I'm a Fan of...

As I was browsing the internet this morning, stumped for a blog featureI thought about what is happening right now: it's Halloween tomorrow; it's Autumn; it's daylight savings time this weekend; Nutcrackers are in rehearsal all over the place in dance schools; holiday items are being advertised; Thanksgiving is coming up;...none of these topics felt inspiring to me today and I hadn't done my homework this week to choose a featured artist from any of my connections. I turned to a couple of my usual resources for inspiration and ideas. First, I thought about Andy Goldsworthy, an artist I have featured in a previous blog post. Thinking I may feature him again, with his autumn leaves art offerings, I went to YouTube to see what videos might fit the bill. From there I started clicking on the related videos and started to feel myself begin to wake up and after discovering a number of topics and artists which I'll save for future posts, I rediscovered a site which I've visited several times in the past, but seem to have put out of my consciousness. Upon this rediscovery, I am baffled that I was able to do that! ted.com is full of incredible talks, demonstrations, and wisdom. The videos can be rather lengthy, but they impart so much per minute of viewing that the fact that it is free makes me feel like I have access to an incredibly valuable treasure.

In my search this morning, I found and watched this talk by French aerial photographer, environmentalist, and humanitarian Yann Arthus-Bertrand:

"Yann Arthus-Bertrand is an aesthete with the soul of a moralist. He uses the beauty of the world to beguile you into a photograph in which a larger lesson awaits. His lesson is about the planet in jeopardy."

Richard Lacayo, Time



If you have time to watch only part of this now, I encourage you to bookmark this blog or the ted.com page to hear and see what this amazing man has to share. And, although I have yet to watch it, having just discovered it moments ago, I have bookmarked this YouTube video of HOME, a film that has no copyright and (as I understand it) is his gift to the inhabitants of this planet, to educate and motivate people to save the Earth now. In his words, "We have to believe what we know....It's too late to be pessimistic."

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