One of the things I’ve noticed about creative endeavors is that you never know where an idea will lead you. All you can do is take a first step in one direction and then something else becomes clear. From there another step becomes clear and you keep moving. In my experience, there’s no way to […]
Sometime in 2017 I decided that I was allowed to “make art” . . . whatever that means. I’ve always had this fascination with Abstract Art and really just wanted to make my own paintings. Now that I think about it, I like to make my own everything. The outsiders view of abstract painting is […]
Today wraps up the 13 week generative art series. When we started the series I wasn’t quite sure where it would take us or what would come out of it. I was initially concerned that I might run out of images, but I ended up with many more ideas than I needed. It’s natural to […]
Lately I’ve been thinking about clarity of purpose and the role of writing in developing that purpose. Sometime in the past couple of years I started daily journaling. Initially, the ideas were pretty messy. Over time they started to get clearer. Late last year I expanded my daily journaling to include writing out goals. It […]
I’m short on time so today is an abbreviated, image and links only post with a quote. This feels like it sums up the week: “My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as […]
I’m guilty of introducing complexity into my pursuits and I’ve decided that it’s time to simplify. Specifically, I’ve decided to revise the format of Existential Friday going forward. The new format will have a much shorter chunk of writing (300 words max), one image, and the miscellany links. The goal is the same. It’s to […]
Data visualization is powerful because it can change the way you see an issue. A simple visualization can reframe a question in a way that numbers in a table can’t. A good visualization communicates more quickly, effectively, and looks pretty too. Even though data visualization is interesting, randomness and noise seem more interesting (at least […]
There’s a strong relationship between how we act, think, and perceive the world. The past few weeks I’ve been thinking about the difference between practitioners and theorists. Note: The idea of practitioners and theorists isn’t some proven thing. This is just Dan making up theories that seem reasonable enough. The definition of a practitioner is […]
Do you ever think about how the things you saw and experienced growing up shape the way you see the world today? I grew up surrounded by different types of art and one of the significant pieces was a large metal sun. The sun is around 4 feet across and made with some type of […]
I’ve never been particularly interested in drawing pictures of real things. For whatever reason, attempting to mirror reality feels stifling and stressful. I prefer Abstract Art because it evolves organically and provides a way to see things differently. Abstract art frequently develops without a specific destination. You might start of with a direction, idea, or […]