Background
Some of the back story...
It was a long, complex ride to school; things were in turmoil. I was bussed from one side of the city to the other and, like many other children, had no idea what it all meant. It was the days of desegregated bussing in Boston, a time in the late 1970's of intense conflict and social change. Most days, we rode to school on the floor of the bus to avoid glass or other projectiles coming through the shattered windows. I remember staring at the steel floor trying to imagine what was visible outside the windows--was the sky still blue? Upon our arrival at school, we were hastily shuffled from the bus to the classroom. I remember Ms. Lotus Doe, my art teacher at the time, demanded that before marks were made on paper, it was necessary to understand the possibilities. She would have us stare at blank sheets of paper for days without making a mark. My new window to the world became those sheets of paper.
Many years later, I would take that exercise more seriously in my undergraduate photography and design pursuits and eventually in my career where I not only have to imagine the possibilities of design programs for clients, but also engage their constituents to inspire interest and begin a dialogue. For fifteen years, I have focused on applying creativity to my professional practice in design--always challenging what I believe to be outdated notions of design.
Design is visual, but it is also verbal. It is tangible and intangible. It is concrete and elusive, and it is manufactured and organic. On some levels, it is, as Noam Chomsky asserts, "manufactured consent"; at its best, it responds to dialogue and feedback. My professional practice has offered remarkable opportunity to refine my craft and to approach a broad series of complex and real societal challenges--cancer, adverse urban conditions, education, the environment, relationships on diverse levels, research, the micro and the macro to name a few. I have served on many boards (e.g. WGBH, Root Cause Institute, Fuller Craft Museum), volunteered much time (e.g. National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), Youth Build), and have been a participant in the act of changing the course of events for individuals, organizations and communities. From 1996 to 2006 as Vice President of Sametz Blackstone Associates, I have practiced the "profession" of design management, spending much time applying creativity to enable the voice and vision of others.
I have come to believe that many pursuits considered "creative" are actually novel approaches to applying language--visual and verbal--to the act of storytelling. Thus, I have spent my career becoming a better storyteller on behalf of my clients. In parallel I have been developing the very real and personal stories that live in my artistic heart and soul. This website contains some of those stories and ideas expressed through my art. Art has played a profound role in my life, and I publish this material to honor, respect, and compel that role.
In my work, I have explored the relationship we have with "mental models" or "frames" as linguist George Lakoff defines such models. Among many topics, my work considers gender identity, the role of art in education, the dimensionality of the photographic image, the interaction between artist and participant, the role of the crowd, the role of the individual, the meaning of community, the fixed and the temporal, the value of visual and verbal cues, and storytelling and fables in contemporary culture.
It is my goal to explore and apply the interdisciplinary connections between photography, moving image, and text to further develop a personal sense and artistic practice in storytelling.
I have enjoyed a lifetime of artistic engagement. From my earliest days in intermediate school where art offered me a window on the world when real windows were considered too dangerous, to my present life where art informs my daily work, my life has been immersed in artistic expression. I look forward to sharing some of this experience through this website.
It was a long, complex ride to school; things were in turmoil. I was bussed from one side of the city to the other and, like many other children, had no idea what it all meant. It was the days of desegregated bussing in Boston, a time in the late 1970's of intense conflict and social change. Most days, we rode to school on the floor of the bus to avoid glass or other projectiles coming through the shattered windows. I remember staring at the steel floor trying to imagine what was visible outside the windows--was the sky still blue? Upon our arrival at school, we were hastily shuffled from the bus to the classroom. I remember Ms. Lotus Doe, my art teacher at the time, demanded that before marks were made on paper, it was necessary to understand the possibilities. She would have us stare at blank sheets of paper for days without making a mark. My new window to the world became those sheets of paper.
Many years later, I would take that exercise more seriously in my undergraduate photography and design pursuits and eventually in my career where I not only have to imagine the possibilities of design programs for clients, but also engage their constituents to inspire interest and begin a dialogue. For fifteen years, I have focused on applying creativity to my professional practice in design--always challenging what I believe to be outdated notions of design.
Design is visual, but it is also verbal. It is tangible and intangible. It is concrete and elusive, and it is manufactured and organic. On some levels, it is, as Noam Chomsky asserts, "manufactured consent"; at its best, it responds to dialogue and feedback. My professional practice has offered remarkable opportunity to refine my craft and to approach a broad series of complex and real societal challenges--cancer, adverse urban conditions, education, the environment, relationships on diverse levels, research, the micro and the macro to name a few. I have served on many boards (e.g. WGBH, Root Cause Institute, Fuller Craft Museum), volunteered much time (e.g. National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), Youth Build), and have been a participant in the act of changing the course of events for individuals, organizations and communities. From 1996 to 2006 as Vice President of Sametz Blackstone Associates, I have practiced the "profession" of design management, spending much time applying creativity to enable the voice and vision of others.
I have come to believe that many pursuits considered "creative" are actually novel approaches to applying language--visual and verbal--to the act of storytelling. Thus, I have spent my career becoming a better storyteller on behalf of my clients. In parallel I have been developing the very real and personal stories that live in my artistic heart and soul. This website contains some of those stories and ideas expressed through my art. Art has played a profound role in my life, and I publish this material to honor, respect, and compel that role.
In my work, I have explored the relationship we have with "mental models" or "frames" as linguist George Lakoff defines such models. Among many topics, my work considers gender identity, the role of art in education, the dimensionality of the photographic image, the interaction between artist and participant, the role of the crowd, the role of the individual, the meaning of community, the fixed and the temporal, the value of visual and verbal cues, and storytelling and fables in contemporary culture.
It is my goal to explore and apply the interdisciplinary connections between photography, moving image, and text to further develop a personal sense and artistic practice in storytelling.
I have enjoyed a lifetime of artistic engagement. From my earliest days in intermediate school where art offered me a window on the world when real windows were considered too dangerous, to my present life where art informs my daily work, my life has been immersed in artistic expression. I look forward to sharing some of this experience through this website.