Archive for October, 2009

What we have here is a failure to communicate – Part 2

Friday, October 30th, 2009

In any interpersonal relationship the ability to clearly and accurately communicate is a necessary skill. When one gets into collaborative projects like theater the need for those skills increases exponentially. There is a degree to which everyone in a theatrical production must rely on and lean on everyone else in order for the whole to work. When any one individual does not live up to their end of the communicative deal the whole process can unravel.

I recently assisted a designer whose communication skills were insufficient at best. She would ask, for example, if something was possible, “Is it possible to print out the lighting cues?” and would get a response to her question, “Yes it is possible.” This is a different question than “Please print out the cues.” One day she threw a temper tantrum about how “nothing I ask for gets done. I have been asking for a cue printout for WEEKS.” Upon checking with with the electrician it was confirmed that in fact not once had the actual words “Print the Cue list” been said.

While this might sound like a minor issue it points to a much larger complex of issues. No one is a mind reader. As such it is only possible to know what is actually said. Working in theater, and lighting specifically, it becomes necessary to be precise with language when any given note may well cost hundreds to thousands of dollars in labor, parts, and so forth. Those carrying out the note need to be certain with regards to what exactly is wanted. Ambiguous requests, or requests for something other than what one wants, will only create conflict and confusion down the line.

Systems have been developed over years to allow for the precise giving of notes from a designer to an electrician such that exactly what is desired gets achieved. The precise type, placement, color, method of control, and so forth can all be described in exact detail so as to avoid any confusion. Part of why this system works is that it leaves nothing ambiguous. Because there is no ambiguity there is no room for misinterpretation.

Ambiguity and miscommunication do happen. But having a system that keeps information flowing without recourse to interpretive wizardry, or decoding efforts worthy of the greatest CIA Kremlinologists, allows for a minimum of miscommunication. One need not resort to temper tantrums over things never asked because everyone is speaking the same language and the same dialect of that language.

Asking for what one wants is the bedrock of good communication and, sadly, something far too many people lack. The equation is simple: use words to accurately describe what it is you would like to communicate. In far too many situations people are unable, or unwilling, to do this.

One factor I have found that contributes to poor communication are feelings of insecurity. Especially in the arts it seems that those who are unclear are also those who are uncertain in their ability or place. As such they use unclear communication as a way of shirking responsibility. If something goes wrong it is not their fault, but the fault of the person who misunderstood them.

While all this may explain why such things occur it does not get at the root problem. Poor communication and smokescreen tactics like tantrums will never compensate for hard work, diligence and competency. WIllful ignorance of how things are done does not absolve one of being unable to work in their chosen field.

Contrasting my recent disaster of a communicator with a designer I assisted a while ago is the difference between night and day. Working for Don Holder and Karen Spahn was a smooth and fluid experience. Notes and ideas were communicated effortlessly because they would follow the one rule of communication: say what you mean. Leaving aside their generally calm and easy going manner, the process was easy because there were no linguistic hurdles, there were only lighting problems.

By communicating clearly and directly they kept the focus on the lighting. Their energy could be fully devoted to the work in front of them on stage since they were not needlessly expending it in frustrated wonder at why no one could read their mind. There was no need for the Kremlinologist. They simply and clearly expressed what was needed and saw the notes carried out to the best of the ability of their crew.

Such a simple thing really. But then it is often the simple things that can trip you up if you are not aware.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in design, theatre | 1 Comment »

The Structural Failure of The Idiot Savant

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Richard Foreman is known for his signature visual and performative style. If you have seen any of his works you should be familiar with the pieces of string, barriers, dotted lines, bits of fringe, voiceover, ambient soundscapes, lighting instruments pointed at the audience, and more. Each of these elements are used by Foreman to create a specific effect in the audience. Some are there to create a kind of aesthetic distance between the audience and viewer(string, barriers). Other elements are there precisely to overcome that distance and bring the energy of the stage into the space inhabited by the audience(voiceover, lights pointed at the audience). One is simultaneously drawn in and pushed away from the work. That tension gives his works a singular quality and contributes to their almost indescribable power.

What must be remembered when experiencing one of his works, and yes experiencing is more accurate than mere viewing, is that every element of the performance is present for a very specific reason. Nothing is mere decoration. Each aspect of the production works with (and against) every other element to become a cohesive (if not fully understandable) whole. Foreman’s plays are complex psychological machines which manifest for the audience a wide and complicated emotional spectrum.

