OK. So it looks like I may have jumped in too deep on this one. Just reread the assignment and remembered the class conversation from last week…

This assignment is more about facing fears that stand in between me and my professional or personal growth and the fear of going blind may be a bit heavy for that request. So I’m going to do a bit more thinking about this.

Right now I know that one of the greatest fears I have is just letting myself go in design. I am a planner and a strategist and I like to know what direction I’m going in before I go there. Design for me has been tough in the sense of just sometimes letting the work come straight from my soul and not my brain. That includes issues with sketching, being illustrative in my work (which i’m deathly afraid of) and taking more chances with things like color, pattern and materials. And this is something that I definitely need to tackle going forward because it literally paralyzes me when doing work and I often find myself overthinking solutions that I know I’ll be more comfortable with instead of taking chances and trusting whatever will happen.

So in terms of dealing with this, there are three things I’m thinking of:

(1) an old classmate of mine used to go to an art night on monday nights here in atlanta where they would just draw whatever was featured that night. Very random, very on the spot and a definite challenge for me.

(2) another classmate, ivy, an illustrator, told me last night that she is taking a class where they do air painting, basically painting whatever is out there in nature… another challenge I could take on…

(3) this one is kind of interesting and really more of a personal challenge… I took an illustration class for designers with lindy three quarters ago at PC, and in it I found myself actually behind in my work, mainly because most of the time I was scared to do it. And while the total class wasn’t a bust and I did do some fun work, I decided not to even show my pieces at critique. But what was even more interesting was that she presented a challenge to two students each week to use a 5ft. long piece of kraft paper and create your own masterpiece with whatever you wanted. She posed this challenge to all but two of us in the class. And while I was deathly scared that she would pose that challenge to me at some point, I was even more taken aback that she never even asked me to do it. What it indicated to me was that either she didn’t trust me to take the challenge and come through or that she really didn’t believe that I had anything interesting to put down on paper and artistically express from my soul. And in reality, I think that shot my confidence down even more. It took me back to feeling inadequate in my art classes and the feeling I’ve had all along at PC, that I am not truly an artist. So for me this is way more personal. It’s almost like I have to prove to myself that I really have something interesting to express or that I am worthy to say I am a designer. And while most people see illustration more as a fine art and not necessarily a qualifier for design work, I see it as something that I need to face in order to move on from being so insecure and procrastinating when it comes time to sketching or drawing or even exploring more interesting visual solutions in my work. It’s time for me to trust the inner artist that I have and let her OUT!

So… I think that will be my challenge… And even in thinking about it, it scares me to death again! AAAARGH! something about putting things on paper without any planning and having someone JUDGE your work or even decide if it means anything is so terrifying to me! Let’s just say I know there will be a blank piece of paper on my floor for a couple of days at least… But now that I think about it, it would be good also to just take pictures everyday of that paper, even when it’s blank. I want to see my procrastination and my progress and just trust the process. wow, this will be interesting. I’ll start tonight.

mmm project #3 – facing your fear

Our next project for class is to do something to face our fears. This is a pretty interesting challenge for me because as I’ve been listing my fears on my desktop Stickies, they all seem pretty superficial… gaining more weight, having a job I don’t like, possibly never having kids, dating again… blah blah blah. But one fear in particular is something I don’t even want to put on my list or give any energy to… going blind. I know it sounds weird, but I have secretly had this fear of going blind since I was little… I don’t even think I’ve told my mother about it. It started when I was watching some show I wasn’t supposed to be watching and this premonition came to me that I would be blind one day because of my naughtiness. Soon it became something that would ring in my head all the time and I couldn’t seem to shake it. What made it even worse was a conversation with my father in which he told me that one of my aunt’s had a condition that made her blind… or at least I think that’s what he said :/

Either way, it’s been a thorn in my side for years. And while I’m sure most of us would rather not be blind, I still wonder what it is about being blind that I find so fascinating and so scary at the same time. Is it the loss of control? Is it feeling like people would pity me or take advantage of me? Is it the idea that I won’t be able to “see” the world anymore as I used to? What I find even more interesting is the idea that my potential “blindness” may not even be anything physical, but rather spiritual. As humans we get caught up so many times worrying about superficial things that may happen to us that we forget to pay attention to our spirit or our soul and in the end, that is the most important element of life that we have. But I digress… The point is I haven’t really been able to pin down what the source of my fear is and hopefully this experience will help me to understand what is really going on better.

