Hello Steemit!
I divide my time in Southern California working as a freelance set designer by day (mostly for commercial jobs) and an artist / designer / writer by night. I've spent the last two years writing and illustrating a collection of short stories while also developing a series of designs for public art installations. I'll use Steemit as a digital sketchbook to brainstorm new and old ideas, to share the research that inspires my curiosity, and to stimulate feedback about ongoing progress in my creative projects. After a year of following along as my fellow @hitheryon co-founders, @voronoi and @hansikhouse, expanded their worlds within the Steemit community, it's finally time for me to jump on board!
A Brief History of the Last Six Years
Upon graduating with a degree in architecture in 2011, I moved to Berlin, Germany with @voronoi, @hansikhouse and @arete to begin work as a design collective called Hither Yon - @hitheryon. We built our work around the idea of challenging typical methods of collaboration in art and design. In our first series of drawings, we divided four pieces of paper into grids of different scales, and began filling in the squares with the mindset of an architect approaching an empty plot of land. We each filled in a certain number of squares before passing the drawing to the next person, and around and around it went until the grid was complete. In the end we created a series of four complex cityscapes viewed from above.
After almost a year of countless drawings and exhibitions throughout Berlin and Italy, my three fellow @hitheryon co-founders moved back to the States in 2012 (though we continued working together remotely), while I decided to stay behind in Berlin and work for the next two years as an architect in the studio of Danish artist Jeppe Hein. At Studio Jeppe Hein I designed various public art installations throughout Europe and the United States. I had the chance to see firsthand the way people of all ages enjoyed interacting with the benches I designed in Copenhagen and Brooklyn Bridge Park, and through those experiences I gained a permanent respect for the power of art in connecting the local community with public space and each other.
I moved back to the States in late 2014 after over three years in Berlin. I spent much of 2015 road tripping throughout the USA and camping/hiking in the (mind-blowing) National Parks, before finally settling in Los Angeles. Today I have built a career as a freelance designer, while devoting most other available hours to creating a collection of illustrated short stories. Each story is about a fictional world where the laws of physics behave differently than what we're used to on Earth. Below are a couple of illustrations and excerpts from my unpublished short story about a place where emotions are physical appendages on the body.
“Memories are orbs of flowing liquid bobbing above your head, forever out of arm's reach. In some the liquid rages, roiling and temperamental, while others stay perfectly still, clear and coherent.”
"Anxiety is sticky and tastes of salty molasses. It oozes, matte and black, behind your eyes and down the back of your neck. It latches onto every passing What-if thought and every unfounded doubt and glues them in place. It seeps into the ruffles and folds of love and gives it weight where it desires lightness. It mixes with memories and turns the fluid into an idle sludge.”
Looking Forward
My ideas stem from my curiosity in the realms of art, architecture, cosmology, neuroscience, nature, philosophy, and much more, so if any of these topics interest you, please follow me and let me know what you think along the way! I'm excited to use this platform to share my creative process and hopefully spark discussion and feedback about current projects and research. Thanks for reading!