Many elements that go into a Foreman production have been appropriated by various avant garde theater makers and others exhibiting nothing more than a derivative quality. For once the element is used without concern for its precise role in the work, but rather for surface effect, its power disappears. Foreman is very careful about this and will readily change or cut something that is not working to full effect.

Most of his works have been produced in his long time theater, the Ontological-Hysteric, in St. Mark’s Church. That space is small with a rather low ceiling. As a result the force of his works are direct and powerful. In producing Idiot Savant he has moved from his usual space to a larger theater at The Public. In this space not only is the audience seating area bigger but the stage itself is far deeper and has a much higher ceiling.

While Foreman’s traditional elements are employed in Idiot Savant there has been a translation of sorts in order to make them work in the same way in this larger space. More string than usual as well as a larger focus on designing the audience area in addition to the stage space has had to happen. Every element scaled up properly to this new space except for the lighting. The lighting designer, rather than deeply exploring how Foreman uses the various lighting elements in his plays and making sure they scale to the new space, simply hung those same instruments in the larger theater. The result is a structural failure of the lighting plot that, despite vigilant efforts by Foreman, has not been fully solved.

The lighting designer put together the physical lighting plot and then left Foreman to his own devices for a month to actually light the play. Foreman made numerous changes, structurally, the the plot, taking what was largely unusable and moving them around to actually provide some function and value to the play. Many of the ideas from the original lighting plot read as derivative attempts to achieve a Foremanesque aesthetic in contradistinction to the hardworking elements Foreman typically employs.

Being the true master that he is, Foreman has done a miraculous job of lighting the play to a rather striking effect. After all, in the hands of a master, art can be made from nearly anything. While the work looks good the lighting lacks a certain vitality inherent to much of his previous works due to the oversight by the lighting designer in terms of accurately translating the ideas into the larger theater. While getting bogged down by details such as specking several variations of virtually identical floodlights, the larger conceptual design problem failed to be solved.

What Foreman has done with such a severe structural handicap is admirable. But the sad reality is that the work fails to live up to its true potential. The beauty of the rest of the work (scenery, costumes, sound and staging) which was accurately translated to the larger space is met only half way by the lighting.

The inherent failure of the lighting design in Idiot Savant comes from a lack of foresight on the part of the designer to translate the ideas behind Foreman’s lighting work into a system that would achieve those same results in the larger theater this work is being performed in. Foreman’s use of lighting instruments pointed at the audience creates powerful psychologoical effects. Without properly scaling them out of the Ontological and into the Martinson what we are left with are merely superficial tropes lacking the power and vitality that his work both demands and deserves.

This lack is striking precisely because the rest of the work is so powerful. The vitality and immediacy of the play makes it stand out as a work worthy of this great master’s final homage to the stage. His directorial mastery is shown to powerful effect and anyone doubting his approach to performance would do well to see this piece and reconsider those opinions. All that said, the failure in the lighting design leaves one wishing his collaborator had been more invested in creating an accurate translation of the work rather than merely copying and pasting ideas without getting behind their authentic essence.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in design | No Comments »

The Aesthetics of Boredom

Friday, October 23rd, 2009

I have been having trouble writing recently and realized that a large part of this was due to boredom. I had been fighting this boredom strongly by struggling to find a topic of interest. A typical response. I would begin writing on a topic and quickly become bored with my words. What finally broke the flood gates of possibility was realizing that rather than fighting the sense of boredom I should embrace and explore it.

Boredom is a large and general feeling. What I am feeling is something specific. Aesthetic boredom.

In a way this now shifting relationship to boredom dovetails with my previously mentioned exploration of the color gray. Boredom, and its regular companion malaise, is a symptom of the post-modern condition. Having access to anything one might desire makes any decision fundamentally arbitrary. Once a decision has become arbitrary its force and impact in one’s life is radically diminished.

Aesthetic boredom works in a similar way to any other kind of boredom. As choices become arbitrary their value is gone. Living within a world where a candy bar and a five star meal are of equal weight would seem absurd. Yet this is the effect of aesthetic boredom. Pink, gray, blue, bright, dark, soft, or hard are all of equal value and thus become useless. Much of the problems I find in contemporary art stem from this. Anything is possible and as such there is no danger or risk. Without danger the essence of art becomes no more.

The only authentic response to boredom is not struggle but surrender. Rather than striving for the “right” choice one must rein in the very impulse to act. When all actions are equal the only event of any weight is intentional non-action. Thus the essence of boredom becomes radical non-action. The films of Jim Jarmusch are one vector along this potential.

