Janet Echelman: Taking imagination seriously

http://www.ted.com Janet Echelman found her true voice as an artist when her paints went missing -- which forced her to look to an unorthodox new art material. Now she makes billowing, flowing, building-sized sculpture with a surprisingly geeky edge. A transporting 10 minutes of pure creativity.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[Abhijit Banerjee]

so, what have you given back to the Indian fishermen who actually seeded the idea with you ?

[Kevin507]

what about birds?:(

[1prettyricky]

whats with all the thumbs down?

[DrOctopusBJJ]

Cool, but how about switching up mediums or at least materials every once in a while?

[IronCapo]

Does anyone know what the seven art schools were that rejected her?

[anuka giggle]

wow, woderful

[VectorArrow]

When she said "And was rejected by all 7 (Art Schools)" at 0:45, the look on her face said "Can you believe they rejected me? Their loss."

[TheBluePepperoni]

Hey, everybody's entitled to their own delusions. And I would think that you, sir, are more arrogant than her and me. ;)

[Jinwoo Lee]

do realize that there is more radiating arrogance somewhere in your life than hers just looking this ignorant comment. Bravo for your self-delusion ;)

[Jinwoo Lee]

such a wonderful cynicism. Thanks for reminding me that not everyone enjoys what is given to be enjoyable and making me feel better. Fantastic reminder :)

[Pat Iku]

:')