Spotlights are interviews! @sndbox reaches out to creative individuals and communities of all experience levels. Our goal is to raise awareness towards new users and help connect them with experienced Steemians. (50% of the SBD earned from this post will go directly to @erb's account to support his work and incredible artwork.)
@sndbox : Hi @erb! Finally, good to have you here! For those new to your work, tell us all a bit about yourself - where you’ve been and where you are now?
@erb : I'm an artist and designer based in Los Angeles, California. After graduating with a degree in architecture from Cornell University in 2011, I moved to Berlin with @sndbox founders @voronoi and @hansikhouse, as well as @arete. The four of us worked together as a design collective called @hitheryon, spending a busy and creatively stimulating year making collaborative drawings and installations. When everyone else moved back to the States, I decided to stick around in Berlin for a couple extra years in order to work as a designer for Danish artist Jeppe Hein. I spent my time designing wonderfully wacky public benches and other public art installations throughout Europe and the United States.
After living as an expat for over three years, I decided to move to California to be closer to my brothers (and the beautiful California weather), and I began working as a freelance designer throughout LA. Currently I'm spending most of my time doing set design work for commercials, but I still put all available time towards my own personal projects: writing and illustrating short stories, as well as designing various playful (as-yet-unbuilt) public art projects.
@sndbox : And how did you make your way to Steemit?
@erb : I joined Steemit in April of 2017 after months of hearing @hansikhouse and @voronoi explain how great (and possibly revolutionary) this platform is for sharing creative work. My reason for joining was to start a dialogue with this community about the many projects I've been building up over the past couple years. Most of the time my creative process involves working the idea through to completion before sharing anything with anyone, but I could see that Steemit would allow me to share the process and possibly improve the work by getting feedback from fellow Steemians. I was also looking for a platform where I could discover other talented artists and designers and learn from their creative processes. I could see that @voronoi and @hansikhouse had found a very welcoming and interesting community in here, and I wanted to jump in!
@sndbox : Well welcome! How are you finding everything here? What are some of your initial impressions? Do you think the platform could be useful to you personally?
@erb : I still feel very new to Steemit but it has already shown me new and better ways the internet can be used for collaboration. As part of @hitheryon, we were always looking for ways to make the process of design less pretentious and more egalitarian and community-based. After seeing the way @sndbox was able to crowdfund a building project through this platform (Steem Park), it became clear to me that Steemit could actually be used to break down the barriers of design. In architecture school, I was always concerned about the disconnect between the architect and the community that would actually use the architecture, and I'm starting to see that platforms like this could bring the community into the creative process in a more democratic way.
This concept applies not only to design but also the process of writing and illustrating. I have countless stories and illustrations locked away that few people have ever seen, waiting until the day that I have enough completed stories to compile a book. Watching the way people interact on Steemit, I can see that my stories would benefit from sharing with this community during the process of writing instead of after. I'm sure I have ideas that are more coherent to me as the author than they would be to my intended audience, so it would be helpful to get feedback about which stories and illustrations need work in conveying my intended concept.
@sndbox : What are some big things that we can hope to see out of you in the future on your Steemit page?
@erb : Aside from my freelance work, I have two main ambitions I'm working toward simultaneously - I have my writing/illustration projects and my design projects. For a couple years now I've been writing a collection of short stories about fictional planets where the laws of physics behave differently than here on Earth. I have a story about a place where emotions are physical appendages hanging off your body. Anxiety is a sticky black substance that drips down the back of your neck. Memories are orbs of flowing liquid bobbing above your head, forever out of arm's reach. Fear is a thread that wraps around you and stifles your every movement. There's another story about a place where weight is inversely proportional to size. Sometimes a gust of wind sends an entire mountain range into the sky.
As far as design, I've been working on a series of public art proposals that aim to make playground equipment and park structures (such as gazebos) more playful and aesthetically interesting for public parks. My time spent working at Studio Jeppe Hein proved to me how much of an effect public art can have on the community. Watching the way the bench designs put a smile on people's faces and encouraged total strangers to strike up conversation, I became a full believer in the power of public art. I have yet to share many of the designs I've worked on this past year, and I'm excited to use Steemit to introduce some of my ideas for the first time.
@sndbox: We're looking forward to you showcasing more of this interdisciplinary artwork and also your past design projects @erb. How can we all get involved in these efforts?
@erb : I feel like I've only scratched the surface of how I can interact with the Sndbox and Steemit community. So far I've mostly shared past projects instead of the projects I'm in the process of making as we speak, so I look forward to bringing my fellow Steemians more into my present world, and becoming more involved in their worlds as well. I'm a big believer in what Sndbox has been doing so I'm excited to take part and learn from their new methods of collaboration! I can't wait to make contact with other talented creatives and use this platform to change the way things are made in the real world.
A big thank you to @erb for doing the interview! For more updates on his creative work, make sure to follow his account at @erb. (50% of the SBD payout from this post will go to him and towards his projects.)
