Edward Lentsch
The New Motivation
I dedicate this book to the author Mr. Daniel H Pink ---his work inspires me beyond measure and has helped me to connect the dots on concepts that I have been trying to put my finger on for over a decade. His books Drive, A Whole New Mind and the ideas expressed in his work, are in my humble opinion part of an essential vocabulary for the 21st Century Master.
The Ars Magna (Latin for “The Great Art”) is an important book on Algebra written by Gerolamo Cardano. It was first published in 1545 under the title Artis Magnæ, Sive de Regulis Algebraicis Liber Unus (Book number one about The Great Art, or The Rules of Algebra). There was a second edition in Cardano’s lifetime, published in 1570. It is considered[1] one of the three greatest scientific treatises of the early Renaissance, together with Copernicus’ De revovolutionibus orbium coelestium and Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica. The first editions of these three books were published within a two year span (1543-1545).
Ars Magna, 11ft x 16ft 6 inches
Foreword
The New Motivation
They say there are 3 kinds of people; those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who stand there asking “what happened?” I offer this book to not only the artist, be that painter, sculpture or poet, but rather for all those who make things happen!
The day I realized I could draw was also the beginning of looking at history in a completely different way. I saw that artists were different than other people who made things. People made cars, houses, clothes; everything around me was the product of someone’s intentional efforts, but art was different. It was separate from the everyday things that were in plain sight. Having talent to do what very few could do, I thought it made me special. This gave me a confidence to shoot for the golden ring. The more success I had the more I bit off, eventually being blinded by a paradox of success and failure. I was frustrated and determined to succeed yet rarely seeing that the value of falling on my face and ‘the getting back up part of the equation’ as the greatest reward. My search for an understanding of this intrinsic motivation and extrinsic reward, this ‘drive’ has been paramount to my practice. At age 53 I am happy to finally make this distinction and attempt to explain how this has had a profound impact on my mindset and choices I have made with my career.
The Sawyer Effect, 120 x 80 inches From Jonah Lehrer, an illustration of the power of intrinsic motivation — the desire to do a thing because you enjoy it, rather than for any extrinsic reward like a paycheck…
The change of “Operating Systems” in human motivation and how we think was beautifully explained to me in Mr. Pink’s book Drive as an upgrade in our psychological operating system. I believe understanding the concepts he presents will have a great impact to change the paradigm of the 21st century artist. I also feel we are already part of this ‘paradigm shift’ and don’t even know it. This movement is about a profound expansion; I’ve lived it, I’ve seen it, I know it to be true. In the last 10 years this investigation into the
new motivation is where my purpose has evolved to one of mastery versus creativity. Drive explores the idea of ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’ motivation. The most interesting thing for me is about how this idea of intrinsic motivation relates to a stereotype that has defined artists for too long. Pink refers to this as an operating system that has moved through history from 1.0 (basic needs and gratification) to 2.0 (carrot and stick) and a premise that humans have evolved to a new operating system guided by ‘intrinsic motivation, purpose, mastery and autonomy’ and how this has changed both the equation and thought pattern. Though his books are not about art or artists per say, I see something he’s talking about as a great art movement, part of the intelligence explosion whereby we will no-longer expect artists to be starving artists, suffering for their art, or where we celebrate the tortured heroin addict and self-destructive bitter alcoholic as the stereotypical ‘genius.’ The new motivation is actually the revelation of an old motivation of the artist, an operating system of complex psychology and reason whereby the intention remains as one of mastery and perfection but even more importantly one of CONTRIBUTION! A story which best illustrates the point of an outdated model, is about the French sculptor whose sculpture sits at the entrance to the Académie des BeauxArts. The story goes like this: an artist working in his studio was faced with a dilemma when the weather was turning to a deep freeze and it would ruin his clay
strategy…” It is also said “the way is in training…” As I look to the future and my next set of goals I will continue to ‘define synectics’ by connecting the dots. As Buckminster Fuller said: “I don’t work for money, I work to serve, and the more people I reach, the more effective I become…” It is the integration of these components rooted within such profound contexts that has become a reoccurring theme in my work that alludes to the idea of connectivity and universality as it relates to various ideologies, including nature’s degrees of separation, mathematical aesthetics, and the collective unconscious. This body of work is meant to weave through such subject matter, connecting facts Artists are a special brand. They do art because they have to, not for just the physical gratification of some- of history to the mysteries of the heavens and my search for the new motivation. thing functional but the spiritual necessity of fulfillment and happiness. It tells me that one’s intrinsic reward is another’s extrinsic motivation and that our Edward Lentsch understanding the new motivation will reveal our true January 30, 2012 place in the 21st century as one of leadership and initiative with a purpose driven call-to-action to push the envelope of ‘big picture thinking’. model and crack it before he could cast it into bronze. He was found a few days later dead on the floor naked. He had used all his cloths and blankets to save the sculpture. It serves as an important example of what appears to me as the stereotype which defines the existing paradigm that needs to be examined more carefully. My purpose as an artist is similar to what Pink refers to as the goal of his book, “to repair that breech…” where we attempt to create a new understanding of motivation and define the practice, purpose and intention as one of intrinsic reward.
