Individual/Community by David Robinson

SPORTS POOL

ROCK

CLIMBING

FITNESS

DERBY

YOGA

FOOD POLITICS

SOCIETAL

ISSUES

FRIENDS

FAMILY GOD SEX

REST

READING LEARNING

ZEST

OGRAP

TRAVEL

Y ARCHITECTURE

COMICS

ART

THE

CITY

KNITTING

DESIGN

THEATRE

NATURE FILM

MUSIC

PETS

SHOPPING

INDIVIDUALCOMMUNITY

purpose, belonging, connection

david robinson

IndividualCommunity Copyright © 2010 by David Robinson “Dinner Party” photographs with help of Jeremy Crews “Portrait” photograph with help of Brian Chang All other photographs, illustrations © David Robinson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without consent of the author.

Dedicated to the people of my community, for helping me find my Self.

“The owl of Minerva takes flight only at dusk.” —G.W.F. Hegel

PREFACE I moved back to New York about five years ago after living in China for three. Aside from the usual culture shock and transitions, the feeling I was most struck by was how separate everyone seemed. Overtime, we form a series of connections to certain people and we travel through our lives in a particular bubble of our own existence. Especially in a city like New York, we rarely interact with the people whom we pass everyday. For those three years in China, a country where I stood out as an obvious outsider from the general populace, I had ironically fallen into a close network of fellow expatriates, my students and a few good Chinese friends. In many ways, all the foreigners in China had the common linkage of being “other” and therefore a ready-made community existed. Now here I was back in a country without the same level of language and cultural barriers, with limitless communities to cultivate, and I found I could go for days without a meaningful social interaction. This book stems from that transition. I have always been interested in people and how we live in a society but the repatriation from a country focused on the collective back to the rugged individualism of the United States made me realize how important community is to me and how difficult it can be to find in the adult world. I suspect this is something we all feel from time to time, hence the appearance of terms like “urban isolation” is our modern vocabulary, but this book is more of a personal exploration. I would like to say that through the investigation of my community and the people and places I consider my world, I have come to a complete and full understanding of my own sense of identity. But in truth there has been no moment of clairvoyance, no firm resolution. However, this project has given me a greater appreciation for the linkages that exist, not just between myself and my community, but also in the way our lives overlap. My world looks very different today than it did when I started this project; nothing is static, everything is in flux and as a result, the world remains full of infinite possibilities.

SPORTS POOL

ROCK

CLIMBING

FITNESS

DERBY

YOGA

FOOD POLITICS

SOCIETAL

ISSUES

FRIENDS

FAMILY GOD SEX

REST

READING LEARNING

ZEST

OGRAP

TRAVEL

Y ARCHITECTURE

COMICS

ART

THE

CITY

KNITTING

DESIGN

THEATRE

NATURE FILM

MUSIC

PETS

SHOPPING

SPORTS POOL

ROCK

CLIMBING

FITNESS

DERBY

FOOD POLITICS

SOCIETAL

ISSUES

Types of Relationships

Friends Necessity Interests

FRIENDS

The thickness of the lines are relative to the personal significance of the individual.

FAMILY

Financial

GOD SEX

READING LEARNING

ZEST

OGRAP

TRAVEL

Y ARCHITECTURE

COMICS

ART

THE

CITY

KNITTING

DESIGN

THEATRE

NATURE FILM

MUSIC

PETS

SHOPPING

table

CONTENTS introduction

14 CLUSTERS community

16 a close examination of the city to explore some locations that I call my own and those people who help form a sense of place.

a celebration of food with some thought given to how we share our meals with friends, the kinds of foods we eat and where it all comes from.

THE

CIT

OOD

OGRAP

Y ARCHITECTURE

COMICS

ART

the wonderful importance of art and a chance to take a brief look back on some of the people and themes that have influenced my artistic identity.

