We are happy with the pen’s ink, with the music chosen to inspire, with the quality of the chosen paper, with the quality of the chosen ink’s friction on the chosen paper, with the illustrations chosen to map onto the story, with the way my voice does the storytelling, with the way the music we chose goes with the emotion of the story telling, with the choice of using both alto flute and flute, with our idea of what positions might work on stage, we are happy with the entertainment/engagement levels of the philosophical and pedagogical themes, we are now mapping our reading + drawing onto the timing of the music in advance of our first stage rehearsal for TEDx on Thursday.
. . . @kalliopiBolonivou #soloflute @tamarmaganlevi #artist #inthepress #Brussels #Belgium #TEDxULB #TEDx #tedtalks #DELPHI #exhibition #allinoneline #continuousline #singleline #art promo code TEDXULB2020 on tickets Maison Du Bois, Vrijwilligerslaan 2, 1040 Etterbeek on OCT 22nd. https://www.tedxulb.org/event-details/tedxulb-misfits #music #flute #animation #classical #forkids #storytelling #interdisciplinary #pluridisciplinaire #illustration #artplusmusic @tedx_official @TEDxULB2020 @tedxulb ULB @ted
Turning Outwards
The large size of the canvas is significant. It offers you more space for your inner life. There is a proclivity to turn inward when there is a global pandemic, but I want these paintings to remind the viewer of the spiritual release we receive when engaging with wide views of majestic nature.
The orientation is not just physical, it’s a psychological direction too. These are landscapes that inspire the sublime.
Kant’s philosophy of aesthetics involves the idea that a small human form as audience to a vast largeness will give us a sublime experience of nature. This is an almost spiritual release, like the gasp when you see a brilliant view.
Until recently I illustrated children’s books with big ideas, such as philosophy and theoretical mathematics, these were big in another sense. The title of this collection, Immensities, speaks to the broad horizons in these paintings, but it is also the far reaches of your mind. The Immensity of how your soul expands when you stand on these cliff tops or at the heart of these lush forests.
Choosing the Correct Outlook
Of course, one must choose angles of certain landscapes that first offer that sense of space. Only then a good initial sketch on location can provide the best possible opening of the shapes to make one feel the freedom of that sense of place. Travel memories and sketchbooks are brought back to the studio. In this case, my studio was my home during lockdown.
Optical Illusion
When you look at visual culture online you don’t think about the scale. Scale matters. If it encompasses you in real life, if it is bigger than real life, you enter the scene more deeply. You are smaller than the canvas. You are a child. In that way, your childlike wonder is more instantly stimulated.
I noticed the big ones made me afraid. Am I afraid to take up space? Am I afraid of bigger, more visible mistakes? Whatever the case, the larger canvases were necessary to achieve the goal: a nearly fish-eye lens viewpoint expressed on larger canvases is designed to provide a sense of perspective. These vistas are an offering for expansion, travel opportunities not lost, but to be found, again and again.
Different Directions
There are different walks you can take into these landscapes. In my last continuous line illustrated series I “took a line for a walk,” and in this one your eye can take a journey down different paths.
Although I visited these landscapes with my sketchbook in freer times, I painted this whole series, ironically, under the world’s first lockdown. It is the first time in the history of civilisation that all recreational activities were cancelled and we were prohibited to travel. As a family we were respecting the safety precautions and so it was with a sense of grief that I became an artist in residence in my own home and my art expressed the wider world. I painted with love the wild bluebells of Hallerbos forest during the time of year that those bluebells bloom. I recalled our joy in discovering that cool and shadowy woods with its bright points of violet where the bluebells carpeted the clearing and I painted it knowing I could not visit this year. So it was with a sense of longing and grief that I travelled those landscapes again in my heart and in my art, but they are intended as a gift to the flat walls of collector’s homes, deeply shapely and opening and widening the views you might or might not have from your windows, and allowing another scene to open up another view for you.
Naxos, Greece 100x100cm (39.3×39.3in) €950 FRAMED. Buy now. Contact me to discuss art shipment. Shipping costs excluded.
Painting Positivity
I hope the shapes appear spontaneous at first glance and give a gasping sense of space but then, if you’d like to look closer you might notice a thoughtful layering of light and carefully composed colours that builds up a sense of positivity and imbues warmth.
