Happy new year everyone!
It’s been a really long time since I’ve sat down, collected my thoughts and attempted to write something. From Late July 2022 so much has happened and it’s meant a lot of adjustment plus a major lack of free time.
My wife got a job designing at Nike so it meant we had to relocate to Portland, Oregon. With her working full time in a very involved position I’ve been holding down parenting duties during the work days. I always said I’d do this, I love doing it but wow it is definitely a lot of hard work! I’m lucky to get a couple of hours to focus on my personal or client based projects let alone keeping on top of writing with any regularity.
Our daughter starts at daycare in 2 weeks and it’s so bittersweet. She’s 15 months now, walking, talking heaps and learning new things at an astounding rate. I’m enjoying being with her everyday more than ever but also see her pining for interaction with kids her own age. It’s time and I also have to start working again.
Believe it or not, I just signed a contract to work full time as of mid January. I’ll speak more about this in time but what I will say is it’s maybe the perfect job for someone with my eclectic skill set, interests, connections and experience. I’m nervous but also really excited. I’m hoping this will also give me the room to move more into my studio practise versus painting so many murals which has sustained me for the last 12 years or so. Less international travel, less living out of suitcases in hotel rooms and less urgency to sell my artwork to contribute to our household and goals is actually something I need right now.
Looking back at my posts from prior to the pandemic there were certain threads emerging around shifts in technology and how they could be used in conjunction with traditional or analogue methods to create weird and interesting art. The pandemic allowed me to deep dive into a lot of that territory and mostly I learned that I’m still a novice in so many of the areas I want to explore. The great thing about my new career is that everything I’m learning personally also applies to this work and over all I think it’s helping me refine a more holistic view of things plus helping others along the way. Part of that will be picking up my writing again and sharing the things I feel are interesting plus revelations I learn through learning and working through my processes.
Contrary to what a lot of people feel about the huge shifts in technology we are experiencing right now, I’m still looking from an optimistic point of view. I see the potential for incredible intervention, using AR especially as a means to draw people back into the real world versus sinking deeper into the screens of their devices. I see the potential to share more layers of context, more connection and powerful tools for education. The recent leaps with AI are causing plenty of outrage within the creative world which I understand but I’m still looking at this from a positive standpoint because for one, it’s happening whether we like it or not. I can draw a lot of comparisons to the advent of streaming music and video content 20 years ago. Technology often moves fast than legislation and protections for creatives but that will come, it just requires that we are attentive and engaged. AI is an incredible tool if it’s used that way - as a step towards a genuine creative outcome made with care and integrity. At this current stage for working muralists platforms like Midjourney can be super helpful for generating reference that doesn’t exist. For me personally though, I’m way more interested in generative or procedural methods for modelling and animating in 3D as a mode for inspiring analogue/physical work. The important part for me is always the reinterpretation of the digital steps in my own hand, that’s where things becomes truly interesting, especially when that in turn inspires the next digital iteration, so on and so, repeat, repeat.
Wishing everyone an awesome start to their year, feel free to reach out and stay in touch.