Reconnecting: A Reflection

This is the title of my Senior Thesis Exhibition. It will be held April 14–18th, 2008. Also participating with equally as awesome work are: Jahaziel (Haz) Minor, his wife Jessica Minor, Kris Cummings, and Mi-Hee Nahm. All 5 of us will graduate in May.

Show statement:
Thoughtful reflection informs the multiple subject matters of Kris Cummings, Jeremiah Good, Jahaziel Minor, Jessica Minor, and Mi-Hee Nahm. Fusing past with present through subjects ranging from mother-daughter relationships, communication, technology, heritage, the academic tradition, and identity, Reconnecting: A Reflection embodies self-study and investigation. A wide range of both traditional and contemporary materials will be presented in the Convergys, Ruthe G. Pearlman, and Chidlaw galleries.

A closing reception will be held on Friday, April 18th from 5–9p at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. All are welcome to celebrate the culmination of 4 awesome years for five seniors!

When walking becomes crawling and crunching and cramming -ality

So I'm in the middle of my thesis and I think, "wow. I'm this far, but I still have so far to go!"

I've etched 7 mirrors and still have 15 to go. 18 total will line the gallery when I'm finished and it will be amazing! But it's tedious work, very intense as I scratch out each letter from the template onto the mirror. I have approximately less than 2 weeks to get everything in shape for the final show.

Ahhhh! Yep, no senioritus here. Just work, work, work! Etch, etch, etch! The day does progress quickly when I etch yet not fast enough—or in my case, not slow enough. The rubber meets the road and I'm thinking I'll need a tune-up when it's all over with.

Yet, I did have the awesome privilege of installing my first 3 mirrors in a gallery on Main Street for the Final Friday gallery hop. The gallery is c4yourself Gallery, 1339 Main St. I'm sooooo glad I did this because there were so many flaws in the mirrors! Once they're etched, then I must go in with a light and make sure that only the lines of each letter are emitting light. Otherwise there's other dirt and light spots that distract the viewer from contemplating the question the way I want them to. I received a ton of great feedback on what people liked and disliked about them. Everyone who saw them (150+ people came through the gallery) had awesome comments both to the questions and about the setup as a whole. People had the understanding that these were only prototypes to the final pieces that will show April 14th–18th at the Art Academy. There are detail shots of some of the text in the mirrors, but they don't compare to how it is in person.

I've also posted the showcard for the exhibition below.

Wanted and Needed -ality

Many times I've meant to get on here and post something, yet time has a way of disappearing
quicker than I can type. It's been a while. A long while since my last post. I'll be posting more often now, but that doesn't mean I'm not busy. NOTE TO SELF: "do" is the first part of "done".

In Reality, Does DESIGN=HEART?

I guess the real question is, "Can design touch someone's heart?" This is the question Stefan Sagmeister asks his design students, and they believe it can. In this article written by Carolyn Sienicki for CommArts, she addresses the design issues seen by Sagmeister and includes some of her own ideas.

She quotes Sagmeister: "It's a pity that the majority of what we do is promote or sell products for clients. I have nothing against selling. I do it too. But I also think design can do so much more. It can inform, delight, provoke, support and simplify someone's life…So much of what designers do is technically very good, but it leaves people cold and has little meaning in their lives…most designers don't believe in anything." She sides with him in "attempting to bring a sense of humanity back to design and remind us of our individual power as designers." We are the ones who can make or break a product and how well it serves humanity. We are the beginning of the process. We should be the ones determining whether the product is healthy for humanity and the environment and if not, we need to find alternative choices that serve as they should.

Sienicki, referring to design students, writes that we must "first identify [our] passions, then look outside the school to identify unmet problems—from small-scale to large, from day-to-day to long-term—and create solutions that combine their passions with their design skills…It is a way for designers to work proactively, to contribute more of their creative thinking, and to get more satisfaction out of how they make their living. When students (and professionals) identify something they care about, they are more passionate about it. When one's personal interest, strength and passion come into play, the design solution is stronger because the designer has more conviction. Both the conviction and the design come from the heart." Design with a purpose is our call to action. If we design just to pay the bills, we'll keep having outrageous bills because our designs only serve the market, not humanity and/or nature. We have to learn from our past mistakes—the mistakes of the designers before us—building our inspirations from theirs, and with work, perseverance and intention, we can begin to design in such a way that design touches someone's heart everywhere.

