I know this all to well being a flighty artist most of the time. So I’m going to post articles involving those things that need to happen to make life a little easier.

1. Eliminate piles.

This ones tough for the guru of organized chaos, but it really is necessary. I feel like I work in quadrants most of the time. Like it I know the general area some piece of paper is located then it will be there next year when I need it. And then before I know it, there are stacks and stacks reaching to the ceiling with unknown information that I later have to jettison a good portion of.

My first objective in tackling this new leaf I’m turning over is the several stacks of dead trees I have laying around.

First off I’m buying a filing cabinet for my papers.

This portion will ultimately keep everything in order and hidden from view. If I don’t see the stacks then life is a bit healthier. It will also make moving around my office that much easier. The trick though will be to maintain the practice of placing things in their place as soon as I deal with them. If I don’t then the stacks will slowly begin to form and take over their old home…Sneaky buggers.

Next comes a book shelf

I have boxes and boxes sof books from the last few moves that I’ve made and desperately need to make the big boy jump to shelving them. Maybe this is just an attempt to free up the boxes that they are stored in now for other junk that I keep accumulating (more on that in a future post).

CD/DVD shelf

As with the books CD’s and DVD’s make up a good portion of those boxes and crates stacked in corners and under beds and tables. So it’s high time they receive their very own home.

These little changes may seem insignificant, but to clear away the clutter gives one a small sense of accomplishment as well as a freedom to use your workspace without hindrance. I’m ready to stretch out my wings a bit.

So we are sitting there trying to stay awake while the instructor takes us through a day in the life of a student.  The man is as jolly as he is enormous, he makes the classroom laugh several times with his vast culinary wit, and we of course entertain ourselves with our own.

I lean over the desk and whisper “He’s got T-Rex arms”.  Because he did.  I believe the visible beginning of  his upper arm started just above the elbow.  “You could literally fit two normal sized people inside this man” I say.

My accomplice in crime replies “More like four”  and I add “Well four of you, because you’re a lil thing.”  I pause to research my subject “Ok, I’ll give you three normal sized people.”

“His chef shirt is like a clown car” She giggles.

“Or a three man pup tent.”  I smilingly comment.

“Oh he seems nice,” She says ” I want to give him a hug.”

“Don’t get too close”  I say, as I make the action of a rabid animal ravenously devouring it’s prey.

Just then the unexpected happens.  It was so perfectly timed that we laughed all the harder as we tried to mute the noise.  “I have to limit my time in the pastry kitchen” He confesses “I like to eat”.

I say to my partner “Naw, really?  That’s obvious.  The question is… how often do you chew?”

By this time there was no point trying to control our laughter.  So we left the pointless open house shortly after and proceeded to Marathon Grille for Saturday morning mai tai’s.

I will conclude with two points

Never trust a skinny chef, because he obviously doesn’t love food that much.

and

Never trust a over weight chef , because he will surely love it too much.

In or around January, I decided to respond to an outcry for new creatives to join the infantile off-shoot of what is certainly a landmark of the Philadelphia creative society.   The landmark is the Philly Ad Club, and the off-shoot is the Philly Ad Club YP or Young Professionals.   For more than 62 years the Philly AD Club has been promoting excellence in advertising.  The YP sect was basically put together to help mentor young professionals as they either enter the workforce or navigate the hectic waters of corporate work life.

Becoming active on the planning committee has become one of my favorite outlets for creativity here in Philadelphia.  The first meeting I attended was the yearly event planning meeting and we hit the ground running.  It was a welcome change from other meetings and friendships that I had or made in the previous two years of living here.  These people actually get it.  They are young and excited about helping others succeed in their chosen career path.  For example this is  a flyer that I recently completed to be distributed both through email and at PN8 which I’ll get to in a minute.

This event is going to be a ton of fun, and also very inspiring to those that enjoy networking.  I’m reminded of the commercial where there’s a car wreck and one guy had peanut butter and the other guy had chocolate…they of course mixed together and promoted the mixture for Reeses peanut butter cups.  This will have the same effect.  Taking lessons from improvisational comedy and applying them to networking techniques, is like peanut butter and chocolate, a sweet combination certain to compliment both ingredients.

Another event that I recently did a flyer for and am going to be helping to organize the day of is Portfolio Night 8.  Here’s the flyer:

Portfolio Night is an international event that brings Creative Directors together with Aspiring Creatives to network and more importantly; obtain the all important portfolio review.  I’m really excited for the event, it’s been awhile in coordination between a few of us, but it is going to be amazing.  Check out the PN8 international website for more details.

So I’ll  wrap it up by saying that my experience with the Philly Ad Club YP has been nothing but extraordinary thus far.  The people as I said before are great, ranging from creative newbs to veterans, but all with brilliant ideas and organizational prowess.  The events range from improv networking to mentor led putt putt puzzle golf to philanthropy in the inner city, plus Third Thursday Happy hour every month.  Our softball team could use a little help, but I can’t think of a better group of people to share in the agony of defeat.  The YP’s are my kind of people, and I’m glad to be involved.

The Dark Tellings by Incipient

This is a personal piece that, as most passion works start out, began with how I was feeling one day.   It’s called the “The Dark Tellings”.  The title comes from two ideas: while making music has a sweet taste it is sometimes bitter to the stomach; and as a song tells a story that is sometimes dark, it should always smack you in the face with both audible intensity and relative truth.

The Process:

The picture is one that was taken of me during a recent concert the band Among Us played at Mexicali Live in Teaneck, NJ.  I took an image of a solar eclipse and superimposed it over the picture with a luminous blend.  The picture itself had such great colors because of the lighting and photography, by Krista Kobryn, that it didn’t take much manipulating.

I then added a few elements created in illustrator to add to the effect of the image.  These were path blends that, to me, seemed to portray the way sound looks when it is played loud and in your face crunchy.  That led to the scratching out of my face.  According to James Supernaut, the drummer of Among Us, this is what happens when you go to one of our shows because “it is face melting RAWK.”

Check the music out for yourself at www.myspace.com/amongusmusic and stay tuned for more recent works.

"Instant" by Nik Ainley

Nik shows in around half of his featured designs on his site shinybinary.com that he is a master of typography.  His layout of individual characters provides the energy which is then supported by often whimsical elements floating above, below, on, or behind.

On the other hand Nik shows that he can also create dark or abstract work when desired with such pieces as these:

"Plunge" by Nik Ainley

"Headache" by Nik Ainley

As with most artists, Nik’s personal creations are often times his most creative.  They are revelations of where the ideas come from.  Work like this makes me think that the artist desires to explode with unbridled creative license to show that what you’ve seen from a professional level is just the surface of talent that lies below.  These are of course some of my favorites because of that view into the soul of the artist.

The combination of huge typography, splattered elements, grungy effects and clean lines makes Nik Ainley an artist that surely has to be watched in the future.  Stop over and see more of his fantastic designs here: www.shinybinary.com

The plan is to use this blog as a springboard for design, not only my personal designs, but others that I find interesting or useful for inspiration, and/or reflection.

And so I start this journey…

Me (left) and Bry (right) rocking the Clash Bar in Clifton

I have decided that I like posting blogs better than being on a social networking site…How do you feel about that?

And I believe even though it’s been over  ayear since I posted on here; that I will actually begin chewing off yummy little bit sized pieces of my labrynthian imagination (realized recently that I sometime do get lost in there for days), and I will share those twists and turns for your amusement and mine. 

Feel free to laugh at me, I’m so into that.  No really that turns me on…haha