But even as I am planning on confronting this, I still worry to a certain extent about even giving it any energy. I am the type of person who feels that giving negative things or thoughts in your mind energy will soon lead you in that direction and truthfully I still don’t want to go there. But I will go ahead and face this for the project and maybe I’ll learn something more about myself. My plan right now is to sign up for the Dialog in the Dark exhibit in Atlanta. I was going to go through having someone take me around town all day blindfolded and video it, but really my time is so tight right now that it’s just not worth the production time. So this is a simple way to face my fear and really talk about it for the first time. I’m a little apprehensive about it, but excited too, so we’ll see what happens!

mmm production #2… making a cake of our ambitions.

So I have to say at first, I was a little not excited about this assignment. I heard about it plenty of times from my friends at school who had taken the class before, but I was kind of stumped on how my “cake” would really be different. Maybe I would just add interesting ingredients to make it stand out and put a good story behind it. Maybe I would make it in the shape of something… a paycheck maybe? How about cupcakes… different kinds? While all of those sounded interesting, I decided to take a leap and get away from the “conventional” cake idea and try something even more different… pancakes.

Well it made sense. Pancakes were technically “cakes” and since my ambition in the future is to work as more of a strategist in design, it made sense to produce something with “layers.” One of the things that I find fascinating about strategy is the art of problem solving… breaking something down to build it back up in a new and fresh way. And pancakes for me represented all of the layers that you have to peel away to really get to the heart of the issue. They also represent the initial interaction with a problem, much like when you order a big stack of pancakes. Your first notion is to take a knife and try to cut into it, but you soon realize that this is getting you no where. It’s easier sometimes to just eat away at the stack layer by layer so you can fully enjoy the experience.

So anyway, once I decided on that, then I found myself “strategizing” on how to actually “design” the stack. What would my ingredients be? How would it look? What kind of statement could I make? These questions led me to my next ambition, which is still sort of a challenge for me… experimentation. I knew before this experience that I am a pretty methodical person, even when it comes to design. I often want to let go and just let myself be artistic and free, but too often I find myself planning most of my projects down to the wire before I feel free enough to even produce. And to a certain extent, I did that with this project as well. While I allowed myself to be experimental when cooking the pancakes, I planned out what food colors I would get, what fun ingredients to put into it and what pancake mixed to use. And I knew that I wanted the more colorful and crazy pancakes at the bottom because even as a reflection of me, the top of the pancakes, or what you see, is sometimes kind of bland and predictable, but what is on the bottom after you take the layers off, is way more crazy and fun. I’m still trying to access that crazy crazy side of me in my design. I know it’s there because it comes out in my personality at times, but I still haven’t allowed myself to break free in my work.

Anyway, I would have to say that making the crazy cakes was the best part of this whole deal. I just went for whatever and made a mess and it was glorious. Two hours before class, I was balancing two skillets of pancakes and throwing whatever I wanted into the mix. It was liberating I have to say and it made me want to feel that even more. So that is of course a goal of mine. Maybe it’s something I do just randomly in cooking or another activity, but I think I need more exercises of letting myself go and being creative.

So class was good too. I really did enjoy watching what other cakes people made and how they tied it to their lives and their ambitions. I think for the most part, everyone had a cake that really fit their personality and that was good to see. My presentation seemed to go over pretty well too although I was reminded that I may try to do another presentation style than my usual “off the cuff” speech. That’s been my most effective lately because I kind of know my stories now and it’s easy for me to communicate what I’m trying to get across just kind of on call. I have tried other presentation styles, like that of holding big cards with words on them and pacing the audience through the story, and that went over well too. But I do agree that it’s time for me to explore with different presentation styles in the future as well, so that will be my personal challenge for the next project.

Here are the pics from my fabulous pancake journey

One last note. Something that kind of troubled me last night. We had a presentation from the Director of Strategy at Turner Networks, Nicole Jones who is a friend of mmm’s and gave a great presentation. But it was something mmm said at the latter part of class regarding Nicole’s position being that of a more corporate type and immediately that hit home to me. Something that I have struggled with in the thought of doing Strategy work is the idea of being stuck in a corporate setting again. While I am sure Turner is a great company to work for, and I can tell Nicole LOVES her job, one of the reasons I left corporate America is that I didn’t feel free. These past two years, while definitely being a challenge, have also allowed me to be liberated in my thinking and in my work. It’s the same experience I had in high school even though that was geared toward math & science.

