This is Jelly's blawg

Food

2012-01-17T08:09:00.000-08:00

Standing in line at the grocery store this weekend, I picked up a spirituality and health magazine I hadn't seen before. The material was meaty, but presented in a lifestyle-y sort of way, like Martha Stewart or REAL SIMPLE or DWELL.

One article included a concise summary of a concept that has fascinated me ever since Mark Barden shared it, years ago - the idea of spiral dynamics.

The concept is, life has an upward developmental thrust, and if you laid out all of the models of human development, all of the ways we measure and describe the different levels of consciousness and its growth, all the models would roughly agree and overlap as the stages described here.

For me, this dynamics model is thought provoking and helpful in recognizing and understanding patterns happening within me and around me. I'm encouraged these ideas can be found in a supermarket - presented so anyone could be interested and understand - to spark thought and discussion.

I look at this chart and wonder if it makes sense to talk about the consciousness level of a corporation? How would an Integral company behave? I wonder whether any big brands or companies could be described as Integral?

Not sure. Starbucks, maybe? Wikipedia. Apple and Nike, in some respects? Facebook and Google pretend to be at times, but I think they're really more Autonomous? Is the legal structure of the corporation Autonomous itself, and therefore preventative of true Integral behavior? Do all of the systems we depend on need to grow in consciousness?

I look forward to further discussion with Mr. Barden.

New Year's resolutions, Woody Guthrie, 1942

2011-12-27T14:31:00.001-08:00

Can't do better than this. Thanks Driscoll, for sharing.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-23T07:30:00.000-08:00

Don't worry, Rick Perry. I'm not ashamed to admit I celebrate Christmas. Openly. I depend on it. I don't know if I could get through the winter without it. Merry Christmas!

It can get so dark. One day is shorter than the next. In Portland it gets dark at like, two, two-thirty. It's dark. It's dark and it's cold. Winter is sort of brutal and it's gets brutaller as you get older and your meat thins out. It's easy to lose faith during these dark winters, for me at least. In fact, it gets so dark it can even be despairing.

And then a tiny light appears. Teensy. And hey, look, that tree's still green. Does the day seem like it's getting a little longer? We might be okay. Let's weave a circle out of those green branches to remind ourself that life continues, it goes on. Let's cut down one of those trees and put it in the house and cover it with tiny lights, to remind us that the lights will get brighter and brighter and we might even see the warm sun again. Let's put presents under the tree to remind us that life is endlessly abundant, full of gifts.

Whoa, and then this little beauty arrives, a perfect little baby, born amidst the small and lowly, a new kind of king that ain't like the old kind of king, and this king baby is all about love and gentleness and forgiveness and acceptance, and he is the future, and he is me and he is you and everything's going to be juuuusst fine. Merry Christmas!

Anyway, that's how one group tells it, at least, the reason we should not despair during these dark days, times when it's dark dark dark and we seek reassurance. This Christmas story is a clue, a path, a thread, a reminder.

Merry Christmas!

Anyone know Dick Zanuck?

2011-11-26T12:13:00.001-08:00

I'm trying to get him a letter from my eight year old son. It's been sent back twice, unopened. It contains an idea for a movie, and my son is offering it to him for free, he just wants to see it get made.

My son isn't interested in anyone else producing it. He thinks Zanuck would pull it off best.

Bukowski

2011-11-25T18:53:00.000-08:00

died 9 april 1553

in bed with the flu and reading Rabelais
as the cat snores
the bathroom toilet
hisses
and my eyes burn.

I will put Rabelais down
and blink.
this is what
writers do
to each other.

for him, I
substitute
a tab of
vitamin C.

if we could only swallow
death
like that (I think we
can)
or that death would
swallow us
like that (I think it
does).

life is not what
we think it
is, it's only what we
imagine it to
be

and for us
what we imagine
becomes
mostly so

I imagine myself
rid of this
flu.

I see myself parading the
sidewalks again amongst the
sharks
of this world . . .

meanwhile, the cat, like most other
things, pushes too
close;
I move him
gently away; thinking, Rabelais
you were a
mighty mighty interesting
fellow.

then I stretch out as the ceiling
watches me and
waits.

From THE CONTINUAL CONDITION

Progress/technology

2011-11-23T08:12:00.000-08:00

The studio has a big long working desk that four of us share, all sitting on the same side. In the middle of the room is a tall architect desk that we also share. On the center of that desk is a glass jar of pencils and a stack of note sheets, quartered from recycled paper.

Working on these small sheets is an idea stolen from David Kennedy. As early as 1992, David would go to the printer room at Wieden & Kennedy and dig out used photocopier paper, cut them in quarter stacks with the paper cutter, bind them up with a bulldog clip and use them for notes. It was sort of crazy but cool.

Fifteen years later I noticed John Jay worked on little quarter-sheets of paper too. He'd treat each sheet as a slide as he created his presentations. He'd tape the sheets to the wall and move them around and take pages down and add to them, tearing down and rebuilding his presentation as he went.

It's a great way to work. I like that each sheet is small, so ideas have to be singular. I like that you can get rid of and add pages easily and change the flow. You can work the sheets like a book, like David does, or lay them out like a map, like John Jay.

And pencils I like for all the reasons you can imagine: they erase, they're tactile, they encourage flow, they invite expression, they smell wonderful. The glass of sharp black pencils and white scratch sheets sitting on the table is very seductive.

Today, our pencil sharpening has moved into the 20th Century. The studio has added a brand new Boston schoolroom-style manual wall-mounted pencil sharpener.

Progress and technology are not without their aesthetic trade-offs. As you can see, the cone of the hand-sharpened pencil is shorter, giving it a distinctive, artisanal profile, and the wood reveals the human hand and hand-tool that made it, versus the perfectly smooth and regular wood of the machine-sharpened pencil.

As we begin to shift over to the Boston, I'm sure I'll be nostalgic for our last batch of artisan pencils. I'm glad Betsy, the designer who started with us last week, and who inherited the job of Director of Pencil Operations, got to experience life before and after this 20th-Century marvel.

Potlatch time

2011-11-20T13:50:00.001-08:00

Potlatch is the Chinook word for a ceremony of the native tribes of the Pacific Northwest. To celebrate and give thanks, a chief would hold a feast for his tribe and give away his belongings. The bigger the chief, the more he would give away, including his wives.

In the late 19th century, the United States made potlatching illegal. They considered it "a worse than useless custom" that was wasteful, unproductive and contrary to civilized values.

I'm preparing for a potlatch. I will not be giving away my wives but I'm going through my belongings and picking out things that have meaning for me, and giving them away to people in my tribe. I'm excited.

One of the things I'm giving away is a book called DAMN EVERYTHING BUT THE CIRCUS by Sister Corita Kent. She is one of my favorites.

On each page Sister Corita has illustrated a letter of the alphabet using fluorescent colors and vintage wood cuts and handwritten words she's chosen from Camus and Dostoyevsky and Cream and Helen Keller. Forty years later it feels fresh and inspiring. It feels good to share it.

Great ideas, it has been said,
come into the world as gently as doves.
Perhaps then, if we listen attentively, we shall hear,
amid the uproar of empires and nations,
a faint flutter of wings, the gentle stirring of life and hope.
Some will say that this hope lies in a nation;
others in a man.
I believe rather that it is awakened, revived,
nourished by millions of solitary individuals
whose deeds and works every day
negate frontiers and the crudest implications of history.
As a result, there shines forth fleetingly
the ever-threatened truth
that each and every man,
on the foundations of his own sufferings and joys,
builds for all.

Albert Camus

Then an old advertisement:

JOY TO THE WORLD
Beware of Counterfeits!
RELIEF for the DISTRESSED and BALM for the WOUNDED is found in
PERRY DAVIS'S VEGETABLE PAIN KILLER,
Manufactured by PERRY DAVIS & SON,
No. 74 High Street, Providence, R.I.

And at the bottom, in Sister Corita's tiny handwriting:

J.C. he pitched his tent here

-

Update: Here are the rest of the items in the potlatch.

Things found today

2011-11-17T17:21:00.001-08:00

Love-based Economy

2011-10-25T07:29:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of talk about what sort of economy will replace the Consumer Economy as the central engine for creating human well-being and delivering a high standard of life for the most people.

Many people think it's the New Energy Economy - providing clean, cheap, abundant energy to a world that needs it. I've heard people talk about an economy that's less dependent on material goods and places a higher value on human intelligence and innovation - a Services Economy or Intelligence Economy.

It's hard to know or predict. Sometimes it's easier for me to imagine 5000 years in the future than next Thursday.

I would imagine that our economy in five thousand years would be inclusive and beneficial for all human beings, that it would bring out our best on every level, serve everyone on earth as well as the planet.

I've been talking to people about the role of purpose in drawing out our talent and drive and value-creation for the world. "How much more effective are you when you are engaged in meaningful work?" I asked the president of a Portland art school. "Oh, about eight times," she said.

Did I hear that all meaningful activity begins with the love of something small? You love something, so you do something, and that creates wealth and abundance - for the world and then back to yourself. A Love-based Economy.

Examples of the Love-based Economy abound. Howard Schultz loves coffee culture, and Phil Knight loves running and innovation, Steve Jobs loved computers as tools to draw out the human spirit, and look what happens. The love leads to sustained action and you become a nuclear reactor creating abundance and energy for the world. You might be an example of the Love-based Economy yourself.

I've left out an important piece. It isn't enough to love that thing itself, that object of your passion. Coffee, or shoes, or computers, or whatever. You have to love people. You have to do your work in service to humanity.

Might sound sentimental, or new-agey, but it's old school business thinking. If you want to create profit, you create wealth, and the best door in might be love.

Rise and Shine

2011-10-17T06:53:00.000-07:00

I received a comment from an anonymous blawg reader who wondered why I didn't write about more serious matters these days. Surprised I didn't have anything to say about the protests happening in Portland, for example.

Anonymous, it's true, I've chosen to spend less time that way on the blawg. I tend to write lighter entries that I can complete in ten minutes or so. I'll occasionally use tweets and FB to share my thoughts, but mostly I've been doing my blawging and thinking and doing off-line in the form of speaking engagements and consulting and conversation and in my work.

But if you're a loyal blawg reader, I bet you can guess how I feel about the protests, and how the Occupy movement fits into my view of what's happening in the world.

The stories we've been depending on for 60 years or so are broken or bent or distorted. We're struggling to find a new narrative, a common purpose, the deep story that informs our culture. To a lot of us, the Occupiers and the Tea Partiers and the Hope'08ers, it's become increasingly obvious that something's not working, and we're struggling to work out what's next.

I did attend a day of the protests. First impression was that the crowd didn't feel very inclusive. Seemed fringe. Impressed by the signs though, and the slogans. Walk like an Egyptian. Great.

Have asked people around me how they felt about the demonstrations. "At first I was cynical - I thought, Oh wow, Generation Y discovers that life isn't fair," the manager of my local coffee shop told me. "Then I realize, I agree with basically everything they're saying."

We're hungry for a new story, one we can all share. 99% is too small, even. If it excludes any of us, it's not big enough.

This morning as I was getting receipts out of my wallet I pulled out a few old-fashioned bills that I've received in change over the months. The designs date back to the thirties. I hold onto them because I like how they feel, the stories they tell about our country and our intended character.

The style evokes strength and equity. Balance. Reason. Points to our political roots in Greece and Rome, in a government for the people.

Lincoln's portrait. So determined. The farmer/lawyer/poet who did what it took to hold the country together. What a bad ass.

