Now You See It

For many of us, the biggest problem with ideas is that they're hard to see. They float around in an abstract environment of words and meanings. And we can certainly use them to construct elegant castles-in-the-air. But ideas also lend themselves to confusion, uncertainty and misinterpretation. So how to make an idea concrete? How to visualize its impact and outcomes?

I'd like to point you to an elegant example, recommended by my colleague Bob Burnett. A video from the British design and architectural marketing firm Squint/Opera and their Stonehenge project. You'll find it a little later in this post.

Their design approach is simple and elegant. Without commentary or narration, they use fast-motion images and text to clearly portray the issues. And the video creates a visual vocabulary to show the present day approach to this national treasure as tatty, unseemly and poorly conceived. Stonehenge definitely needs an intervention.

So what will that be? The imagined solution uses a combination of images and computer animation to illustrate the future. Here's a better-designed ambience for Stonehenge, with a sense of "before" and "after" deftly realized. The music track walks you through the visual journey with crisp, easy steps.  Its bell-like qualities heralding a new age for the ancient monument.  Well-imagined and executed.  If the Stonehedge video doesn't play, you can find it here.

I've looked at other videos on their site and have to admit that I dislike all of them. Where the Stonehedge video is an understated delight, the others are over-the-top, annoying and much too self-important. I guess the knack for visual poetry is doled out more in tablespoons than teacups.  

But to end on a more upbeat note, I did like the design ideas they had for The Doodle Bar. For this funky tavern, their hipster artiness makes its mark.

Tactical Urbanism is Popping Up Everywhere

Call it "activated spaces," "tactical urbanism" or "pop ups," there's something afoot in the mashup of urban neglect, a sagging economy, digital tech, and burgeoning entrepreneurism.  And it's cropping up in Dayton, Atlanta, San Francisco, Fort Worth and anywhere you can imagine an instant art/food/shopping/play/fun experience.

New York

Fort Worth

Detroit

What is it?  It's a down and dirty way to re-imagine the urban landscape by inserting instant gardens, art, shops, food, music and anything else that can be plunked, dug, hoisted,or inserted into the empty lots, abandoned buildings and decaying streets of our cities.  Or you can think of it as a flash-mob-inspired taking-it-to-the-streets effort at revitalizing neighborhoods. It could be anything.  Even libraries, big

New York

and small

New York

Here's a blog devoted just to them.  And then there's chair bombing  

DoTank gets ready to chair bomb the neighborhood

And the results

You'll find a cool video and explanation of chair bombing from the DoTank site.

And, just for fun, here's a link to a stepping video performed on the Highline, one of the great city-sponsored new urbanism projects.

If you think about social media like Facebook and how it created a virtual community, this urban guerilla art/design/living movement is bringing that new sense of connection to the streets. I find all of it inspired. Creative. And of the moment. It certainly is fun. And it does compel us to see where and how we live with each other with new eyes. And a new sense of the possible.
  

Window on the Soul: The Portraits of Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey was hoping to be a jazz drummer when he went to see "Harlem on my Mind" and was struck by the images of everyday people displayed on the museum walls.  As a 16-year-old he'd just received a camera and was inspired to do his own street photography in Harlem.  That collection of work, exhibited in 1979 as "Harlem, USA," was the beginning of an impressive career exploring the photographic portrait.  A retrospective of "Harlem, USA" is now at the The Art Institute of Chicago. This image "Man in a Bowler Hat" was taken at that time.  

A Man in a Bowler Hat, 1976

Notice the man's open, friendly and curious expression and how the gesture of his hand at the bottom of the image adds a sense of relaxed  elegance.  Those elements give voice to the subjects' personality and character and are a hallmark of a Dawoud Bey photograph.

The image below, taken a few years later, has all the elements of his recent color work:  The girl is posed, as are all his subjects, but natural and relaxed.

A Girl in a Deli Doorway, 1988

But unlike street photographers who try to capture an unguarded moment, Bey wants his subjects to participate in the photograph.  "A Girl in a Deli Doorway" is at once simple and complex.  She offers a wistful curiosity tempered by uncertainty.  And while she appears open and engaged, she's also holding back, and partially hidden with her hand closed. Look at the background and framing.  It's very dynamic, with strong angles that take you into the background and the hard vertical of the wall that brings you back to the girl.

Just capturing a person's essence with your lens is difficult enough.  And working with teenagers?  Well, once again Bey has a deft touch.  Here are some portraits of high school students from his exhibit, Class Pictures.

This work led to a position as artist-in-residence with Emory 

University.  Part of his time there was spent in portraying the University's commitment to diversity, called it The Emory Project.  And to make his point, he posed unlikely couples such as the ones below.

Kali Ahset-Amen, Sociology Grad Student and Geshe Ngawang Phende, Buddist Monk

Paula Biegelsen, Student and Shirley Simms, Custodian

Here's a link to a video showing Bey working on the Emory Project.  And here's a link to Bey's website, which has lots of images of his other work.  In all, you can see a real celebration of everyday people.  And a deep respect for honoring their place in the world.  

Dauwoud Bey

I like seeing the world though his eyes and meeting the people who inhabit it.  It reminds me of how much we have in common with each other.  And about those sometimes subtle qualities that we all share on our journey though our days.   

On a Clear Day You Can See the Desert

Jana Richmond

I recently came across an excellent essay "A Desert Beyond Fear" by author Jana Richmond on the NYT Opinionator blog.  There you'll find an edited version of a post from her own blog which talks about how anxiety challenges her creative life and sense of well-being. Jana is a powerful writer and her piece is full of insight into the tortured landscape we call anxiety.

Mikki Sommer for the NYT

Some level of anxiety is a great motivator, of course.  And it's certainly moved me to face challenges that I might otherwise have sidestepped.  But I also know it can channel your vision of the world and its' possibilities onto a twisted, rocky terrain.  And send you stumbling down the path to its' dark cousin, depression.  

But as she writes in her essay, Jana has found some degree of solace and perspective in the stark vistas of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, which she now calls her back yard.  

Drawn by the desert's healing power, Jana and her husband left the city to change their lives, trading a bi-weekly paycheck "for joy in the form of writing time."  They moved to Escalante, a town that borders views like the one in this photograph I found on her blog.

I highly recommend her essay, it's eloquent, insightful and it will make you smile.  Here's a link to the original "A Desert Beyond Fear."