DESIGN

82 conclusions 86

PROCESS

a bit of an

INTRODUCTION and some thoughts on

METHODOLOGY The word community is loaded with meanings, signifying many different things to different people. For some, the word encompasses the people in their neighborhood, friends and strangers alike, those they encounter on the streets and in the shops of their immediate area. For others, it includes old friends or anyone in their professional circle, those personal and professional connections that remain even if months go by between conversations. Regardless of the definition, I feel that community is valued by most of us, hence the proliferation of social networking sites, such as Facebook or LinkedIn or instant messages, where we have entire communities available at the click of a mouse. We all apparently want to feel that we are part of something, that we are necessary and connected to other people. While attempting to understand community’s importance to every person is perhaps beyond the scope of this book, I do know one thing: community is important to me. I have lived in cities for most of my life and have always been drawn to the way we interact in an urban setting. We share a huge number of social interactions on a daily basis, from quick moments like picking up a bagel from a streetcart vendor to long afternoons spent with friends. We live cheek to jowl with each other and yet still travel in our own

bubble, rarely breaking the social barriers we’ve set up out of necessity. I have always gravitated towards social interactions, preferring the company of others to solely myself, but am not sure where this impulse comes from, other than to share “the experience.” While formulating the ideas for this book, I thought a lot about what community provides me and as time went on, I kept running across three essential things: purpose, belonging and connection. In 1972, Studs Terkel, the Pulitzer Prize winning author and radio host, conducted a series of interviews, mostly with working-class men and women in urban areas, and collected these stories in his book Working. While the bulk of his research was done almost four decades ago, the results of his findings are no less resonant today than they were in the ‘70s. For the most part, each of us share the same human longings and needs: to be considered a productive member of society and to feel that our work, no matter how commonplace, is needed. For most of us, having a sense of direction and purpose is extremely important to help give meaning to the day to day. Oftentimes this is tied to those things we care the most about doing, our passions. If we’re lucky, we can pursue these passions through our careers; other times our pastimes take on more meaning. I’ve chosen to be a graphic designer, a field

that I feel very ardent about and a career that consumes huge portions of my life, both professionally and personally. Along with that decision, I’ve found that my community plays a vital role in my development as a creative thinker and since I find deep meaning in design, creating art has become intricately linked to my feelings of purpose and direction. But life is not solely concerned with jobs, and our careers certainly don’t solely define us. My community also provides me with a sense of belonging, a feeling that somewhere in this expansive city I have a niche where I fit. Maybe this feeling comes from stepping into a coffee shop that has become my coffee shop. For whatever reason, a certain place has taken on more meaning. We all have places where we find likeminded individuals that offer us a feeling of inclusion. Much of that feeling of belonging comes from the acceptance of others, that there are some common linkages that bring us together. With its Nolitas, Murry Hills and BoCoCas, New York is a classic example of how cities divide into very specific little neighborhoods with unique identities. Seemingly through convergence, a neighborhood character evolves that is usually reinforced by the people that choose to live or work there. That is not to say that a sense of belonging will necessarily develop from living in a certain place, since there are so many other factors, but that, when we can, we try to find places that reinforce our existing sense of self. The concepts of inclusivity and exclusivity are also closely tied to what I consider belonging. If I feel like I’m at home in one environment, it means that

perhaps

our top three interests are a kind of

marker for a certain part of our life.

there is another where I don’t fit, and by extension, that other people don’t share the connection that I feel in my community. It seems that there is a threshold where I transfer from being an outsider to an insider, where that feeling clicks into place, and so, inherent in my thoughts about belonging is the notion of time passing. Over time, a sense of ownership develops; the bar on the corner of 4th and Douglass transfers from being that bar to my bar where they know me by sight and drinking habits if not name as well. The people there share something with me, if for no other reason than we like the same kind of atmosphere, and for a brief period, the bubbles of our lives overlap and on occasion a connection is formed. The essence of a lot of these values—purpose, belonging—is the need for social connections. They form the basis for friendships, networking and new relationships with a feeling of inclusiveness that bonds us together as an integral component to a community. Without a greater background in anthropology, sociology or neuroscience, I can’t explain exactly why I gravitate towards certain people or how that association is made but, like anyone, I do feel the impact of meaningful social exchanges. There is a need to connect with people that I feel very deeply and in our modern lives, where we’re running back and forth, sometimes those connections are hard to find. Taken together, these three aspects of life, purpose, belonging and connection, clearly impact the kind of life I lead and the various social encounters I have from day to day. But how much do these associations and the general environment around me influence who I am? I have a sense of my self identity as an individual but I wonder if I look at the kinds of people and places with whom I surround myself, will I find a more accurate or empirical reflection on the life I lead? Community certainly provides me with important touching stones in life, but perhaps it also closely reflects and rein-

