70.
The first time I taught at LHÍ was in 2005. I’d been in Iceland many times before, and I live in Sweden parttime. I veer towards the North. I’ve been teaching since 1981 (!) first at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and then at Parsons School of Design, among others. My expertise is in typography, graphic design and also illustration. My own works reflects all of these practices. In fact, the separation of these specialties into different Departments in a school has always been worrisome to me, and I have written extensively on this subject: that Illustration (well, drawing) should be part of a design curriculum, and not a separate department. See my controversial article in Communication Arts. I received 99 angry e-mails in one day for this: http://www.rosenworld.com/?page_id=113 In any case, LHÍ has invited me for four consecutive years to teach my original workshop, “How to Make Mistakes on Purpose,” to open the school year for the firstyear students. My workshop is the first thing the new students experience at the school. I think it has been successful. See: “We needed a good kick start for our first year in graphic design, product and fashion design departments. Something that would completely sweep our students off their feet, make them less self-conscious and more spontaneous. They discovered something within themselves. It was the perfect workshop for us.” Sigríður Sigurjónsdóttir Professor of Product Design LHÍ Although I have taught this workshop at both schools and corporations worldwide, there really is something unique about the LHÍ students. Iceland is like no other place on earth – one can say this about any country, right? In my opinion Iceland is unusual by any standard. It is part of Europe, but it’s not. The people there are hugely sophisticated, and many are fiercely passionate about design, or music, or art, or whatever their interest. There is individuality in fashion, in attitude, that is very un-Scandi navian. I know. Reykjavik is like the Lower East Side of New York City, blended with a fishing village. The landscape of Iceland is so weird and beautiful, and the people are proud of their place in the world. I have been on wild and wonderful road trips with students from the first year I taught – to Ásbyrgi, to Mývatn, to Akureyri, and to a secret swimming pool in the middle of nowhere. Also, they knew about a small hot spring that nobody else knows, in the middle of a field. In my nearly thirty years of teaching I have never spent free time with students, but these are special cases. They have become my friends. They are young, but so intelligent, so present in the world, and so comfortable in it, that it’s hard to remember that. Old souls, perhaps. It is because of these special, unique cases (how can there be so many?) that teaching at LHÍ is so rewarding. The faculty has been no less welcoming, and interesting as people. There can be no comparison with other people in other places. They understand what my workshop is all about, and make it possible for everything to go smoothly.That’s not easy with a large class, but it works. What follows is an essay about the workshop. The How to Make Mistakes on Purpose Workshop or‚ What to do when it’s too late to go walking in the woods, get burrs stuck on your pants, and invent Velcro all over again. (Published in Communication Arts Magazine 2008). The only way to cure my hiccups is to offer me 20 bucks to hiccup again. Then I can’t do it. Performance anxiety. I teach a workshop called “How to Make Mistakes on Purpose. “It has to do with how not trying works better than trying. I have a fear of the blank page. A fear of the pressure to be “creative” on demand. Starting with a “mistake” saves me from starting out with a nothing. I can ask, “What could this be?” instead of “Oh no! What am I going to do? I’m a fraud! I can’t even draw! Who am I trying to fool?” It’s a psychological thing. Instead of focusing on a problem to solve it, do something careless, pointless, opposite, random. Something that has nothing to do with what you’re doing or wanting. What we do in the Workshop is top secret. I ask everyone who has done it (over one thousand by now) to swear “omertà,” the Mafia code of silence. I have taught it at the best design schools, like the Iceland Academy of the Arts, RISD, SVA, Parsons, ArtCenter, MICA, and many others. I have taught it at Starbucks and in Stockholm, London, and even Des Moines. I have taught it to 200 people at the AIGA 2007 “Next” Conference in Denver and to two very bourgeois Belgian ladies, in my New York loft. It‚’s definitely not just for designers! Anybody can do it. I have some impressive testimonials and details on my site, rosenworld.com, if you are interested. But not too many. Because I refuse to explain what happens in that room. The workshop is about surprise, so it must be one. Ideally, those who take part know absolutely nothing about it, and just show up in a room with no expectations. I’m certainly not the first to believe in mistakes. The Situationists, Fluxus, Jean Arp, Jackson Pollock, Freud, and countless others. But because it’s so hard to “fool” oneself, to get away from all that routine problem-solving, I built a workshop around mistakes, to help people make them on purpose. Because I needed it myself.