Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Working through yesterday's list

Google server is working fine! But then I'm not in China!

I completed my design assignment - two designs demonstrating Albers' transparency principles. I'm now packing up my design stuff, but I still have two designs and a painted color wheel to complete and send to the prof.

The one on the left shows what happens when "transparent red" is placed over the four colors. The one on the right shows different transparency effects of blue over yellow. In both case
s each piece is a separate color selected from my 314-options Color-Aid pack.






Ulla and I decided to engage a professional editor to help us work through the somewhat conflicting demands of the journal editor.

No comment on the relocation issues.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Frustrations ....

With the google server for being down when I wanted to blog.
With my design homework - Albers transparency principles.
With an article revision -- received late Friday PM and due Apr 9. Editor wants it shortened -- suggests removing what we added to comply with his previous request!
With the process of preparing to leaving one location and reinstall at another.
With ....

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Starting the countdown

Today was my last day in the design class; there is one more class after Easter and I have arranged to attend by Skype -- a new concept for the prof although I now he uses Skype for family stuff. The color assignments are "schoolbook stuff" -- proving that we understand how to execute some of Albers key principles. I did "well enough" with my two boards with 4 colors as 3 and 3 colors as 4 (2 examples each), plus a red0 in class of one of the boards.

And, I finished the company Logo project from the first part of the
class. Here's my prototype of a logo for the Business & Design Lab. Ulla saw the version before the Crit and subsequent changes, and her comment was ... "Interesting." Any other comments?

This week I need to do the two "transparency" exercises so I can send them to the prof before we leave town next Sunday afternoon. All being well -- especially the weather -- we will be heading for Kennedy Space Center next Sunday for the shuttle launch @ 6:40 AM on Monday. This will be our first stop on the journey north.

Which means that this week "clean up, pack up, pack out" are the order of the day. The to-do/done list changes hourly.

Friday, March 26, 2010

More art than you may want to view

Thinking about today "backwards" -- this evening we went to the public opening of the SaRtQ art exhibition that included work by "my design prof". It was interesting -- the artists have formed a group working in Sarasota and the exhibition demonstrated the process that each one uses to create his or her painting, sculpture, photos, mixed media, whatever. Jeff's paintings were of the Hob Nob -- a "famous lunch place" in town: there was a series of finished paintings under different lights, his drawings and photos used for the paintings, photos of his studio and a description of how he generates ideas and works on the painting. Each of the 14 artists had a similar presentation. I was fascinated. It made me reflect -- again-- on the "behind the scenes" or process work of an artists/designer, and how this corresponds -- or not-- with the working processes of managers. Much more deliberate, much longer, and with different expectations/aims (I don't want to use "goals.") More thinking is needed.

This morning I did finish my four "boards" for the color assignment due on Sunday -- two with four colors that look like 3, two with three colors that look like 4.
Here are photos, but the colors are not like the originals.
I don't think you can tell which pair is which from
these photos. (One has twodifferent combinations of 3 colors, one has two different combinations of 4 colors.) Now I need to work on my BDL logo so I can learn from the crit of that assignment on Sunday.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Curiouser and curiouser

Alice was finally "real" to me when I saw the movie this evening -- she never was a real person when I read the books as a child - but of course she wasn't 19 then. I was riveted by the unfolding of events and the details of the real/not-real even though the metastory of the Jabberwocky quest didn't add anything other than an excuse for a wham-bam kind of violence that seems to be everywhere these days. But the Cheshire cat was wonderful! He just smiled and disappeared the way he was supposed to!

Wednesday's non post

What happened? Did I not do anything, or have any thoughts or take any photos? Have I stopped working on my color assignments or my various writing projects? Is the weather unremarkable? Or did I just forget?

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Continuing the task list ...

