notes

I’ve been doodling a lot lately. I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t a direct result of my interactions with Roland and Cameron.  Here are some recent notes.

year one

One year ago today I sat at the bar in Elephant & Castle and multitasked. I ate (turkey club) and drank (sierra nevada) and browsed (craigslist). I had just landed in San Francisco with two huge bags and no where to go.

Fast forward a couple of months, after briefs stints in the Presidio and Inner Richmond, and I was settled in my new apartment, enrolled in school and working part-time. My new life had officially begun.

I’ve talked about my move to the west coast several times on this blog, so no need to rehash old stories, but I do think it’s important to try to makes sense of it all. High Fidelity style, of course. Without further ado, I present my top 5 year one takeaways.

5) I really miss New York

Being this far away from all of my close friends and family has taken a toll. I’ve had to work for just about every relationship in SF and sometimes it’s exhausting (I don’t mean that in a bad way either. It’s just building one foundation after another, instead of having them established and accessible).

I miss the excitement and the unpredictable nature of the city. I miss the intensity, although I know it was a huge factor in deciding to leave. I miss the sea of diversity. And good god I miss the halal carts (When I’m back in August I’m heading straight to the dudes in yellow shirts on 53rd and 6th for my lamb platter).

4) I really like San Francisco

It’s beautiful here. The Pacific, the redwoods, the fog. I can’t get enough.

But what I really like is the positive energy. Unlike New York, people are supportive and optimistic. When I talked to Cameron a year ago, he told me that this is the best place to try something new and make mistakes. He wasn’t kidding.

I’ve read a lot about slow culture recently and I feel that here too. It keeps me (and my digital self) balanced and sane.

3) when in doubt, explore

I know this city like the back of my hand. Come to think of it, I know Tokyo pretty well too. I’ve always liked the idea of exploring, I just never did it in New York (It took me two years before I took my camera and wandered around Brooklyn).

Right now I’m reading Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky. In it he talks about how new technology is helping us evolve from passive consumers to active collaborators.

I am very much so a product of this evolution. I’ve been living sans television since moving out here and it’s been wonderful. I can always catch sporting events at bars and shows on Hulu and Netflix, but overall I feel liberated. And, to Shirky’s point, I now have time to do stuff. Instead of spending hours on my couch watching reruns of Saved By the Bell, I go outside and explore.

My expeditions have helped me start this blog, a meetup group and a side project.

2) I’m 100% committed to this whole planning thing

A year ago I thought about enrolling in the motion picture and television program at school. Six months ago I was all about art direction. My path to planning has been anything but direct and that’s exactly how I know that I’m headed in the right direction.

1) that detox was epic

Getting out of the ad world was crucial. I needed to take a huge step back and evaluate the game from a distance. I spent three years as an observing participant, but it was time to flip my role and take things in as a participating observer (obviously in love with my anthro class).

This year has been filled with observations and I am slowly learning to think, and act, like a planner. I am watching, imitating, sharing, creating and writing. I am meeting smart and interesting people. I’m building things and exploring.

My detox was all about shedding the sour account guy and taking steps (slowly) towards the curious plannerly-type. I have a long way to go, but so far, so good.

I think that covers it.

[Youtube = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uImDLvX0Bk&feature=related]

Cultural Mapping

The assignment was simple – create a cultural map of a neighborhood in San Francisco. When we were presented with our options a couple of weeks ago, I quickly claimed Valencia Street. After exploring the city for a while, I knew that I needed to produce something that celebrated the rich culture of the Mission.

Valencia Street is beautiful too. Every alley, either towards Mission or Guerrero, is covered from sidewalk to sky in paint, posters and chalk. The murals on each wall tell stories of ethnicity and creativity. The strip is also packed with restaurants, book stores, vintage shops and galleries. It is a proud neighborhood, but one that is slowly dying.

There are stretches within every block of defunct storefronts and empty lots. Bulldozers and dump trucks now litter the streets, sitting in metered spots and aiding the hustling construction workers in bright orange vests. The gentrification process has a firm grip on these newly acquired estates and the tension is mounting.

These observations helped a great deal in deciding what story to tell. I needed to bring Valencia Street to life in an authentic and engaging way, but still maintain the functionality of a map. I also wanted to create a piece that I would be proud to hang on my wall. So I got started…

It took some time, and lots of revisions, but I’m happy with the final product. Here are some of the rounds I went through:

I found the wood panel while going through and old pile of wood in a back alley off of Valencia. Once I had the actual size of my canvas I could then look for different material to fill it out. I bought a spanish-english dictionary from a thrift store and used matte medium to secure it to the wood panel. I wanted pages from a book to demonstrate the strong presence of literature in the area, specifically thanks to 826 Valencia, but I also thought the translations offered a nice take on the mixture of cultures that inhabit the blocks where my map focuses.

Once everything dried, I threw down a bunch of the photos I took to see if I had a natural fit. Nothing worked, so I scrapped the idea and decided to focus on the stores that made up each block. I wanted to offer a nice linear look, very map-like, but slightly jagged since I often found myself bouncing back and forth across the street to look around (the red artist tape indicates each block, 16-22). First I wrote each store name in pencil to gauge the spacing. I used pen after that to give the map some depth. I used sharpie for the last layer so each store name would be big a bold.

I stole the cut-out on the bottom right from a poster I saw hanging in a deli. I loved the colors and thought it would be a nice addition. Originally I thought it worked well to symbolize the poster art stuck to the doors of each business, but the more I thought about it, the more the woman became this iconic figure of gentrification (blinded by her broom and disinfectant, on a mission to clean up the streets).

The back features a quote I saw taped to the ground on 17th street. There were several to choose from, but something about “reputable degenerate” stuck in my head.

The rest of the piece is pretty straight-forward. Hopefully it paints not only a picture of Valencia Street and the Mission District, but also my street art influences and taste for the gritty.