ISSUE No. 43 | April 2024
WELCOME
If you’re new to CULTIVARE we welcome you! CULTIVARE is a monthly field guide for life and faith, brought to you by TEND. Each month we explore a specific “field” – a topic or theme through which we seek to cultivate contemplation, engagement, and deeper understanding. Our guiding questions are:
What are you cultivating in your life?
What fruit do you want your life to bear?
Each issue of CULTIVARE is structured into three parts:
Cultivate: Examines a specific “Field” or facet of life and offers questions to unearth and challenge our held perspective; along with concise kernels of truth which we call “Seeds.”
Irrigate: Explores the ways we nurture our understanding, which varies from individual to individual. We offer six means of irrigation: Art, Poetry, Profile, Film, Essay, and Books.
Germinate: Encourages practical ways to engage in becoming more fruitful and free in our lives.
Our name, CULTIVARE, in Spanish means “I will cultivate.” We hope each issue of our field guide will encourage you to do just that – cultivate new thoughts, actions, faith, hope, and fruitful living. We invite you to dig in and DIG DEEP!
FIELD
For we are partners working together for God, and you are God's field.
(I Corinthians 3:9)
Our theme this month is DESIGN. What do you think of when you think of design? Perhaps you think of blueprints, patterns, arrangements. Maybe it is functionality or engineering. Or is it beauty, intention, purposefulness? How is design evident in your life?
Among the definitions of “design” that Merriam Webster Dictionary provides, we want to highlight these three: 1) A particular purpose or intention held in view by an individual or group; 2) A mental project in which means to an end are laid down; 3) An underlying scheme that governs functioning, developing, or unfolding. Given these definitions, how might design be applied to your work life? Your home life? Your spiritual life?
Design is a search for form. What form might your work life take? What form might your spiritual life take? What form might your community life take? In this issue you’ll meet an accidental artist who created a new art form by simply looking at a frozen lake covered by fresh snow. Our profile features an industrial designer who was a pioneer in the universal design movement which seeks to make buildings and products accessible to all people. And our book of the month spotlights the work of two Stanford design professors and the popular course they created entitled: Designing Your Life.
The photo above is of the extraordinary house called “Fallingwater” by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The house is a World Heritage Site and is ranked by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) as “the best all-time work of American architecture.” Yet the house almost wasn’t built. The owners of the land, the Kaufmanns, invited a select number of architects to design plans for their weekend home, choosing a building site downstream and across the river to take advantage of the view of the waterfall. All the architects except Wright designed plans on the specific plot the Kaufmanns chose. When Wright presented his plans that integrated the house into the waterfall, he offered this explanation for his unorthodox and unexpected design choice: “If you build the house downstream and across the river, the view of the waterfall, over time, will become to you like wallpaper. But if we build the house integrated into the waterfall, you will forever live in intimacy with it.”
How might you design your life to forever live in intimacy with God? With your loved ones? In community? How might we work with God, the all-time greatest designer, to catapult creativity, propel purposefulness, and bolster beauty? We hope this issue will encourage you to examine your life with an eye toward design – be it your purpose and intentions, a means to a particular end, or the functioning and unfolding of God’s plan for your life. (DG)
***
You are to construct it following the plans I've given you,
the design for The Dwelling and the design for all its furnishings. (Exodus 25:9 MSG)
Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb.
I thank you, High God - you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration - what a creation! (Psalm 139:13-14 MSG)
By wisdom the LORD laid the earth’s foundations,
by understanding he set the heavens in place;
by his knowledge the watery depths were divided,
and the clouds let drop the dew. (Psalm 3:19-20 NIV)
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus,
so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Ephesians 2:10 NLT)
SEEDS
A handful of quotes to contemplate and cultivate into your life
You weren't an accident. You weren't mass produced. You aren't an assembly-line product. You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on the Earth by the Master Craftsman. (Max Lucado)
Good design is like a refrigerator—when it works, no one notices, but when it doesn’t, it sure stinks. (Irene Au)
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. (Steve Jobs)
And when a design is completed, it should seem natural and obvious. It should look like it is always been this way. And it should last. (Roger Black)
Design is the application of intent - the opposite of happenstance, and an antidote to accident. (Robert L. Peters)
Design is an opportunity to continue telling the story, not just to sum everything up.
(Tate Linden)
Design is where science and art break even. (Robin Mathew)
Thinking about design is hard, but not thinking about it can be disastrous. (Ralph Caplan)
God’s design in our pain enables us to look back and say: He loves me enough to take me where I would have never wanted to go in order to produce in me what I never could have achieved on my own. (Paul David Tripp)
ART
Artist of the Month
Simon Beck
The Snow Artist
Our artist of the month, Simon Beck, is an accidental artist. Beck is a University of Oxford educated engineer and former cartographer. When the now 65-year-old left his native England over a decade ago, he moved to Les Arcs, a ski resort in the Tarentaise Valley in the French Alps. It was there that the idea of making snow drawings came to him. Following a day of skiing, with energy left to spare, he noticed a frozen lake covered with fresh snow. He grabbed his surveying compass, measured five points around a central point and joined the dots, creating a five-pointed star. His first-ever snow art!