An exploration of boredom immediately shows the inherent contradiction contained within it. Any exploration of boredom is an act and thus suffers from the very critique this manner of boredom sets upon the world. While at once self critiquing it also highlights the pervasive and unavoidable nature of boredom in contemporary western culture.

Like an exploration of the color gray shows us the many and varied possibilities contained in so simple a thing so too does an exploration of boredom show the vitality and possibility inherent in that mode of being. For boredom shows us an ever expanding palette of opportunities that is in fact confining while severe limitation gives us limitless potential.

I would like to avoid the word ennui here for a few reasons. First, are various connotations with 20th century discourse which I find largely misplaced. Second, is the etymological root of vexation which has a more active origin than I am interested in. Third, and finally, is the fact that boredom is an English word and as such has a more direct resonance in my experience.

Ennui takes on metaphysical characteristics well out of proportion to the mode of being I am experiencing here. Boredom has a plainness to it while ennui contains within it pretensions of an almost performative nature. Boredom is by definition strictly non-performative.

The non-performative nature of boredom begs the question how it may be presented in a performative medium. Is such an action even possible? What would it look like? What would it sound like? Or is it in fact an inherent contradiction to conceive of such a thing? If it is true that performative boredom is inherently contradictory then performance may well be the condition necessary to transform that mode of being into something else.

Tags: , ,
Posted in theory | No Comments »

From the Archives: The Aesthetics of Control

Monday, October 19th, 2009

This piece was originally posted in January of 2008.

Beauty is a fateful gift of the essence of truth, and here truth means the disclosure of what keeps itself concealed. The beautiful is not what pleases, but what falls within that fateful gift of truth which comes to be when that which is eternally non-apparent and therefore invisible attains its most radiantly apparent appearance.
Martin Heidegger, What is called Thinking?

Heidegger’s concern with beauty here has its essence in Humanity’s relation to its own quest for self knowledge. The quest to understand the Self, that true and unwavering quest is itself the essence of Beauty. He calls this unique human essence Dasein, that which is concerned with its own being. Beauty then, is the clear and unadulterated understanding, or quest for that essence.

When he takes up the issue of art it is most often through poetry. Or poetry as the essential in a poetic understanding of the world. But it is that larger poetic understand of the world that is key. When Keats claims that “‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all // Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know” he is speaking here to that same essential mode of being, that poetic worldview. But is this “truth” the truth of the poem, or the Grecian Urn for which the poem was written. Or was the Urn itself a mere tool for which the poem may express some larger understanding of the world?

These questions are inherent to the making of art. Surely one can make a piece of art, be it a poem, a painting, photograph or piece of theater and be unthinking in that action. Such a work may even point to some aspect of truth. But such unthinking works rarely tend towards that poetic essence whereby some larger truth is found and some deeper understanding of the Self and its relation to the world is made manifest.

In Architecture of Authority, Richard Ross explores the poetic beauty of post-modern fascist architecture in contemporary culture. In this book he is exploring spaces that, rather than being pure in themselves and allowing the person experiencing them to create their own relation to the space, force a particular mode of relation onto the individual. Prisons, courtrooms and psych wards are explored, but so too are a Chelsea gallery and Montessori Preschool.

In fact, his work calls into question the very idea that fascism and control are mechanisms and tactics perpetrated by individuals at the upper echelons of power. Rather they are ubiquitous throughout culture and humans, at every level of culture and development, create spaces wherein the control and manipulation of their fellow being can occur.

Through his lens these spaces of torture and control, of confinement and terror, become at once beautiful and horrifying. It is as though he has seen the essential truth of the politics of control and captured it here in his book. But more than that, the aesthetics that underlie these spaces are the same design sense that one finds in Ikea furniture, or the structure of an Ikea store itself.

His work begs the question wherein does this Beauty lie? For to most of us, I would presume, a prison is not a beautiful space. Yet Ross captures some essential beauty in his photographs. It seems then that the beauty lies not so much in the thing itself but in Ross’ unique relationship to contemporary fascistic control. Beauty is that which is contained in the worldview of the observer, in the relationship and continual dialog between observer and observed.

The photograph is a visual representation of the relationship of the photographer to its subject. The beauty lies not so much in either of those, but rather in the energy created through this relatedness. For a worldview can not exist in a vacuum, it must, by its very nature have a world to resonate off of, to shape and be shaped by. So too can the world not fully exist in an existential sense without a viewer to complete the relationship. A world is a container and that container is empty without that which it contains.

