Real Art is Never Finished
I'd like to consider myself an artist, at least in the sense that I enjoy creating art. Yet even after I am finished with a design, it still feels incomplete. I see work to be done and details to be perfected. Are there legitimate changes that still need to be made or is this struggle simply the nature of art? I wonder if that's how God, as an artist, feels about me and my life; pride in the completed work, yet seeing the improvement to come. More About Jesse.
Thoughts
Spiritual Clarity April 21, 2008
One thing I have noticed in my Christian life is how rarely I see my life with the kind of clarity that I wish for, and how short of a time it lasts. I often find that I am reading a book, or listening to a sermon, or talking to a good friend during the evening and all of a sudden this big-picture, large scale view of my life, God, and the people around me comes into focus. It’s like realizing that you’ve forgotten to put on your glasses in the morning and you hadn’t noticed it up to this point.
I feel like this tonight after finishing Velvet Elvis, a book by Rob Bell. In his last chapter he paints a big-picture view of Christianity, and of the Gospel message. You know what? It’s really attractive! I want to be the kind of person that is humble, serves others earnestly, gives generously, lives vigorously, and deals with people honestly. I want to be real with people, stop being scared of what they think of me and just love them for who they are. Really the Gospel isn’t as much about telling people about Jesus, as it is showing his love to them. How much more attractive is that? If you could do that really well, people would be banging down your door asking about Jesus.
Yet my challenge is always remembering that clarity that I had the next morning, when all is foggy again and I stumble into my everyday routines. How can I change? How can I stop living selfishly and start living for others? What steps can I take in that direction? What is God calling me to?
If no one else, maybe I can inspire myself with this post tomorrow…
New Content to Come April 3, 2008
I’ve been thinking a lot about what other kinds of content I’d like to see on this website. I think there are some changes to come in adding some minor things like more pages under the About Jesse section, with some more contact information and such. I’d also like to add a search bar back into the design, which I’ve been ignoring so far. Along with that, I have some friends around the web that deserve some linking to, so I should give them some props somewhere on the site as well (No site should be an island, you know).
I’d also like to add a section called Adventures. I got the idea from my friend Chris Dewan back in the day. I’d like to improve on it some more though. This would be kinda like a photo gallery of trips/excursions that I’ve been on, but with additional information about the location, the date, and a blog post about it. We’ll see how that all comes together. I think adding another section will also mandate changing the top menu a little bit to accomodate a fourth link.
As you can see, I’ve got some work cut out for me. I’m glad though that this new website is proving to me more flexible and more fun to update than the last one. Post more comments while you’re here!
I Have 284 Friends March 14, 2008
…at least according to my Facebook profile. I looked through all of them the other day as I wanted to send out a message about this website. You know what? There are people in there I can’t even remember, I have no idea how I know them! And there are a lot of people who I haven’t talked to in years. We were acquaintances at best.
Social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook came about so that you could connect with people. I certainly see some amount of value in keeping up with people from far away; it’s not a bad thing. But it’s interesting to me that as we’re able to connect with people easier and easier, it gets harder to maintain all of those friendships that we now have the ability to keep up. Could I realistically keep up friendships with 284 people? Yeah right.
Sometimes I wonder (and I’m sure I’m not the first) if all of these friends, if all of this “easy contact” I have with people all over the world enabled by the Internet, email, instant messaging, and social networking sites has actually made it harder to maintain a real friendship with anyone?
Instead of telling people about an important event in our lives, we post it on Facebook. Instead of calling someone to see what they’re up to, we just Facebook them. Instead of stopping by someone’s place, it’s much easier to send out a Facebook invite.
It’s all about convenience and making communication easier. After all, how often do you have a meaningful conversation through these sites? Even our face-to-face conversations may change; we are so used to having these little snippets of friendship that we are not used to conversing about the deeper and more important things in life.
Friendship is a two-way street, giving and taking. These sites are all about the taking, we post only what we want to post, and we read only what we care to read. When all we do is take, we find that no one wants to give back. I’m not sure I believe that you can maintain a friendship through a social networking site, at least, not fully.
Why am I dissin’ these sites? I have no idea, truthfully, I have nothing against them. I’ll continue to use my accounts and talk to people through them. I guess my challenge is to continue to build real friendships with those around me and to not let the “bad habits” of online contact seep into my everyday life.
New Work Already! March 5, 2008
Yes, I know I just launched the site on Monday, but I might as well get some more work up there! I’ve got three new things for you, all in the print design category. None of these things is new yet, but I still have some older work that can be put up when I feel like it. Two of them are invites that I did for Morsekode shindigs, and one is some CD art that I created for a Morsekode Mix CD. Check ‘em out.
New Website, Finally March 1, 2008
This new website is a long time in coming, in fact, I designed the last one in less than a weeks timeframe for a class in my junior year of college. It was pretty rushed and it was never fully thought out. After I graduated and had a bit more time on my hands I started to want to design a new site.
That was almost 2 years ago now! I’ve worked on this project on and off during that time, but its always a challenge designing for yourself. I’m never completely happy with what I’ve come up with. In fact, I think that I went through 14 designs to arrive at this one. (My wife thinks I’m insane!) At some point, I just had to say, “this is the one, be happy with it.”
My goal with this site is to keep it more updated. I’ve made it pretty easy on myself to add new content to it, so I have no excuses now! I’m hoping to be able to add new designs I’ve created, new photos I’ve taken, and some varying thoughts from time to time.
I call the blog section “thoughts” because I hope that it will be more than the occasional “Hey, I just saw the coolest website” or “I had Macoroni and Cheese for dinner last night, boy is that good!” I hope to bring something new to the blogosphere, from design commentary, to advertising ideas, to thoughts on Christian spirituality. Join in the conversation with me and let me know your thoughts as well, I welcome the feedback.
This is definitely a work in progress, I may add sections, or change how things work, so don’t be too surprised. Feel free to let me know if you have any comments, thoughts, or questions.
I Haxored Wordpress February 12, 2008
One of the things I’m proud of in this new website is the technology behind it. It represents a couple of steps into new grounds that I haven’t made before. First off, the website is based on a simple XHTML skeleton, and then is styled using CSS. This method has been around for a while now, I’ve waited for a while for technology to catch up, and then I also got lazy and just didn’t want to learn it. It was a good challenge and I certainly see the flexibility and the wisdom in separating the design and the content.
Second of all, this website is completely based on the Wordpress blogging platform. Now, running a blog off of Wordpress is easy, and doesn’t take much. But after trying out a billion CMS’s out there I finally settled on simply using this system. It took a bit of haxoring, and a little PHP programming on the way (scary!) but it was actually relatively simple and I’d consider recommending it for clients and friends. Each item in the Portfolio is actually a post with some custom features, this makes adding new stuff really easy. (The idea being that I update this website more often!) Plus, those designs can be sorted any number of ways, by discipline, campaign, or any other way I want.