Today Beck is known as “The Snow Artist” for his incredible snow drawings that span between 100 and 150 meters in diameter. To this day, he creates them equipped only with a magnetic compass, his snowshoes, and his extraordinary imagination.
As simple as it may sound, Beck’s art is physically taxing. At an average of 93 steps per minute, one of his larger works can involve more than 55,000 steps. His artworks often take 10 hours (sometimes days) to complete in thick snow – only to see them disappear in the new snowfall.
With a total of nearly 400 drawings in the snow, at locations all around the world, Beck’s art is truly one of a kind. We encourage our readers to explore the artnet.com article on Beck and watch the videos that document his work at the links below.
artnet.com. article: View Now
National Geographic: View Now
ABC Nightline: View Now
POETRY
The Hands of Engineers
By Bill Ellis
At noon in a pause between thoughts, I notice my fingers on the rule
and see my father's hands less meat through the palm,
but his, nonetheless, in the design of veins drawn just beneath paper thin skin--
the same curves and lines in the knuckles, the small splotches of lost pigment.
Studying these hands, our hands, I find, too, his father's,
the elder set I watched one last night on white sheets, still steady and strong
although his eyes, by then, had closed and were not to open except once,
like Christ's, to ask for water.
In my turn to sit by his side in darkness, as each of us did in order,
waiting with him, I took up his hand as a father would his son's for comfort
or a son his father's for blessings and was surprised, not by the coldness,
for I expected thinning blood, but by the smoothness, like worn oak desks
polished by the child's tracing touches--
a slickness across fingertips, his prints almost gone,
and I felt the bend in the index finger, his knuckle frozen by time and foul tips
when he alone dared catch bare-handed for the team, bent by half a century
of pushing mechanical pencils against angles, routing ducts of air, like blood,
to cool or warm, drawing plans for linking networks of wire,
nerves for pulses of power, all calculated, shaped by the persistent measure of nature.
He knew fully those truths, so in homage I tightened my grip, and his hand,
for one long moment, closed on mine, the flow determined, blueprinted, and built,
each pressing against the other not to fear. There is the design.
By afternoon my hands are my father's and his must now be his father's,
through each necessary death-watch, following the tips of finger curves,
the relaxing of knuckles, our turning palms, and curled in my swollen wife, the next son,
my hands being made, prints being drawn, the patterns in a line of blood.
PROFILE
Special Note:
This month we feature two profiles: One of a Company and one of an Individual
VW Fun Theory:
Design for Sparking Good
How do you incentivize doing good? Volkswagen answered these questions with The Fun Theory. They staged five different public interventions: a piano staircase, a bin with a fifty-foot drop, fast lanes in subways and supermarkets, and a speed-camera lottery. Instead of making consumers feel guilty, this campaign makes it exciting to do the right thing and has some fun examples of temporary design installations that sparked something good.
The Fun Theory proved to be true – all of the interventions were used much more than other local options – the stairs, which were right next to an escalator, were used 66% more than normal as people took their time playing a tune. These ideas and the reactions from people were filmed and then made available online as viral films, where they performed very well. This campaign proves to be so cutting edge because it straddles the line between ambient and viral and at the same time espouses an idea more than a specific brand message. It’s all about doing good and having fun. We encourage you to watch all five videos.
Video #1: Piano Staircase View Now
Video #2: World’s Deepest Bin View Now
Video #3: Subway Fast Lane View Now
Video. #4: Shopping Cart Fast Lane: View Now
Video #5: Speed-Camera Lottery View Now
***
Patricia Moore
Industrial Designer & Cofounder of Universal Design
As a young industrial designer, Patricia Moore undertook a radical experiment in aging. Her discoveries would reshape how we build our world. At the age of 26 she worked with a make-up artist from Saturday Night Live, donned her grandmother’s clothes, and transformed herself into an 85-year-old woman in order to explore the world from an elderly woman’s perspective. Once a week for three years, in 116 cities in the US and Canada, “Old Pat” experienced a world of navigational challenges and prejudice. She chronicled her experience in her 1985 book, Disguised, writing: “Old has become a synonym for being useless, ugly, unimportant, of less value. That is the core perception which must be changed, and I think will be changed, in this generation.” From that point forward she committed herself to be part of that change, championing a new form of product design which would later become known as “Universal Design.”