The world, to return to Heidegger, conceals that which exists only in relation to the viewer, to the subject. But that which exists in the relationship between the viewer and the subject is in turn concealed by the subject’s own subjectivity. Just as the manner in which fundamental particles are measured in physics causes their very nature to change, so too does the subject’s subjective viewing of the world cause that which would be revealed to withdraw once more into concealment.

The world is a collaborative space. It takes the work of every man, woman, child, animal, plant and fungus to make it what it is. The aesthetics of control have pervaded our society so deeply that the same clean lines of the new chic apartment, or commercial play, are those same lines found in the jail cells of the Guantanamo detention facility. We have already bought in to the aesthetics of control. What we have not yet given up fully is our relatedness to that world.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in theatre | No Comments »

New Beginnings

Friday, October 16th, 2009

I had dinner with a friend the other day, a lighting designer, whose work freelancing in theater is nearing an end. Having garnered for himself some national and international success, regularly working off-Broadway, and regionally, he has decided that the lifestyle of the freelance lighting designer is not for him. While he has projects through next fall he has been turning down work steadily to give an end date of October 2010.

I find it fascinating to see the choices that people make in life. By many external standards my friend has achieved great success. At the very least he has achieved what he set out to achieve. Being now at the place he set out to reach ten years ago his targets are shifting. We all do this to greater or lesser degrees. In my experience it takes great strength of character and a strong inner compass to be able to shift course in such radical ways mid voyage.

There are interesting parallels between my dinner companion and the show I am currently working on. Richard Foreman, a true master of the American stage, is directing his last ever theater piece. His interest now is on experimental film. He has given up his theater space of several decades and will transition full time to film. It is one thing for someone approaching 40 and considering starting a family to shift careers into something more stable and sustainable. It is something else, albeit related, for a man of 72, considered a leader in his field, to decide that he has reached the end of what he can do aesthetically and needs to find new mediums of expression.

Both of these decisions necessitate clear thinking to come from a proactive place rather than a reactive place. Too often we hold on to old ideas of identity long past their relevance to our actual daily lives. At some point we find ourselves scrambling to make up for lost time as we attempt to reorient our consciousness to this newly realized, but long existing, reality.

Too often it takes some crisis point for one to wake up to the reality of their existence. Rather than taking the time to look around and recalibrate our lives we wait until we are up against a wall and then are forced to choose between a now limited range of options.

Successfully navigating one’s life and career does not mean simply doing the job in front of you well. It is not just playing the cards you are dealt. It is knowing when to trade in your cards for a new hand or folding entirely and taking your winnings from the table.

Being proactive is what makes life vibrant and full. Seeing a challenge or a goal or having a desire and putting your full effort and intention towards achieving that goal makes for an exciting life. Grabbing life by the reins and taking opportunities as they arise or even making your own opportunities creates an adventure out of life.

Often I find people focus on endings. We see the end of some phase of life or a project or a relationship. But each of those endings are also beginnings. Having the courage and foresight to see those beginnings and transforms them into powerful opportunities for growth and transformation is necessary for inner peace and true success.

In many ways success is easy. Outward success that is. One can craft a life that looks to external observers like they have “made it.” However, just because the life looks good to an external observer does not mean the one holding the cards is enjoying the game. The appearance of success is not true success. Being true to one’s self and one’s inner vision of the life one wants to lead takes courage and continual vigilance.

This is a tough path for anyone to walk.

Good luck!

Tags: , , ,
Posted in business | 2 Comments »

Translucent Daydreams

Monday, October 12th, 2009

Being in New York again has reminded me of that particular mega-urban experience of immediate distance. The fact that you can be standing shoulder to shoulder with someone on the subway and yet functionally be worlds apart. There is, as a friend of mine once described it, a forcefield that keeps strangers at bay. This is necessary for functioning somewhere like Manhattan, for if one were to truly take in all the social energy inherent in a day, one would fast become schitzophrenic.

I imagine these walls dissolving yet they feel real as brick or wood. What would occur if we treated these walls we depend on as permeable? What if our protective shells became transparent thus giving strangers unfettered access to our internal worlds?

I think of an egg. At once solid and yet so fragile. Easy to break with the slightest error in movement. But eggs have another quality. While solid they are translucent. Light can, to a limited degree, pass through them. So too with our social walls. No matter how strong a front we put on some spark of that inner world is accessible to the acute observer. At times one must invert the actions of another to understand them, rage as fear for example, while other times the truth hides to the side in a nervous tic or an unconscious sigh.

