Fitting in

Survival, the other end of the spectrum from Creativity, has a relationship with Resilience that compromises the body.

In my work drawing concepts for teams at different companies, I've had the opportunity to observe and participate in creative dynamics. Drawing pictures is nice. The interpersonal stuff makes it very exciting. Even if a launch fails, that hive energy begets creative, proactive attitudes. Over the years, teams spin off smaller units. Some go way outside the mothership. Resiliency is good for the body and for business. 

Sometimes, due to pressure from non-creative partners or free-floating fear, teams stop being proactive. Maybe a deep yearning for predictability, rooted in survival is speaking. A few seasons of success lend the impression that any project can be planned and executed in Excel-type fashion. That works when the spreadsheet has columns named re-frame and reality check; and cells named unknown and epiphany! 
Our new holy grail is the program that tidily snaps those categories on a spreadsheet. One of Resiliency’s tight friends is Creativity; both resist the matrix. 

The long goodbye

charcoal and conte crayon

The continuous dry ground from summer into winter is a bonus for outdoor sketching; Pyrrhic advantage. I returned with charcoal to the dying pines on the Ridge Trail nearby. I take pics or draw ‘em. Their dying is such a long process! They are stark, magnificent --yet hard to identify with as a role model for dying. It's not Hollywood's one big bad scene, it's a years-long indignity, visible from all sides of the ridge. Bark slips off at a near-geologic pace. A broken limb catches on its ailing neighbor. Eventually the neighbor goes down.
Last year, I hung several of these trees’ portraits downtown alongside portraits of the Palace Hotel: Wealth, two ways. SF architecture drawings sold; dead trees – not so much! Back to drawings of built space, happy customers, coordinated materials. The hired pen wants to wander. 

Not as Advertised

The weather reports said no snow, so it was unusually crowded for after-Xmas. Day-visitors in flip-flops. This is year #4 of drought. Yhe falls at Yosemite were reduced to a trickle this January, a glaze of frost on an adjacent ledge. NPS' foreign guests will post selfies of this and buy postcards of the falls the way they used to be. My plein air excursion happened, but what a sorry sight. 

Let's hang on

My son and his day-old son

I am overwhelmed and speechless. I can only sing to him.

Who’ll be the next in line?

The #1 quick-fix to indicate “I’m in front!” is overlap. Other depth cues on a flat surface include: diminution (getting smaller-ness), convergence and upward position on field. These 2D figures at San Francisco's Transbay Temporary Terminal keep a polite distance and staying within the boundary. For their work-weary audience, they model all the depth cues but overlap, in the hope that the audience for this sign will behave, in real space, accordingly. The figures don’t overlap each other; that might imply touching! How telling for our culture! The only overlap in this pic is that of shoulders covering the farther line boundary.

Pieces of silver

A pair of dead trees above Donner Lake. Their barkless flesh, iridescent in the bright sun, speaks of what they've endured: cold frosts, sparkling snow and the crackling heat of rainless summers. I am up here volunteering with wilderness first responders, play-acting hypothermia, impalements and frostbite. Government officials came here annually to plunge a measuring stick in a snowdrift to get an idea of how much water is coming down to the parched valley. Like last year, not a snowdrift in sight.

Spring can really hang you up the most

My mom sang this song well. She died about 18 months ago, so she won't be around to meet my first grandchild, who's soon to be born. I would never have guessed life would roll out at this rate! When I was little, I was fascinated by the Life magazine photo captioned, “a thumb to suck, a veil to wear”. As it does for old ladies and brides, a veil makes our tiny back yard more mysterious. Nevertheless, the spring-expectant colors pulse through. Still waiting.