Opus entry 7 - THE P WEEK

As humans in American society, we spend most of our lives working, playing, studying and existing in environments that have been created by people for people. I firmly believe that most of society spends little time thinking about this phenomenon. I believe that most people have many more things that are more important to themselves on a day to day basis to worry about then what the guy or gal was thinking about when they laid out the order and arrangement of the keys on the keyboards we type on every day. As a designer, and as a constantly curious person, it is these minor details that we live with every day and rarely think about that drive me crazy. Both minor details and massive spaces are equally important to designers. This is because to a designer, everything counts, everything is intentional. The words we have to explore in this “P Week,” touch on these ideals we embody as evolve as designers.



The external boundary or surface of any area is one way to describe PERIPHERY. The drawing of Falling Water house by Frank Lloyd Wright that I did above I feel illustrates the elements of the PERIPHERY of the structure well. I am greatly looking forward to making the trip up north to see this structure in real life.



A week and a half ago we had to turn in our PORTFOLIO for drafting class. As a student tracing back to middle school art class we have been taught the importance of the PORTFOLIO; A collection of your body of work. My senior year in high school, I received a “Silver Key” award from the Scholastics program for outstanding “breadth” or diversity of work in my portfolio. At the time all it meant to me was that I had to walk across a stage awkwardly in front of a ballroom full of weird people I didn’t know to accept this award. Since then I have learned to value the importance of keeping a solid body of work to refer back to so you can see where you came from in order to better see where you are going. The above painting I did on a wood panel and is titled, “Movement in Motion.” It is one of the stronger pieces of work I have in my current PORTFOLIO that I recently posted on Flikr.com to make my work more accessible to the world. This form of PORTFOLIO is both new and necessary to keep up today. It is very effective in showing my work to people all over the world.



As designers and as people we are constantly working on intentionally or unintentionally developing our PROCESSES. The above diagram is a super-simplified illustration of the PROCESS I typically go through for almost every piece I have created in my recent past. Almost everything starts in my sketchbook. A small thumbnail of fluid lines that are pleasing to the eye. Fluid lines that are easy and engaging to look at is the goal of anything I create. Once you have good lines, move on to building a PROTOTYPE or scale model, scale sketch, or adding colors to your ink drawing to help understand everything that needs to happen in order to build your final piece. This may be an arena, a painting, or a lamp. No matter what it is you are designing, these simple steps I have outlined are carried out in some form to end up at the final product. What happens next? Document your work, keep it in your PORTFOLIO and refer to it later to you can learn from what you have done.



In November of last year, I had my debut solo art show at the E M Gallery in Winston-Salem. The show was titled “Dynamic PERSPECTIVES.” I named the show this because as I mentioned earlier, it is my goal to have fluid lines moving throughout all of my pieces. I was nervous that the title was a bit ambitious but I went with it any way. Part of the fun of designing or drawing things is to find the best PERSPECTIVE of anything you are going to represent. The painting I did above that was used for the flyer for the show was mixed media on wood panel. This painting is titled “Graceful Power,” and shows a woman from a somewhat heroic and overpowering PERSPECTIVE. What I love about this painting is that if you look at it sideways, you’ll see that the woman is actually lying down and looks extremely peaceful and happy. Interesting how you can change the whole feel of a piece by changing the viewer’s PERSPECTIVE.



Before I enrolled in the IARC program, I was a working PROFESSIONAL in a different field. I was a full-time touring musician for the past 5 years of my life. The above ink drawing is a layout for a tour poster I drew with our band’s name in it. The blank road in the middle bottom of it is where the info on the other bands playing, show date and price would be later written in. That was a great part of my life and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Now I am pursuing a different PROFESSION, I’m not sure what exactly, but I have the next few years to figure it out while I’m in the world of Interior Architecture at UNCG. It has been interesting and challenging so far and I look forward to a bright future the same way this drawing shows a bright future waiting down the road for anyone brave enough to chase it.

PAY ATTENTION, THE ANSWERS ARE ALL AROUND YOU – Jeff Linn