The human soul has often been represented in spiritual writings as a light. A brightly(or dimly) shining light which expresses the true essence and Being of the individual. One image I have heard often is of the light of a lamp. The lamp may get covered in dirt and soot. It may scratch and become dull. Through all these transformations, the light inside the lamp remains unchanged.

Perhaps the dirt metaphor is true but it is an incomplete truth. I have seen that “inner light” grow brighter and dimmer over time. Perhaps then actualizing human authenticity is a more complex thing than merely wiping away the accumulated dirt. One must also stoke the flames of that inner light. Authenticity is not merely finding a deeply hidden secret, it is the very quest itself. It is a searching. A reaching. It is a going beyond the now and into the possible. That is where the authentic lies.

We return to that egg. An egg is not whole and complete in itself. It is a beginning. It is a possibility. The being that is in the process of becoming must break through that egg shell in order to become.

When we are around people who are easily excitable or easily upset we talk of “walking on egg shells” to avoid causing upset. Those egg shells, at the risk of now mixing my metaphors, are the dirt and scratches which diminish the glow from our inner light. Perhaps those shells are a false lamp containing the inner light. Perhaps those egg shells should be walked upon. Perhaps those eggshells should be broken open to reveal what is inside. For hiding in the comfort of excitability and upset hurts both the individual and those around them.

Those egg shells provide the individual with a great protection or so it first appears. At the risk of causing upset, those around the excitable person go to great and extreme lengths to avoid causing upset. As such the shell grows larger, the triggers for upset grow slighter, and those in constant reaction must now be on an even greater vigilance to not upset the shell.

But those shells are just that, shells. A covering that masks from view the inner uncertainty, self doubt, ineptitude or incompetence. Flying into rages force those around you to focus on the rage rather than what it is hiding. If these shells could be illuminated to see through them into the inner core beyond them, their inherently thin and translucent nature would fast be revealed.

The image of an egg is a metaphor of manifold meaning. It is the very symbol of beginning and possibility. It is a spirit on the verge of being born.

I am not sure how this will manifest in my work, but I am curious in exploring the translucent nature of these human shells. Installations or sculpture is the immediate medium that comes to mind. Possibly performance although doing so would necessitate a wider scope than mere lighting design provides.

I am enjoying this avenue of thought and am curious to see where it leads.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in theory | 3 Comments »

14 May 1913 – 8 October 2009

Friday, October 9th, 2009

She was born in New York City, in 1913, to Sydney and Benjamin Gruenberg.

Her father was a University Professor and writer of text books in Biology. Her mother wrote child development books.

She grew up in an apartment on Central Park South.

She was the only daughter with four brothers.

She attended the Ethical Culture school at the same time as a young woman Jean Rosenthal who would one day become a hero of her grandson.

She once traveled to England with her mother.

She went to Swarthmore College.

During the Depression she took a road trip with one of her brothers across country. They had adventures.

She spent a year studying Psychology at Berkeley during which time she lived at International House.

The Psychology grad student who ran her discussion section used to “pick on me” and so she asked to be switched to another discussion section.

She wrote two novels.

She briefly lived in New York City’s Greenwich Village, but the bohemian lifestyle was not for her. She would one day recount stories of friends who had Indian tapestries on their walls and how silly it all was to a grandson who would think of his friends with Indian tapestries on their walls.

She had a love affair with an English royal.

She kept being pursued by that grad student now PhD.

She was a studio assistant to the photographer Paul Strand.

She married that PhD., now professor.

They had one son, Richard, born in Bryn Mawr, PA.

She edited and co-wrote several psychology text books with her husband.

In the 1950′s she lived with her husband and son, for a time, in Norway when her husband lost his teaching position due to not signing the McCarthy Loyalty Oath at Berkeley.

She read the New Yorker every week.

Her favorite drink was a Jack Daniels on ice although one evening she would get drunk on red wine with her grandson and tell him wild stories of raising his father.

Her first grandchild was born in 1967.

Her husband died in 1977.

Her second grandchild was born in 1978.

Her third grandchild was born in 1980.

At the age of 80 she married a man, ten years her senior who referred to her as his “child bride,” by eloping to New Mexico.

She moved in to St. Paul’s Towers shortly after her second husband died.

She lived there until 8 October 2009.

She had one son, three grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Her name was Hildy Krech.