A couple of major accomplishments today: (1) We signed up for the Galapagos-Micchu Picchu "Expedition." I consider this the first of our round-the-world "obligation" to ourselves when I retired. We won't be doing the jaunt on one ticket as earlier fantasized, but we will make excursions to places we wouldn't have visited as part of our regular travel circuit, i.e., across the pond and into the Caribbean. (2) We spent the morning with a kitchen designer starting the process of a fairly major remodel here (Siesta Key). It has come about because we MUST replace the linoleum that must have been in the foyer, kitchen and bathrooms for 40 years. No point in doing the floor if you pan to replace any of the appliances or cabinets within the reasonably near future ... and so the project begins. We won't have any action before we leave other than a professional measurement, but we hope to be ready to install when we next return.

And, as a lesser (?) feat, I completed three boards for my color assignment. There's no point in taking photos because the camera is not faithful to colors and the effects are somewhat light dependent (I need to work in the same light conditions for each part of the assignment. But, because my faithful followers are so curious about my class, here are the details:
1. Making one color look like two. (a) Backgrounds V-P1-1 and O-P1-1, changing color Y-P4-3. (b) Backgrounds Rw-T3 and Bc-T4, changing color M-P3-3.
2. Making two colors look like one. (a) BG-P1-2 on YGw-P1-1 and C-T4 on BG-S2 (BG-P1-2 and C-T4 look (sort of) the same.
Are you wiser now?

Monday, March 22, 2010

Monday Chores

Refill prescriptions, get hair cut, clean carpets (supervise process), send and answer email, prepare EAM symposium description for proceedings publication, try to decide whether we will take a trip to the Galapagos Islands and Micchu Picchu next October (a chore?), try to make sense of color assignment -- make three colors look like four and four colors look like three (each twice, with different colors), draft research note to update a 2008 paper. And the evening is still young ....

Sunday, March 21, 2010

The Crit (3)

Ultimate praise -- the prof made pdfs of my series of waterlily designs to show to future classes.
I rest on my laurels -- not thinking about this week's assignment, which is deceptively simple. That can wait a day or two!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Zooom-lens ...




I finished my design class color homework by completing the last two boards today: my personal palette and the neutral palette.









I also replaced the center of the warm palette design, and I think it looks better for it. "Background 1" is too intense, but it would take too much effort to change. The boards still need a good cleanup to remove excess rubber cement, glue down wayward corners and take a sharp x-acto knife to the burrs. That's tomorrow morning's task.
The project did give me cause to reflect on a designer's use of a "zoom lens" to be able to move from the big picture to details and back again. I'm just beginning to experience this activity -- which means I need to "see" the completed design as I b
egin, and then focus on the details of creating it. One of the students in the first design class spoke of being able to "see the design in her mind" and then struggling to actually create what she imagined. At the time this was a new concept to me, so I've been conscious of it ever since, and now realize the relation to the "zoom lens concept."

For this color assignment I finally selected a design that I could zoom out to the finished board in the different color schemes, even if at first I did not know the details of the exact selection of colors. I knew the board would look different with different color palettes. Yes, the design could be more interesting, but I needed to concentrate on executing the color piece. When I experimented with the Great Wall design I couldn't "see/imagine/zoom out" to how it would be different under the different palettes.

And I can't think of a parallel way of approaching a problem in organization theory.

So, here's my one woman exhibition, waiting for tomorrow's Crit.
And here a photo of some 2,000 people walking on on the beach this morning (you're looking at 1/16 of the spread of the beach) in a walk to cure juvenile diabetes. It was a nice day for it.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Just do it ..

Today's design analogy is having a major research paper due in a few days, when it's best to sit and slog through the needed work. ... I settled down this morning to complete two more "lily boards" -- warm color and saturated color palettes. It took the best part of the day, with breaks for a beach walk and lap swimming. Plain ole work -- not exactly hard, sometimes tedious, trying not to "blow it off". I'm not sure about the red palette result -- but I have made up my mind not to do anything about it until Sunday, or after I've finished all five palettes.
I have the last two for tomorrow -- a neutral palette (as I used for the Great Wall) and my personal palette. How ornery will I be feeling? Will I want to do something bizarre like reversing expected colors or picking random colors, or will I stay true to the intention of the exercise? At this point I have no idea how I will react -- check back tomorrow for the results!