I was surprised: a North European art collector came to view the works of Belgium but ended up buying a very specific painting of Greece. It made me realise that although living between Greece and Belgium is my journey, the boundaries are not so present in this collection. There is a deeply personal journey of my encounter with these two nations’ presence in nature, as an aesthetic experience. However, they were explored in a shared global pandemic and so in each canvas there is the shared need for passing through a gateway, whether it be painted, or over the frame, or beyond the water, and onwards into an expanding space in front of us. This movement towards positive change is intentional: I hope you can sense the optimism I’m trying to plaster on our walls. This is my political act: to counter the negativity of the news with the colourful movement across canvases intended for regular positive uplift of your mood at home.
Due to popular demand my ‘Great Minds’ art exhibition has been extended at the Green Door Gallery (21, Rue Murillo, Brussels 1000, Belgium)!
Updated schedule: 11-4pm Today 26/3, Thursday 28/3, Friday 29/3, Saturday 30/3 and Sunday 31/3 2-6pm, as well as by private appointment by contacting the Green Door directly through their website: www.greendoorbrussels.com.
In the meantime, checkout a short clip from opening night on 22/3.
You are warmly invited to the inaugural exhibition of a new art gallery in Brussels! My artwork represented in “the smallest gallery w the most gravitas” in Brussels: THE GREEN DOOR.
I will be exhibiting my continuous single-line portraits of the greatest minds in history; philosophers, authors, poets, scientists and scholars at The Green Door Gallery.
“The human being behind the written word inspires me on a visual level! I paint a lot of Philosophers! I celebrate Poets, Activists, Feminists, Revolutionaries and Folklorists. Their characters, identities, histories. The nature of their individual natures. The condition of their human condition as they express the complexity of the human condition. These micro-level personal dynamics are undercurrents we engage with deep inside their often meta-level literature. Then, they time travel! We bring these great minds forward from history and apply their ideologies to our thinking, the macro-level application to our everyday lives. Their characters are simultaneously private and public. Private to us as their thoughts inspire our fundamental actions, thus ever contemporary and present tense. Public as deeply foundational to this world which their cultural contributions have already historically shaped. Their portraits are both solid persons, and symbolically thematic. Their image belongs on our walls as they are akin to family that have made us. We relate to them. They form our world, they are our people.”
Like all the books in the award winning Philosophy Foundation Book Series, this edition is a beautiful hardback book with content that is tried and tested in the classroom.
Provocations is a set of philosophy sessions designed for secondary school and predicated on pedagogical methods. These sessions are mature and challenging, exploring (amongst other things), Wagner and desire, Shakespeare and madness, Joan of Arc and gender, Faust and temptation, Nostradamus and time. They span the curriculum and provide an opportunity for teachers across a range of subjects to introduce a philosophical approach to their lessons. There are tips and suggestions throughout on how to use the book in the classroom. There is also an extensive reading list for those who wish to explore the topics in greater depth, as well as an introduction to basic logic and guidelines to help students write their own sessions.
Author: David Birch. Illustrator: Tamar Levi.
Provocations was shortlisted for the Educational Resources Award 2015 in the Secondary non-ICT section.
Review of Provocations by Michelle Sowey of The Philosophy Club Review of Provocations by TDRE (Andy Lewis) Review of Provocations by UKEDCHAT
Once Upon an If comprises a treasury of tales, old and new, to get young audiences thinking actively about the deeper issues within. Guidance notes, lesson plans and questions are included with every story, which have been tried and tested in the classroom inspiring children’s imaginations and developing critical engagement, speaking and listening skills. Written by Peter Worley and illustrated by Tamar Levi.
Once upon an If was a finalist for the Education Resources Award, Educational Book of the Year 2014 and was awarded the Bronze Prize for Primary Teacher Update’s Annual Awards 2014.
Lesson plan support and educational theory is explained throughout The If Odysseyby author Peter Worley as readers use stories from Homer’s Odyssey to stimulate philosophic dialogue in contemporary classrooms. This is the second book in The Philosophy Foundation‘s flagship series.
Using my undergrad philosophy background, my intimate knowledge of the original text, sourcing foundational designs on archaic pottery from the British Museum and basing characters on modern Greeks in my social circle, I got down and dirty with the grain quality of a variety of papers and the various depths of black inks for this project. Altogether, I put my classic pen and ink style to an accessible interpretation of the ancient Greeks and their epic adventures.
Not only was I honoured to be involved in this project but I got double honours by receiving a round of applause in the British Museum. A book launch in the British Museum? Being applauded? By publishing and educational professionals, academics, journalists, family and fine art curators? Couldn’t help but feel this little girl from Alaska has come a long way!
