It doesn’t mat­ter whether you won or lost.… just that you tried your best. So just keep try­ing.

It’s been a long time since I’ve shared pho­tos or non-daily por­trait work with any reg­u­lar­ity; but thank you, dear read­ers, for your patience.

I think it’s time to end the wait…wouldn’t you agree?

Haven’t been feel­ing it lately as no doubt evi­denced in the daily por­traits and lack of chatty posts. Hang in there, dear read­ers, my brain will defrost some­time soon.

In the mean­time, please feel wel­come to share any con­tent requests you may have. And wel­come to all the new read­ers from around the world–thanks for stop­ping by!

Var inte rädd … Jag har inte glömt er alla…

In the midst of a move, the last three weeks have got­ten away from me. But fear not, dear read­ers, I shall return to more active and reg­u­lar updates very shortly…

Despite unre­lent­ing rain for the last few days, I’ve been in a pretty great mood lately, yes­ter­day espe­cially. But today, a warm, glo­ri­ous sunny day, I’m feel­ing blah–seems I’ve strained my upbeat muscle(s). So, I’m try­ing to perk up with music in the form of a fairly ridicu­lous and silly playlist this after­noon. Among the tracks is:

Lis­ten­ing to this sort of music makes me want to cook up a storm and host a mas­sive din­ner party for all the peo­ple from around the world whom I love. Imag­in­ing every­one in one place for once in my life is absurd and thrilling, but maybe some day, right? Per­haps for my next house warm­ing? Who’s in?

The end of print pub­lish­ing? Or?? Watch and see:

Atlas Snow­shoes–with ~4′ of snow on the ground, these are almost a necessity

Keen boots–with­out a good pair of boots, snow­shoes aren’t much use

Under Armour base layers–keep warm and dry no mat­ter how wet you get in the snow

Design House Stock­holm pleece–warm and snuggly

North Face Wind­Wall–keeps the wind out and adds a layer of warmth to any good win­ter anorak

Aleve–after all that shov­el­ing you’ll need it!

How about you dear read­ers? What do you depend on dur­ing harsh winters?

Images:
mine, 2, 3, 4, 5,6

It has always fas­ci­nated me how seem­ingly triv­ial things can trig­ger one’s mem­ory on a dime and trans­port you to another time or place in an instant– hid­den snap­shots of one’s life pep­pered through­out our daily com­ings and goings.

This morn­ing, pay­ing bills at my desk and watch­ing the rain pour down, iTunes sur­prised me with a mem­ory jolt– a musi­cal time machine back to col­lege:

This song always pro­pels me back in time to a rainy night in Pitts­burgh– bib­li­cal rain, soak­ing you to the bone and wait­ing on Car­son Street for the 54C back to Oak­land. The expe­ri­ence or night holds no sig­nif­i­cance to my present life, no new char­ac­ters came into my life that night, no pro­found obser­va­tions were made on that day, the rain did not cat­alyze any­thing other than hail­ing a taxi and yet it remains as a warm and vivid mem­ory: Crum­pled up in an old leather jacket, wait­ing beneath a street light flip­ping through sketch­books with the other reg­u­lar from my cof­feeshop (who was also wait­ing for the over­due bus), wet licorice streets, head­lights exag­ger­ated by raindrops…

It seems strange to me that such an insignif­i­cant moment in my life remains so firmly imprinted upon my mem­ory and yet it does.

What ran­dom moments are firmly implanted in your mem­ory, dear readers?

It’s just one of those days; we all have them– you wake up and the world feels grey and unwel­com­ing. You scuff around and feel sorry for your­self and maybe mope a lit­tle. Well today, I’m hav­ing one of those days.

BUT instead of mop­ing about like a fool when I feel like this, I rally my inner troops and forge ahead. This gen­er­ally involves a longer visit to the closet– pulling out espe­cially fun shoes and a col­or­ful jacket, a big­ger than usual cup of cof­fee, a longer lunch break and a tight­en­ing of the cir­cle of dear­est friends. When the world feels unwel­com­ing, I find it best to sim­ply become the ulti­mate host­ess– wel­come the unwel­com­ing and just out­shine the grey.

One of my longest stand­ing friends from child­hood, loved the Bea­t­les when we were kids; count­less week­end hours swam by to the sound­track of the fab four and today my mind has drifted back to those days:

Watch­ing this clip from the movie Help!, the semi-sad lyrics of the song mixed with the sub­tle silli­ness of Paul and George perks me up and makes me smile.

How about you, dear read­ers? How do you perk your­self up when you’re feel­ing down?