In the Fourth Turning, William Strauss and Neil Howe talk about the collapse stage that Americans regularly confront in our historic cycle. This 'Fourth Turning' happens every 80 years or so, or four generations. First it was the American Revolution, then the Civil War, then it showed up as the Depression/WWII. The authors predict - the book was written 1997 - that our fourth Fourth Turning would begin around 2000, possibly precipitated by a terrorist event, or a global economic failure, and last until 2020-'25.

The book is sobering but hopeful. The authors tell us that it's by discovering our shared purpose and reasserting our common values that we make it through the hard times, and if we commit to coming through it together, we can even emerge strengthened.

Marshall Herskovitz told me the story of the U.S. discovering its purpose during World War II. We were a hurting, poor and struggling country, just out of the Depression. Suddenly the stakes were raised, and if we wanted to save the world, we had to make thousands of tons of high-tech weapons using untrained female workers.

We set an unattainable production goal, simply unattainable, but we tripled the shifts and the workers knuckled down and what do you know, we accomplished that goal, ahead of schedule.

So we doubled the goal, and accomplished it again. Doubled it again, and accomplished it again, doubled it again, and well, you know what happened.

Human beings. Miniature Universes, R. Buckminster Fuller calls us, able to create anything, do anything we decide. Miracle machines. Endlessly regenerative, particularly when we identify our purpose.

So, yes, I agree with the protesters and the pundits and the philosophers and the poets, Strauss & Howe, Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Friedman, Eckhart Tolle, Steve Jobs. Something is unfolding out there, we're all invited to play a part in it, it will demand our best, and the the quickest way in, individually and collectively, is to identify and answer the call to our deep story.

There's been a lot of talk about story these days. Deep story is different. Deep story is the place your story connects back to the timeless story. Deep story means answering your heart's call and seeking a goal bigger than yourself. Deep story is the overlap between what you love and what the world needs. The world is full of people creating abundance for the world by living their deep story. Could we all be invited to live our deep story?

At the end of a couple of recent speaking events, I've handed out this small red journal. There's a sticker sheet tucked in the back pocket with three questions to help you think about your own deep story. The journal also contains a card with my email address so people can write back and report what happened when they filled it up, if anything.

I've been surprised by the response to these little journals. I've made them available on my website. I also include a little letter-pressed card with my deep story model. You can order a journal and fill it out and see what happens.

Story has power. As I heard Van Jones recently say, our greatest power is our imagination. By living our deep story, we imagine possibilities for ourselves and the world.

Halloween night

2011-10-11T08:50:00.000-07:00

I'll be portraying Emmor Stephens, b. 1777, d. 1846, first burial in Portland's historic Lone Fir Cemetery, at the Tour of Untimely Departures, held on Halloween night at the cemetery itself.

For $10, you'll take a walking tour of the cemetery, stopping at half a dozen grave sites and hearing the firsthand story of that person's untimely death. It's not really kid-friendly, unless you like your kid hearing story of people being murdered, blown to bits, that sort of thing.

As the patriarch of both the Stephens family and the Cemetery, I'll tell the story of when the cemetery was a farm, part of the eastern edge of the Stephens property, which ran from Stark to Division Streets, and from Central Catholic High School all the way to the river.

My death was not untimely, but the story of the people who bought that property from my son, with the promise the keep up my grave site, theirs is story full of untimely deaths.

One of the stones nearby, the grave of a central character in the story I will tell, it has this image carved on it.

I asked Frank, the guy who puts together this event each Halloween, if he knew what the symbol meant. "Oh yeah," he said. "The tree that's been topped. A life cut short."

And across from the grave is this fir tree, an Oregon Heritage Tree , the lone fir tree on the Stephens farm that inspired the name of the cemetery. And if you'll notice, the top of the Lone Fir is also topped, the result of a storm a few years back.

Where we are

2011-09-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

The studio is the first circle on the bottom left. We're located in the next circle, the Earth, which is located in the spot marked in the next circle, the Solar System, which is located in the spot marked in the next circle, the Milky Way, which is located in the next circle, the Virgo Supercluster, which is located somewhere in the next circle (+), the Multiverse.

Replace the first picture with yourself, and this map will be accurate for you as well.

It's like Heaven in here

2011-09-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

How to have a successful internship.

2011-08-22T06:58:00.000-07:00

Strange to come in this morning without Mr. NJ Placentra in the studio. He was quiet, sincere, funny, hard-working and very pleasant to be around. I had to come in very early to beat him in here. More than once I tried to get in an early hour or so before everyone else came in, and he'd be here, working, writing in his journal, reading, making things, sharpening pencils. Never saw him on Facebook.

He produced a lot of work and shared a lot of thinking, dove into everything with equal attention and gusto. He was open to and hungry for feedback. He installed axe walls, helped create events, performed PA duties on set, came up with ideas, designed and did production. He had good ideas and was good at giving feedback himself.

NJ managed to have an internship and attend the Cannes Ad Festival in the same summer, and received 5 well-deserved trophies himself. What a summer.

As a parting gift, NJ made us a deck of cards with what he'd learned this summer, and I am so happy to share it. So nice. I'd recommend viewing it fullscreen.

Apprentice Cards

And here's what I learned from my experience this summer with NJ, on how to have a successful internship.

1. Only take in an intern if you're really excited about it.
2. Ask intern to set out goals.
3. Agree to financial conditions that are fair and agreeable to everyone.
4. Apprenticeship is better than internship.
5. Demanding conditions.
6. Openness.

Thanks, NJ, and best of luck.

We are monsters

2011-08-10T15:45:00.000-07:00

The pictures don't do them justice. Stop by sometime and see the portraits of the inhabitants of Jelly Helm Studio as rendered by the talented Mette Hornung Rankin.

Margaret Richardson in the studio

2011-07-12T10:41:00.000-07:00

Had a nice visit yesterday from Sr. Mary Fabian a/k/a Margaret Richardson and her Contemporary Design Case Studies class from PSU. Nice group. They began by sharing what they are excited about with their work right now, and it was infectious.

Margaret brought me this photo of herself, the editor of PRINT Magazine is in the center, and Sr. Corita Kent. Margaret knows I have a thing for Sr. Corita.

When this photo was taken, Sr. Corita was in New York and being interviewed about the controversial window displays she had designed in the city. It was the in the midst of the Vietnam War, and Sr. Corita had the audacity of making the windows about Peace. Shocking.

At that moment, Margaret was working as a freelance journalist on this assignment. When Sr. Corita found out Margaret was an ex-nun, she focused her attention on her. She sent her to meet two brothers living in the Village, artists and poets and social activists with reputations as dangerous characters. Turned out Margaret was being sent to meet the Berrigan brothers (!) and she said they were just lovely.

So yesterday, the young designers and Margaret and I, we talked about where to find inspiration in your work, whether balance is possible at the start of your career - maybe not? - and how you sustain good, meaningful work for a lifetime. We talked about story. We talked about noticing.

Thanks Margaret! Hope to see you again next year. Good luck in London.

Kickstart this

2011-07-11T07:42:00.000-07:00

Because I am a Craphound owner, and Chloe is a friend, and I like the idea of Kickstarter, and this art is so gorgeous, I am sharing this project. Fund it if you like it.

Axe wall

2011-06-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

NJ installed this. The axes - most of them, anyway - that we used for the Timbers campaign. Nice work!

Old Ben Kenobi

2011-06-28T12:05:00.001-07:00

Showed my boys Star Wars for the first time this weekend. We often use this parent's guide to media site as a guide. It recommends Star Wars Episode IV as appropriate for 8-year-olds, my youngest son's age, but we were surprised just how violent it is. Not in terms of blood - though the dismembered arm in the Cantina is pretty gross - but in the astounding amount of human death.

My rough estimate:

Occupants of Death Star: 31,622,963
Inhabitants of the planet Alderaan: 1.97 Billion
Stormtroopers: 50-75
Rebel pilots: 10-12
Imperial pilots: 5-6
Jawas: 12-18
Luke's uncle and aunt: 2
Greedo: 1
Obi-Wan Kenobi: 1

Even a basic awareness of this context makes the celebration at the end feel a little discordant - even inappropriate?

We checked in with the boys mid-way through. You guys okay with this? You know this is just a story, right?

"Yeah - keep playing it!"

I hope my boys absorbed a little of what Ben Kenobi had to say, too.

"The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."

After the movie, I did what we do these days and read the Wikipedia article about Sir Alec Guinness, who played the Jedi Knight. I was drawn to the heading, Religious Conversion, and read this charming story:

"...In 1954, while he was filming Father Brown in Burgundy, Guinness, who was in costume as a Catholic priest, was mistaken for a real priest by a local child. Guinness did not speak French, and the child apparently did not notice that Guinness did not understand him, but took his hand and chattered while the two strolled then waved and trotted off. The confidence and affection the clerical attire appeared to inspire in the boy left a deep impression on the actor.

For years, the article noted, Guinness recited the 143rd Psalm every day. I am interested in the Psalms. They are a collection of 150 poems written around three thousand years ago, many attributed to King David.

While on the train to work, I looked up Number 143 on my phone, and was touched by it, and what it revealed about Guinness, and how it connected with his role as the courageous knight.

Psalm 143

A psalm of David.

¹ LORD, hear my prayer,
listen to my cry for mercy;
in your faithfulness and righteousness
come to my relief.
² Do not bring your servant into judgment,
for no one living is righteous before you.
³ The enemy pursues me,
he crushes me to the ground;
he makes me dwell in the darkness
like those long dead.
⁴ So my spirit grows faint within me;
my heart within me is dismayed.
⁵ I remember the days of long ago;
I meditate on all your works
and consider what your hands have done.
⁶ I spread out my hands to you;
I thirst for you like a parched land.^[a]

⁷ Answer me quickly, LORD;
my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me
or I will be like those who go down to the pit.
⁸ Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I entrust my life.
⁹ Rescue me from my enemies, LORD,
for I hide myself in you.
¹⁰ Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God;
may your good Spirit
lead me on level ground.

¹¹ For your name’s sake, LORD, preserve my life;
in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble.
¹² In your unfailing love, silence my enemies;
destroy all my foes,
for I am your servant.

I stood in line for five hours for this

2011-06-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

The Antiques Roadshow filmed the opener of their 2012 season in Eugene, Oregon this weekend, and I was given a ticket to attend the filming, have an item appraised, and possibly even appear on the show.

I have loved the Roadshow ever since Stacy Wall introduced me to the original British version of the show many years ago.

There's a TV ad for the show that shows people guessing the value of the items. Will the painting from the garage be worth $500,000? Apparently that happened in Eugene. I'm not really interested in that part of the show.

I'm interested in the people. I'm interested in what people value. I'm interested in the stories we tell and the stories contained in the objects themselves. I'm interested in watching how people act and react, how the simplest gestures and comments and responses reveal us. I wanted to go the filming of the show to soak all of that humanness up.

I'd heard I would be spending a long time standing in line, so instead of the 1964 Fender Mustang or the framed portrait of Cannonade along with the winning ticket from the 100th Kentucky Derby, I chose to bring something I could carry in my shirt pocket.

We live in a 1910 Portland craftsman house, and a few years ago, we renovated a basement that hadn't changed much in 90 years. The contractor reached into the beams and found an antique condom tin, complete with instructions, clear wrappers, and a small ad for Ramses Vaginal Jelly.

After a few hours in line, meeting other people, hearing their stories, I finally got to the front of the Collectibles line. I was now one of those dorky gawkers that you see standing in the background of the show. I showed the appraiser my item. Expressionless, he told me that the market for tins was down right now, but with contents, it might be worth $40-50.

