

This was for my niece, Molly:

#art #slow_art #slow_art_day #ibm #murphy #mary_p_murphy #smarter_planet #leadership #smarter_planet_leadership #leadership_series

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marypmurphy · 13 years

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"We all operate in two contrasting modes, which might be called open and closed. The open mode is more relaxed, more receptive, more exploratory, more democratic, more playful and more humorous. The closed mode is the tighter, more rigid, more hierarchical, more tunnel-visioned. Most people, unfortunately spend most of their time in the closed mode. Not that the closed mode cannot be helpful. If you are leaping a ravine, the moment of takeoff is a bad time for considering alternative strategies. When you charge the enemy machine-gun post, don't waste energy trying to see the funny side of it. Do it in the "closed" mode. But the moment the action is over, try to return to the "open" mode—to open your mind again to all the feedback from our action that enables us to tell whether the action has been successful, or whether further action is need to improve on what we have done. In other words, we must return to the open mode, because in that mode we are the most aware, most receptive, most creative, and therefore at our most intelligent."

John Cleese

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