Universal design is the design of buildings, products or environments to make them accessible to people, regardless of age, disability or other factors. It addresses common barriers to participation by creating things that can be used by the maximum number of people. Examples of universal design are curb cuts or sidewalk ramps which are essential for people in wheelchairs but are used by all including babies in strollers.
Moore was instrumental in developing Oxo Good Grips, a line of kitchen utensils that was developed to have larger, softer handles and are easier and more comfortable for people with arthritis to use, and which found a market much larger than people with severe arthritis. Moore described the line as “an iconic project that defined, finally, what universal, inclusive design looks like.”
Moore is a highly successful designer and recipient of multiple awards and honors. She helped draft part of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Her design philosophy is often guided by the question: “Why not?” To learn more about designer Patricia Moore we encourage you to read a profile of her in Wired magazine at the following link. View Now
FILM
Each month we recommend films focused on our theme
Columbus (2017)
Columbus is an enchanting film about feelings and buildings. Screen Daily film critic Jonathan Romney chose Columbus as his #1 film of 2017, writing: “Not a movie that makes much noise, but the one that most got under my skin. Set in an Indiana town blessed with an unusual amount of innovative architecture, Columbus is about people, their relationships, and the way their souls are fed by the buildings around them. With terrific performances by Parker Posey, John Cho, and face-to-watch Haley Lu Richardson, it is a film that is not just for the heart and mind, but about the heart and mind.” Directed by Kogonada. Available on various streaming services.
Documentary Film
Objectified (2009)
Objectified explores how the objects that people surround themselves with tell us about their passions. Interviews with the top product designers around the world expand on the creativity, sustainability and consumerism involved in the processes. These designers reinvent the way people live their daily lives. The average person uses hundreds of objects throughout the day. Has anyone ever thought about who designed these objects? Can an object’s design affect lives negatively or positively? This in-depth look at the manufacturing side of consumerism will make people look at their objects in a different light. Available on various streaming services.
Short Film
The Third and the Seventh (2009)
(12 minutes)
Alicante-born Jorge Seva, who uses the artistic name Alex Roman, created this impressive short film while taking a sabbatical year from work. Coming from a traditional painting background with a great appreciation for photography and film, Jorge tried to apply these aesthetics to the world of architectural visualization work, only to be met by deaf ears and lack of understanding. The Third & The Seventh is born from an act of rebellion against the established aesthetics and the need to create something different. The film revolutionized the world of computer graphics and expanded much further, gaining the appreciation of a worldwide audience. All this to Jorge Seva’s own surprise.
Ted Talk
What a World Without Prisons Could Look Like
Deanna Van Buren
(15 minutes)
Deanna Van Buren designs restorative justice centers that, instead of taking the punitive approach used by a system focused on mass incarceration, treat crime as a breach of relationships and justice as a process where all stakeholders come together to repair that breach. With help and ideas from incarcerated men and women, Van Buren is creating dynamic spaces that provide safe venues for dialogue and reconciliation, employment and job training, and social services to help keep people from entering the justice system in the first place. "Imagine a world without prisons," Van Buren says. "And join me in creating all the things that we could build instead."
ESSAY
Jesus, Parables, and Graphic Design
By Avo Adourian
In this Conversatio.org essay by graphic designer Avo Adourian, he reflects on the insights and parallels of Jesus’ use of parables to communicate, and the principles of communication used in graphic design. As Adourian comments:
I learned from Dallas Willard that every one of us can learn from Jesus regarding best practices – not just religious things: “whether it is making ax handles or tacos, selling automobiles or teaching kindergarten . . . performing in the arts or teaching English as a second language.” Christ is immensely interested in our line of work and had the best knowledge to assist us in performing our duties in unique and creative ways. Those of us who rely on Christ are at an advantage should we choose to learn from him. As a designer, I find myself at even greater advantage. For, after a decade into my career, it dawned on me that Jesus was also a communications specialist. Without intention on my part, I find myself in the same field as the Man who was the best at the discipline.
We encourage you to read the entire article at the following link: View Now
BOOKS
Each month we recommend a book (or two) focused on our theme
Non-Fiction
Designing Your Life:
How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life
By Bill Burnett and Dave Evan
Designers and authors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.
Fiction
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
By Jonathan Safran Foer
Foer made a splash with this novel, which deals with a young boy’s attempts to make sense of his father’s death on 9/11. Sometimes overlooked in reviews or retrospectives is the careful use of typesetting the book employs, with different characters having different fonts—but, more importantly, the fonts and layouts used also reflect the actions of the characters. Oskar, the narrator, has very traditional typesetting until we start seeing the images he collects on his travels. His grandmother, writing on an old-school electric typewriter, has text spaced wider to reflect her choice of technology. The grandfather’s sections are supposedly written in haste in a small notebook, and the typesetting—often showing just one line on a page—reflects this as well. In other words, Foer uses the design to subtly underscore the situation of each character, culminating in the infamous flip-book illustration that reverses a man leaping from the Twin Towers on that terrible day, a powerful visual representation of the novel’s themes.