Here's a diversion from the beach scene!






Thursday, March 18, 2010

#!!@#% - color assignment

The day started well enough. An hour writing - well at least starting and structuring the "Research note on a better paradigmatic partnership between design and management." Then off about town on various errands. We're in the early planning stages of what promises to be quite a major redo -- all because the foyer and kitchen linoleum badly needs replacing. We headed for Home Depot to get a sense of prices and current styles in appliances, sinks and faucets, bathroom fixtures, cabinets .... etc. (I told you the project was growing by leaps and bounds.) The good news is that we have no time to do anything before we leave town; the bad news is that we didn't get very far with our investigative mission - and still took all morning!

After lunch I settled down to work on my third color assignment. After completing the Great Wall yesterday I knew that was not the design for the requirements of the project, so I returned to the water lily. (My first ideas are often best.) I worked with the cool palette, revising my
selection of 8 colors several times, and tried a new cutting technique. Here's the pattern on the left, my design on the right. Apart from a break to take a beach walk, and time for supper, I worked steadily till 9:30 PM.
It took longer than I expected,

and I still have some cleaning up and re-cementing to do (That can wait for Sunday morning.) I'm having some technique issues with cutting the colored paper -- it I don't cut absolutely clean, I tend to get little burrs of the white backing to the color. It looks as if it's the board showing through the design, but that's not so.

Tomorrow I need to do two more lilly designs -- one in a warm palette and one in a saturated palette. I hope the project goes faster!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Just hard work

Today was a day when I spent a long time working hard - at tasks that disappear as more "finished" work is produced. In the morning I created a diagram for our DMI-update paper, and in the process discovered an article that needs to be reclassified. Then I spent quite a while extracting full papers of articles for our 2008-2009 dataset. (I suppose this is "grad assistant work" except that some decisions need to be made along the way. No doubt a grad assistant would cull lots of papers and then I would delete two thirds of them.)

This afternoon Jack went to a baseball game (the Orioles are the home team so more people were wearing orange than green!) and I settled down to craft a Great Wall. It took all afternoon, between cutting a pattern, cutting the pieces from 8 different colors in the neutral color palette, and then arranging them. I'm not satisfied with the result -- the "first level" colors don't seem right. Maybe it is that the sunlight plays havoc with what a sense of perspective suggests would be the visual hierarchy. And the cutting needs more attention -- as you can see, these pieces are just taped down. I'd better come to my senses and go back to the lilies. The assignment is to demonstrate the effects of the color palettes, not to wow with realism!

New update to yesterday's post

Yesterday evening we heard 24 wonderful "new" voices in the Sarasota Opera's Apprentice Artists' Concert performance. All "the best" duets, trios, quartets and even a quintent from various operatic works: Verdi, Mozart, Bizet, Sullivan (the 'paradox song' from Pirates), Lehar, Beethoven and more. Sung in Italian, German, English without the distraction of supertitles. Formidable! Best $15 of the Season!

An added benefit was the show of fashionable evening dress for professional men and women in the 24-ish age range.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

New...

Group of people walking on the beach. They stop and point out dolphins to their companions, poke at the jellyfish (a new storm at the weekend deposited a new crop on the beach), and are industriously building new designs in the sand. I'd include some new pictures, but my camera needs a new battery.

Instead I completed a couple of figures for the update to our DMI paper that Ulla and I are writing, and seriously considered a Great Wall of China design for my color-3 assignment. I got as far as a rapid prototype using various shades of grey paper generated by my printer, but was so discouraged by the result that I put it aside. (Just as well I can't include a pic!) Tomorrow I'll probably return to a flower design.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Decisions, decisions ...

