For those wondering here is the latest version.

[mckenzee]

Inspiration

When I was a child, I wanted to be a designer. At the time, I didn't distinguish between Art and Design. I told my Grandmother that I knew I was too small to be an artist, but that I was one anyway. Living on the Space Coast, I attended school with the astronaut's kids. My elementary manuscripts were illuminated with fantastical drawings of
houses and machines. I was going to be the first architect on the moon.



Exploration/Ideation/Evolution

I studied drafting throughout high school. My senior year, I gathered my sketches, my blueprints, and my dreams, and sent them off to the local School of Design. I had no idea how amazing it was that I was called in for an interview. It wasn't that I felt a sense of entitlement; I was simply ignorant of the ways of the world.

College quickly made me aware of my ignorance.

I took a course called "The Profession of Architecture" as a freshman. It served its intended purpose and frightened me away. Unfortunately, only from architecture. I was still convinced that I wanted to be a designer.

I transferred to Product Design, dreaming up Martian dump trucks. Closer, but not what I wanted. Then I wandered into "Environmental Design", a delightfully vague field which allowed me to squander years dabbling in painting and sculpture. I was a right brain student in a left brain school.

A Designer has a goal, an Artist has a path.

Presentation

I am a fan of Intelligent Design. Meaning, I think design should be intelligent. As I argued with my product design classmates, a toaster should only be aerodynamic if you plan to throw it out the window. Form follows function is the application of Ockham's Razor, "All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the right one." K.I.S.S!

Before I could devolve to the level of finger painting, I drifted out of school. I landed in photography. I grew up, got married, developed an allergy to photo chemicals, moved across the country, got divorced, changed fields, moved to Paris, launched a photo-based webcomic, moved back to North Carolina, got married again, and here I am.

Evaluation

Everyday, I follow the Design Process. I create, generate alternatives, take them apart, and build again on the ruins. My materials change constantly. Words, relationships, images -- I fuse them together, bending them to my will, creating something new.

The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura – 1906

"Art, to be fully appreciated, must be true to contemporaneous life. It is not that we should ignore the claims of posterity, but that we should seek to enjoy the present more. It is not that we should disregard the creations of the past, but that we should try to assimilate them into our consciousness. ... Would that we loved the ancients more and copied them less!"