"Curating isn’t undemocratic or 'elitist', a term that is now used so often that it’s become meaningless. It’s an act of generosity - you’re sharing what you love and what has inspired you." ~ Martin Scorsese
Because I am inspired by, and refer to, so many other sources and pieces of content for these prompts I see the Methods and Madness project as partly an exercise in curation.
Curation is an excellent creative skill, different from mere hoarding or even collecting in that it requires skills in interpretation, framing, contextualisation, and analysis.
It is an overlooked skill, too. So many people tell me that they wish they were more creative and don’t know where to start, all the while assiduously nurturing, managing, shaping, and developing the content on their social media pages.
So, today’s creative prompt asks you to consider yourself as a curator:
Do you think you are one?
Do you ever find yourself imaginatively and discerningly organising stuff, be it books or your photos or recipes or shoes or for a social media feed?
What does the way in which you do this reveal about you? What personal values or societal issues are you framing your collection of stuff against, even if instinctually?
Can you see a way of extending this curatorial practice or habit into another kind of project, like I have done with this newsletter?
Or are you content to keep it private and / or as it is? (This is perfectly valid by the way).
By the way, I found the image featured above in this article on the Public Domain Review.
Interesting Times
I am using Substack to house a writing project over the next few months. Interesting Times is about human agency in a digital world. I will be writing about things like social media, AI, and the business practices of tech corporations and the ways in which they affect creative workers.
Really liked the Scorsese quote.
There is an interesting quote that I unfortunately couldnt find that says something like " The diference between a museum and a storge wharehouse is what you don't select"
with musings (and loads of actual effort) around 'social architecture' as a thread that holds our studio community together, curating is an integral part. we often find that (in the wise words of kevin costner in the 1989 film field of dreams) "if you build it, (they) will come" is true, as often as the opposite is also true... our studio doesn't suit a certain type of personality that doesn't like transparency, honesty, sharing and helping each other.. I read a book about these narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths called 'taming toxic people' and community building with these central values is the antidote!