speaking of which,

project # 3: on strings.
our professor had us invent a specialty shop - we could choose anything we wanted... I chose mobiles. I named my store "on strings." we had to create an logo/identity system.

“A mobile is a very modest thing.” –Alexander Calder

Graphic design weds the logical to the artistic. Designers must use reason to achieve their desired goal, but not without exercising creativity and aesthetic consideration. Mobiles echo this fragile balancing act. Hanging structures must subscribe to mathematical laws, specifically rules of weight, balance, and suspension. Despite these considerations, however, mobiles are not machines - beauty and form are of utmost importance. To create something floating yet grounded, stable yet dynamic, functional yet beautiful - is no easy feat.

I have chosen the mobile as my specialty item because I believe these hanging structures are of signal importance, both figurative and literal. Mobiles offer a sliver of stability & beauty in a chaotic, often ugly world. If this is too hopeful, too elusive, mobiles at the very least offer the idea of stability & beauty, reminding us of basic priorities (balance, beauty, stability). These whimsical, suspended forms allow us control in an uncontrollable world, the chance at reciprocity and balance among the chaos and the noise.

This project’s path reflects a mobile’s very construction. Creating “On Strings” has been a complex, convoluted process, yet surprisingly simple- even “modest”- in its result.

:::

images from: Sarah Lee on Flickr.

graphic design.

as much as I like to uphold the idea that graphic designers are artists, delicate & sensitive & creative - who wouldn't want that special brand of celebrity?! - I am as of yet undecided.

graphic design weds itself to public opinion. this is an inherent process, the organic result of commerce - clients, work, publication, and the like. often the designer caters to his or her own aesthetic taste, and not the needs of the client, transforming graphic design from a service to a vehicle for artistic expression...

I realize this is a vast, controversial subject, but regardless I pose a question: is graphic design art or is graphic design a commercial skill? are both mutually exclusive? or interdependent?

can you have one (art) with out the other (science)?

is graphic design an art or a client dependent service?

image: logic + emotion blog.

in las vegas for the weekend.

stress.

image by: olly moss.

tgi-fing-f!

i can't believe i am saying that.

who feels the same?

hopeful.

another photo of mum & pops.

The Discovery of Sex

We try to be discreet standing in the dark
hallway by the front door. He gets his hands
up inside the front of my shirt and I put mine
down inside the back of his jeans. We are crazy
for skin, each other's skin, warm silky skin.
Our tongues are in each other's mouths,
where they belong, home at last. At first

we hope my mother won't see us, but later we don't care,
we forget her. Suddenly she makes a noise
like a game show alarm and says Hey! Stop that!
and we put our hands out where she can see them.
Our mouths stay pressed together, though, and
when she isn't looking anymore our hands go
back inside each other's clothes. We could

go where no one can see us, but we are
good kids, from good families, trying to have
as much discreet sex as possible with my mother and father
four feet away watching strangers kiss on TV,
my mother and father who once did as we are doing,
something we can't imagine because we know

that before we put our mouths together, before
the back seat of his parents' car where our skins
finally become one-before us, these things
were unknown! Our parents look on in disbelief
as we pioneer delights they thought only they knew
before those delights gave them us.

Years later, still we try to be discreet, standing
in the kitchen now where we think she can't see us. I
slip my hands down inside the back of his jeans
and he gets up under the front of my shirt.
We open our mouths to kiss and suddenly Hey! Hey!
says our daughter glaring from the kitchen doorway.
Get a room! she says, as we put our hands
out where she can see them.

By Debra Spencer

:::

missing the sisters.

timing is everything.

Gold

Pale gold of the walls, gold
of the centers of daisies, yellow roses
pressing from a clear bowl. All day
we lay on the bed, my hand
stroking the deep
gold of your thighs and your back.
We slept and woke
entering the golden room together,
lay down in it breathing
quickly, then
slowly again,
caressing and dozing, your hand sleepily
touching my hair now.

We made in those days
tiny identical rooms inside our bodies
which the men who uncover our graves
will find in a thousand years,
shining and whole.

Donald Hall

calm.

grateful.

happy thanksgiving!

like a writer.

Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

Ted Kooser

one, two, three.

last night I attended a dharma study about returning to the elementary, the simple, and the neccesary - as opposed to the preferential.

how do you all "get back to the basics"?

just something to think about, as we move into this holiday : )

take up a blade of grass and use it as a golden Buddha 16 feet high.

the practice of Zen as a non-intellectual way of life.

Buddhist teaching & meditation practice is seeping into my everyday & my now. This only happened when I stopped reading and started acting… specifically, when I began daily meditation.

Things about Zen Buddhism (as opposed to other branches) I try and hold close:

Everything there is implies everything else. And all those other things… in turn imply each individual object…. (rough sketch: mutual interdependence).

And your life, however short, everything depends on it. If that did not happen, nothing would happen. In this sense, the whole world bears your signature. It would not be the same world… if it weren’t for you (Allan Watts).

A world where there is a you implies there is a me. And a world with a me means a world with a you. You cannot separate me from you or you from me, just as you can’t separate my hands from my feet (me, my understanding).

Zen mentality represented simply:

Student: mountains and hills… are they not all forms of the body of Buddha?

Zen master: yes they are. But it’s a pity to say so.

... which shuts this bird up. Happy Friday to you all!

written for omy!!! oobiedoobieboo.

belated wednesday & thursday,

two sick days : (

caught the california flu which always ALWAYS seems to be circulating this state.

although I am still grateful to live where I do, and not only because I walk around in a postcard, but because my neighbor is a beautiful lady who likes to babysit (dogsit) my baby (dog) while I run errands : )

tick tock tick tock tick...

tock. working overtime. feeling? all of the above.

both images from jennifer daniel's witty, ironic portfolio.

today I would rather...

... be at home reading about Paul Rand & Alvin Lustig.

weekend

weekend
Originally uploaded by robinannmcintosh

today I feel supported.

have a wonderful, relaxing weekend!

indignant.

Herb Lubalin.

How was Herb Lubalin so consistently awesome?!

Today I feel indignant. Like I want to sucker punch all persons in positions of authority.