Archive for July, 2009

I worked along side New Uniform Design and the Red Square Agency to create this state of the art web experience. I animated the interface and coded all the flash, asp and html. Check it out.

www.redsquareagency.com

I like chocolate. A lot of people do. But why do we like it? It tastes good, right? Of course it does. It’s even better with peanut butter. At least I think so. But maybe you don’t. Why is that? Is my taste buds built different that yours? Maybe. Actually, most likely. Perception is a major factor in what people like and dislike. How you perceive some determines how you like or dislike something. But what I want to discuss is that different factors besides taste buds can determine why someone may like or dislike something. In other words, I think you can learn to like anything.

A perfect example is someones choice in color. Ask a kid what his or her favorite color is. How do they come up with an answer. I remember my favorite color as a kid. Orange. Why orange? Well, as far as I can remember it was because it wasn’t blue cause that was my Mom’s. It wasn’t yellow cause that was my brothers. I needed my own color. I picked orange to be different. It wasn’t because my eyed depicted orange in a prettier light then my brothers. It wasn’t cause I was born to love orange. It was because in my experience as a person I wanted my favorite color to be orange.

Now as an adult, and an artist, I ask my self the same question. And I come to the same answer. I could say that any color is great with a complimentary color next to it. But that is avoiding the question all together. In art school the teachers would critique our work. They would give their opinion what what they like and what they would change. What they would do different. Not saying it wasn’t great to be criticized, but as an artist you have to realize that critiques of artwork are not right and wrong, it is simply interpreted by a certain individual. And one day that person my interpret it different than on the next day.

We are all human. We go through life picking up experiences every minute of our life. We gain opinions of everything we come across based on our experience. ie. A person may have had a bad experience with a dog as a child and now they hate dogs. I show them a painting of a dog, and they are unknowingly biased because they don’t like dogs. And if we realize why we like things can’t we change the way we think, thus changing what we like.

I’ve always been a smoker. I’ve always battled with weight and exercise. Recently I have quit smoking and am still getting used to what comes with being a non-smoker. Non-smokers don’t like smoke. I do. But I realize that if I do adopt this opinion then it will be easier to not smoke. If I convince myself I hate smoke, than I will avoid smoke, just as non-smokers do. The same goes with exercise. If it disgusts me to sit around weeks at a time without exercise, then I will be more inclined to work out. Now I’m not saying that you can merely convince yourself of something in order to change your actions. It’s not that easy. I wish it was. All I am saying is that there are reason people like to work out; there are reasons people don’t smoke. These reasons make them do what they do. These things make them like what they like. I don’t like to work out, but I like to be healthy and fit. I like to smoke but I don’t want to die of lung cancer.

I guess when certain reasons, certain opinions, certain experiences outweigh the others you can like something you never liked before. Your actions change with those actions you change. As you go through life you need to always learn from you experiences to order to change for the better. To start to like the right things and dislike and bad. I never want to live a strict colorless life, but if I live my life doing what I like, then I will have no regrets.

You don’t know about Bodega Bay? Well it’s a pretty incredible place. Just north of San Francisco and west of the Napa Valley, Bodega Bay is a small fishing town with ports, boats and plenty of seafood to go around. It has windy beaches tucked against rocky cliffs that go on for miles. I have plenty of memories of this magical place but the one thing I will always remember is that I have always wanted to live there.

Imagine a country house situated on a grassy field placed in between a rock filled mountain on one side and a cliff that overlooks the ocean on the other. Just driving through Bodega Bay made me fall in love. I remember the smell of the eucalyptus trees and the tons of sheep we would see driving along the roads. There is only one way to get through the small town: two lane road that curves around the coast like a snake. On the way through town there is one main square that includes a wine store, a small family restaurant and a small arcade. I loved the arcade. There was a small shop with shells and beach stuff for sale. Mostly useless stuff, but all the houses we stayed in were littered with this decor. We would make an appearence at least once to this little wharf on our way through the Bodega Bay.

Next we would always stop at a local stop that served up the best Smoked Salmon I have ever tasted. Crazy awesome, but the place was a little scary. It was orange. Weird. After that we would stop at the Kite store which was an old house turned shop that sold the craziest kites you have ever seen. Plus, it has a huge selection of local Salt Water Taffy. After stocking up on candy, we would make our way to the house we would rent. We stayed in a number of places over the years, but they all seemed to have their own personal charm. Never technology driven, they were simple and quaint. A classic beach house. They always were a five minute walk to the beach and surrounded by sand dunes and small waterways. The terrain overall was unlike anything I had seen anywhere else. Even to this day I’m sure that Bodega Bay’s overall geography is unique to anything I have seen before.

We would spend our days traveling the countryside and going to the beach. There is even an area called the Elephant Rocks that are just these giant boulders that sit in the middle of a field. I cant really explain it but it’s pretty awesome. Bodega Bay is also the town the original movie “The Birds”was filmed. We went to visit the old school house in the movie which is now a church. At least I think thats cool.

Besides the overall look of things I guess I would have to say that Bodega Bay was special to me because of the memories. I had plenty of family vacations there. Some with my late grandparents and some with just my immediate family. Every memory is a good one. After I retire I could see myself moving to Bodega Bay in a small house looking over the water. It’s pretty much the most stress free place I’ve ever been.