When Reality Clashes with Fast Food

I love the BK Mocha JOE!! I also love BK fries and their fish sandwich. I can't stand McDonalds. Wendy's, even Taco Bell and White Castle are okay in limited consumption, but ever since I watched Super Size Me, I've been an avid McD's opponent. However, their advertising campaigns are remarkable! "I'm Lovin' it." is recognizable no matter where you are in the world, and the same goes for the golden arches. McD's may have nasty food, but they've got a great ad campaign. However, design-wise, they're actually failing. In fact all fast food franchises are failing because they aren't contibuting to the life of humanity, they're offering high doses of cholesterol and sugars that put people in hospitals, on heart monitors, in waiting rooms, and in funeral parlors and graveyards. Anything can contribute to less years in life, but no one is promised tomorrow. We eat and eat and eat and then we look like the Big Boy in the picture—jolly, waited down by food, and fat. Obese is the pc term, but really, people are just too fat! I'm not a professional on any of this, yet, but I know I don't want to look like I've eaten too many Whoppers and not enough salads. Don't get me wrong, obese people are cool, if they're doing something about it. But you don't have to go on national TV The Biggest Loser to know how to lose weight. Just eat healthy. Eat tinier meals and EXERCISE. Even the gaming industry has figured out that people just sit around eating chips and playing video games, so NINTENDO created the Wii to get people out of their chairs and have fun!
I can't always say that I eat healthy, and I can't just blame obese people for what they look like, nor can I blame Fast Food for their outragous ideas about too many fries that never digest. I can only blame myself for not being a better person to help those around me when they need it.

The REALITY of it is that I posted this on here, not to vent, but to raise eyebrows and mix neurons to get people to understand that the way our system is set up sucks and we have to move ahead with better ideas, designing a world that our children won't hate us for. Think before you order and research before you checkout. That's reality.

Art-ality

For all those who feel left out in your critiques, let Mr. Cefalo's melodies calm your nerves.

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Yesterday's -ality

To most conservative minded individuals, the pictures below might be astonishing. To some, they are remarkable. I fit somewhere in the middle. It's my face on the body of each member of the company I work for, and it's also me in the pink hearted top moving toward Tony for a kiss. First of all, I'm not gay and I'm not a cross-dresser on the weekends. I'm also not one to put my face on other people's bodies.

The office photo:
The reality of it is that I took the pictures of the company at our end-of-the-year party to document who I worked with, the status of the company, the people I've come to love and appreciate. Upon loading the pictures, I sent them around the office via email with the message, "Hi!

Here are a couple of the pics we took at the party on Saturday. It's a smaller group than last year, but still a good one. I didn't adjust any of the colors yet either.

Thanks for an awesome 2007!

Happy New Year!

-Jeremiah"

What I got back was absolutely mind-blowing! One of my coworkers sent me an email entitled "how about this?" and when I opened it, "i tried to clean up the office photo a little for you, looks great!" The picture below is what it was—my face on everyone elses. Thus, I didn't do it and had no control over it. It was a company joke that even the CEO seemed to be speechless about. The reality of it was high-larious!

Drag photo:
I did have control over this photo and in fact there have been no edits to it. It was our annual drag dress-up for our final game of the season, a tradition that has been with the Art Academy Stinks for longer than I've been here (I'm in my 4th year). In truth, it's a game to look forward to and be excited about because it's the one time a year that you (I) can be as feminine as I want to without crossing the boundary of making it a lifestyle or closet event. It's all in fun, all about the creative genius of intimidating the opposing team. It always seems to work, but more than that we just like to dress up as girls and let the girls dress up like us. The reality is that it was fun and when I get into character, lookout! My lips may be redder than normal, my shirt tight and not flat-chested, my skirt high, but underneath it all, I'm just a guy who likes to have fun and see others having fun, even if it means I have to look like a fool.

By the way, we won, again, 6-2 and it was a sweet victory. We finished the season on top, above 500. Go Stinks!!