But as I go on my next journey of finding a job, I think aside from just hoping that I even get a job, is the challenge of finding something that will really suit me and allow me to have great and fulfilling challenges along the way. I know that is really important to me in my life now and it’s the greatest ambition I have. I want to LOVE LOVE LOVE what I do. I want to get up and be excited about the challenges ahead. And I probably should not discount all corporations, all of them are not the same, and I’m sure the more creative ones have more fulfilling work, but the biggest fear is that of being extremely unhappy and unfulfilled again. Feeling that what I am doing really doesn’t count and that no one really gives a shit about it. That is not why I took two years out of my life and got thousands of dollars worth of loans to feel that way again. 

ok enough ranting… I know things are going to be ok. plus I’m late for seminar

since I last posted an entry on this blog. Somehow I knew that I would get out of the habit as I always have when keeping a journal about my life and experiences. I always start out so excited, talking about anything and everything… and before I know it, I just lose interest…

But now I’m back! At least for the next three months . It is my last quarter at Portfolio Center and I finally have the opportunity to take the infamous “Cross Cultural Innovations” class with Melissa, otherwise known as “mmm.” LOL! I need a quick and funky name like that! Maybe “LLCoolG” or just plain “Lynn” will work for now

So anyway, for this class, we are given challenges every week that work to take us out of our comfort zone and help us to develop our observation, communication and presentation skills. We also have to blog about these experiences every week. So challenge #1 for me… actually allowing myself to get out of my comfort zone #2, finding time during grad quarter to let myself loose, and #3, actually taking the time to blog about it!!! Yes the challenge is ON! Now let’s see if I’m actually up for it.

Assignment #1 (actually #2 since I missed the first class): “Material Expression”

Challenge: Pair up with another student in the class, spend time with them to “observe” them in an everyday setting, and then create a material expression of who they are from an object picked out of a box of “fun.” The other part is to create a piece of jewelry that is a material expression of myself.

So I’m not going to lie… I think I already failed at the first part of this challenge. Ok, not completely, but it’s close. Anyway, I was paired up with a very nice 2nd qtr guy named Grant who is really cool and down to Earth. We met after class to talk about a time to meet and already I started running down my mental schedule book. I already knew this was going to be tough with it being my grad qtr and not having too much extra time, but I also was in the middle of a pretty intense project that was due in two days and that was going to take out more time for sure. But we decided to go ahead and try for Friday morning… breakfast at R. Thomas, and we would just wing the rest of the day. Perfect! By then I would be finished with my project work for sure and ready to chill with my partner!

Well Thursday afternoon pulled around and the project was going slow as ever which meant that Friday morning would be no good. So I texted Grant my dilemma and after a few texts back and forth, we settled on 4PM at R. Thomas. Well, as is usually the case with me, plans changed one more time. The project ended up keeping me up all night, so I needed a minute to breathe after the presentation. Let’s see… how about 6PM at R. Thomas, graduation and then we could hang at the 1st Qtr. party? Deal.

Friday night. 5:45PM. Why was I already feeling weird like this was some type of blind date? I mean Grant is cute, but that wasn’t the deal here, this was for class and we just needed to get to know each other better… simple! But for some reason I was slightly nervous. I didn’t want our time together to be filled with forced, awkward conversation… I don’t do well with that, in fact I usually avoid those situations. But there was no time to worry about that, it was 6PM and I was already late.

So I trotted into R. Thomas, 5 minutes fashionably late as usual and he was already there. The first thing I noticed was the Pabst beer on the table. Hmm… was he drinking to calm his nerves or was this his regular routine? I wasn’t going to ask, but I made a mental note of it anyway. So we finally greeted each other and I sat down to order to coffee and calm MY own nerves. I had also, for some reason, found it necessary to bring my notebook and pen in with me to write notes while we talked, but I immediately put them away because that would be way too awkward. Plus since he was just chillin in the cut, I didn’t want to look anal by trying to write down every little thing he said! Maybe if I had read the handout mmm had given us before this meeting I would have known to just write notes later, oh well

So I won’t go into our whole conversation because that would take all day, plus I don’t remember everything But I have to say that I was pretty enlightened about him during our talk. Honestly, my first impression of him was that he was this California, free spirit, surfer type… maybe it’s the hair. But he’s from Georgia and seems to have a less adventurous life than I expected. Granted his family has a lake house and his dad is a Radiologist, so I’m assuming he has been chilling a bit most of his life, but it wasn’t what I expected in his story. The other thing I found interesting about our time together was how we mostly just treaded the surface in our conversation. While I didn’t expect us to go all the way deep into each other’s psyche, I could tell that there were some questions I asked him that made his body language change a bit… almost as if he had to figure out how to answer. It was nothing drastic, but I noticed it a few times. I also noticed that he never asked me any personal questions, not even anything about my family. Not sure if he was trying not to probe too deep or if it never even crossed his mind, but I think I expected a bit more especially with the questions I asked him regarding his life and family. What he did seem to focus on was school… my experiences and even advice for him going forward. Interesting…

