John Myatt: Forger’s Masterclass
John Myatt is known as “the master forger” and the perpetrator of the “biggest art fraud of the 20th century”: “The crime: In 1986 John created a painting for (Professor) Drewe in the style of Cubist painter Albert Gleizes. Drewe called Myatt to tell him Christie’s had valued the piece at £25K…” which resulted in […]
English for Artists: Virgina Peck’s Buddha paintings
I would love to write a course for English for Artists and Art Historians. Art was my first love, before I decided to go into history and then later into language teaching, and I still go to art galleries every chance I can. To realize my dream, I’ll need to win some artists as clients […]
Typography
I’m learning about typography for a client. The first video introduces several designers. For me, Paula Scher sticks out. I particularly enjoyed learning about her work for the theater and the music industry. Follow this link to learn more about her work on Jazz and her logo for CitiCorp – Artists at Hillman Curtis. And […]
The power of vulnerability – Brené Brown, academics, and me
I was reminded, while teaching a presentations course to social science PhDs today, of the vulnerability of academics as they conduct scientific inquiry. The whole nature of science is not knowing, but wanting to find out more. Complexity generates new and interesting questions. So vulnerability is a key ingredient in academic presentation. We looked at […]
Branding: Smells, tastes, feels like home
New exciting challenge. Learning about branding for a company I’ll be teaching at. So here’s my first exploration. Bill said: “Branding is about managing how people instinctively react to your ideas and identity.” Interesting. He’s sent me an ad for an insurance company that the company has branded, made by a separate agency. So one […]
Keep calm and carry on
Keep Calm and Carry On was a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939, intended to raise the morale of the British public in the event of a German invasion. It was never used, even during the air raids, but kept for the worst case. What could be more British! The poster was […]
Interview with an old potato
A few years ago when I was teaching English students at the LMU Munich, my students told me how in a creative writing class, Gill Woodman, head of Sprachpraxis there, had given them a bag of potatoes and told them to select one and imagine its personality, and then write its biography. Such a great […]