He couldn't tell me what I was most interested in: who was the person who stashed that tin in the basement rafters, back in the 1930s? What was that story?

In a historic mood, later this weekend I stopped in thrift store around the corner from my house and picked up a few story-rich objects. They weren't expensive, a couple of bucks each, but they grab the imagination.

The first is an amazing photo postcard of Washington DC from the turn of the century. It's taken from NE Washington, possibly from West Virginia Avenue, and the only recognizable buildings are Union Station and the Capitol.

The letter is from Albert Asher, writing back to his wife? mother? Connie, in Portland. It seems Albert has crossed to country to join the Army, in the closing days of World War I? You can see soldiers in the foreground of the photo, working. Albert writes that he has passed the physical exam and is scheduled to leave camp on March 5 or 5, 1919. "You should see me wash dishes," he closes.

This postcard is also intriguing:

"Dear Clara," Lillian writes to her friend in Portland, Oregon from South Bend, Indiana. "If you can't get work out there, you had better come out to the Watch Co. We need a couple of girls in our room." It was the day after Christmas, 1911.

The Watch Company was the South Bend Watch Company, which made more than a million watches and employed 300 people, until it closed after the stock market crash of October 1929.

Lillian filled most of the card, but squeezed on the bottom is a short message, possibly from Lillian's beau? "O.K. Ben." he wrote.

Off to see the Wizard

2011-05-31T07:54:00.000-07:00

We've done a little work this year for the Hollywood Theatre, and as a thank you, executive director Doug Whyte loaned us the theatre to do with what we want. "You can have a private party, show any movie you want."

Fun! Hm, what movie?

Fitzcarraldo? Would be great to see it on the big screen. Ikiru? Five Obstructions? What else?

I talked about it with my wife. What are my other favorite movies..? Oh! I know!

I hadn't even spoken the title, and my wife looked at me and shook her head. "No. Not Andrei Rublev."

But why? It's awesome!

"Um, do you want people to enjoy themselves?"

It didn't take too much additional thinking until I settled on the clear choice.

"Will you be playing Pink Floyd with it?" a few people have asked.

No, it's mind-blowing enough as is, I think. But you can bring it on your iPod if you want.

When we choose 10 classic stories to illustrate Joseph Campbell's archetypal hero story a while back, we began and ended with The Wizard of Oz. It's a perfect example, a great story. L. Frank Baum and Victor Fleming knew what they were doing.

Campbell told us that the most powerful stories speak to us on multiple levels. On its most basic level, Oz is a story about a farm girl from Kansas who is carried away by a tornado.

On another level it's a story about the power of wisdom, and heart, and courage.

Campbell was most interested in another aspect of the myth - its power to that illumine the deepest mysteries of the human experience. I think we can find that depth in Oz, too.

It's also just a fun movie, full of great performances, and wit, and darkness, and life, and great songs.

You're welcome to join us in watching it, at the Hollywood Theatre, this Monday, June 6 at 7 o'clock. $5 for adults, $2 for kids, and proceeds go to Youth, Rights & Justice, a non-profit law firm for kids.

Hope to see you there.

-Jelly

Mention this blawg post in your application

2011-05-24T06:31:00.001-07:00

And if picked for interview, get a free side salad.

Deep story

2011-05-19T06:12:00.000-07:00

It's 6 a.m., sun at a new angle. I'm here to get a leg up on all the work on the table. What to do first? Write a blawg post! It's not procrastinating, I'm gathering my thoughts. Smiley face icon.

Thinking about the state of things in this little studio. There are four of us in here now, inexplicably, and we're looking for another. It's active.

When Mark joined in November we knew we'd start by focusing on nothing but Timbers. "F*cking killing it on the Timbers," I believe is the term we used. Then we'd think about what was next.

We talked about the future a little, about where we thought we'd create value. We made a letterpress print of a design Aaron and I originally had created for Wikipedia, and sent it to a hundred people whose work we admire, including current clients. That was December. We've been pounding on Timbers ever since.

Now it's deep Spring, the Timbers have been sold out every game since the opener, we're thinking about next season, and talking to four or five groups about beginning a new relationship. We are blessed, and it's sort of overwhelming.

The new relationships feel like they have much potential. One is an old friend, another new friends, one is a 110-year-old Portland family business, one a dream that started as an unknown recipient on the mailing list of our story prints.

Not sure what will happen or how we'll get it all done.

A good time to take a breath. Thinking about where we thrive. Thinking about the studio's purpose. Thinking about how we work with clients best, what sort of relationships work. Thinking about where our heart is. Thinking about story. Always thinking about story.

I got super excited about the tree model from the previous post. Seemed like it had a lot right about it. Love the root system as a brand foundation. It's all about the roots.

Shared an earlier version of the model with three of my mentors, Mark Barden, Brian Lanahan and Thom Walters. Instead of roots, I had history. Brian and Mark both suggested I change it to roots.

"Roots includes not just history, but your connections to the earth, to the community, everything you do and are and have been," Mr. Barden said. "All of it. It's the foundation of everything."

Still, Mark Jacobs in studio thought something wasn't quite right about the model. I wanted him to be excited but he wasn't. "Isn't the whole thing the story? Not just that section." Yes. It's the whole trunk, from tip to bottom of tap root.

He added, "It needs a name, or something. What is it?"

And I felt something wasn't exactly right about the model, too. Too linear.

So here's v. 3.0, drawn the other day.

The drawing's a little weird. Masonic alien crop circle. But I like something about it, too. I changed the size of the words for emphasis. Story is now about the whole trunk, and even roots. I changed Actions back to Value, a word I've also used to stand for how you show up in the world, the value you create, how you enrich the world, how the world can see you and touch you.

A branding genius visited the studio the other day, and he saw the drawing on the wall, and it resonated for him. Maybe because he has a tree in his logo. Also because he has a clear vision, and strong roots, and he brings it all, every day. The world might not always see or think about your vision or the roots, but they see the value you create. "It's all about that fat part of that tree," the branding ninja said.

(I'm not saying his/her name. That would be so uncool.)

We named the model, "Deep story." Mark likes it. I do too. The world is hungry for deep stories.

What is your deep story? How is it most powerfully expressed? That's where we're beginning, with all of these new relationships.

Later this morning I'm driving into the country with the CEO and founder of one of these new clients. We're driving to his family farm, to drink wine from his family's vineyard and see and touch his roots.

Hope it helps because at this moment I'm not sure I have a clue on how to express his story.

And with that, back to the table.

Thanks, blawg readers. Have a nice one.

Big strong trees

2011-05-01T13:48:00.000-07:00

It starts with a vision. You can see something unfolding out there in the future that for some reason, other people can't.

Steve Jobs saw computers as tools for artists and creative people. Phil Knight saw technology used to unlock our potential as athletes. Howard Schultz saw coffee culture taking root in America. Martin King saw little white boys and girls and black boys and girls playing as sisters and brothers.

From that vision - either your own or someone else's you share and support - purpose flows. Your work, unhesitatingly, is about contributing to the fruition of the vision. Doing what it takes to make it come true.

Does a vision have to serve people? Yes. And the loftier, more expansive and inclusive the vision, the more potential it has to grow into a substantial tree. One that lots of people can fit under.

Vision and purpose are internal affairs, best experienced and understood by the world through your actions, understood as a story, supported and fed by roots - your history and foundation in the world.

What is my vision? What am I doing to accomplish it?

Final results for Timbers billboard

2011-04-01T10:05:00.000-07:00

[Note: At the bottom of the page, I've added a couple of photos of the final billboard. It's at 17th and W. Burnside, right around the corner from Jeld-Wen Field.]

The results are in. The votes have been counted. The people have spoken.

No complaints from me, really.

Relatedly, I just finished reading Crucial Conversations upon recommendation of Mark Jacobs. What a great read. Reminds me of a lot of Thom Walters' wisdom around stepping into 'creative tension.'

Anyway, the book ends with four methods of decision making: One person decides, one person decides after consulting with all or key stakeholders, consensus, and voting.

Each method has its advantages/disadvantages. Voting involves everyone and it's efficient, but by its nature there are winners and losers.

In the end, I still would've preferred the second method of decision making - basically what I wrote about in the previous blawg post - one person or a smaller group making a decision based on a deep listening to people's input, rather than just straight numbers.

Still, this was a cool exercise, and a pretty neat and unusual story: A major league sports team creating a billboard featuring fans AND letting the fans decide who was featured - not to mention the unexpected make up of the final group: a grandma, a guy in a wheelchair, a dad with a baby carrier and a ballerina in soccer cleats.

Wisdom of the crowd + POV

2011-03-28T09:08:00.000-07:00

As part of the Timbers campaign, we photographed a couple of thousand Timbers fans holding axes and chainsaws and striking NO PITY poses. They came out nice. We gave them to people to use as their profile photos online and we also used some in advertising.

Last week we announced that we're creating a billboard with four of the fan photos and letting the fans vote on them. As of today, here are the sixteen finalists.

I’m happy with the finalists so far, but I think the wisdom of the crowd thing shows its limitations when you simply take the top 4 vote getters and create a composition with them. You end up with this:

Individually four great shots, but combined they make sort of an odd story.

If I had my druthers, I’d create my own composition, taking into consideration the photos that people like the best, but combining them to create a narrative that tells a broader story that lots of people could see themselves in.

Since parent-with-small-kids are over-represented, I’d choose just one to represent that group: the dad and ballerina. It might not be my favorite of the three family shots, but it’s clearly the crowd’s top pick, so I’d go with that.

If you take the other top favorites, they combine nicely to make a good story.

This would be a great billboard. I’m going to post it on the Timbers Facebook page and see what sort of reaction it gets. If it ends up the other way, I can live with it, but it won’t be as good.

That’s my point of view, at least.

Thank you, Matthew Kelty

2011-02-21T16:47:00.000-08:00

My brother sent me an email today about the death of someone who meant a lot to both of us.

Matthew Kelty was a priest and monk who lived in the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. This Courier Journal article captures him well, I think, as do his own words on the monastery's website.

Back in the late '90s, I was one of the many retreatants he counseled with comfort and compassion, and a little bit of clever evasiveness.

It was 1996, and I'd just quit an advertising job, and moved from Amsterdam back to America to seek my purpose. I didn't have a job, or a plan of any sort, really. I thought I'd study religion, perhaps teach eventually. I visited a few grad schools. I sought substance, something with deep roots.

I was more than a little afraid that in my seeking I might be called to a something beyond what I could pull off, and entering the monastery represented the most extreme and terrifying commitment I could imagine. So, I thought, I'd better investigate.

I signed up for a week-long silent retreat at Gethsemani, joining the monks for prayers and meals, my time otherwise spent reading, in silent meditation or walking around the woods.

One day I screwed up my courage and went to meet Fr. Kelty. I stuck my head in his office on the first floor of the guest house, and he called me in.

I told him how I sought meaning in my work, that I wanted to fulfill whatever purpose was in store for me, and that I wanted to know how to discern whether the monastic life was right for me. I was sort of a mess, really, full of confusion.

He listened patiently and intensely. He handed me a small pamphlet he had written years earlier for young novitiates, but he refused to engage directly in my inner turmoil. Instead he wanted to talk about high school football.

"Where'd you go to school?" he asked in his thick Boston brogue. Trinity, I told him, in Louisville.

"They got a good football team. You play football?" he asked.

Um, no, I was more into theatre and art.

Small talk? This man was Thomas Merton's spiritual director! Where was the wisdom? I was getting frustrated.

Fr. Kelty looked at me penetrating for another moment, and slowly smiled. Then he stood up and walked around his desk, and gave me an unexpected hug.