No academic work today :( Instead I "let my mind float" as I thought about my next color assignment. In a nutshell, I have to create "an interesting design" and then make it in five different color palettes. More later about the colors: first I need a design that I can craft in 5-8 different colors. I want a design that is meaningful to me, one that challenges my craft, but also one that I can make.

Yesterday I had no ideas. This morning I thought of water lilies and rummaged through my ephotos for pictures from the Rio Botanical Gardens (huge tray-like leaves) and the Selby Gardens (I'd only taken the carp, not the lilies.) I spend a good while on Google selecting images of a single lilly and worked out I would need seven different colors. But later I was dissatisfied -- water lilies are so commonplace (think Monet), and I'm sure one of the examples the prof showed us yesterday from other students was of a waterlily of something similar.

What else might I use? How about the Blue Mosque? Interesting architecture, but not suitable for this type of design. Back to my flower collections -- here's a nice bird of paradise.
Hmm, not sure. I need to think about the number of colors.
How about the Great Wall of China? Our visit there was when photos were hardcopy, but Google provided some examples. Would I need too many colors? Would it still look like
the Great Wall?


I'll have to give the project more thought!

Sunday, March 14, 2010

March 14

Here's the post (some of) you have been anticipating! In favor of The Day, we had not one but two pies, and what is more, I assigned the letter X to the savory pie (on right). Some would call it Quiche, but for me it is a cheese pie with an X ingredient, which might be bacon, or ham, or broccoli or mushroom or ... or some combination of the above.
I'm so happy to have conquered X. But if anyone has a recipe for a different X pie, please send it to me.

The other pie was the V -- vanilla cream. The recipe was a quick one that required little effort --
-- and the results showed it -- oops!
(And apologies for the green hue.)
Maybe chilling longer or even freezing will help the structure
Either way it barely earned a one-pie rating on the five scale.

I have just two pies left in my quest to complete the while alphabet: N and U. Both recipes are in Connecticut, so I'll make them once we return north.

My design news of the day is in a separate post below.

The Crit (2)

My design prof was "in awe" of my Personal Crest and Logo designs. He said I got the award for the most improved student of all time, and yes, I could put it on my resume!

My Crest demonstrated all the design principles covered in the class and my craft was excellent. My Logo conveyed the essence of the crest -- and when I asked about my problem with the connection between the J and W he suggested drawing -- and cutting -- this part of the design again so it was more naturally like my handwriting. It "worked" on the crest, but the logo did not have the same flair.

I was pleased.

My color assignment garnered praise too. The morse code symbolism was great - a blending of science and design, and the irregularities in the hand cut strips were part of the charm of the design. I explained that I had made the strips shorter after reading Albers and he said that I displayed the concept of surroundness well. My Bezold effect was good too -- and he again praised me for my craft (I said that a protractor and a pair of sharp scissors worked wonders!) and the 3-dimensional effect I had created.

The other student (there were only two of us in class this week) had quite different "solutions" to the problem, and they too worked well in their own way.

I won't spoil the aura of success with details of the project due for next week, but I can say it has me quaking in my shoes already. I have a lot to live up to now.


Saturday, March 13, 2010

Personal Logo (Simple)

Here's what I created -

If you know my personal crest you can 'catch it' in my logo.
Is it too simple?
Followers, what do you think?
I'll report on the prof's crit tomorrow.

For my crest, see post of 5th March.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Colors in place

A second rainy day -- and unless spending more than an hour in the New Balance store buying new shoes counts as the real thing, no walking for exercise today.

Lady Rubber Cement was in residence all afternoon -- and the results are arguably worthy of a one woman exhibition!






