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I can’t help myself, I’ve featured Karen Montanaro the last two years at Creative Arts Camp and now I’m doing it again. See her in 2016 here, and 2017 on this blog here. I love her animated, deep passion for art education and agree with her that it would solve so much, if done better and more. She’s a fellow artist in residence here with me at Creative Arts Camp this year, and I can’t get enough of listening to her. She speaks and I start scribbling. Here is some of her quotes that I caught:

• “As artists we are in the business of emancipation and the arts are the supreme instruments of emancipation.”
• She spoke about the example of Moses with the burning bush in the Bible: “The fire that burns but does not consume is a creative fire. Moses presents himself, ‘Here I am’ and God tells him he is in the emancipation business. Then Moses tries to demure, ‘Who am I’ (to do the work I am called to do). God says ‘I am that I am,’ i.e. check the origin of your impulses and make sure they are of God, then get going!”
• “Fear is mortal mind’s reaction to spiritual excitement.”
• “It is a great death to die to everything you are not.”
• “Mary Baker Eddy gave specific utterance to the white noise which characterizes the human condition.”
• “The only thing we have in common with everyone else is how unique we are.”
• Emily Dickinson said,”When you feel physically the top of your head was taken off–that is poetry.”
• “In school kids should not just learn about subjects, but should be coached in intentionally learning about themselves through the art experience.”
• “Christian Scientists are here for the lost sheep of Isreal.”
• “Jesus demonstrated. Mary Baker Eddy explained. The arts deliver the experience.”
• “We recognize uniqueness because the source of all uniqueness is all the same.”
• “We see our likeness in each other’s uniqueness.”
• “Our uniqueness is part of our universal design.”
• “Uniqueness is empirically inconvenient, but in the arts it is essential.”
• “Our lives depend on autonomy and connection.”
• “What you love is who you are.”

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