Publication · 2023Art & Ideas
I Went into the Forest Looking for Meaning
NCTM / Mathematics Teacher: Learning & Teaching PK–12
A personal account of an artist’s years studying patterns in a Maine forest and the emergence of Y-Theory.
ARTIST · INVENTOR · EDUCATOR · PUBLIC SPEAKER
Thinking.
Making.
Meaning.
I'm Michael Acerra. I collect questions, draw connections and sometimes make strange things out of them. This is a home for the ideas, drawings, conversations and experiments that have shaped my life.
AT WORK Heather and Michael Acerra, co-founders of Lux Blox
?
AN OPEN, UNFINISHED INQUIRY
Follow the questions.
This site isn't arranged around a single subject. It follows a lifelong habit of finding relationships among subjects that are usually taught apart.
01 / MIND
Imagination & possibility
What can a human mind learn to see before it exists?
↗02 / LEARNINGEducation & play
What happens when understanding begins in the hands?
↗03 / FORMSNature & structure
Where do pattern, constraint and invention meet?
↗04 / FUTURESAI & human agency
How do we cultivate freedom and judgment as tools grow powerful?
↗05 / LIFEFaith & meaning
What does it mean to look at the world with wonder?
↗06 / MAKINGArt & the comic self
Can a fool help us see what seriousness obscures?
↗◌
THINKING WITHMike.Conversations in good company
PODCAST / CONVERSATIONS
The questions are better with company.
My interviews move between creativity, education, invention, mathematics and the human condition. Find Thinking with Mike and a growing index of conversations where I've been somebody else's guest.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Selected work & conversations.
A few doors into a much larger collection. Dates and source links are included where verified.
Guest Interview · 2023Education & Play
Rethinking the Building Blocks of Learning
Trending in Education with Mike Palmer
A conversation about Froebel, Buckminster Fuller, art, spatial reasoning and the origins of Lux Blox.
Publication · 2019Mathematics & Structure
Exploring Kaleidocycles with LUX
Bridges Conference
With Matias Kaukolinna, Alexey Ivchenko and Kristóf Fenyvesi; hands-on exploration of moving geometric linkages.
THE ARTIST & HIS FOOL
Not everything needs to be said with a straight face.
There is also the actor, the mask and the self-mocking Commedia dell’arte drawing: a cheerful antidote to the temptation to sound terribly important.
The original drawings, and their stories, will become a recurring thread through the site. More are reported to live in Michael’s Facebook photo archive.
Enter the art archive ↗PATHS THROUGH A LIFE
Artist. Teacher. Maker. Student.
From a Maine yurt and Chicago classrooms, through murals and studios, to a hinged building block and an educational philosophy of structure.
1989–1991Into the woods
An artist studies nature, drawing and patterns in a Maine yurt.
1990sTeaching and painting
Chicago classrooms, murals and an artistic practice.
2000–2015Acerra Studios
Fine art, portraiture, teaching and hands-on learning.
2015–nowLux Blox & beyond
An invention becomes a company—and leads to Structure Smart.
IDEAS MADE TANGIBLE
Making as a way of thinking.
Lux Blox and Structure Smart are two expressions of a more general interest: making unfamiliar structure visible, understandable and available for play.
PUBLIC SPEAKING
Bring the questions into the room.
Talks and conversations on creativity, invention, structural thinking, and learning through making. Invite Michael Acerra to connect these ideas with your audience.