Creative Calamities

These days the freelancing lifestyle has been keeping me plenty busy. So much so that I almost didn’t have a chance to enter the Japan Day poster art contest this year.

The deadline came and went and I watched it blow by because I just couldn’t fit it into my schedule. Then they extended the deadline and added two free tickets to Japan to the prize. I finally had a couple of days off for the first time in at least a month so I pulled an all nighter just in time to make the deadline earlier this week then slept till mid-afternoon.

I wish I’d had more time to develop the illustration, but when a deadline comes a calling you just gotta let things fly. The dominate image of my illustration was a paper crane. I’d foraged around the apartment for a paper crane to use as reference and found this little guy my wife had folded and tucked away snugly in a sake cup on a bookshelf. To be perfectly honest, I think I like this photo better than my illustration.

As the year winds to a close, I am thinking about all those blog posts that never developed past a scrawling on a Post-it Note, so now I make this last ditch effort to get one in before midnight. Over the course of the year I read several books that made quite an impact on myself. I would even say these books have caused pradigm shifts in my thinking.

The most recent shift was brought on by Drive: The Surprising truth about what motivates us. The video below is a wonderful RSA white board animation that was created from a talk by Dan Pink (the author) on the subject. If you can’t get into Dan Pinks unorthodoxed notions, you can always sit back and enjoy the clever animation.

Another book that made an impact on me was So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport.

The book felt a bit academic in the writing style but it was an enjoyable and thought provoking read. The title of the book, a quote from comedian Steve Martin, which is his advice for those wanting to make it big.

A quote from the book which sums it all up for me is this:

“The first is the craftsman mindset, which focuses on what you can offer the world. The second is the passion mindset, which instead focuses on what the world can offer you.”

A third book that made a lasting impression on me was Blink by Malcom Gladwell, which is about rapid cognition or the thinking that happens in the “blink” of an eye. This book has taught me to trust my gut feelings, for more often than not, those “gut” feelings are simply my mind picking up on things and processing them on a subconscious level in the blink of an eye.

I’ve read that slow times for freelancers are the perfect time to work on self-promotion or learn something new. It’s a bit of advice that I am glad I heeded from Freelance Switch.

I was mulling around some ideas to promote my illustration during a slow work period when I noticed on the NY JET Alumni Association’s website that they were accepting entries for Japan Day in Central Park poster contest.

So I hunkered down for two days, hoping no paying work would come in and derail my plans.

A month later, to my surprise I received a phone call explaining that I had won the contest. It was a bit of a whirlwind. Within the New York City Japanese community I had my 15 minutes of fame.

I was interview on Japanese language TV and newspapers, interviewed on stage with at Japan Day this past Sunday, May 13. It was quite exciting to see posters of my work on display and people buying t-shirts for charity with my art work. It was also humbling to see the high quality of the honorable mention awards by Chris Dina, Keri Dodge, Ardith Ibanez Nishii, Ken Sheldon and my favorite entry being Sara Woolley’s Lady Japan.

Everything was capped off by attending a reception at the Japanese Ambassador’s residence.

The people at Gorgeous Entertainment who sponsor Japan Day held a wonderful event (as usual) and made me feel quite special. And thank you Megumi Sato-Shelly the designer who skillfully and somewhat anymously re-worked my art for the posters, flyers and multiple t-shirt designs while I received all of the credit.

Dear Japan Day 2012,

Arigatou Gozaimashita!

I’ve been watching the Ken Burns classic documentary The Civil War the past few nights. The stories are told mostly with still photographs and read letters.

I have been moved to tears while listening to the Gettysburg Address. And I have eaten beans and collard greens two nights straight after listening to a soldier in a letter home pine for his wife’s (or was it sister’s) beans and collard greens.

Below is an except from the documentary 1990 documentary of a letter a soldier wrote to his wife before battle. (Sullivan Ballou Letter)

Recently I took part in that age old conversation about the which is better, seat up or seat down in a public unisex toilet.

I being a guy was, of course voted down when I suggested that leaving the seat up was best. And I stand by that especially if a toilet seat has been soiled prior to my use in a public restroom. I make sure to leave it up so that it is clear to the person entering after me that I was not the culprit to wet the seat.

That conversation brought some interesting toilet innovations to mind that stem from Port-a-Potties I have seen. A Portable toilet will often have a tiny urinal mounted on the wall with a tube that connects to the large disposal area. That little device tends to keep some of the messiness off of the toilet seat in a public, venue so why not at home. And what I feel the best advantage would be not having to remember to put the seat down or get yelled at for leaving the occasional mess. It would also be a great water saver.