"You're okay," he said, softly. "Everything's gonna be alright." Then he gave me a pat on the cheek and sent me back into the world.

Morning

2011-02-02T07:44:00.000-08:00

Gorgeous clear cold morning in Portland and I am in the studio earlyish to get at it.

Much going on with the studio - much going on with the people we work with - all good - but I am not feeling inclined to shplorp it out there via the blawg.

Also much on my mind about how our work fits with everything churning out there in the world. Alignment. Context. Also difficult to express on the blawg. For a blawger, I have a lot of blawg ambivalence. Maybe over coffee.

Yet, I deeply appreciate you, readers! - and all the encouragement you share. Everybody can use encouragement. So let me share this. It's from Bill Bernbach, someone I've written about before, a guy who still has something to say about the communication business. A visionary. From the dedication of his book.

We in the communications field - in radio, in television, in magazines, in newspapers, in posters - have developed unprecedented skills in mass persuasion. You and I can no longer isolate our lives. It just won't work. What happens to society is going to affect us with ever-increasing rapidity. The world has progressed to the point where its most powerful public force is public opinion. And I believe that in this new, complex, dynamic world it is not the great work or epic play, as once was the case, that will shape that opinion, but those who understand mass media and the tools of public persuasion. The metabolism of the world has changed. New vehicles must carry ideas to it. We must ally ourselves with great ideas and carry them to the public. We must practice our skills on behalf of society. We must not just believe in what we sell. We must sell what we believe in. And we must pour a vast amount of energy into these causes.

Thanks everybody. Talk to you later.

Jelly

On the door of the 2nd/3rd grade class

2011-01-10T08:54:00.001-08:00

"Go forth and do great work"

2011-01-07T08:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I got the opportunity to spend time with two remarkable people, but I'm only going to talk about one of them right now.

Mattathias Schwartz has written cover stories for Harper's, features for the New York Times and was editor for one of the trippiest pieces of art-journalism I know, the Philadelphia Independent.

He had reached out to me because he's going to be working out of Portland soon, and wanted to see if there were opportunities to work together. He had worked in advertising for a while in his early days of writing.

I asked him how he saw things unfolding for him in the next few years, what he wants. "A couple of top-rate pieces of writing," he said, flatly. I asked him how he defined top-rate. I expected him to talk about writing mechanics or technique.

Instead he told me about a speech that mathematician Richard Hamming gave at Bell Laboratories in 1986. Hamming spoke to scientists about what constituted good research, but the speech has wider implications. "Hamming said if you want to do important work you must work on the important problems in your field." You mean top-rate writing has to serve the world in some way? "Of course," Mattathias said. "It has to be meaningful, relevant."

What about the quality of the writing itself, I asked? Pause. "I don't think it can be reduced to criteria," Mattathias told me. "Have you read Christopher Alexander? he asked. (You mean the guy who wrote my all-time-favorite book on architecture?) "It's a quality that can't be defined," Matthias said.

"I just heard a story about the drummer for the Doors. They said his drumming was tight, but surprising. That's what I want," Mattathias told me. "Tight and surprising. Doing both is hard."

"I'm not there yet," he admitted. "I've maybe done two pieces of top-rate work."

It was an inspiring, encouraging hour and a half with a guy I am certain has much top-rate work ahead of him.

Later in the day I got an email from Mattathias with a copy of the speech that Hamming gave. Wow. It's so... clear. High-octane, a real kick in the pants. If I were still teaching, it'd be on the assigned reading list.

If you could use something like that, here you go.

Story and Purpose

2010-12-27T09:42:00.000-08:00

This map grounds our work:

People and companies create value in the world by living their purpose, which is understood by the world as a story.

We consider ourselves an artisan communications studio - we seek to tell the tastiest stories - and that's why we choose to work with purpose-driven people and companies. Art and craft are important, but the best stories are connected to a deeper purpose. Those are the stories people are hungry for, now more than ever.

When I work with someone, we start with these four questions. It's a great way to begin the relationship, and something we return to again and again. Your purpose can be creating a world where every single human being has free, shared and open access to the sum of all knowledge, or it can be making doughnuts. It really doesn't matter. But things start getting super-powerful when your deeper purpose aligns with the bigger stories emerging in the world.

Here's wishing all of us a purpose-filled 2011.

2010-12-21T22:26:00.000-08:00

We all get working in small groups, collaboratively, no titles. We’ve learned how to create as a team. We’ve learned about the power of storytelling, and creativity, and craft, and voice. We’ve learned about improv, about saying Yes.

We've learned about interactive, and social media, and sharing, and involvement from the audience, and co-creation. We've learned how to tell stories through environments, and packaging, and events. We've learned about embedding into culture.

I'm interested in talking about our work's purpose.

Well we all shine on

2010-12-08T22:26:00.000-08:00

After posting this video, it made me think about working at the Martin Agency in Richmond as a young art director in the early '90s, a year or so after graduating from Portfolio Center.

We worked in the Shenandoah, a turn-of-the-century converted apartment building. I sat on a floor with half a dozen master art directors. Some of them - like Bob Shira, and Danny Boone - smoked while they worked. Everyone had a drafting table as a desk, not a single computer.

We were all making print ads, mostly, hyper-crafted, that was Martin's thing. We traced type. We ordered type from typographers. We'd cut it apart, tweak the spacing, send it down to the stat room to get a photostat, paste it onto a board, and stare at it. We'd lay out our work in the hallway. Other art directors would walk by and take a look and maybe stick their head in your office and make a comment.

We were still figuring out how to make TV commercials. Jerry Torchia did some cool stuff on Wrangler and with the Maysles brothers, but a lot of the stuff we were doing was pretty stiff and contrived - filmed print ads, really.

I wasn't looking for it but somehow I got a 3/4" tape with a copy of a Nike commercial that changed how I looked at advertising forever. I watched it in "the TV room," a strange space crammed between two offices a floor above me, maybe 15 feet deep and three feet wide. I squeezed between the TV and the wall and put the tape in and watched. Hit rewind, watched. Watched again.

What was it? It wasn't a concept. What was the concept? No copy, or punchline, besides Just Do It. The type, what was that? It moved, like something in an art film - modern and beautiful. The images. Sports like nothing I'd seen on TV, better than what I'd seen in most movies. Such memorable images. A guy sitting on a basketball backboard? Swinging a golf club with a tangle of electric wires in the foreground? Scottie and Michael stretching together? That triple cut of Joan Benoit. Michael in silhouette, holding the ball above the kids? Modern and graphic, but human and surprising.

That cool squished look! What was that? I'd never heard of anamorphic lenses. It just looked... right. It had a point of view. I hadn't heard of the director, someone named David Fincher.

And the song! The lyrics! The kids! The teeth! The jumping rope with the tripping! What kind of company would say that? Nobody made commercials like this. How do you even make a commercial like that? It was so pure, it was pure feeling.

I could watch it a hundred times. I have.

Later, I went to work for Wieden and Kennedy, and was told the secret by Dan Wieden himself. "You have to understand, Jelly," he said. "TV is primarily an emotional medium." And that was all he said about that.

Years later, I asked Jim Riswold to put a reel together of his work(!) to share with a 12 class, and I noticed he didn't include the spot. "Jim, you made a mistake, you left off Instant Karma."

"Yeah, I hate that spot," he said.

Huh..!? One of the best spots W+K has ever made...?

"There's no idea."

Well. For me, back as a young art director trying to figure out how to powerfully use the medium of film, the idea seemed to be something like, show that we become like angels when we use our bodies, and use the best and most interesting filmmaker you can find, and, use a profound and relevant song by one of the heaviest musicians ever, and, maybe especially, respect your viewer.

It confirmed that Nike was the coolest company ever. They not only made a great product, they knew who they were and expressed it clearly and confidently.

Same stuff still interests me: Artfully told, and true.

OK

2010-11-21T00:06:00.001-08:00

O. Hm.

2010-11-08T16:58:00.000-08:00

Neat little piece on Oregon Humanities produced by John Cardenas.

Studio update

2010-11-06T11:17:00.000-07:00

Growin. It's beta, but take a peek.

The latest on LinkedIn

2010-10-31T21:15:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine who is scary out-front on all things interfizzle recently told me that LinkedIn will soon be the hottest way to connect online, hotter than Facebook.

Huh? LinkedIn? This kid is all sneaker and social media blah blah and isn't LinkedIn a boring businessman site? "No, it's credible, because it's no bullshit, just cold facts. You can't lie."

Look what I discovered on LinkedIn tonight.

That's right, Mark is joining me and Aaron in the studio as a TBD, starting tomorrow morning. I hope to keep him as a TBD as long as possible. Mark has so much to offer - and I am looking forward to him bringing it all.

Aaron and I and everyone we work with are lucky. Welcome, Mark.

Word power

2010-10-11T08:57:00.000-07:00

Great day this weekend spent at Wordstock. Very comforting hanging out with a crowdful of book/word/idea/story nerds.

I was there manning the Wheel of Cogitation, a table that the studio designed and built for Oregon Humanities to take to events. Its purpose is to create conversation around ideas.

It was a great experience. All sorts of people participated, including lots of kids. The wheel seemed to create space for meaningful and meaty conversations, but in a fun way.

Here's something that happened: A woman walked up with her son, a mysterious mop-topped boy with auburn hair and big brown eyes. He reached out and spun the wheel and stared at the clicker and smiled. "He's autistic," the mom said of the four-year-old. The wheel stopped on a question.

I couldn't tell if he could read the words or understood them. He paused for a short moment, then reached down and touched a bare spot in the leather of a red antique steamer trunk that sat next to the table. "Healing," he said.

How Share went down

2010-10-04T09:03:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday, I was invited to participate in the 1 year anniversary celebration of SHARE, "an event series that brings small groups of artists (writers, painters, actors, musicians, dancers, culinary artists) together to create from the same one-word prompt."

The event showcased some of the work from the last year of SHARE events. The organizers also invited thirty or so artists to create live at the event itself. I was one of those artists.

At 2 p.m. I was at SCRAP prowling for supplies, checking my iPhone for the prompt. By 2:03 I was getting impatient and sent an email to Margaret Malone asking for the prompt. My email had just crossed the one she sent to all the artists.

Cue Banjo music while I run around the store again looking for inspiration. Between...

Yes! I find a kit for making a wooden flower press that has 5 pieces of 6"x 6" plywood for pressing the flowers between. Get it? "Between"? I like how specific and contained the square pieces of plywood feel to me.

I stopped by Columbia Art and Drafting and picked up a basic set of word carving tools. I had a vague feeling that I wanted to carve words into the squares? Questions maybe?

Since we would have a live audience, I wanted to get them involved somehow. I liked the idea of something emerging from my choice of materials, a random prompt, and a conversation between me and another specific and random person at the event.

6 p.m. and the audience starts arriving. I put up a sign inviting people to sit down on a couch with me and have a conversation. I handed each person a card with a question.

The best part of the evening for me were the four conversations that ensued. Common themes came up - the nature of happiness, the role of money and time in attaining our goals, fear, death, things outside of our control.

Now I had to make something in response to each conversation, and I had two hours to complete all four.

I dove into the first one, working intuitively, combining every image that came to my mind as I listened to the first person telling me what stood between her and wanted she wanted most.

I had painted the wood black so that the cuts revealed the wood underneath. The materials were unfamilar and not particularly suited to each other. In short, I didn't know what I was doing, but I pressed ahead.

When it was time to start the second piece, I realized that there were similar themes in the conversations, so I wanted to use some of the same images, but it was clear that I couldn't work to the same level of detail as in the first piece. I simplified the image and changed materials.

