Whirlwind is, I think, an apt word to describe this past year. (The year, one rotation of the earth around the sun.) I like wind: the way it moves over us, all of us, touches our skin and clothes and hair, eyelids closing slowly in its presence; wind like breath lifting and releasing and sometimes vanishing. When I moved to Tucson, I remember thinking that no one had told me about the wind: moving fast over the desert and collecting, explosive on the city streets. (Has the wind on earth always been the same?)
Today is my first day living in Boston (in the Coolidge Corner area). At the end of July, I moved out of New York and stayed in Connecticut for most of August (near the Connecticut River, which was beautiful indeed). Now I’m in Boston, one of the oldest cities in the country, where in just a week or so, I’ll be teaching at the small and mighty Lesley University. It’s a lovely school and I’m thrilled to be part of their core faculty in the illustration department. This semester I’m teaching undergrads and will help the department develop their MFA program in Illustration (!). I also have not-so-secret plans for connecting the art department with the writing department in some sort of institutional way. Needless, I think, to say, I’m super excited for the start of the school year.
More on New York. This last year plus has been magnificent in many ways. As creative director of Takeout, was able to work on projects that span the globe. Just before leaving, my team and I put the finishing touches on collateral designed for the British government, to be distributed worldwide. Pictures forthcoming. I also had the opportunity and good fortune to work with the brilliant minds at Thomson Reuters, finally putting together a day-long innovation workshop for them, with all the various mailers and folders, pencils and presentations, maps and charts. And most important, I helped form a small and fantastic team, with some deeply smart and talented designers. The experience has shown me how much stronger design can be in collaboration (both with each other and other consultants), with the multiplicity of viewpoints to merge. I feel infinitely lucky to know the fabulous humans that comprise Takeout.
This year is the centennial of Lesley, formed in 1912 by the teacher Edith Lesley. As part of the celebration, an exhibition is being held for most of September of faculty work. If you’re in town, the reception is September 6 at 8pm. My piece is a series of missives with miscellaneous found ephemera, called Love Letter.