So after our time together, we went off to graduation together which I have to say he was a trooper for. I knew he had to help with the planning of the 1st Qtr. party, but he hung with me anyway. And it was fun… all of the 30 minutes of it. I had informed Grant earlier that graduation was NOT a long event and that he would surely be out of there on time and of course I was right . So after graduation, he went off to print directions for both of us for the party and the plan was for me to meet him there around 10PM when I was done hanging with my people celebrating graduation. Well long story short, I never made it to the party. I had every intention of going and I kept telling my crew that I had to be out by 10PM to go “observe” my partner. Well I made it out at 10, but decided to take a short detour to another friend’s house just to say hi. Needless to say, it was the wrong time to go since it turned out that she was in real need of a friend to vent to. So she vented, we talked, and the hours went by. Before I knew it, it was 1AM and I was WHIPPED!!! that’s what being over 30 does to you these days I guess So I went home and planned on texting Grant the next morning to see how we could hook up before Tuesday.

So Saturday came and we texted back and forth in the afternoon. I told him over dinner Friday that I was a bowler, nearly professional, so he wanted to get me out on the lanes and “observe” what I could do. And while that sounded like a great proposition, there was only one problem, I had no equipment. It was stolen a couple of months ago and while I told him that maybe we could do that on Monday, I knew it wouldn’t happen. The truth is that I am WAY too particular about my bowling and I don’t bowl without my equipment. So in the meantime, I tried to psyche myself into thinking it would be ok, but I just never was settled with the idea. But I didn’t even need to tell him that because this morning came and I found myself still behind with my work. great. So I texted him again this morning… “no go for this afternoon.” He just wrote back, “maybe later, just tell me when.” I feel so bad!!

So now I am writing this blog and still need to do my representation of him tonight with 50 bamboo sticks… hmm. I have an idea in my head of what I want to do, actually it’s more of an activity to do with the sticks to talk about him, but we’ll see how that flies. I just hate that I didn’t have more time. This weekend was bad for me, but I really feel bad about the missed opportunity if the 1st Qtr. party. That would have been a perfect time for me to catch him in his element, with his friends and close classmates. And I wonder if the venting situation with my friend was really necessary to stay around for. I mean it was, but I also wonder if I used it as a cover so I could remain in my comfort zone for the night. I don’t know… 

But I will do my best to represent Mr. Grant tomorrow (still don’t know his last name) and then I still need to make jewelry that represents me. Man, I don’t even know what that’s going to look like. Sometimes, I think I’m still trying to figure me out. 

Anyway, that is all for this session. Looking forward to some more therapeutic writing in the future

‘Flipthrough’ of Marion Bataille’s mock-up of her upcoming book, ABC3D

playing around with a personal logo for myself… just b&w for now… color to come later

comments?

for all my IMSA people

so I was gonna lie about my weigh in today cuz truth be told I woulda been thrown off of Celebrity Fit Club AND Biggest Loser by now!!!! ok, it’s not that bad but I didn’t realize gettin this weight off would be this hard especially with me working as hard as I have to move this along!

ok, ok here are the numbers:
weight: 189.2lbs (no change)
body fat%: 36.8% (-1.4%)
water weight%: 45.8% (+.8%)

so let’s see… looks like my body fat percentage is going down which is good! that means I’m at least gettin some lean muscle in there to help with the process.. NOW we just need the weight to make its move. damn this being a woman thing! i feel like that woman in the commercial talkin about how her and her husband were dieting and HE lost all the weight! i swear women have to work 10 times harder to get this junk off! … maybe i should take up smoking until i get to my goal…. hmm…. nah

anyhoo, looks like I just have to keep pluggin away, can’t give up now! i wish i could afford to do a weight watchers or something now, but i’m just gonna have to do my own plan for now and let it work in its own time… FUN! guess i won’t be on any commercials talkin about, “i lost 100 lbs in ONE DAY!” eergh

so i admit i knew absolutely NOTHING about mr. chip kidd before i came to school here, and now i’m sad that i was so lost for so many years! no really, i had the great opportunity to see mr. kidd speak tonight at SCAD and he was absolutely amazing! funny, witty, crazy, cynical, real, and apparently a complete whore according to him

but as expected, his work was amazing, and what i especially thought was clever was for him to show us which ideas got totally trashed and why. some were really good and some were …yeah…not that grrrt.

but the best part of the night was a New York Times crossword challenge he gave us. according to him, as designers, there are two things we need to learn to do: (1) learn to write, and (2) learn to do NYT crossword puzzles… it’s all about understanding words and language and learning how to interpret and communicate that language in different ways.

So at the beginning of his speech, he gave us the following clues to see if we could figure out the puzzle. Here it is, see if you can solve it too:

10-letter word.
Number of people.
A _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ A

Let me know what you think it is. I think you’ll be amazed! Either that, or you’ll make me feel really stupid

In the meantime, check out his website too: chip kidd