By the time I started the piece based on the third conversation, the theme was feeling a little heavy. I was most interested in an aside. "I have a cat named Jelly!" she told me. "I love him. He's an ass. The relationship is completely on his terms. He's all male. He watches me undress, and it makes me a little uncomfortable."

That was fun. I finished the fourth piece just as the event was finishing.

When it was over, I was spent, and wished I had spent the evening in the audience, just enjoying myself, checking out the performance and the food and the other artists. I didn't really get to visit with anyone - including a lot of friends who were there. I thought to myself, I'll never do this again. Exhausting.

But this morning, thinking back on it, it was another great creative experience - working without a net, dealing with fears and expectations and serendipity and failures. It was great.

Congrats to Kathleen and Margaret and Chris Haberman for an outstanding event, and to Margaret and Kathleen for a cool idea. Big and risky and experimental and fun. I get the same vibe from SHARE as I did from RIPE in the early days. Something self-defining, born out of passion, nourishing the community, inventing itself and evolving as it grows.

2010-09-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

This summer I took on the assignment of writing/designing a blank journal for a Write Around Portland fundraiser - because I believe in their mission, and also because I was interested in exploring the relationship between me and someone willing to spend up to 750 dollars for my journal.

Tell your truth, Mark Ritchie once told me. I tried for several months to talk directly and candidly with this person and wrote and wrote and wrote and it was all so BORING. The deadline passed and I had NOTHING but a bunch of self indulgent blah.

With negative three days to go and complete bewilderment, I thought about how stuck I was. I started writing short sentences to myself, things that have helped me get unstuck in the past.

No expectations, I wrote. Yes. No expectations. Wanting to do the most personal meaningful honest journal of all time was killing me.

No disappointments, I wrote. Yes. They come after expectations. Without expectations, you don’t have disappointments.

27 sentences later and I had written something of a meditation or poem on chilling out, a mantra for regaining flow.

I counted the pages in the book and it happened that I had the exact number of pages to write each sentence four times, a rhythm that felt right to me (and reminiscent of my high school punishment known as JUG, where delinquents were forced to write out a page of the school’s rules in long hand).

The journal is on display at Design Within Reach until Saturday, the evening of the auction.

Other Wiki films

2010-09-24T22:02:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia launch

2010-09-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

Reed Harkness, Noah Stanik and I traveled to Poland this summer to film some of the wonderful people who create Wikipedia. They gathered in Gdansk for Wikimania, the yearly gathering of Wikipedia editors from around the world. The work launched yesterday. They'll keep showing a new one each day this week on the Wiki Facebook page.

From the Wikimedia blog:

This week the Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to introduce a series of short videos that were produced in Summer of 2010 that highlight our users: the volunteer contributors from around the world who help make projects like Wikipedia a reality.

(The clips will be posted on this YouTube channel, and also as CCBYSA files on the Wikimedia Commons)

These videos were produced with two key outcomes in mind: to inform the general public about the people and inspiration behind our movement, and also to energize and inspire new Wikipedia editors to engage bravely in contributing to Wikipedia. The latter focus is particularly important for the Foundation’s current Public Policy initiative outreach, but we’re hopeful they will inspire other new editors around the world.

Altogether we will be launching four videos, and today’s video ‘Username’ is a short clip that introduces some of the 35 Wikipedia editors that were interviewed during the annual Wikimania conference last summer in Gdansk Poland. We’ll launch the rest of the clips through this week, hosting them on video sharing sites and of course on the Wikimedia Commons.

Reaching

2010-09-07T23:58:00.000-07:00

I shared this perspective exploder with Mark and Doris, then Doris sent me back this, from a talk by Laurie Anderson.

You know what I like about the stars, we can't hurt them. We can't bruise them or blow them up. They exist so far away and nothing we do or say or make can harm them in any way. They are safe from us. But... we are reaching for the stars. We are reaching...

Startin fresh

2010-08-30T08:29:00.000-07:00

Walked in this morning and saw that all of our work was somewhere under this clean white wall and it felt really good. I'd recommend it.

Becoming

2010-08-26T16:34:00.000-07:00

Last night I was joined by the talented and generous Melissa Delzio, Mia Nolting, Kate Bingaman-Burt, Jeremy Pelley, Taylor Twist and Aaron Rayburn, in finishing the mural in the Goldsmith Bldg.

Together, we made a golden cathedral.

Today I traced over the Spanish graffiti someone had scratched into it a while ago, and then I added a title in the upper right cell, and now it's done. I'm happy with it. It's just what I wanted to say, even though I didn't really know what that would be until we finished.

This weekend, they'll paint over it in preparation for the September mural, so you have two days to check it out, if interested. I hope you do! I want you to see it, reader.

-Jelly

PS. Here's a quickie photo til I get the one Chris Hornbecker shot. It came out pretty neat. Gone!

The book for one mysterious person

2010-08-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

This June I received an interesting invitation from a non-profit in town, Write Around Portland. Through workshops, readings and publishing, they use the power of writing to transform lives and communities.

On October 2, Write Around Portland will be hosting our annual fundraiser XY&Z: A Word Art Extravaganza at Design Within Reach. XY&Z is an evening of great music, word and writing games including MadLibs, Word Poker, Typing Pool, Speed Scrabble, Boggle and literary conversations. We'll also serve up a signature cocktail and some wonderful food. Design Within Reach, Powell's Books and Stoel Rives, LLP are the lead sponsors of the event.

Like last year, one of the draws of the event will be the display and silent auction of Writing Journals Fashioned by Writers, Artists and Celebrities. Your journal will be one of 12 being auctioned this year.

We anticipate bids between $250-$750 per journal. ALl of the money raised at the silent auction of these journals will go directly to keeping our workshops free of charge for those who need it most.

I am interested in this person who is going to spend such money to buy my journal. I've already begun something of a relationship with that person. I'm saying things to him or her that I haven't said to anyone else.

-

UPDATE: Finished this piece. Turned out unlike what I imagined above. It's on display at Design Within Reach in the Pearl for the rest of the month, along with all of the other journals, if you'd like to check them out.

July

2010-07-28T12:14:00.000-07:00

I spent this month doing the majority of my creating/expressing outside of the internet/Facebook/the blawg/Twitter. It was interesting. Great month. Has to be my most productive ever. If you can make tomorrow's opening/closing of the Goldsmith Bldg. mural, you'll see part of the result.

Hope you can make it.

Jelly

POSTSCRIPT: They decided to leave the mural up another month! Come see it in August if you get a chance.

Over it

2010-07-14T17:38:00.001-07:00

And here are a couple of shots from Jeremy of the show coming down.

Pullin weeds

2010-07-05T09:28:00.001-07:00

why not pull the weeds in your yard if ya wanna do some good work for humanity....

yuri nabor

You being funny?

Oh, "yuri nabor," your neighbor, I get it. Sure. I'll post that comment.

Wait a minute, on second thought, I bet he's being a smart ass. I'm taking that comment down. Yuri Nabor. Wiseguy.

Then this weekend I take a look, and sure enough, there's a ton of weeds in my front yard that need pulling. Like, one was 6 feet tall. I probably pulled ten pounds of weeds.

I have plenty of weeds to pull.

Thanks, Yuri! Thanks, teacher!

Going dark

2010-06-29T11:20:00.000-07:00

Jelly,
Is your going "dark" part, or a result of, the art project? Just curious.

-D.

Yeah, D. Busy. Partly the gallery project, for sure. Tonight we continue the installation. It opens next Thursday.

I've also taken on an idiotic creative assignment in the lobby of the Goldsmith Bldg. Last year, building owner David Gold installed a frame in the lobby for a giant mural that goes up on the first Thursday of each month. A few months ago, I signed up for July.

This was my original idea. I love large type, words, questions, uniting ideas. But as it hung on my studio wall, I got tired of it, and spurred by a comment from my wife, I decided to let the mural unfold over the month - create something new every day without knowing where it's going.

We divided the wall up into 35 rectangles for the 35 days that the mural will be up. Each day I'll put up something new. I started with the original idea.

On day 2, I decided to reproduce this graffiti that I spotted on a very active stoop on the side of the building. Take a good look.

I've already had stress dreams about this assignment. It's an exercise in letting go, trust, discovery. We'll see. I'm halfway finished with today's.

I've also been dark because of a lot of other studio work. Finishing up a self-promo poster, took on an Oregon Humanities project that was too fun to pass up, and I'm leaving next week for Poland to produce a series of films for Wikipedia at their annual gathering of Wikimaniacs. I'm also participating in a fund raiser for Write Around Portland where a artist/writer creates a personalized writing journal and they auction it off.

So D., some of it is about being busy, but I am also going to use the month of July as an experiment where I do all my expression/creating in the real world, and give Facebook, Twitter and the blawg a little rest. See what happens. Documenting it/talking about it less, and concentrating on experiencing it.

I'll be back. And I'm still on email.

Brainwash

2010-06-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

In January, when Aaron started, he mentioned that he had a show scheduled for the Littman Gallery in July, and wondered if it should/could be a project for the studio. Sure, I said. An art show. That'll be fun.

I went to check out the space, and it's gorgeous. It's on the PSU campus and its huge windows face the park blocks. Great.

We thought about what we had to say, how we'd construct a show, what theme we might address. Aaron was telling me about the brainstorming he was doing while washing dishes, but instead it came out, "I was brainwashing the other night," and that malapropism became the name of our show. Brainwashing. Later shortened to Brainwash.

We liked the positive connotations of brainwash. It sounds kind of nice. I'd like to have my brain washed, get all the barnacles and crust off of it.

We explored that for a few weeks, and got nowhere. I thought, we have so many talented friends, why are we trying to figure it all out ourselves? Why don't we gather a group of people and make something together?

Aaron was game, so in April we sent out a call to participate in group show called Brainwash, and we got a great response.

We gathered in my studio to decide what we wanted to get out of the show. Fourteen people were there: Aaron, Damion Triplett, Mike Giepert, Kate Bingaman-Burt, Jeremy Pelley, Fritz Mesenbrink, Mathew Foster, Chris Hutchinson, Scrappers, Patrick Long, Marco Kaye, Jennie Hayes, David Neevel and me. Later, one dropped out, and Driscoll Reid, Jason Sturgill, Jim Lasser, Taylor Twist, Julia Oh and Julia Blackburn joined us.

So, an incredible group, but pretty unwieldy too, especially at arriving at a POV. So on that first night, we decided that our best bet might be getting behind a singular idea.

We set up a second night in the studio to create together. Inspired by an event that my wife hosts in my studio called SHARE, the group came together to create. We worked off of a prompt, and worked in teams and solo for a couple of hours generating thoughts.

That's the backstory. Part of it anyway.

The show opens on July 8, and is now called OVER IT. Come see what we make.

Client update: O. Hm.

2010-06-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

Last fall, after all the work we made for Oregon Humanities, I met with Kathleen, their editor and communications director, to formally hand over the work and talk about what happens next. We met over coffee, and it was a little sad. It was something of an ending to one of the best client relationships I'd ever had.

I encouraged Kathleen to make the stuff their own, use it, break it, experiment, try new things themselves. I told her about how I liked the storytelling from PS1 and MoMA. Feels like they are creating it themselves, and not speaking through a 'branding agency.'

So, we didn't create a traditional "style guide." Remember style guides? Life moves too fast for style guides anymore. Instead, I made a little hand-drawn map with thumbnails of the work and possible ways it could be shared with different audiences.