Pictured is a sketch of my idea as well as a sketch of the very simple addition of a handle to a toilet set that I recently encountered in a restaurant restroom.

A good year has passed since I have worked on my Street Musician Project. That changed a few weeks ago while on my way to catch a train in Grand Central Terminal. I heard music that instantly transported me back to the time I spent in Japan.

Michael Montaperto played Romanza in the Graybar Passage. I was immediately drawn to the haunting music which transported me in my memories.

I taught English in several Kyoto Prefecture schools. At the end of the day at Otokoyama Junior High School, Romanza, a Classical Spanish guitar solo would be played after the final bell. It was where I was introduced to the song and I would wander out of the teachers’ room and gaze out across the rice fields. It was always a strange yet moving moment for me, gazing at the beautiful Japanese landscape while listening to the haunting Spanish music.

I was at that school for two weeks every two months, and everyday I was there I would listen to that wonderful music and memorize the landscape.

A few days ago I saw a similar image of the beautiful rice fields of Japan being washed away in an instant as a tsunami engulfed the land. Houses and cars washing over the rice fields, rice fields now incapable of nourishing anyone for a who knows how long. Many of the farmers and families also washed away.

Today I happily I stumbled across this lecture on YouTube by one of my favorite illustrators, and one of the top illustrators in the U.S., Yuko Shimizu.

Back before she was famous I used to admire her work in a free Japanese language magazine called New York Walker (which I believe is now called Chopsticks NY). I’d always pick up a copy when I was in the city because I loved her work because of her unique style and especially the way she handled ink. Even though the magazine was written in Japanese and I couldn’t understand a lick of it, I always picked up a copy. Eventually she moved on to my disappointment but she resurfaced and her work can be found in publications from The New York Times to Playboy Magazine.

In the video link below she speaks to a group of students at the California College of the Arts. She talks about  how she gave up trying to please her family by pursuing an unfulfilling career, quit her job after 11 years, left Tokyo and moved to New York City to study illustration.

Recently I had to laugh when I caught myself sounding a bit like Dana Carvey’s character, the Grumpy Old Man. Who is know for statements like, “in my day, we didn’t have hair dryers. If you wanted to dry your hair you stood outside during a hurricane . . . And we liked it!”

I recently purchased the iMovie HD app for my wife’s new iPod Touch. It cost $5. Compared to most apps that is a bit pricey. But I was stunned by some of the reviews by users on iTunes. People complained about the lack of features and the price. I couldn’t help but think how lucky we are to be able to carry such powerful technology around in our back pockets. In my day when I wanted to edit video (as recently as 1998) I paid $600 for video editing machine, and I needed a quality VCR (cheap didn’t have the right connections) and a quality video camera. You are talking about a minimum of $2,500 to edit video with limited features and equipment that takes up quite a bit of space. Now for $299 for a multipurpose iPod Touch or iPhone plus $5 for the software you can shoot video, edit it while sitting under a tree in the park, have latte at a coffee shop that offers free Wi-Fi, connect and send a video postcard back home to mom.

Yesterday in my last day of class at St. Thomas Aquinas College, I was once again pleasantly surprised by my students when I spent less than an hour demonstrating iMovie. The morning of class I shot some quick video with my point and shoot camera and gave it to them to edit during the quick demo. I was surprised by some of the unexpected things they did with the raw footage and I did a version copying my favorite edits from the class.

” . . . You never know what you’re gonna get.”

— Forest Gump

For three years beginning in the late 90s I worked as an assistant English teacher in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan (JET Program). When I began that adventure I was sure it was going to top my college days as the best time of my life.

The experience did not disappoint, and it was wonderful to be able to savor every moment as I would savor an exceptional meal. When I left for Japan my paintings were dark and moody. When I returned home my mood was reflected in my work which was bright and full of color.

Having recently begun teaching a couple of college level computer art courses, I have begun to realize much to my astonishment that teaching is something that I enjoy far more than I ever realized, a fact that was masked from me by the plethora of experiences that went along with teaching in Japan.

They say we only use a small portion of our brains’ potential. Whether that statement is true or not, I don’t know, but I have recently discovered the same can be said about how I use Photoshop.

I have used the software as a professional artists for more than 15 years and have become set in my ways. Photoshop keeps developing new tools and I do things the way I have always done them. I certainly have only been using a small part of Photoshop’s potential.

Since I recently began teaching a computer art course, I can no longer leave all of those strange menus and tools un-touched. It has been quite rewarding in the class room, and on my own as I explore new and forgotten tools in Photoshop CS5 in my own creative ways.