forces my own personal identity. This book is an examination of a thin slice of my life, what my world looks like at a given moment in time, the people with whom I interact, where I go and what connections I make, and from that, try to understand the relationships. Since it seems that the individual and the community are intricately tied together, I hope to glean how my community affects my experiences and maybe, how I affect my community. It all started with a survey. Well, no, that’s not entirely true. I first had to define my community. Since I am exploring how the people in my day-to-day life influence me, I included all the people with whom I have regular social interactions, say at least once a month, no matter how fleeting, as long as there is mutual recognition of each other. With my fairly broad definition of community in place, I administered a survey to as many people from my community as I could. I was trying to learn a bit more about who made up this group of people I had tagged and see if there were any common threads that brought us together. While there were variations in people’s definition of community and huge variations in the racial and socioeconomic makeup of the people around me, many of them did value this idea even if they couldn’t comfortably pin down what that meant. Though I didn’t find precise trends that brought us together, I did gather one very important piece of information. I wanted to know what things people were most interested in. I theorized that the things we hold dear, our passions, strongly reflect back on the kind of person we are, that our

top three interests are a kind of marker for a certain part of our life. With this information in hand from each member of the group, I created infographics that visually represent the relative strength of a certain interest across my community. If it’s not our age or neighborhood, are these interests what bind us together? Do we surround ourselves with people that share our interests and are we tied together by these common passions? The images this data generated—the size of circles being dictated by the number of people with a shared interest—indicate that there are some common trends, though there are also plenty of outliers. In looking at these major interests, I wondered how they compared to my own to three passions. If I could see how closely the passions of the collective reflect back on the things that are important to me, maybe I would have the first piece in understanding my relationship to this community. Of course all of these results have been filtered through my own subjective interpretations. Much of my initial data was created by the community and has driven the creation of my images but at the end of the day, this is a personal expression. It cannot include all factors and influences on life but hopefully this book will serve to explore a few pieces that shape our lives with myself as a kind of self-indulgent case study. Like many things in life, it will probably never be complete or accurate simply because in the time in takes to create this project, the nature of the community has changed but hopefully some understanding can be found.

CLUSTERS COMMUNITY

social impact re: location As communication across vast distances becomes easier, and commuting across a city is commonplace, our communities become entangled and complex. In trying to understand the kinds of relationships between myself and the members of my community, I divided people into groups. In general, I found that people fell into one of four types of relationships: friends, people I interacted with out of necessity such as a shop owner or landlord, people with whom our common interests brought us together and people with whom our jobs compelled us to interact. I also considered how influential these people were in my life. Thinking geographically, I found that most of my community and social interactions occurred in New Yorkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s five boroughs, but meaningful interactions occurred all over the city and lacked a focused locale. However, I also found numerous interactions occurred

in my immediate neighborhood and around my office, though these were limited, for the most part, to interactions of necessity or the working world. This makes sense considering I spend the bulk of my time in these two areas of New York. The local community is primarily comprised of shopkeepers, bartenders, restaurateurs and a few people with whom I share interests. None of these people have a particularly strong impact on my life but taken as a whole, create the tapestry of my neighborhood. In general, examining my community in relation to location tells me everything and nothing. It is certainly New York focused and a large part of my self-identity as a New Yorker reflects this. However, that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t reveal what ties us together since the most meaningful interactions are spread across the city and do not seem to follow a set pattern.