We talked about voice, the personality of Oregon Humanities. We talked about how believing in the power of new, bold, surprising, lively ideas as an organization means your storytelling should be bold and surprising and lively.

We talked about not overplaying "Oh, Hmm," unless you wanted to be super annoying.

We talked about finding good partners to help create things, how to encourage them to not feel locked in a system, but have freedom to make it their own, which will keep the voice human and alive.

"It's gonna be awesome," I probably said.

We hugged and said goodbye, Kathleen went off to have her baby, I moved on to other projects/relationships. That was probably 9 months ago.

Any lingering sadness went away the other night when I went to a simply outstanding event they hosted. I have a smile on my face as I'm writing this. It's another chapter in my case study of an Ideal Client. They not only had absorbed the storytelling and made it their own, their new communication materials created without me were possibly better than what I made for them. Everything about the event reflected an aligned organization with clarity and confidence around its own purpose, story and voice. Super powerful, and inspiring.

First of all, the event was simply art directed very well. It was held in a cool space, the AIA building in the Pearl, the food and wine were great, and the women of O. Hm. looked spiffy.

The visiting guest was a heavy hitter. Remember Denver in 2008, when a Republican congressman appeared at the Democratic Convention and endorsed Barack Obama? That was Jim Leach, a 30-year congressman from Iowa. Now he's Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. His focus at the NEH has been a "civility tour" where he talks about the importance of dialogue and humanity in civic engagement. It's been called the opposite of a Tea Party. Pretty awesome.

As tempting as it would be to simply put him behind a lectern, Cara, O. Hm.'s executive director, took a risk and set up the evening as a moderated conversation between Jim and Alison Carey, director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival American Revolutions play cycle, and co-founder of the Cornerstone Theater Company, an experimental, community-based, collaborative theater.

"This arrangement reflects what we believe," Cara told us, "that through dialogue and different ideas colliding, we move forward.

"We believe in the transformational power of new ideas, for communities, and for people." Terrific.

I can't remember the question that Cara used to kick off the conversation, but it was something along the lines of, What is the relevance of the Humanities in this whatever-the-hell-it-is-that's-going-on-out-there, the chaos, the struggle, the divisiveness?

Deep breath and silence as everyone seemed to absorb the weight of the question.

Jim talked about personally being most struck by the acceleration of change, how that raises the critical question of whether we see that other person we are forced to confront as our neighbor or as our enemy. Our answer determines whether we frame the other person's POV as an opposing idea or something we are curious about and seek to develop an understanding of.

(Made me think of Pifkin's take on Empathic Civilizations.)

Alison also talked about curiosity. She talked about the insights that happen when we take a deep breath and ask ourselves, "How do I feel about this? What's my understanding of what's happening here?" We don't give ourselves time for deep breaths anymore, she said, but art gives them to us. Art makes us curious, and it's nearly impossible to condemn something or someone we are curious about. Curiosity is the gateway of understanding.

So, yeah, awesome, the whole evening, so thoughtful and provocative and stimulating, and then they brought out the cookies. Conversation cookies.

Instead of fortunes, each contains a question designed to spark thinking/conversation. The Oregon Humanities staff made them. Great!

They also handed out their tasty new re-branded magazine, designed by Pinch.

An energizing evening. I'm so proud of those guys, inspired. I've learned so much that's relevant as I seek to begin new client relationships.

Art works

2010-06-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

This morning at coffee I looked out the window and saw something I hadn't seen before, a a giant metallic phallic sculpture stuck in the ground just north of my studio.

"It's an acupuncture needle," my coffee guest said. "They're putting them around Portland different places." Ha! What a great idea. Old Town Chinatown could use a little acupuncture. I could.

How do we preserve the history and raise the new energy? How do I preserve the history and raise the new energy?

I can see this needle from the window of my studio and I am so glad.

Jeremy Rifkin on the Empathic Civilization

2010-05-31T22:13:00.000-07:00

Thanks Rafa, for turning me on to this great series of animated lectures! Every one I watched was interesting, but I particularly loved the clarity of this one.

They're produced by The RSA, a fascinating group in itself. Sort of reminds me of TED, but British, and 250 years old.

Flying Fortress

2010-05-24T08:36:00.001-07:00

This weekend we went to go see the restored B-17 that landed at Hillsboro airport, part of a barnstorming tour across America. For $400 you can take a ride in the Flying Fortress, and for $5 you can climb around in it.

It was oddly affecting. We just wanted to see a cool airplane, but walking through it, you couldn't help but feel the bigger story: a bunch of 18, 19-year-old farm boys, in 1930s-era technology, putting their lives on the line to save the world. True.

This January I put an American flag sticker in the window of my car, something I can't imagine doing at any other time in my life. It just dawned on me that whatever happens that will take this world forward, the ol' USA will have to play a major role, the leadership role, probably. Who else would it be?

We're too fractured to pull it off right now. The story that pulled us together back then doesn't work anymore. What will our new uniting story be? Where will it come from?

It's happening, really, but I get impatient.

Everyone needs a wand

2010-05-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

This weekend I made wands out of a tree limb from the backyard. I conducted this interview with one six-year-old magician-in-training.

Do you believe in magic? Yes.

Why? I don't know.

Is magic real? I don't know.

Why do you believe in it? I don't know.

Is magic good? Sometimes good, sometimes bad.

Give me an example of good magic. Turning someone into a bird.

What's an example of bad magic. Stopping someone's heart from beating.

Who's good at magic? Wizards.

Can anybody be a wizard? Not anybody. All boys. Actually, any person can be a wizard.

Do you have anything else important to say about magic? No.

The thing that's happening

2010-05-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

I've been having so many conversations lately and the common theme seems to be an awareness of just how much everything - everything - seems to be in flux right now. ALL STRUCTURES ARE UNSTABLE, the warning sign reads.

Yes. We are going through a transition of a massive order. Sometimes it looks like things will get worse before they get better, and sometimes it's hard to imagine what better even looks like.

Former Senator Fred Thompson recently wrote in his memoir that this is the first generation that can't take for granted that our kids won't have better lives than we did, but I don't buy that. I think future generations have a chance at lives that are much richer, more meaningful, more connected and joyful, more rooted in abundance than scarcity, in wholeness rather than separation. Sometimes we have glimpses and experiences of what that sort of life that looks and feels like.

This morning I asked a clear-headed friend of mine, What we do when we know something is emerging, but we don't know exactly what it looks like, or how we're going to get there, or what role we will play? We don't retreat, he said. We stay present. We hold the quality and substance of what we seek while getting comfortable with the idea that we can't control how it unfolds. It's not passive. We accept the tension.

Not tired of this yet

2010-05-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

A human being in space, floating above us in a space station, taking photos, sending them to us. Yeah, that's normal.

The Goldsmith Bldg. labyrinth

2010-05-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

Aaron's first assignment: Create something for our studio hallway that feels like a gift to our neighbors, and tells the story that we are part of a shared community. Budget: Nothing. This is what he came up with.

We finished it recently, and it will get its first public exposure tomorrow night at First Thursday. Loyal blawg readers get a sneak peek, of course.

The storyteller's work

2010-05-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

Brian Lanahan sent me this exchange between Bill Moyer and Oregon writer Barry Lopez, part of an interview from Moyer's final show.

BARRY LOPEZ: I was in Japan. I was with a novelist, a man named Kazumasa Hirai. And everywhere I've gone in the world, I've said-- he was a storyteller, you know? We call him a novelist. But he was just a storyteller. He's like me.

And I would ask him or anybody I was with, "What do you mean when you say you're a storyteller? What do you do?" Because I want to know what I'm listening for is, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can talk about the structure. I'm not interested in structure of sentences. What I want to know is who how do you know how to behave? How do you know what to do as a person for other people? How do you know? What do you do?"

BILL MOYERS: As a storyteller?

BARRY LOPEZ: As a storyteller.

BILL MOYERS: Right.

BARRY LOPEZ: And Kazumasa San said to me, "Your work is to take care of the spiritual interior of the language." And he said in Japanese this word we use, kotodama, means that each word has within it a spiritual interior. The word is like a vessel that carries something ineffable. And you must be the caretaker for that. You must be careful when you use language to look at every part of the word and make sure that you're showing respect for it in the place that you've given it to live in the sentence.

But I see all of us engaged in the same thing. And that is the invention of the story. And the story to me is the brilliance of storytelling is that it's the only and the best protection we have against forgetting.

I think, what is at the core of every story. I mean, how many novels have you put down and said to yourself, "Oh, I never knew that." Mostly you know it all, but you forget it. And you close a book and you say, "I knew that, but I'd forgotten it. And I am so glad to be reminded of what I intend to do and who I am. And what-- and how I want to conduct myself in the world."

Seeking story

2010-04-20T21:31:00.000-07:00

You hear how we shouldn't be so obsessed with stories about Tiger or Kate or Conan when there are so many more important things happening on the planet, but I'm not sure. We're hungry for story, that's what informs us, and with our recent and sudden massive collapse of story - from church to Wall Street to government to corporations to schools, you name it - we are seeking out story, hard, wherever we can find it.

I found this dirty pdf transcript - gotta love PBS - of Bill Moyer's 1987 interview with Joseph Campbell. I think we're still seeking that uniting story Campbell was talking about 23 years ago. I think that's why the Twitter and Apple and Facebook and Wikipedia and Obama 2008 stories had/have so much energy. They are uniting stories, expanding stories - they connect us and move us forward.

Fascinated with Campbell saying that you can't predict where the new myth will come from, any more than you can predict what you'll dream about tonight, and the suggestion that we are all potential vessels of revelation(!).

The story he suggests in the last paragraph is laughable for its simplicity. I wonder how long it will take for that story to emerge and take root. Maybe faster than we think. Maybe it's happening.

Social Practice

2010-04-19T09:08:00.000-07:00

Aaron, in addition to working with me, is a junior in the design program at PSU, studying with Lis Charman and Kate Bingaman-Burt. Lis and Kate have super-charged the program, bringing in people like Frank Chimero to teach Social Practice, a course I'm almost certain did not exist when I was in school. Jealous.

Social practice is work that deliberately and directly involves and engages the audience. Last Friday, as part of the class, teams of students set up projects on campus. Visitors strolling through the park blocks could find themselves escorted to class by a brightly colored robot, participating in ultimate four-square or invited to take a nap in an empty art gallery by students wearing pajamas.

Aaron and his group set up a Dictation Station, where passers-by were offered the chance to have a letter typed and sent to the person of their choice.

The team set up an outdoor office in front of the library and art directed it, and themselves, 1950s-style. The desk is authentic; they pulled it out of university storage.

Nice work, y'all...

Numanistic = community/artisan/spiritual/love

2010-04-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

Three for three this week with Give Pizza A Chance, the artisan pizza cart around the corner on Stark, and if I follow my pace, this will be my second week in a row with pizza from there for lunch, every day.

The Spinach Deep Dish. The whole wheat crust is made daily, and it has this fantastic buttery/crispy bottom, while the top is chewy and soft, with the ingredients flipped in order, cheese on the bottom and sauce on the top, Chicago style. I'm honestly breathing more deeply just thinking about it.

The Greek is new, and it's nice. A sicilian-style crust, and simple, with greek olives, artichokes, tomatoes, some sort of heavenly olive oil. Sigh.

Today I was sitting there eating my slice, and some guy must've heard my soft moaning and said to me, "That Greek is pretty good, isn't it." He was a huge guy with a shaved head, thick studs in both ears, giant lambchop sideburns. "John is out of control," he said, shaking his head, referring to the guy who runs the cart.

You and John old friends?