I’m not one to make new year’s res­o­lu­tions, gen­er­ally, but this year it just seemed right. This year, I aim to:

Draw More
I’d really like to try and make more of a habit of sketch­ing dur­ing my trav­els and off time.

Be Happy
I’ve learned a lot dur­ing the last few years, I’ve done some pretty excit­ing things and I’ve done some work of which I can be proud. But hap­pi­ness and joy have not been at the core of my daily life, at least not as much as I would like.. so in 2010, I want to work on that.

Write more let­ters
When I was ten, I had a teacher who gave us an assign­ment to write a let­ter to some­one every week for a year. It was an excel­lent habit and one I’ve not main­tained duti­fully over the last twenty years or so as I’d like to say. Want a let­ter or to be added to my post­card list for when I’m on the road? Send me an e-mail and I’ll add you to the snail mail list

Be more active
Over the last few months, I’ve spent too much time in my work­space (or com­mut­ing to it). As a result though, I’ve got­ten less active and miss the pace I tend to main­tain when liv­ing in a more urban envi­ron­ment. This year, I want to be bet­ter about mak­ing a habit of being phys­i­cally active since it feels so good.

Make more art and per­haps sell some too.
If I don’t make things, I don’t feel good; it’s as sim­ple as that. When I don’t make things, my skills get rusty. This year, it’s time to make time for art no mat­ter what. And to start lis­ten­ing to the peo­ple who have been ask­ing and telling me to sell my work for years.

What are your res­o­lu­tions this year, dear read­ers? Need help with yours? Here’s a handy res­o­lu­tion generator.

I’ll admit it Inter­net, I’m a list maker. It is an odd com­pul­sion of mine, one of many, which has per­sisted for years. A quick perusal of my count­less sketch and note­books from the last decade will con­firm this habit– scores of lists scrawled along the edges of sketches, notes and half-baked ideas for rainy days.

As the year draws to an end and the next creeps up upon us, I find myself in plan­ning mode– cri­tiquing what worked and what didn’t dur­ing the past year, revis­ing sys­tems and lay­ing ground­work for next year’s strat­egy. And part of that is more lists, cal­en­dars and even things like spread­sheets and other orga­ni­za­tional tools. It always inter­ests me how peo­ple keep them­selves orga­nized and struc­ture their agen­das. Hav­ing had this con­ver­sa­tion sev­eral times with friends and loved ones recently, and ever in search of the ulti­mate orga­ni­za­tional tool(s), I’ve com­piled a quick list of some of the dig­i­tal tools avail­able for orga­niz­ing lists and agendas:

• Check­vist
• Remem­ber the Milk
• Ta-da List
• Google Tasks
• Teux Deux
• Things
• Todoist
• Tooledo
• Vital­ist
• Voo2do

How about you, dear read­ers? How do you keep orga­nized? How do YOU sort your tasks, to do lists and day? What’s your system?

While catch­ing up on news and blogs this evening after spend­ing much of the last two weeks on the road, I came across a post by Seth Godin about brand­ing that caught my eye. Over the last few months, my brand hat has been col­lect­ing dust on my career hat rack while I shift focus to more graphic art-intensive work; but ever the brand man­ager (Abranda, if you pre­fer), my ears usu­ally perk up when the word ‘brand’ pops up on my screen.

In his post, Godin raises some inter­est­ing and valu­able points about the breadth of mean­ing to brand beyond just the logo or visual touch points most of us asso­ciate with the word ‘brand.’ So often peo­ple seem to rel­e­gate brand­ing to sim­ply a func­tion of mar­ket­ing or design which is both frus­trat­ing and reas­sur­ing– frus­trat­ing in that the topic remains an uphill bat­tle with some audi­ences, yet reas­sur­ing in that the need for respon­si­ble brand advo­cates remains strong. Godin sum­ma­rizes the issue well when he states “Design is essen­tial but design is not brand.”

What do you think, dear read­ers? How do you define ‘brand’ or ‘brand­ing’?

I’m not really one who fol­lows horo­scopes, astrol­ogy or sim­i­lar things. Even so, every once in a while I read the Free Will Astrol­ogy col­umn for a laugh in the City Paper or what­ever local free paper there is depend­ing on my loca­tion. Today, I have to admit that I’ve been con­verted… I am a tem­po­rary believer, Inter­net– some­times horo­scopes are just what the doc­tor ordered… or least they are today:

Tran­scrip­tion of the above scan: “Have you resolved every last detail of your unfin­ished busi­ness? Have you tied up the loose ends, flushed out the lin­ger­ing delu­sions, and said your final good­byes to the old ways and old days? “Yes,” you say? You’re absolutely pos­i­tive? Well then, it is with a deep sense of plea­sure and relief that I hereby unbound you and unleash you. You are offi­cially cleared for take-off into the wild blue yon­der or the fizzy red vor­tex or the swirling green amaze­ment, whichever you prefer. ”

This week’s horo­scope could not have been bet­ter timed if it tried.

