If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is
open to everything. In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind, there are few.
—SHUNRYU SUZUKI 


"Pink Cliffs," detail of a painting in progress. 7.09.


Driving through Indiana. 6.09.








Backpacking in Virgina. 6.09.


Photo-collage in progress. 6.09.

Flowers

I don't usually do flowers, but this Mother's Day I felt the urge to create something different. I saved the best for Paula and my mother, then took the bulk of the test prints into the office to share today. 5.09




Jump to collaborate for portfolio selections: a mix of interactive media and traditional print design, personal projects, and works in progress. Download a high-res PDF of professional, personal, and student work (63mb).

"Continental Divide," poetry in motion with Professor Danielle Dubrasky. 1.08.

Recent presentations and exhibitions

Continental Divide Motion graphics adaptation of Professor Danielle Dubrasky's wonderful poetry; Braithwaite Gallery, February–March 2008; ECOllective, University of Mary Washington, April 2008; and with Professor Dubrasky's reading at the 2008 SUU Choral Reading

Write, Dance, Design: Cross Disciplinary Case Studies in Design Peer-reviewed presentation at AIGA Intent/Content conference, Nashville, Tennessee; June 2007

Counterform 2007 Juried exhibition of book works at the University of Utah, February–March 2007

Fiction, Poetry, Dance, and Graphic Design: Case Studies in Collaborative Interactive and Print Design Projects Multimedia presentation, 2007 Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities; Honolulu, Hawaii; January 2007

Please Do Not Discard Solo exhibition of graphic design, art, writing; Vincennes University, Indiana; January–February 2007

Creative Writing and Visual Exploration Visiting artist/designer lecture, Vincennes University, Indiana, 2007

Restless Boundaries Exhibition of graphic design, art, writing, at Bellevue University, Nebraska, October–November 2006; visiting artist/designer

Open Space Visiting artist/designer lecture, Bellevue University; October 2006



Archer by Jonathan Hoefler

Above, the light-italic "v" from the new typeface Archer by Jonathan Hoefler. Recently, I've been using Archer as one of three faces (Trade Gothic, Archer, and Sabon) in the design of the new magazine Imagine for the IU Foundation, and I have come to admire the typeface's beauty, versatility, and highly functional grace. Read a quick review of Archer at the site I Love Typography. 3.09








Imagine magazine spreads, IU Foundation. 3.09.




Imagine magazine, details; typeface: Archer by Jonathan Hoefler. 3.09.


Indiana University Cinema fundraising brochure. 1.09.

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Detail of a recent early March painting. Everything's reaching to the light. 3.09.


Sketches for new type-painting. 3.09.


While starting a rough-in, I look down and see I have accidentally defaced our new president's visage. My apologies, Barack. 3.09.


Poetry in the new Indianapolis airport on a beautiful sunny Sunday. 12.08.

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Flying into Charlotte, NC. 12.08.

"Family Tree," painting in progress. 4.09.

Graduate graphic design seminar at IU

I'll be teaching the graduate graphic design seminar at IU-Bloomington in the Spring of 2009, at the invitation of Professor Paul Brown. I'm looking forward to returning to the class room, to the process of teaching. A welcome complement to the interactive/motion work I'm designing at the IU Foundation (I'll post a few pieces after they have been out in the fundraising world for a time). 11.08

Jump to evolving S551 site

Pro-bono design

I've been working on a campaign logo for the local Habitat for Humanity. The campaign will be launched in the Spring. The idea of "giving back" is not a new one, but seems especially relevant during these uncertain economic times. Do what you can, when you can. 11.08

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Typographic de-construction, Stevie Smart. 4.08.




Book covers by SUU student Jessica McAllister. 4.08.


Working in the Omaha Printers Guild print shop near downtown Omaha. 10.06.

Making a mess in a stranger’s kitchen

There was the deep, somewhat forlorn sound of a horn blowing near the river while I worked on the outskirts of downtown Omaha. While a visiting artist in Nebraska, at Bellevue University, I had only a few hours to get familiar with the print shop and do some work. In the clean, unfamiliar shop, I fingered the dies and ornaments that had been acquired by the shop, dies from jobs that had been printed decades ago — and who knows where? To do some intuitive work in a brightly lit studio with high ceilings and an old paint-splattered radio playing local music — this is like entering into a stranger's home, going quickly through the drawers and cabinets and refrigerator in the kitchen, then tossing together a fine dinner without much thought, eating a wonderful meal at the glossy dining table, and cleaning up as quickly as you can on your way out. You carefully wipe away your fingerprints before you turn off all the lights and lock the door. 11.06

Commentary

"It seems that wherever Dave is, he becomes fascinated by nuggets of gold in the world around him: weathered metal signs and posters, worn landscapes, old fonts from old times ... His responses to the found things, images and moments encountered are typically poetic — both in words and images."
—Michael Giron, gallery director

From "Lake Ontario," a Flash movie created while a Visiting Artist at SUNY-Oswego. 2.06

Lake effect

For three nights I listened to the churn of the wind and the dark waves of Lake Ontario. Jet lag kept me wide-eyed and awake. Sleep stayed at arm's length.

Recently, as a visiting artist at SUNY-Oswego, I was given accommodations in a warm, well-lighted, sparsely furnished apartment that sat huddled on the edge of the wintry lake. Sleepless at 3 a.m., listening to the crashing waves, I pulled out my laptop and weaved together some Actionscript code, a haunting track by the Rachel's, and low-res video clips to create a short ambient piece, "Lake Ontario."

During the final day's lecture I presented the video as a work-in-progress. (It still is.) Days later, back in blue-sky Utah, weary from travel, I read an email from a student at Oswego. She said, "I left wanting to watch it over and over, there was something about the piece that moved me." Her email touched me. Thank you.

Insomnia on the edge of a wild lakeshore can fuel your creativity, the rough result of which can touch someone unexpectedly — if you let yourself step out of the comfortable warmth and stand shivering on the shore and listen to the wind. View "Lake Ontario." 2.06

"New! New! New! Please Do Not Discard #5," mixed media/digital summertime collage. 06

Summertime collages: “I wake . . . ”

I wake to birdsong at 5 a.m., then sleep until the sun slips over the mountains and lights the bedroom just so; or when Ani, the dog, comes tapping into the bedroom and announces the beginning of the day — always a little too early, it seems. I wake. As Annie Dillard writes in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: "We wake, if we wake at all, to mystery, to rumors of death, beauty, violence..." 6.06


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