iTOMB Partners With the Pasos Peace Museum

David and iTOMB for the Pasos Peace Museum at the Riverdale Arts Festival

On October 14th, iTOMB began a new chapter in Interactivism by working with the Pasos Peace Museum to activate a new fundraising effort for the museum. Named, "Be the Change You Wish to See", the effort featured myself and iTOMB painting with children and adults alike for the afternoon at the Riverdale Arts Festival in the far North Bronx, New York. Working with museum board member Lisa Brandon-Colon the iTOMB concept was used to bring an interactive element to a festival that otherwise mostly consisted of displays of art with little chance to actually make any. "Your activity is great.", said Lisa and the afternoon produced more than 30 paintings, all brilliant in their own interpretation but more importantly, important because of the experience they provided their creators.

This Saturday I am pleased to bring iTOMB and our special brand of Interactivism to NEST+m, New York’s premier K-12 public school for Gifted & Talented students for a Halloween Festival - and don't think I'm not just a little scared, about letting NYC's best and brightest show me up just a little:-) Nah, but 500 smart kids can be a little spooky even without the costumes, right? Should you know of an event or organisation that could use the spirit, activity and creative fun of iTOMB, please let me know. As Frankenstorms approach and the weather turns less hospitable, we're ready to head indoors and keep the brushes and ideas flying.

The High Line, NYC - ©Above It All

David Everitt-Carlson and iTOMB, The High Line, NYC. Photo: Will O'Mailley

Last week a journalist asked me to describe the High Line, the New York City park built on an old abandoned elevated railway where I execute iTOMB, in three words. ©Above It All, I said. She smiled, and I thought that would make a lovely promotional line for the park. I'd be very happy to see the line used in that way.

iTOMB: See the best of the week 10.01.12

iTOMB.Yeheli (12) (Israel) 10.05.12

The week of 01 October produced not only more pure genius but some genuine emotion as well. Above, my favourite from our painting sessions on The Highline in NYC for the week.To read and see the slideshow of bests, see iThink Outside My Box.

iTOMB: © Interactivism Now Comes to You!

The original iTOMB 10.06.11 Zuccotti Park, NYC

Wall Street Journal

From activist statement to interactive family experience, months have passed since the NYPD surrounded me in Zuccotti Park and Union Square in 'iThink Outside My Box' (iTOMB) and eventually arrested me for that First Amendment activity:) All charges were subsequently dropped and I'm now in the business of counter suing the boyz in blue for false arrest and confiscating all my artworks and belongings. Too much fun:) But having passed our first anniversary, Occupy survives as an activist octopus of varying actions and iTOMB continues as performance art, activism and interactivity.

Now I've moved the whole enterprise to The Highline at 22nd St. and have had nothing but positive responses from the staff and visitors. Aside from just me working, now anyone can paint a picture and boy do they paint! See this selection of the best of September's work by visitors to iTOMB. 

Benji 10.01.12

Through visitor and fan suggestions I am now making the © Interactivism of iTOMB available for school, social organisation and corporate programmes. That means I can travel anywhere in the 5 boroughs and set up a painting exercise for all ages at a very reasonable fee. Prices start at just $150 - and with my mix of performance, humour, painting and encouragement a few minutes behind the brush brings a welcome break to virtually all ages. Can you think of any schools, companies, orgs or programmes where this would work well? Let me know. I'm excited to bring the box on the road and share the experience with as many people as need a dose of creative juice. Otherwise, check out the rest of the site and see all the things we're up to.

iTOMB today 10.04.12 The Highline, NYC- Interactive activism:)

iTOMB Work of the Week 09.24.12

Romi (21 mos) 09.30.12

This week iThink Outside My Box is proud to introduce our Work of the Week - but since this a new feature, it's more like a compendium of the best work done in the month of September. See below for the full show. Above, my favourite from our painting sessions on The Highline in NYC until now. Working in a 3"X3" cardboard canvas space, Romi, at 21 months, creates a swirling post-modernist abstract that by most accounts, would be just at home at MoMA if it were 3'X3' or 30'X30'. Remember, there is no age requirement at iTOMB and certainly no skill evaluation to paint. Our current cardboard Rembrandts range from 13 mos to infinity - yet all bring a spirit that truly knows no boundaries. Thank you all, artists, for continuing to amaze me and the viewers of the world:)

Messages From a Box - by Vincent J. Tomeo

Last Friday, before the onslaught of a three-day Occupied weekend, a man came to visit the i Think Outside My Box project on The Highline here in New York City. Click the link to read the poem he was inspired to write. The reference to Paul Klee is more than welcome:)

S e p t e m b e r  1 6 ,  2 0 1 2

M e s s a g e s  F r o m  A  B o x

 

On the eve of the anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, Han Fei Tzu remains as relevent as ever

"In particular it (the Legalist Philosophy) emphasized the encouragement of agriculture to provide a steady food supply and of warfare to expand the borders of the state and insure a tough, alert and well disciplined population. It called for the suppression of all ideas and ways of life that impeded the realization of these aims. Vagabonds and draft dodgers, merchants and artisians who deal in nonessential goods, scholars who spread doctrines at variance with Legalist teaching, cavaliers who take the law into their own hands - all were to be unmercifully quashed and the people to be kept in a state of ignorance and awe."

On the eve of the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, 09.17.12, I find this passage from Chinese philosopher Han Fei Tzu written over 200 years before the birth of Christ. Han Fei Tzu was a prince in the ruling house of the state of Han. A representative of the Fa-Chia or Legalist school of philosophy he produced a handbook for the ruling King of Han. Ironically the King did not heed his advice yet his adversary the King of Ch'in took Han Fei Tsu's writings to heart and defeated the ruling king (Fei Tzu's cousin), ascending to the throne in 246 B.C.

In this modern translation of Han Fei's basic writings, Burton Watson of Columbia University treads dangerously close to what many feel is the state of our American government today - an administration that spens half of the citizen's tax dollar on the war machine whilst occupying 50% of the entire world's military spending as 28-33 million Americans find themselves out of work. Plans for Occupy's anniversary span over 3 days in lower Manhattan beginning September 15th and ending on the 17th in a grand general assembly in Zuccotti park. We can only hope that revellers, the media and the public in general take this opportunity to refocus America towars a peaceful and profitable future - not the prophecy of a  more than two thousand year old failed oriental philosophy.