zodomatica

Permutations: The Raw and The Soft

"Permutations: The Raw and the Soft" features the fabulous work of my dear friend Jody MacDonald. Also showing is Stephen Laidlaw who I'll discuss briefly as well. The exhibition runs until Aug 26 at the Nanaimo Art Gallery. Highly recommended if you're in the area.

Jody's work is a series of soft sculpture figures in mixed media. Each figure is about 18-24 inches long and uses variations of the artist's face. There are some recurring themes: targets, arrows and other sources of physical pain, meticulously crafted clothing and accessories.

Here are some of my favourites. Click the photos for larger views.

Reductum ad Absurdum - Four shirts read, from largest to smallest: "Beware of God", "Be of God", "Be God", and "God". I like that the final piece is just the shirt - I think Naomi Klein would approve.

Jurassic Measures is one I think many of us can relate to. You know, when something in you just snaps and you let out the beast!

Tourist Attraction (detail) - you have to look, don't you? ...And buy the T-Shirt of course.

Fishing For Compliments (detail) - There were three similar figures in this one, hanging together from hooks as if in a fishmonger's shop. Beautiful, compelling, and sad all at once.

Stephen Laidlaw's paintings are almost sculptural due to the thickness of the paint. The imagery is often full of reproductive body parts and other strong symbols. The colours are much better live than in photographs. I can't really say a lot more than that because a) I'm not so into painting as I am other media and b) I really spent more time looking at Jody's work.

Update: closed for comments due to evil comment spam.

Context is everything

We are coming to a time, if we aren't already there, when most products aren't stand-alone. They are part of a broader service. My mobile phone has a service plan. My television has a cable service and TiVo hooked up to it. Even the tea I buy (Peets: delicious!) can be ordered online. The point is that most products have to be viewed as part of a broader context: a service. Designers have to pay attention to the environment, the processes around the product, and a new set of users: the employees providing the service. Services aren't only about end-users: they are co-created by service providers (employees) and customers.

Services are the new frontier of interaction design.

- Dan Saffer, interviewed at BusinessWeek: "Interaction Design: An Introduction"
Update: closing for comments - the spammers like this one for some reason.

When fast food restaurants outnumber grocery stores

A new study found that residents in large cities who live farther from grocery stores than fast-food restaurants are more likely to die prematurely of diseases such as cancer and diabetes. (Via Newstarget)

The study (conducted for LaSalle bank) also found that obesity generally increases as access to a grocery store decreases -- regardless of income levels.

The cynic in me wonders why a bank would commission such a study.

We recently had development in our neighbourhood that brought in fast food where none existed. A byproduct of that new shopping center development is that the local family grocer (which I could walk to easily) lost business and shut down. So, we're driving more and eating more fast food because it's equally convenient for us to pick up fast food and groceries. (Of course the house renos leaving our kitchen alternating between 'tool crib central' and complete disfunction hasn't helped :P)

There's a gremlin in my photograph

There I was, happily taking photos of our house (which we're prepping to sell). Get the composition just right, take the shot. "Oh, that will be just lovely," I think. Then I see the gremlin looking out at me. Yes, that would be my partner Kenton. Do you see the tomfoolery I suffer with? ;-)

There's hope for me yet

Innovation Weblog disusses an article from Wired Mag - New research suggests creativity comes in two types: quick and dramatic, and careful and quiet. David Galenson from the University of Chicago studied the auction prices of art, and charted the value of the artists' work versus their age at the time each work was painted. He discovered two distinct curves: For some artists, the curve peaked early, followed by a gradual decline. The other type of curve rose gradually over time, peaking at a much later age. This type of creative genius Galenson calls "experimentalists." Artists in this group spend a lifetime tinkering and perfecting their style, and creatively bloom later in life.

I'm being cheeky when I say there's hope for me yet. I have no great ambitions to make masterpieces and get rich and famous with it. I enjoy creativity, and just want to spend more of my time being creative. Making money at it is just a means to the end of having more time to spend on it.

I wonder if the quick and dramatic vs. careful and quiet types are also found in the shorter term. I don't really fit the stereotype of the mad artist furiously and flamboyantly turning out genious idea after idea. I'm more the type to drink a cup of tea and push some materials around slowly until I have something I like. At least I used to be. Oh well, later this year I'll have my new studio set up in Roberts Creek and I'll get back at it somehow.

(Wow. I haven't posted for almost 2 months... Sorry folks. I've been busy and not on the computer much except to work...)

In related news, Reay tells me he's enjoying In Praise of Slow. Three cheers for slowing life down. This rush rush city business is really madening.