Posted in meta | No Comments »

Of Writing and Lighting – Rule Number 12

Monday, October 5th, 2009


A basic structural design underlies every kind of writing. The writer will in part follow this design, in part deviate from it, according to his skill, his needs, and the unexpected events that accompany the act of composition. Writing, to be effective, must closely follow the thoughts of the writer, but not necessarily in the order in which those thoughts occur. This calls for a scheme of procedure. In some cases the best design is no design, as with a love letter, which is simply an outpouring, or with a casual essay, which is a ramble. But in most cases planning must be a prelude to writing. The first principal of composition, therefore, is to foresee or determine the shape of what is to come and pursue that shape.
~Strunk and White, The Elements of Style

When Strunk and White set down their elementary principals of composition I wonder if they grasped how far reaching those rules might be applied. Good composition is good composition be the medium language, paint, music, or light. So too with good design.

There is a “basic structural design” which underlies every work for the stage and lighting that work requires discovering a visual expression of that structure. Sometimes the structure may follow the rhythm of a day: dusk, night, and dawn. Other times that rhythmic structure may be more psychologically driven like the transition from confinement to freedom or from apprentice to master. Still other times the structure follows an emotional journey from triumph to despair or love to grief.

While each work is unique, in every case the designer will “follow this design, in part deviate from it, according to his skill, his needs, and the unexpected events that accompany the act of composition.” In design, as in writing, “planning must be a deliberate prelude” to making the work. It is not enough to put lights everywhere with little thought towards the work and just figure it out in tech. Rather one must closely read the text, be it a text of words, music, or movement, to deduce the structure and essence of the work. One must have a plan going in as to how the work will be approached. The plan may change, it often does. But far from invalidating the need for a plan, those changes reinforce it. If you know where you are going, and you get lost, you have some sense of how to correct your course. If you don’t know where you are going in the first place you will simply become mired in confusion.

Knowing the rhythm and structure of a work allows the designer to approach it with a clear plan. Thus she achieves the first rule of composition: to determine the shape of what is to come and pursue that shape. The many detours, far from obstacles, are the exciting parts of design. The structure one creates and pursues is the map. The process of discovery in tech is the terrain. One is beautiful in its purity and ideal form. The other is beautiful in its complexity and challenge. The shape of the design is made of both the predetermined structure and the many deviations from it.

In the tech process the designer does not have the luxury to move in the order they would like. Typically one starts at the beginning of the work and moves through it methodically, clearly and slowly. Once the end has been reached we begin again at the top and repeat the process, refining what we had previously made.

While we go in with a plan, sometimes a work will not truly reveal itself to us until we are seeing it live on stage. As such the key to the piece may not be discovered until midway through the work in tech. In such an instance we go forwards with that new key in mind hoping to return and begin again with this new knowledge to guide us from the top.

So too with writing. The full shape of a work may appear in the first draft. More often the piece goes through numerous revisions and changes before its true structure is revealed.

From my own experience the act of writing is an act of design. I have a thought or idea I wish to communicate so I sit down to set it to words. From the first that process mirrors the act of creating with light for performance. In this way I have also found that leaps in my writing foreshadow leaps in my lighting. As my writing improves so too does my design work.

To some it is drawing. To others photography. For me, writing is a hobby complimentary to and symbiotic with my design work. I can work out ideas and concerns with projects specifically as well as generally improve my powers of composition. For anyone whose work is as central to their life as design is to me it is important and necessary to have a hobby that gets one away from that work and gives it space. At the same time, that activity should be one that in some way reinforces the basic skills necessary for the work such that they operate in concert rather than opposition.

Perhaps I could focus a bit more on Rule 17: Omit Needless Words. Perhaps I already do. I have explored minimalism quite deeply in the past and my essay last week dealt with omitting needless colors. Design is everywhere if you know where to look.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in design, theory | No Comments »

No New Post Today, Blame Verizon

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

I had intended to write a new post yesterday to put up today. Unfortunately I got a letter from Verizon in the mail about an old account I have canceled five times and their abusive, extortionary and predatory business policies that I had to deal with instead of writing. So the day was spent dealing with a closed account rather than current projects. Hopefully this event, which should be a non-issue yet has haunted me for nearly a year, will now be done with and cause no further disruptions to my work schedule.

All that said I hope to return to my regular posting schedule this coming Monday. Have a good weekend.

Tags: ,
Posted in meta | No Comments »

Creative Commons License

All text on this site, unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. All other rights reserved.