Embracing this understanding of drive and intrinsic motivation has had a profound impact and has changed where I choose to focus my direction and efforts. I’ve become more a student into the mindset of the entrepreneur, and more importantly modeling who I consider to be the 21st Century Masters. Miyomoto Musashi, 16th Century Samurai Master, in his manuscript Book of Five Rings states: “it has been said that much of all suffering comes from a lack of
Intrinsic Motivation, 100 x 80 inches
Blanquema, 100 x 80 inches
Aristotle’s Apodicticity
Aristotle’s Apodicticity, 78 x 132 inches
“Apodictic” or “apodeictic” (Ancient Greek: “ἀποδεικτικός”, “capable of demonstration”) is an adjectival expression from Aristotelean logic that refers to propositions that are demonstrable, that are necessarily or selfevidently the case or that, conversely, are impossible.[1] Apodicticity or apodixis is the corresponding abstract noun, referring to logical certainty.
New Mysterianism, 90 x 60 inches
Bhashkara’s the Beautiful, 90 x 60 inches
Almacantara, 80 x 100 inches
Liber Abaci, 60 x 50 inches
Ars Notoria, 100 x 80 inches
Concept of Mind, 54 x 76 inches
Adeptus Exemptus, 60 x 50 inches
The Enthemematic Argument part I, 60 x 50 inches
Book of the Abacus Liber Abaci (1202, also spelled as Liber Abbaci) is a historic book on arithmetic by Leonardo of Pisa, known later by his nickname Fibonacci. In this work, Fibonacci introduced to Europe the Hindu-Arabic numerals, a major element of our decimal system, which he had learned by studying with Arabs while living in North Africa with his father, Guglielmo Bonaccio, who wished for him to become a merchant.
The title of Liber Abaci means “The Book of Calculation”. Although it has also been translated as “The Book of the Abacus”, Sigler (2002) writes that this is an error: the intent of the book is to describe methods of doing calculations without aid of an abacus, and as Ore (1948) confirms, for centuries after its publication the ‘algorismists’ (followers of the style of calculation demonstrated in Liber Abaci) remained in conflict with the abacists (traditionalists who continued to use the abacus in conjunction with Roman numerals).
Book of the Abacus, 100 x 80 inches
Liber Abaci was among the first Western books to describe Arabic numerals, the first being the Codex Vigilanus completed in 976; another pivotal work followed by Pope Silvester II in 999. By addressing tradesmen and academics, it began to convince the public of the superiority of the new numerals.
Ravenloft, 65 x 55 inches
The Rod of Asclepius, 100 x 80 inches
Undistributed Middle Part I, 46 x 35 inches
Undistributed Middle Part II, 46 x 35 inches
Tasso’s Three Wishes, 65 x 55 inches
Adeptus Major, 40 x 35 inches
Adeptus Minor, 40 x 35 inches
Iddhi, 46 x 40 inches
Didactic Method of Elenchus, 80 x 100 inches
Fragments of the Pre-Socratics, 100 x 80 inches
Halo Effect, 100 x 80 inches
HeMegale Syntaxis
HeMegale Syntaxis, 80 x 120 inches
importance, and consist of descriptions of various kind of Projections, the theory of the musical scale, chronological and metaphysical treatises, and a summary of the hypotheses employed in his great work, the Almagest. Others of Ptolemy’s works have been lost, and it is still a moot point whether or not they contained a treatise on optics, as a Latin version of what is said to have been an Arabic translation of Ptolemy’s original treatise on that subject is still in existence.
