Musings on Spirituality After the Singularity

by Katherine Hargreaves

1. It is no secret that language holds our creation story. Philosopher and theologian Philo Judaeus said, "language is an ecstatic activity of signification." A word brings ideas into being. In his trance stat the Mazatec shaman translates his vision: he speaks of a place outside time. Shapes and colors float by as he journeys through the mind. In his essay "The Mushroom of Language," Henry Munn describes how the "the shaman's words...indicate a creative activity neither outside the realm of reason or out of contact with reality." What is spoken of in the mushroom trance, he argues, is real.

2. Myths accrue meaning over time as cultures evolve. Language is the impulse of the living - it is a means of connecting our experiences to something larger. Similarly, the shaman operates with a sense of what the ancient Greeks called poiesis - or the verb to make. As Henry Munn notes, this word implies an act of transformation. The act of speaking breaches the void between separate worlds and strangers both.

You Can Get Paid for This?

Your dreams of being paid to make art can be reality

by Amalia Nicholson

When I was in art school there was constant chatter about who got what scholarship, who got the special exhibition wall for their senior showcase, and who would probably end up going to some ritsy grad school where they'd rub shoulders with Cindy Sherman and Robert Polidori. Competition is a great motivator for some people, but for me, it just brought out my insecurities about not being good enough. So I never tried. I would keep many ideas to myself and only share what I had to in class.

Once I graduated, the harsh reality that I no longer had access to equipment or even a computer drove to finally investigate the world of Minnesota arts funding in all of its glorious bounty. What I found is that there are a lot of organizations in this state that really, REALLY want to give you money to make art. It's just sitting there, and all you have to do is apply. So that's what I did.