Childrens Book
The Way Things Work
By David Macaulay
Explainer-in-Chief David Macaulay updates the worldwide bestseller The Way Things Work to capture the latest developments in the technology that most impact our lives. Famously packed with information on the inner workings of everything from windmills to Wi-Fi, this extraordinary and humorous book both guides readers through the fundamental principles of machines and shows how the developments of the past are building the world of tomorrow. This sweepingly revised edition embraces all the latest developments, from touchscreens to 3D printer. Each scientific principle is brilliantly explained--with the help of a charming, if rather slow-witted, woolly mammoth.
DIG DEEPER
Practical suggestions to help you go deeper into our theme
1. QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
Devote some time and thought to these reflective questions on our theme:
a. What do you value?
b. What facets of your life need a new design?
c. How would your life be different if you changed ___________?
d. What is a new way you could arrange your day? Your week? Your month?
e. What is God drawing your attention to in this season?
f. What new design might God want to incorporate into your life?
(This could be use of time, vocation, ways to relate more meaningfully, etc.)
2. INTELLIGENT DESIGN, EVOLUTION, AND THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION
Theologian and philosopher Dallas Willard offers a two-part set of notes from a presentation given at the USC Templeton Lecture Series on “Science, Politics, Religion: The Case of Intelligent Design” from 2005. We think you’ll find it a fascinating read nearly 20 years later.
3. DESIGN AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Our lives and selves are shaped by the habitats we construct around us. The scale of humanity's ability to build or construct environments is a defining feature of our existence on our planet. Explore this article from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design’s African American Design Nexus – a platform that promotes Black designers who have made and are making an indelible contribution to our society and to how we see the world around us.
4. HUMAN FLOURISHING DESIGN GUIDE
A framework and design guide for designers - particularly technologists - to use when creating new products and services. The Guide is by no means exhaustive, but it is certainly a useful tool in helping those who create new products to ask more thoughtful questions about the impact their work may have on the human condition.
5. PRAYER FOR CREATION
Maker of heaven and earth, all your creatures, animate and inanimate, stand before you.
In Christ, who stands at the center of creation, we see how mysteriously well-pleasing it is to you.
In Christ, the mediator of the whole world, we see how broken it is.
In Christ, the firstborn of creation, we discover its final destiny: new creation!
May we take pleasure in your creation as you take good pleasure in it.
May we care for the earth as you lovingly care for it.
And may we offer up all the creative work of our hands in praise of you,
in service of our neighbor, and in anticipation of that day
when the cosmos shall be made forever alive.
In the Triune Name,
AMEN
From Open and Unafraid: The Psalms as a Guide to Life by David O. Taylor
ROOTED
But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.
(Jeremiah 17:7-8 NIV)
POLLINATE
CULTIVARE is a ministry of TEND and is offered free to our subscribers. We are grateful to our donors who help underwrite our costs. If you would like to support the ongoing work of CULTIVARE, please consider us in your giving. All financial contributions to TEND
(a 501c3 ministry) for CULTIVARE are tax-deductible.
Subscribe to CULTIVARE for free!
FIELD NOTES
Images used in order of appearance:
1. FIELD: Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, Mill Run, Pennsylvania, courtesy of The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy
2. SEEDS: Labyrinth of the Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, 1252, France, Sylvain Sonnet/Corbis
3. ART: Brian T. Miller, #DoGreatThings, http://millerbrian.com/stories-n-stuff/giant-snow-art-simon-beck
4. POETRY: Leonardo da Vinci, Vitruvian Man, c. 1490, Luc Viatour / https://Lucnix.be
5. PROFILE: VW: Goodvertising Fun Theory https://goodvertising.com/the-fun-theory/
Patricia Moore: https://unknowing.design/patricia-moore/
6. FILM: Vitra, Chair Times: A History of Seating by Heinz Bütler, Hook Films, 2020
7. ESSAY: Benjamin Hunter, Newbirth, Filoli, Woodside, California, 2022
8. BOOKS: 1950 Jaguar XK120 2dr Roadster, MotorCarCompany.com
9. DIG DEEPER: Benjamin Hunter, Golden Ration, Vizcaya, Miami, Florida, 2022
10. ROOTED: Lars Howlett, discoverlabyrinths.com
TEAM CULTIVARE: Duane Grobman (Editor), Amy Drennan, Greg Ehlert, Bonnie Fearer, Ben Hunter, Eugene Kim, Andrew Massey, Rita McIntosh, Heather Shackelford, Jason Pearson (Design: Pearpod.com)
WE'RE LISTENING:
We welcome hearing your thoughts on this issue
and suggestions for future issues.
Email us at: info@tendwell.org