"Actually, John's family and mine lived together as part of a numanistic faith community."

At least I think he said "numanistic"? But when I looked it up afterwards, I couldn't find much other than this, on a blog called Numanistic Experience.

I asked my fellow Greek pizza fan to explain. "We're an intentional community. We live in consideration of our impact on the world and each other. Instead of trying to make yourself invisible, which is sort of the normal way to live in a community these days, we try to put ourselves out there, in support of each other," he said. "It's not easy."

"We don't live there anymore. My wife and I are finishing eight months in Bangladesh doing development work, and in June, we'll be moving into a house in a regular neighborhood. But we'll try to take some of that community mindset with us."

He left me thinking about the overlap between those values and the delicious pizza. Once I told Aaron that I believe 'Artisan' to be the model that points the way forward for business. "Artisan is just another way to say- " I started to say, "Spiritual," Aaron finished.

Hm, that wasn't what I was going to say, but yes. Spiritual. Stumptown has certainly found the spirituality in coffee, and Apple has found the spirituality in computers, and you can taste the spirituality in John's pizza.

Love. That's what I was going to say. Artisan means loving something - whatever it is that you make or do - as much as it can be loved, and then loving people so much that you have to share it with them. It transforms everything: the process, the product, what sort of quality you demand, who you work with, your relationship with your customer/client, everything. Can't be faked. Can't be adopted strategically. People can tell.

There's job security in artisan. The only people who can compete with you are other artisans, and they're rooting for you. They like good competition.

So sayeth DJ Bunnyears

2010-04-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

Wikimaniac

2010-04-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

wikimania 2009 from julen´s work on Vimeo.

Julen is a talented director/cameraman Jay and I worked with in Argentina to capture the Wikimania conference. I haven't seen the longer piece yet, but he just sent me this little trailer.

Urban Flora

2010-04-01T20:40:00.001-07:00

Nature putting on a pretty good show in the asphalt cracks and vacant lots of downtown Portland these days.

"Hey Churchy,"

2010-03-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

wrote Derek Barnes. "You and your nun friends should watch this. Pretty cool." Sure is.

Easter!

2010-03-29T13:46:00.001-07:00

A young Mr. Jeff Williams celebrates.

Context

2010-03-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

"As always: we are tiny little things in a tiny little place." Thanks Ted Topolewski for sharing.

Perspective shift

2010-03-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

Take a break and look at the Earth through an astronaut's eyes. That's India above and the Sahara below.

Below, the most remote inhabited place on the planet. Tristan da Cunha. Sorry, I've blawged this before. But it blows. My. Mind.

Post Wes Jackson ?s

2010-03-16T21:59:00.001-07:00

Twitter can be vapid

2010-03-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

But there's meaningful shared-thinking happening. It's not the whole show, but it energizes my work and my thinking around it and my real-life conversations.

Sometimes it feels like a time-waste and compulsion. Sometimes it feels like isolation masquerading as connection. Sometimes it feels like energizing. Today, at this moment, it feels energizing.

Later, I'll share - or, [gag reflex] tweet - some 140 character nuggets from Wes Jackson's mind-blower of a lecture last night. I can't wait. Most people will miss them or ignore them, but those shared thoughts may shape/inform/enrich the thinking of so many cool people doing amazing work out there. We're participating in a huge conversation. That's still exciting to me.

Stubbornness/hope

2010-03-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

My wife sent me this nice little interview with writer and teacher Tom Spanbauer, on the occasion of a writer's benefit for Haiti tomorrow night.

"I was raised German Catholic so I’m stubborn. I also have redemption in my DNA. That combo: stubbornness and hope are hard to beat."

Sr. Mary Fabian

2010-03-12T14:05:00.000-08:00

Had an awesome coffee with Margaret Richardson, a self-identified journalist-turned-design-journalist, proudly 70-years-old, and all human. We had never met before, but I had to give her a big hug when we parted.

"Where do we start?" she asked, when we sat down. "Only the interesting stuff!" I demanded, so she told me the story about her seven and a half years living as a nun in a convent, teaching at a Chicago Catholic girl's school in the late '50s and early '60s, faculty editor of the school newspaper. Her students were the daughters of cops and mafia, and the few black girls had to contend with an atmosphere that was racially years away from the Civil Rights movement happening elsewhere in the country.

In fact, it was an incident around race inside the school that caused Sr. Mary Fabian, as she was known, to - gasp - leave the convent before taking her final vows. The church arranged an interview for her at a magazine called Catholic News, and two weeks later, she was living in New York City. Thus Margaret Richardson began her wonderful career, eventually becoming Editor of U&lc. What a story.

Margaret asked me to participate in a design class she teaches in the summer for Portland State University, "a research class in real time with real professionals." Her students visit 16 different studios around Portland and talk to the principals about their work, their process, their space. I'd like to take that class!

After we settled on a date, I wrote down my email address on her calendar. "Don't you like how that pen writes?" she asked. Yes, it's nice. "Keep it! I get five of them a week." She had already given me a pocket pack of kleenex and two books.

I really enjoyed Margaret ... exuberant, authentic, so stylish. I pointed out that her outfit - which I bet she designed herself - reminded me of a post-modern nun's habit, something that she'd clearly heard before. "As my husband says: Once a nun, always a nun."

Bottom drawer, file cabinet

2010-03-11T16:02:00.000-08:00

In the category of unintentional media placement / juxtaposition comedy, I like how this Maker's Mark billboard undermines the Insurance salesman's message directly above it.

"Drama? Suspense? Not on my watch. I keep Lifewise health plans boringly good."

Yeah, tree. Do it.

2010-03-09T11:05:00.001-08:00

Chinatown can be a tough spot for people, and trees. Loyal readers may recall this gutsy tree near my studio. She ended up putting out some branches last summer, only to have them torn off again, by someone enraged or suffering, probably. It was a frayed [afraid?] stump all winter.

But look at her now. Nature just keeps doing its thing, doesn't it? If we allow it, at least.

Free Wes Jackson ticket contest

2010-03-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

Why is Wes Jackson so awesome/significant for the emerging culture?

Best 140-characters-or-less response, received by Wednesday, March 10 at noon P.S.T. (either in the comment section here or at @jellyhelm) wins a patron ticket to Wes Jackson's Illahee lecture on Monday, March 15 in Portland.

3/10 Update. Hank Hosfield wrote:

I'm unsure what sustainability means. Or even what I need. Un-driven by culture, what would I find organically essential and fulfilling?

Good questions, Hank. I hope you get to pose them to Wes Jackson. A ticket to his lecture is on its way, courtesy the U.S. Postal Service.

Gene Federico's necktie, by Art Chantry

2010-03-02T13:17:00.000-08:00

The conversations I am allowed to participate in and think about in 2010 are so much more rich and interesting than anything I had access to during design school in the mid '80s or studying art direction in the late '80s. Easier to tap into direct source, and therefore, deep passion, and stories rich with direct experience.

Here's a great little story and dialogue about artifacts, design heroes, ego, craft and Andy Warhol, narrated by Art Chantry, with commentary by Shawn Wolfe, both important figures in design, themselves.

Laffing

2010-03-01T11:20:00.000-08:00

Premise: Video of baby laffing. People laffing watching video of baby laffing. People laffing watching people laffing watching video of baby laffing. Etc.

2/24 Brunch

2010-02-24T21:01:00.000-08:00

We had a nice little celebratory brunch this morning, celebrating five of the applicants for my design assistant position, a lot of great people I worked with in 2009, people I hope to continue working with in 2010, 2010 and all it brings, etc.

It was a very nice time. The youngest attendee was Emmett, seven weeks. The oldest was probably me.

"It seemed as though many of the people I talked to were at a similar stage in life as me; that is striking out on their own for the first time, rolling the dice and believing in their own judgment and talent. It was nice to compare paths, and discuss the challenges."

- Greg Oden's penis
- the Portland Living Building project (sustainability center)
- hand made goods/ local
- the natural step framework
- global economics of buying local and the potential detriment to poorer regions
- renewable energy/ carbon
- cap and trade
- bio mass energy
- conservation: drive your Hummer less
- "turn of the lights when you leave the room" -Dalai Lama
- fat wallet syndrome
- fruitcake: good or bad
- Heather's baby- Lincoln
- soapbox derby crucifixion
- viking pillaging
- black metal yoga
- Joe Sacco at next Think and Drink??

Fun brunch.

I talked to Chris for a while. Mostly, we chatted about the collective consciousness of the creative community around opportunity. We reflected some on the mood of the nation after Obama’s election—it was so positive, so hopeful. Then the recession sort of dashed everyone’s dreams. But now, as we move out of the recession, we both notice that people have used this time to reevaluate their priorities and to create new and exciting opportunities for themselves and others. Cool! I also liked talking with you and Kathleen about New Zealand...it’s crazy to think about how they've repaired some of the icky historical stuff and have even used that to forge healthier race relations.

Thanks so much for a super morning!

Sweetheart FAIL

2010-02-12T15:09:00.000-08:00

I'm glad Sweethearts has their website and Twitter and iPhone app (?) working, but I am missing the Quality Control. The whole bag's like this. Huh?

This is nice, isn't it.

2010-02-08T09:34:00.000-08:00

Using story to show their features. The music is nice. Not sure why they bought media on the Superbowl(tm) though? Maybe that's the only audience in America that's not already using Google.

Dude

2010-02-04T22:54:00.000-08:00

Astronaut tweets and shares pictures in real time from space.

Too much.

2/11/10 Update: Had to add these photos of Pico de Orizaba in Mexico, and the Space Shuttle right before it docked to the ISS. Incredible.

Holy cow that comment gets its own post.

2010-02-04T22:12:00.000-08:00

Had to share this graphic passed along via a comment on another post. I love maps and statistical graphics because they are so helpful in understanding complex information.

I learned so much about the US budget so quickly with this, especially when you toggle back and forth between 2010 and 2011, and when you hide mandatory spending. Trying to grasp this from an Excel sheet would've cramped my brain. Visual learning is the best.

Maps. Aaron didn't even know I loved them when he submitted this resumé...!

Ted Topolewski was right

2010-02-02T12:19:00.000-08:00

Ted thought I'd enjoy these photos of a model-maker/photographer's recreation of his childhood hometown. He was so right. Incredible.

Go to the flickr set to see more and read about how Michael Paul Smith creates these images, but here's a peek at his method.
Aaron and I have been talking about artisan-made things lately. Things made with love, care, attention to detail, generosity.

Postscript: Aaron just showed me this, posted today. Life is Tupacian, as Lew and Flan would say.

More 2010

2010-01-25T21:44:00.000-08:00

From a new website my friend Colin worked on. He works at Red Hat.

What problems can we solve? How would it affect the way we learn? Work? Run our governments?

We want to shine a light on the places where the open source way is multiplying ideas and effort, even beyond technology. We believe that opensource.com will be a gathering place for many of the open source stories we'd like to share--through articles, audio, web presentations, video, or open discussion.

Introducing Aaron Rayburn

2010-01-25T11:39:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day for Mr. Aaron Rayburn, the talented, thoughtful and interesting young man who is now working with me as a designer, writer, maker, thinker and doer.

It is difficult to express how lucky and grateful I am to have met Aaron, which happened in a round about way through Kate at PSU via Chloe at Reading Frenzy, with a little of Jason Sturgill and Kathleen Holt thrown in.

I'm still going through a small group of the applications. In addition to the actual applications, there's an endless amount of internet stuff for just about every person who applied - online work samples, blogs, interviews, videos - so I end up getting a rich introduction, perhaps a more nuanced idea of who a person is and what inspires them. It's taking time and I'm really enjoying it. That's how I found these words from Frank Chimero.