I'm pleased with my Bezold Effect assignment: my analogy to my "other life" is that the process was like struggling with data analysis, and finding a path that created a good, plausible story. Here are the two boards: both have the same triangular design of three colors, pale yellow and two tints of warm red. The background is a cool green tint on one, a cool red on the other.
I'm less satisfied with my Four Seasons Project, The analogy here was reaching a point where in my heart of hearts I knew I should start over looking at the data afresh, but instead I kept tweeking the analysis in the hopes if finding an "ahha" story. It didn't happen, but I'd spent enough time on the project and let it fall where it may in the crit.

Here are my boards. Assignment: "Four colors, four designs, in four separate pieces where all of the original colors are used in each design." When I couldn't find a way to represent the four seasons using roughly similar sized pieces, I decided on a "bar code" effect. After trying three different widths I settled on two, then, wanting to use the "four seasons", chose morse code for the first two letters of each season to create the pattern. At first the parallel lines were all 4 inches long, then I kept making them smaller -- until I decided enough was enough.

On the left are AUtumn and Winter; on the right SPring and SUmmer. (Photos do not reproduce colors well.)

The symbolism is too complex -- The design could definitely be better It's an example of " over -analysis without extra benefit" if I want to draw on my other experience.

Now I can return to my logo assignment -- and I have an idea for my simple personal logo.

In the meantime, Jack ferreted out how to get to Bose Idaho for Labor Day festivities. (Lurking followers, that one's for you!)

Thursday, March 11, 2010

99% perspiration

Today was grey and windy with thunder in the air: No beach walk, no swimming.

Instead I worked for several hours preparing my color assignments:
measuring and cutting the colored paper, placing it on the background in the exact location, and anchoring it temporarily with removable transparent tape. You can't tell from the photos, but the equilateral triangles are made up of three isosceles triangles with two tints of red (warm) and a tint of yellow. Tomorrow I will anchor the little bits of paper with rubber cement to complete the task. It all took a surprisingly long time, and required concentration and attention to detail, even if this part of the process will be invisible in the final piece. I suppose it's analogous to the grunt work of a literature search and selection before completing the text of the review.

After several emails to Sweden I have a new email account there -- except I can't access that one either! More's to be done tomorrow!

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Something old (previously seen) something new ....

New first: Started working on my second color assignment-Bezold Effect. I have 2 radically different background colors and 3 other colors with which to make a design (same design on both backgrounds)
Spent ages trying to come up with a good repetitive pattern for the 3 colors. Had to apply some basic trigonometry, use homemade graph paper (Excel grid) and walked to Davidson's to invest $1.15 on a protractor. Ah!, much better, now I can draw 120 degree angles! I have snippets of paper everywhere and used pencil, red, and blue pens to create prototypes. My design-so-far requires some precise cutting to butt the triangles against each other. I'll experiment with the real colored paper tomorrow and see if I can really do it. After my daily reading of Albers, I made one more change to the color-1 assignment. That's ready for rubber cement in the morning.

Old things -- the last of the big jellyfish (look hard and you'll see its outline) and, for those of you who remember my blog of two years ago,




the"mansion" at Point O'Rocks is getting its finishing touches and
landscaping. No "for sale" signs, so someone must be ready to move in.












We ate lunch outside on the balcony -- first time this year. Just like old times!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

A good day - except for ...



My poor basil plant. It was as healthy as the other herbs a couple of weeks ago, but now look at it (yes, I've been watering it - not too much.) I decided it didn't like the cold nights, but by the time I brought it indoors it was too late.







But a good research day -- Ulla and I shipped the first draft of our chapter for the Giants book, and completed our paradigmatic analysis of 100 articles on design management ready to update our DMI-2008 paper for the BDL-Perspectives collection.

And I revised my ideas for my "four seasons" color project where I had to use all the other three colors on each background color. I decided to include some of my (becoming famous) symbolism, and turned my "bar code effect" into morse code letters for the first two letters of each season:
Sp ( . . . .- - .) Su ( . . . . . -)
Au ( . - . . -) Wi ( . - - . .)
Note: My color pics are not faithful to the colored papers used.
I haven't applied the rubber cement yet, so there's time for more changes! I read Alber's writing on the topic, but couldn't apply his theories to my work. Maybe tomorrow?