1. Sarah 2. Mom 3. Dad 4. Amanda 5. Christine 6. Manfred 7. Jillian 8. Rachel 9. Rob 10. Adello 11. Gustavo 12. The Super 13. Lady @ liquor store 14.Nick 15. Sosinna 16. Barber 17. Bartender 4th Ave 18. Man at Canteen—morning 19. Man at Canteen—evening 20. Camille 21. Alex 22. Lady @ laundromat 23. Man @ laundromat 24. Bartender at Ghenet 25. Lady @ drycleaners 26. Zoe 27. Jd 28. Miriam 29. Dan 30. Mika 31. Heather 32. Jeremy 33. Brian 34. Marc 35. Dixie 36. Barrett 37. Liz 38. Megwen 39. Andreas 40. Emily 41. Jake 42. Matt 43. Darya 44. Mike 45. Mary 46. Adrienne 47. Michelle 48. Genevieve 49. Christopher 50. L 51. Danielle 52. Tanya 53. Al 54. Rick 55. Karen 56. Desirée 57. Catherine 58. Blane Types of Relationships 59. James 60. Maria 61. Mary Friends 62. Miguel 63. Wally Necessity 64. Receptionist 65. Bob Interests 66. Dan 67. Ruth Financial relative influence 68. Steve 69. Tony 70. Len 71. Mike 72. Man @ Tuscanny 73. Donna 74. Halal Guys 75.Janette 76. Erica

NEW york city

manhattan

LOCAL COMMUNITY: park slope

brooklyn

e th

ns ee qu nx o br

revelling in

THE

CITY

can bring a sense

BELONGING Last spring, my friends Marc and Dixie were married on the east balcony of Grand Central Station, underneath the starry green sky of the main terminal. It was a relatively small affair, gathering together friends, family and about half the commuters passing through the station that evening. The bride and groom stood on a small landing of the balconyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s staircase, family members holding a chuppah over their heads, with the guests on the steps above them. With such a public spectacle on a Saturday night, it was no wonder that we began to attract some attention from people passing through. As the ceremony progressed, more and more New Yorkers began to gather below to watch, taking a moment out of their day to join us in celebration. When the couple finally kissed, a great cheer went up, not just from the guests assembled on the steps, but also from the two hundred or so people assembled below, their applause and good will echoing across the vast space. Marc and Dixie chose to be married in Grand Central because it symbolized their love of New York, a passion they wanted to share with their friends, especially those coming from beyond the five boroughs. This is a passion that I share,

in large part because this city can be so electrifying and comforting at the same time. Living in a teeming metropolis like New York offers something that cannot be found in small towns or the rural countryside. The vitality can be overwhelming at times but is an inherent component to life in an urban setting. It is a place where one can eat mind-numbingly spicy vindaloo in Jackson Heights and finish the evening dancing outside in Central Park on a hot summer night. Parks wend their way between and through buildings 30 feet above the street. The best place to buy a suit is still from the elderly Jewish man on the Lower East Side who shares the shop with his father and grandfather. We live in a hub of culture, food, arts, fashion and business, offering us a huge choice of opportunities and most importantly, experiences. At its heart, when we put all these people together, we find that the range of different experiences is what makes a city unique. That being said, this convergence of people and ideas still offers each of us a place where we can find a sense of belonging, a personal community. I find comfort in stepping out into my neighborhood, the familiar people and places that form my immediate