So what do you think dear read­ers? Are you fol­low­ers of the stars and those who trans­late them? Do you fol­low omens or signs? What logic or sys­tems do you nav­i­gate by?

Ok, Inter­net. I’ll admit it. I’m a bit of a weirdo some­times. Per­haps idio­syn­cratic is more fair.

Hon­estly, I think most of us have our fair share of quirks, the dif­fer­ence lies in our respec­tive lev­els of com­fort with our idio­syn­crasies. Some of my love of Bal­ti­more lies in the pecu­liar­i­ties that lie so close to the City’s sur­face, and the fun-loving spirit of its peo­ple who embrace life’s lit­tle quirks.

So one of my lit­tle quirks that has been on my mind lately? Words that make me cringe. I imag­ine this sounds nuts, but there are words that just make me wince when I hear them. Do you, dear read­ers, have the same feel­ing when you hear cer­tain words? Or is it just me? The notion of dis­like towards a word which func­tions solely as an expres­sive tool for com­mu­ni­ca­tion amuses me. Enough so that it seems appro­pri­ate to share my list of wince-inducing words:

sofa
tis­sue
hanky
wash­room
belly
pill
under­pants
slacks
pock­et­book
fun­gus
skägg (Swedish for ‘beard,’ pro­nounced ‘hwegg’)
odor
pam­per or pam­pered
lover
credenza

Which words make you cringe? Is there any rea­son you can’t stand these words? An amus­ing story or anec­dote, or is there just blind dis­like? Talk to me, folks.

Some­times, I’m too shy for my own good…

For as long as I can remem­ber, Hal­loween has been my favorite hol­i­day. Each year, I’d look for­ward to an annual excuse to get dressed up and be silly, and go around the neigh­bor­hood trick or treat­ing, smelling the autum­nal smells and laugh­ing all along the way. Today, I still love the hol­i­day, even if I don’t have kids or even dress-up.

While work­ing in the yard today, I was over­come by the glo­ries of the autumn sea­son– crisp air, golden light, col­or­ful leaves crunch­ing in my hands, even the smell of an east­ern fall. Yum. Now inside, set­tled in with a glass of apple cider and a twitch­ing cat, I am just itch­ing for Hal­loween. So much so, that I thought tonight, I’d share with you, dear read­ers, some of my Hal­loween favorites. I grew up watch­ing these car­toons as a kid and still get a kick out of them:

The Skele­ton Dance By Walt Dis­ney from Kor­nell Rasta­fari on Vimeo.

Both are old Dis­ney car­toons from 1929… eighty years later they’re still great!

The last few days of rain and autum­nal gloom have lulled my mem­o­ries back to Göte­borg. I haven’t paid it much mind over the last few years– I fin­ished my MFA and didn’t really look back afterward.

But here I am, back in Bal­ti­more after a move back from Swe­den, and two three 1500mi+ moves. I’m meet­ing and recon­nect­ing with tons of peo­ple, so all of the ground I’ve cov­ered in the last ten years is get­ting shuf­fled around in the fore­ground of my mind more than usual. But today, today felt like another day in Göte­borg.

Here is how I remem­ber parts of it:

Images: Me (scanned from my old printed pho­tos, no less!)

Recently, I’ve been on the prowl for new music. An odd side tan­gent to this exer­cise, has been an ongo­ing game with an old friend from col­lege wherein he quotes a song lyric, and I’m sup­posed to pick-up the song from that line or two. It’s fun, but what’s fun­nier is that we spent years together as col­leagues, lost touch after school but stayed friends like every­one from our under­grad­u­ate stu­dio group (a group of peo­ple who are more fam­ily than just a bunch of kids in a work room) and have never really talked much since school. Now all these years later we’re trad­ing lyrics, songs and mixes.

In my semi-High Fidelity state of mind, weav­ing musi­cal mixes in the back of my head, I’m left won­der­ing what untasted sound morsels (or bites if you pre­fer puns) are out there– what am I miss­ing? Tell me, dear read­ers, what sort of music have you been lis­ten­ing to lately? What are your favorite finds of the past year? And what are your obscure favorites?

I can not describe how things have been lately… for­mu­lat­ing a cogent descrip­tion eludes me. So I’ll sum­ma­rize:

I feel like I’ve been kicked in the teeth… And it’s my own doing…

Images: Me

Some times, it’s hard to focus on what’s right in front of you.…

Image: Me