Ptolemy, a celebrated astronomer and geographer, whose proper name is Claudius Ptolemaeus, was a native of Egypt, though it is uncertain whether he was born at Pelusium or Ptolemais in the Thebaid. Nothing is known of his personal history, except that he flourished in Alexandria in 139 AD, and there is probable evidence of his having been alive in 161 AD. The chief of his writings are: Megale Syntaxis tes Astronomias, which, to distinguish it from the nextmentioned, was probably denominated by the Arabs megiste, the greatest, from which is derived the name Almagest, by which it is generally known; Tetrabiblos Syntaxis, with which is combined another work, called Karpos or Centiloquium, from it containing a hundred aphorisms, both works treating of astrological subjects and held by some on this account to be of doubtful genuineness; Phaeis aplanon asteron kai synagoge episemaseion, a treatise on the phenomena of the fixed stars, or a species of almanac; Geographike Hyphegesis, his great geographical work, in eight books. The rest of his works are of inferior
The Exponential Calculus, 100 x 80 inches
Companions of Simplicius, 100 x 80 inches
Lau Tzu’s Threasures I, 42 x 35 inches
Lau Tzu’s Three Treasures II, 42 x 35 inches
Argumentum ad Hominem, 100 x 80 inches
The Lady of the Mountains, 66 x 88 inches
EXHIBITIONS 2012 Art Aspen 2012 Art San Diego 2012 Palm Springs International Art Fair 2012 Art Hamptons 2011 Art San Diego 2011 San Francisco Fine Art Fair 2010 Art Hamptons 2010 Tobi Tobin, Los Angeles 2010 The Edge, Santa Fe 2010 Costello Childs Scottsdale 2010 Budwell Middle East Muscat, Oman 2010 ForrĂŠ and Co. Aspen, CO 2009 Group Exhibition Forre and Co. 2009 Lanoue Fine Art, Boston, MA 2009 Ogilvie Pertl Gallery, Chicago, IL 2009 Madison Gallery, La Jolla, CA 2009 Zane Bennett, Santa Fe, NM 2009 Zane Bennett, Art Chicago 2008 Gallery Moda, Santa Fe, NM 2008-09 Onessimo Fine Art 2008 Ogilvie Pertle Gallery, Chicago, IL 2008 OK H arris Works of Art ,New York, NY 2007 OK Harris Works of Art, New York, NY 2007 Onessimo Fine Art, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 2007 Eleonore Austerer Gallery, Palm Desert, CA 2007 Hernandez Contemporary, Scottsdale, AZ 2007 Ogilvie/Pertl Gallery, Chicago, IL 2007 Gallery Moda, Santa Fe, NM 2006 Lanoue Fine Art, Boston, MA 2006 Modern Masters, Santa Fe, NM 2006 Hernandez Contemporary, Scottsdale, AZ 2006 Modern Masters Fine Art, Palm Desert, CA 2005 Art Chicago Navy Pier, Chicago, IL
2005 2004 2004 2003 2003 2003 2002 2001 2001 2000 1998 1997 1995 1995 1994
Flanders Gallery, Minneapolis, MN Elizabeth Edwards Fine Art, Palm Desert, CA Desert Wolf, Palm Desert, CA Art Chicago, Julie Baker Fine Art, Grass Valley, CA Windsor Gallery, Dania, FL Minnetonka Center for the Arts, Minnetonka, MN Palm Springs International Art Fair, Palm Springs, CA Elizabeth Edwards Fine Art, Maui, HI Elizabeth Edwards Fine Art, Nantucket, MA Palm Springs International Art Fair, Palm Springs, CA Atrium Design Center, Rancho Mirage ,CA Sidney Bechet Center for Visual Arts, Garches, France Gallery Massijiro Ltd., Fukuoka-Ken, Japan Minneapolis Institute of Art, Art in Bloom, Minneapolis, MN Scholes Fine Art, Edina, MN
BIBLIOGRAPHY (References to titles origin) Drive Daniel H Pink A Whole New Mind Daniel H Pink That Used to be Us Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life: Volume 1 by Drunvalo Melchizedek The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life: Volume 2 by Drunvalo Melchizedek The Bible Code by Michael Drosnin The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav The Dead Sea Scrolls by G. Vermes
The Divine Proportion by H.E. Huntley Divine Proportion: Phi In Art, Nature, and Science by Priya Hemenway Egyptology: search for the Tomb of Osiris by Candlewick Press The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean translation and interpretation by Doreal The Fourth Turning An American Prophecy by William Strauss and Neil Howe God and the New Physics by Paul Davies God is a Verb by David A Cooper The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World’s Most Astonishing Number by Mario Livio How to Know God by Deepak Chopra The I Ching or Book of Changes by Brian Browne Walker Living in the Heart: How to Enter into the Sacred Space Within the Heart by Drunvalo Melchizedek Mathematics from the Birth of Numbers by Jan Gullberg Morphic Resonance & the Presence of the Past by Rupert Sheldrake Multiple Intelligences by Howard Gardner The Mystery of Aleph by Amir D. Aczel A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram The Power of Intention by Dr. Wayne Dyer The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose Sacred Geometry: Deciphering the Code by Stephen Skinner Sacred Geometry: Philosophy and Practice (Art and Imagination) by Robert Lawlor Sacred Geometry (Wooden Books) by Miranda Lundy The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra Wizardology: The Secrets of Merlin by CandlePress (Includes references for painting titles)
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