Halal Guys Nick

Sossina

Dad

Mom

Rachel

Jillian Christine

Sarah Dixie Heather

Brian

Marc

Mika

PERSONAL

PLACE

surroundings. There is solace on the subway with its familiar clanks and rumbles. What is unique about the city is that it offers us both the strange and the familiar with new experiences just a few subway stops away from the everyday. In essence, the city and its experiences are really about people, how they use and define it. The diverse collection of individuals give an urban space its character. What Marc and Dixie’s wedding so clearly illustrated was how we share the city with each other. In a rural setting it might be possible to isolate yourself on a couple acres of land, but the urban dweller has so little personal space that life spills out into the streets. The musical tastes and culinary predilections of the neighbors in my four-story walk-up have a direct impact on my life. As a result of all these overlapping bubbles, we influence each other in terms of experiences, ideas and community. We can’t help but let the city become a part of our identity. This city has always meant a lot to me. It is a place where my community can include an aspiring Australian filmmaker and an Ethiopian restaurateur from Gondor. It is a place where you can fall in love with a woman from Michigan, whom you met one night in Beijing four years ago, who came to New York as a way of working in Africa. My community is composed of people that share a passion for urban life and greatly influence how I experience the city. And while the kinds of people and experiences in a city are limitless, there are a few places I keep coming back to.

The locations we consider our places speak to our sense of identity just as much as the people with whom we go there and call our friends. There is a subtle reason why we choose a particular restaurant or store, reflecting back on our own feeling of what kind of people we are. While empirical factors such as food or convenience might play a role in why we like a place, I believe a feeling of connection can transcend the more logical considerations of why we feel at home somewhere. The places we want to linger and enjoy ourselves are spots where we feel comfortable. Saying a café is my café doesn’t even mean it’s my favorite place for a coffee and a scone, just that for one reason or another, it has become intertwined with my sense of belonging, that I fit there. In addition, there is a sense of ownership in any place that you consider your own. It often takes time to develop this feeling but when it does, you’ve established a relationship to a location, and the people associated with that place. You start to care about the success of a neighborhood or restaurant or business. And just as our passions define our world, the world in which we inhabit also defines our own sense of self.

The restaurant is mostly empty early on a Saturday evening. Two girls sit on stools, a laptop propped up between them on the cool concrete of the bar. Another pair drink their beers at an uneven pace and watch the rugby game on the giant flatscreen television above the kitchen. The match is between Australia and Italy with Australia heavily favored. Italy is ranked 12th. Four adults with their two infants sit at the table by the window, strollers pushed into the corner. The children let out squeels every so often and bang cell phones on the wooden table whenever they’re held within arms reach. Refrains of “choo choo” echo around the bar, above the mix of Bob Marley and Macy Gray songs that are playing on the speaker system. The parents attempt to entertain their children and probably themselves. The couple exclaims, “Aw. Not again!” as Austalia scores.

PARK SLOPE FOOD COOP 782 Union St. between 6th & 7th Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11215

40째40'29.41"N 73째58'35.70"W elevation 25 m

Sarah

D Brian

Marc

Dixie

It started with me subtly hinting that Sarah should not to move to Africa. I failed. Five months after moving to New York, she went to work in Chad for Médecins Sans Frontières. We had met two years earlier during my last week in Beijing and her first, though neither of us remembered this introduction very clearly. New York, rather than China, is our common ground. After six months, she left central Africa, agreeing that it was a good idea to come back to the city she would eventually call home. For the last two years, my experience of the city has been a shared one. As someone who grew up in New York, I have spent a great deal of time showing Sarah my New York and finding new experiences with her at my side. There is tremendous joy in sharing my important New York places with a loved one: the fish counter at Zabar’s where you can still find thin handcut salmon, the Congo exhibit at the Bronx Zoo that started my graphic design career, the top of the Brooklyn Bridge boardwalk where the wires disappear providing one of the best views of the city. Sharing these familiar places with someone seeing them for the first time has allowed for a new perspective and my experience of the

city has become completely intertwined with a specific person. In the evenings, Sarah and I will often walk through the tree-lined streets of Park Slope, peering into golden lit living rooms and admiring some of the architectural details on the old brownstones. The neighborhood is peaceful at night, especially on the narrow side streets and discovering the neighborhood together has become one of our favorite pastimes. She shares my love of the city and exploring it with her has enhanced my own appreciation and enjoyment of walking the slated-paved sidewalks. I’ve always found that new experiences are felt more profoundly when shared with someone and Sarah has been that person for me, insisting we see what “this whole Governor’s Island thing” is all about and making sure we take the time to walk through Prospect Park before the summer sun fades. Together we have established a home in Park Slope, transforming it in my mind from another New York neighborhood to our neighborhood.