From tri-heritage roots through a labyrinthine professional route to a union based on creativity, philosophy and globalisation, one might call my journey a particularly modern odyssey. Thus I identified with this book and illustrated it with all my heart.
After a warm philosophic discussion session, Peter Worley revealed to the whole room that my partner was Odysseus (when you have a bearded Greek model to hand, you use what you’ve got at home).
We moved to the grandiose sandstone lounge and I revealed in a whisper to interested parties that our Greek friends provide the most entertaining models as they’re already named after ancient characters. For example, in this book Menelaos Prokos featured as Menelaos King of Sparta (Helen of Troy’s cuckolded husband). In the end, I embraced author Peter Worley. We were all delighted to accompany an ancient Odysseus to the modern bookshelf.
Using Homer’s epic tales as inspiration, this book offers lesson plans and storytelling tips to facilitate philosophical discussions with children aged 8-16. The If Odyssey draws out the philosophy that lies behind each story in Homer’s epic tale to introduce children not only to the exciting fables of Odysseus but also to that other great Ancient Greek tradition, philosophy. Explore with Odysseus the value of happiness, non-existent entities, moral dilemmas, the philosophy of prophecy and the nature of love among many other philosophical issues.
Online you’ll find maps of Odysseus’ journey, and the words of Tiresias that provide clues for the children as to Odysseus’ progress and an Ancient Greek language workshop with accompanying worksheets. You can use the ‘Storykit’ section, which provides hints and tips on storytelling skills to bring the tales of The Odyssey to life and stimulate independent, critical thinking with your children or class.
The If Odyssey was shortlisted for the Education Resources Award, Educational Book 2013 and was awarded the Bronze Prize in the Primary Teacher Update’s Annual Awards 2013.
Concept and content by Peter Worley. Cover by Tim Bradford. Content illustrated by Tamar Levi.
You can read about how I researched the illustrations using Ancient Greek artefacts at the British Museum in my blog here. And you can buy the book here:
A one-stop shop with puzzles, lesson plans, discussion starters and stories to tap into young people’s natural curiosity and get them thinking deeply.
Professional philosophers contribute the most stimulating ideas, thought experiments, activities and pictures to get young people thinking philosophically. This book can be used as a classroom tool, a gift for family thinking, a workout for the brain or when just browsing big ideas around The Philosophy Shop.
Edited by Peter Worley. Illustrated by Tamar Levi.
The Philosophy Shop won Book of the Year in 2012 for Philosophy, the 2013 Educational Book of the Year award and was the winner of the Compilation/Anthologies category of the 2012 New England Book Festival Competition.
Poems with stimulating philosophic content for pupils and families.
On the back cover: “Thoughtings is a poetry collection with a difference. The name ‘Thoughtings’ was inspired by a 5-year old who, when asked to explain what thinking is without using the word ‘think’ said ‘It’s when you’re thoughting’. Children love pondering big philosophical questions like ‘Does the universe end?’, ‘Where is my mind?’ and ‘Can something be true and false at the same time?’. These verses capture that impulse in the growing mind and feed it further. These are not poems or, at least, not in the traditional sense of the word… They are a kind of poem specifically designed around a particular puzzle or problem that might be thought more philosophy than poetry. Here’s to the joy of puzzlement!”
Authors: Andrew Day and Peter Worley. Illustrated by Tamar Levi.
Thoughtings has been awarded as the “Best Teaching Book” by the 50 Best Books list and Teach Primary Magazine.
Each tried and tested session in this practical book offers an imaginary situation followed by a series of questions to encourage children to challenge key philosophical ideas such as values and ethics, gender and identity, existence and beauty. The If Machine also includes key sections on the philosophy behind the experiments and an online teacher’s resource. Author Peter Worley has over 15 years’ teaching experience and is the founder of The Philosophy Foundation, a Community Interest Company that specialises in philosophy in primary schools. Tim Bradford provided the cover illustration while Tamar Levi edited the content and provided illustrations to go with the stories.
The If Odyssey was shortlisted for the Education Resources Award, Educational Book 2013 and was awarded the Bronze Prize for Primary Teacher Update’s Annual Awards 2013.
Educated in London and Cambridge, Tamar has published as an author, illustrator and editor of multiple award-wining books designed for families, classrooms and doctors. Her prized artwork is highly collectible, commissioned by private collectors, sold at private auctions and exhibited in galleries around Europe.
