Dear Artists,

This week we’ll take a whirlwind tour of the ancient civilizations of the Americas–Mayan, Aztec, Anasazi, and Moundbuilders. We’ll see that agriculture played the central role in these civilizations  because it allowed many people to stop farming and begin new areas of human development–architecture, writing, science, math, and art.

I think there’s something centrally human about making art. Instead of merely making the things we need to survive, we like to make them in a way that is beautiful, a way that speaks to some sort of ideal world we all wish we coud live in. Look at the calendar the Aztec made hundreds of years ago. It’s not just squares in a grid, it’s something much more beautiful.

Humans don’t just make buildings, we create architecture. We don’t make sounds, we make music. We don’t just move our bodies, we dance.

Sincerely,

Mr. H