Sketches from Venice 2002

While cleaning out the home office for a re-do, I found some sketches in an old book made during a trip to Italy in 2002. I almost threw away the book, but decided to flip through it before I did. It seems to me that a sketch journal holds more memories, value, and detail about places and things than photos do.

View from our apartment in Venice.

A color sketch of one of the docked gondolas

Another solitary gondola

The boat dock near the entrance to the apartment where we spent the week.

I think it’s about time for another trip to Italy.

More Chaos – Salt Lake Ignite 2011

I’m working through my slide deck for Salt Lake Ignite #8. I did this a few years ago, and it was great fun being able to share some ideas.

This year’s theme for me is “More Chaos” – everyone is always trying to organize and make everything more efficient. I’d just like to propose that what we all really need is a bit more chaos. Come see the show, you’ll love the variety of presentations, have a good time, and get to see me talk about stupid crap on stage.

The details

Ignite Salt Lake
Wed, August 31st
Doors open at 7
The Stateroom (A 21+ venue)
638 S. State St. SLC, UT
Admission is FREE

Boxes

Walnut and maple box – this one uses a golden spiral as the basis for the design.

Maple box with walnut inlay. Exactly opposite to box first box in every way.

Walnut box with maple inlay tree design.

I’ve been working on several of these over the past few months as part of a new project. I’ll be releasing more details in the coming months.

O.K. Periodicals 6/The Boring Issue

Several months ago I was contacted by Joost van der Steen of O.K. PARKING, a graphic design studio based in Arnhem, the Netherlands. I was asked if I’d be interested in contributing artwork for their upcoming issue of O.K. Periodicals – The Boring Issue. I’m excited and honored to have my poster Life Will Never Become Monotonous featured in the edition.

A full flip-through of the magazine is available below:

O.K. Periodicals 6 / BORING Issue from O.K. Parking on Vimeo.

O.K. Periodicals is described on their web site (www.ok-periodicals.com) as “…pleasantly disruptive, and always curious. Each issue explores a different theme to show inspiring work by established and upcoming creative talent.”

The Inventors

The Inventors is a series of illustrations that I started a few years back to celebrate the world’s greatest inventors and their “children”. The series also presents a warning about the unwieldy effects that technology can have when it is taken to the extremes, adopted, exploited, and morphed by corporate or political greed. It is interesting to me that all of these great inventors saw their inventions grow in the public eye, and expressed disappointment with how their technology ended up being used. Today, we can easily look back and see the incredible benefits and changes that these inventions have brought to society. We can also look back and see some unknown side effects, where the technology has reared its monstrous head.

“Alex, your telephone is a menace.”

The next time you sit down for dinner and the phone rings, get up and throw it out the window. You’ll feel much better about yourself, and you’ll soon realize that 90% of those annoyances were not necessary for you existence.

If you insist on keeping the thing, you must do everything in your power to disconnect it from evil. I’ve heard there’s a way to remove your name from the devil’s list, but I’ve never figured out how to do it.

If you carry one of these monsters around in your pocket, you may soon find yourself enslaved to the device, it now roams free, unchained and waiting for the chance to control you. After you’ve read this, spend a moment and think about how you can defeat the monster. It never stops thinking about how it can defeat you.

“Tommy, would you please turn out the lights?”

It used to be that when it got dark, people would go to bed. When it got light in the morning, people would wake up. That seems pretty natural, and a normal thing to do. If you are anything like me, I can’t remember the last time I went to bed with the sun.

There’s no question the light bulb is an amazing invention, it has changed the world in many ways, both for good and for bad. If you question the bad, take a drive far away from city lights on a clear night, look up towards the heavens and you’ll see what this clever little monster has taken away.

There are probably people living in cities who have never seen the stars in their full glory. To live life disconnected from the night-time heavens would be a travesty of humanity.

“Philo, turn off that damn tv!”

You only have to imagine for a moment, millions of people gathered around a projection device to begin to comprehend this little monsters influence. Images and video of every type and quality constantly occupy the minds of millions.

The television is easily defeated. Modern technology has made it possible to defeat the television by the simple press of a button. I encourage you to defeat yours today. I know you have one, and chances are it is on right this moment.

We need not question the positive aspects which the television has brought us, but it can do no harm to question the negative.

The Lover’s Knot

As many of you know, I have an ongoing fascination with knots, and the symbolism found in the form of the knot. Since it is Valentines Day, it seemed appropriate to post a little history about the symbolism of the knot, and how it relates to human relationships that we are celebrating today.

The knot has been used symbolically to represent human relationships in nearly every culture around the world. The simple idea of the bonding nature of knots—they are most often tied to bind something together—makes them a beautiful symbol to represent the bonding nature of love. It is common today to speak of “Tying the Knot” to refer to marriage or bonding in a relationship.

John Brand acknowledged the tradition in his book “Observations on the popular antiquities of Great Britan.”

A knot among the ancient northern nations seems to have been the symbol of love, faith and friendship, pointing to the indissoluble tie of affection and duty. Thus the ancient Runic inscriptions, as we gather from Hicke’s Thesaurus, are in the form of a knot. Hence among the northern English and Scots, who still retain, in a great measure, the language and manners of the ancient Danes, that curious kind of knot, mutual present between lover and his mistress, which, being considered as the emblem of plighted fidelity, is therefore called a true-love knot: a name which is not derived as one would naturally suppose it to be, from the words “true” and “love”, but formed from the Danish verb “Trulofa, fidem do, I plight my troth, or faith. Thus we read in the Islandic Gospel, the following passage in the first chapter of St. Matthew, which confirms, beyond a doubt, the sense here given—til einrar Meyer er trulofad var einum Manne &c.; i.e to a virgin espoused, that is, who was promised or had engaged herself to a man &c. Hence, evidently, the bride favors or the top-knots at marriages, which have been considered as emblems of the ties to duty and affection between the bride and her spouse have been derived (pp. 108-109)

The symbol of the knot has been used in other contexts—from knots tied in clothing and rings, to intricate drawings printed on cards or engraved in stone—all with the common symbolism of expressing love in a relationship.

A Valentine’s Day gift decoration from 1641 taken from Witt’s Recreation.

A particularly interesting Valentine’s Day tradition during the mid 17th century involved the gifting of expensive presents to loved ones. These gifts were often decorated elaborate, hand painted knots. These knots were single stranded (endless), and had endless lines of words expressing sentiments of love.

Today, it might be difficult to find a “lover’s knot” to decorate the gift to your lover, but you can always take the opportunity to symbolically “tighten the knot.”