The nest, the egg, the weaving of the Matrix
The Whorl of Making and Imagination Sometimes when I'm thinking about a challenge, working my way throughout a complex puzzle -- I draw my self into it, and out of it. Above, my little finger on an iPhone. Below, the dinner table and a team meeting, whirling: In a...
Studying the Eye and the Touch of Seeing
Studying the Eye, In sight and the Touch of Seeing The Rhythm of Insight, Seeing-In -- 1000 Eyes -- the brushstrokes of Storytelling, the Rippling of Imagination I was looking into the eyes of a dragonfly that I'd arranged on a mapping, a cartographic brush-drawing of...
THE RED THREAD OF IDEAS AND INTENTIONS
AND THE ATTENTION TO DETAIL, IN THE SPATTERING OF INSPIRATION. When I was in college, I taught workshops to help my payment of the tuition, along with support from my family. I used variously colored butcher paper to do that -- pulled, ripped out and sheared on a...
The Patterning of Space, Made to Place
The Storytelling of Place, in the Minds of the Experiencer I just told this story recently. I was working with a colleague, in Florida -- our client, her boss, was Michael Eisner. He had a dream about a Disney place that would be a kind of learning experience -- but...
The gesture of black, raven ink — drawing the spirit of birds
Hand-ground pigment, split timbers, scent and the explosive splatter of haboku. When I draw, my senses are open, the touch of the paper, the splintering of the wood, the sound -- the gasp, the clasp, the rasp of the stroke of the brush on the stock. We worked on the...
The flow of Flowers
Drawing People [in] with Flowers, the Flow of Story in the Craft of Rendering Ideas In my beginnings, I drew flowers -- and sold them as art pieces and gifts; then, at Christmas, I did groupings of flowers, silkscreened and signed in limited editions of thousands....
Tom Ford, the Creativity of Babyhood
How are Designers, Creative Minds, Changed by Babies? Having met Tom Ford, albeit in a short quasi-interview and completely unscheduled encounter at a WWD | BEAUTY + FASHION CEO SUMMIT; I'll admit that I was afraid [of him.] When I was working for YSL, I was told that...
You Are Beautiful
The Search for Beauty -- the Beauty of You, The Brand of You, and Others. In the quest for the truth of brands, the soul and heart of their storytelling -- invariably, appropriately, there are humans involved. People make brands -- mostly for other people, so the...
The Wisdom of The Ancients
While I was walking in the woods, the ancient layers told me their stories. [Image above by Justin Kern, altered by Dawn Clark, AIA, LEED AP] When I was young, in NY, my parents took me to the New York City Museum of Natural History [AMNS.] This was a whim reaching to...
A love of the Skull | Alexander McQueen
The End that is the Beginning | Brands & Death It might be said that the idea of associating the creative essence of the late Alexander McQueen with a skull is a mistake -- a slide off the backside of a brilliant man, who passed in the swirl of an astonishingly...