Monday, March 8, 2010

Color comes first

Now that I'm getting serious about my assignments on color theory for my design class, I need to change my work habits -- I need the morning light to work with the different colored papers and appreciate their relationships with each other. My project is still "in process," so it's not particularly exciting. Besides, I had several conversations with Ulla on BDL stuff and coordinating our travel plans all the while I was cutting.

Much more exciting are the colorful masks made by master carvers from the Borucan peoples of Costa Rica on exhibition at the
Marie Selby Gardens. Wow! intricate designs carved from a single piece of balsa wood, and then painted. Originally the masks depicted fierce creatures and were used in ceremonies, then masks were made of forest creatures, and now they may be a combination. The walls were covered -- and most of the masks were sold already (the exhibition open
ed last Thursday). Just as well, and also just as well that I'm not searching for artifacts for my office wall, otherwise I'm sure I would have succumbed!

We took the opportunity to walk along the downtown waterfront,
where Jack tried to decide on his next boat, and lunched at Marina Jack's.









Which leaves writing as an evening activity!

Sunday, March 7, 2010

No class today; instead ...

It's Spring Break at the Ringling College of Art and Design, so this afternoon I took advantage of the warm sunshine and read on the beach. I had 6 books in hand -- two "resident" in my reading bag, Herbert Simon's "The Sciences of the Artificial", a design "foundational classic" that I am finding incredibly hard going, and my "free reading book, "The kitchen boy: A novel of the last Tsar" by Robert Alexander. Then yesterday afternoon my latest order arrived from Amazon: Josef Alber's "Interaction of color", required reading for my Design Fundamentals II class, the DK Guide, "Top 10 Lisbon" in anticipation of our visit for the EGOS Colloquium at the the end of June, and Judith Butler's "Gender Trouble", so I can be appropriately informed on the epistemological underpinnings of the BDL before the Invited Conference at Case Western in mid-June. as if that wasn't a diverse enough group of books to even absorb the forwards or prefaces, Otto von Busch sent me the "pocket version (aka paperback) of his dissertation, "fashion-able: Hactivism and engaged fashion design." That book looks the most interesting of the bunch! (What is the world--or Jill--coming to, reading a dissertation for fun?)

After a while the afternoon seabreeze became too chilling, and we retreated to our favorite spot by the pool. Then, when prudence said I'd had sufficient sun -- it was my first day in shorts, after all -- I came back to the computer to finish the publication proofing tasks for our OMJ article (Starting with Howard Gardner's five minds, adding Elliott Jaques's responsibility time span:Implications for undergraduate management education -- a paper that has been as long in process as the length of the name implies.) 31 changes to the text, marked appropriately with English proofing symbols and listed in detail in a separate word document, plus detailed responses to 13 queries later, I read the cover email again for the return address. "Make all changes in black ink" read the very last line of two pages of instructions -- and mine were all in the blue ink preferred for legal documents. Oh H- - -!

Clearly a change of pace was called for -- namely the H pie -- Honey Crunch Pecan. Jack gave it 5 stars; I'd say 4 -- it lacked subtlety and only tasted of sweet pecans.








After enjoying the pie I copied all the OMJ20104 entries in black in and shipped the proofs. No time left to finish the Follett Giant chapter that Ulla and I have been sending back and forth all weekend. Tomorrow is another day.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

More people in town

On the beach ... younger -- the college set or with small children


At the pool ... (almost) all chairs were occupied this afternoon



. .. including this one.








And in the restaurant and at the opera yesterday evening (a fantastic production of Cavelleria rusticana and Pagliacci (yes, full house for every evening during March.)

But NOT a "full house" for comments on yesterday's posting about my Personal Crest. Was it THAT bad? (If so, say so!)