Almost done. This afternoon, I'll invite the four or five finalists to an event I'm hosting in my studio. I look forward to meeting these talented people and perhaps working with them one day. I'll also be inviting some clients and other people I've collaborated with this year. Making way for and pre-celebrating whatever 2010 holds.

Razor and Blade

2010-01-22T10:02:00.000-08:00

Great photo shoot this week with Chris Hornbecker. He shot some more portraits for IDRI. It's a great atmosphere shooting with him and his assistant, Caleb. They were playing '80s music off Caleb's ipod, and the people we were photographing were loving it, and that got us talking about how awesome the '80s were, so wrong and awesome, and just cracking up about how amazing the music and fashion and politics and style and philosophies were.

So while I was gone during the lunchbreak, Chris and Caleb took these shots of each other as "RAZOR and BLADE: This electro-pop duo/time traveling crime fighting team travel back to the '80s to fight crime and end Reaganomics."

Keep on the sunny side

2010-01-18T21:10:00.001-08:00

Burning the boring stuff

2010-01-18T12:32:00.000-08:00

One design assistant applicant sent two sealed letters, "The boring stuff" and "The interesting stuff," with instructions to read one and burn the other without opening.

"The interesting stuff," now opened, is one of a dozen or so applications left on my table. I'll be cutting that number in half and contacting those people shortly, and everyone else soon thereafter.

I'm heading to Seattle for a client meeting tomorrow, back in a couple of days. I'm going to go over everything one more time to make sure I didn't miss anything/anyone. Thanks for your patience and generosity and the privilege of looking at your work.

Jelly

Well that's cool.

2010-01-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

Some people have been coming by to drop off applications. Most just hand them over and split. A dude named Lloyd just came by and as he handed me his envelope, he said, "I'm glad you found someone awesome for the position." It stopped me for a second and I said, "Thanks, that's nice of you to say." And he said, "I read your blawg, and the design assistant thing didn't sound right for me, but when you said you had found someone and now were looking for people for collaborations, I got interested. I'm all about collaboration."

Search/update

2010-01-11T09:57:00.000-08:00

Recruiting update. Applications continue to roll in for the design job. With a week to go, I've received way more than I expected.

One application stood head and shoulders above the others, and I met the applicant last week, and hired him the next day.

I'm going to continue to review applications, and host something fun for 6 or so people whom I'd like to meet and possibly collaborate with someday. So if you haven't gotten your application in, or even if you have, that's the new prize. I'll contact those people next week.

Thanks again to everyone who helped me in this process, and particularly to everyone who put so much into their application. This search has been enriching, and it continues to unfold.

Jelly

Design assistant search: update

2009-12-23T22:27:00.000-08:00

I've walked around town and put postcards in dozens of places: coffee shops, galleries, the IPRC, independent bookstores. So many coffee shops. Sometimes I drop by Ace and stamp the shared newspapers. Jeff at Half & Half let me stamp a few dozen of their muffin envelopes.

I contacted top design teachers at PNCA, Art Institute, University of Oregon, OSU, PSU and the Oregon College of Art and Craft. I've placed notices on the campuses as well. I spread the digital word and got multiple thousand of deliveries (in theory, at least) via facebook, Twitter, blawgs, etc. Posted on Craigslist. I made tiny slips of the same info and tipped them into interesting design magazines in bookstores. I'm working really hard to find you.

With two weeks to go, I've received 89 applications by email and several more in person. I'm surprised, because a lot of creative people take until the last minute to get their work done.

I've met some super interesting people, potential collaborators if not all potential design assistants. I'll meet with 6 or so folks based on what I receive by January 15.

I'm so excited. Here's to 2010. Here's to growth.

Client update: Oregon Humanities

2009-12-21T16:00:00.000-08:00

This fall I finished up my work for Oregon Humanities, all except for one little piece I was particularly excited about, a neon sign. It arrived last week.

Anybody west of SW Ninth & Alder with a view of downtown Portland, take a look up in the late afternoon. These dark days are good for viewing.

The sign was made by Keith and Robert at Habromania, two more Portland artisans/craftsmen I am happy to know about and work with. Serifa 45 Light has never looked so tasty. I believe Adrian Frutiger would be pleased.

Here, some of the women of Oregon Humanities take a first look.

This was the cherry on a real ice cream sundae of a project. Thanks Cara, Kathleen, Jennifer, Laura, Raina, and everyone at Oregon Humanities. They're doing good and important work for the city and for Oregon. And they're fun to work with.

Design assistants: What to expect, pt. 3

2009-12-19T13:23:00.000-08:00

I'll close this Words From Past Design Assistants feature with Stuart Jennings, who assisted me at Adcenter before joining W+K/NY as an art director. Besides being hilarious and super pro in his work, Stuart impressed me with his story of spending three hours on the phone with the Apple customer support woman until she agreed to send him a free laptop. He talked with her the entire drive from Richmond to DC. Determined.

Name: Stuart Jennings

When worked with Jelly: 2002-2003

Current job: Creative Director/ Wieden and Kennedy New York

What the experience of working with Jelly was like:
Jelly was one of the few mentors I've ever had in my life. I know that sounds cheesy but as I get older I realize that there are fewer and fewer people who are willing to spend their precious time helping someone else learn something. He was very direct and honest and had good taste. That's the most you can hope for from a boss, or a mentor in this business.

Client update: Imperial Woodpecker

2009-12-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

The branding/identity began with the name: IMPERIAL WOODPECKER, regal and ridiculous, perfect for a film production company that embraces the tension of making "Finest Television Commercials."

With the logo and look, I tried to evoke an enduring 19th century brand, steeped in history and mystery. (Much like the bird itself: Extinct or not? Who knows. Last siting was in 1954.)

Stacy and Doug breathed life into the brand themselves, not only by delivering a good product - they truly make fine television commercials - but through a series of artful, inspired and ridiculous decisions, like ordering artisan, hand-made-in-Great Britain apple crates for their company, sponsoring the Japanese National Cricket Team, and, working with photographer Corey Walter, taking formal, period portraits of each client/agency at the conclusion of every job.

(The above agency is DDB Chicago, and the tuba player happens to be Chris Carraway, an art direction student from Adcenter days.)

As a year-end gift to each agency they worked with, IMPERIAL WOODPECKER had me design a artist's folio case holding all of the prints. I was so excited to get this assignment, to have anything to do with this incredibly well-executed idea.

To begin, Riswold introduced me to Phil at Cirrus Digital, and Phil printed gorgeous epson prints on an all-cotton museum rag in two different sizes: 16 x 20" for the agencies, and mammoth 22 x 28" prints for the photographer and the Imperial Woodpecker offices. To my eye, they look like hand-dipped vintage photo prints. The colors and detail and feel of the paper are incredible.

After getting the prints made, I worked with Pam and Carol and JoAnn over at Grossenbacher Bros. to create cases.

Grossenbacher is a craft/art/design person's dream workshop. It's a huge warehouse full of vintage and scary punching and glueing and pressing and cutting and binding machines. They can make anything and their level of craft is superb.

I brought my kids along with me one morning and they were blown away by the place. One of them also noticed this sign.

For the smaller box, I wanted something that felt '30s-era, with humble and earthy materials. We found a remnant roll of cloth in the back of Grossenbacher's that looked great and took the brown emboss really well. Actually, really not well, and it bothered Pam a little to deliver it this way, but it was just what I wanted.

Here's JoAnn working on the larger box and you can get a sense for its scale.

It's styled liked something super luxury from the '20s, flat black cloth with gold emboss, a one-inch wide plum ribbon attached to the box bottom to help lift out the prints, the top lined in ivory moire satin. It's so pretty I want to eat it.

Design assistant candidates: there will be a bunch of fun stuff like this to work on in 2010.

Design assistants: What you're in for, pt. 2

2009-12-15T08:58:00.000-08:00

Next up is Tracey Morgan, art director turned copywriter turned mom, whose facebook bio reads:
I hate iceberg lettuce, Ellen, visible butt holes on animals, people who back into parking spaces, when you think you're getting a chocolate chip cookie and it turns out to be raisins, cream cheese in the bagel hole and pick-a-size paper towels!!

Name:
Tracey Morgan

When worked with Jelly:
September 2000 thru May 2001 as a graduate assistant.

Current job:
I’m an unemployed copywriter and stay-at-home mom to my 4-month-old son. Despite always being very career oriented, I consider raising my son the most important (fun, rewarding, amazing) job I’ve ever had. I credit this, in part, to two things Jelly impressed upon me: ‘life is short’ (we share a mutual love of walking around cemeteries) and ‘if you’re going to do something, do it well’ (whether you’re sweeping a floor, kerning type or in my case: nurturing a life).

What the experience of working with Jelly was like:
Jelly has always made me pretty nervous. I think part of the reason for this is that I’ve never been a very confident art director or designer (or even copywriter). Despite (probably) realizing my lack of confidence, Jelly always had every confidence in me. This is powerfully motivating. He would have never yelled at me if I did a bad job, he’d only be quietly disappointed. Even though I’ve never had a problem doing my best, I tried harder, dug deeper and even pulled all-nighters on assignments he gave me. I learned a lot from Jelly and think of him often. He has an appreciation for life that’s infectious, he’s hilarious (goodness!), and the person who gets to be his design assistant is very lucky.

Design assistant: What you're in for

2009-12-14T14:56:00.000-08:00

As a courtesy to candidates, I asked the seven or eight people who've served as design assistants to me in the past what it's like.

First to reply was Loren Boggs. Here's a photo of her home studio and the two-sided desk she shares with her artist boyfriend.

Name:
Loren

When worked with Jelly:
2005 in WK12 and again 2007-2008 at WK Portland

Current job:
Art Director at WK New York

What the experience of working with Jelly was like:
Working with Jelly is great, he makes what you do feel important no matter how small and fills everything with meaning. He also kicks your ass and makes you surprise yourself.

Client update: Wikipedia

2009-12-14T10:02:00.000-08:00

Started the day with the good news that we are a million dollars ahead of last year in our fundraiser for Wikipedia, despite having started two weeks later. On any given day, we're performing at 300%-500% of last year - amazing.

Much of the success has to be associated with the continuing rise in the passion that people around the world feel towards Wikipedia. People love Wikipedia, they rely on it, and they feel good about giving them money. I sure do.

I also feel good about the work we've created, particularly the donation page, and the way we've tapped into that passion and made it visible.

A few skinned knees along the way, but I've learned as much on this as on any project. A fantastic experience. Learned from mistakes, adapted and adjusted as a team. Feeling good that we're seeing results.

But we're still only halfway to our goal. Help!

Ooh! Ooh! Barack! Pick me!

2009-12-11T14:52:00.000-08:00

I went to go see Aaron Draplin at the AIGA designspeak event last night. What a generous, exhuberant guy. I hope I get to work with him sometime.

Anyway, he says he got a job doing some creative work for the White House - the logo/visual identity for the stimulus package, and a Dept. of Transportation project. He got the jobs because they read in his blog about how much he loved Obama.

Longtime blawg readers know, I am not shy about my Obama love.

Analytics tells me I have a handful of readers in DC, so just in case, let me be explicit. I want to work with you, Barack. I'll make time.

What would I do? We'll have to talk about that a little bit. I'm a storyteller, and the world and the country is hungry for a story right now, a uniting story. I think it's the one you are telling. I could help you tell it, I think.

I have another idea cooking that I think you will like, too. Email me@jellyhelm.com.

[If you're here for the design assistant position, please see next post.]