PARK SLOPE the intersection of Carroll St. and 5th Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11215

Sarah

40째40'30.56"N 73째58'52.28"W elevation 16 m

I step out the door of my five-unit apartment building and walk down the street, enjoying the atmosphere of the heart of Park Slope on a bright summerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s day. This is my street, my neighborhood. With so many of us living in small apartments without the luxury of a house or yard, our sense of ownership often spreads out into the streets. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always had a strong sense of neighborhood pride; without a plot of land to call our own, we extend that need into the public domain.

This feeling of neighborhood loyalty most likely stems from my choice to live in this particular area. I had the relative ability to choose an place where I felt comfortable, that had the right feeling of community, number of restaurants and bike lanes, and a diverse group of neighbors. I have a strong sense of attachment to my little corner of the city, in large part because this community helps me feel like I belong.

The first time I met Jd he was wearing a bowler hat and a long black skirt bought at auction from Elton John. There are moments in life when you meet someone and immediately realize you’ve found a kindred spirit. Since the time we were first introduced at a party to celebrate dadaism, Jd has influenced my thinking and experiences profoundly. We share a great deal of common interests and a similar world view, namely that it can be an exciting and joyful place if we remember to find fun in the everyday. I’d known him for years as the husband of a close coworker though when that job ended, our relationship shifted slightly. About three days after I lost my job, one of the many casualties of the economic downturn, Jd called me up and asked if I would do him a favor and come work at BBDO for a little while. With worries in my heart about the future and the promise of a little pocket change dangling, I happily said yes, thus turning a page in my

career. Working in the same office—especially when a friend becomes a boss—certainly changes the nature of a relationship. As a result, I think we both try to keep the friendship and the work separate—a subdivision of our lives perhaps. Overall, Jd continues to be someone whom I admire and who brings out a part of my personality that I like. He’s the kind of friend that intersects my life at many points, enjoying good food and drink, the importance of art in our society and that being an adult does not mean that we have to stop reading comic books. But he also expands the world in which I live, opening me up to new ideas and interesting people. Of course we all have people like this in our lives but it’s been important for me to take a step back and recognize the role they play on shaping my life experience.

Zoë

40°40'29.41"N 73°58'35.70"W elevation 19 m

Not all places that we consider “ours” come from a feeling of comfort; some places, such as where we work, are ours out of circumstances and necessity. The looming UBS building is designed more to impress than to welcome, though since it is the place where I spend most of my waking time, it certainly influences my world. While I prefer to think I keep myself somewhat separate from corporate culture, the

effects of working for an advertising firm do make themselves felt. While BBDO doesn’t define me in a strict sense, I work for a well established ad firm, and that has shifted my sense of place in the working world. Probably more than any other location, the site of an office is a transitory thing in life, and yet, at this snapshot in time, has an enormous impact on what each day feels like.

BBDO 1285 6th Ave. at 51st St., New York, NY 10019

The intersection of Flatbush Avenue, Eastern Parkway and Prospect Park West is a crossroads not of streets but of neighborhoods, cultures and modern urban life. Every Saturday, Grand Army Plaza is host to farmer and food stalls from all over the greater New York area. As one of the larger green markets in the city, it attracts people from all over Brooklyn and New York. It also represents a close community connection since buying directly from these farmers supports local and health-mindful interests. This site is also the mouth of Prospect Park, one of the main reasons I chose to live in this part of Brooklyn. Especially in a city with the population density of New York, finding a quiet, green space is essential. Grand Army Plaza serves as the buffer between the urban streets and the lush foliage.

It is a transition spot for stretching before and after runs, for waiting for friends before a weekly walk or a pick-up game of football. Like all successful public spaces, this area serves diverse groups in a myriad of ways. I love watching people mill about the market on a lazy Saturday morning, the arteries of the borough spreading out from the top of the hill. Most of us move about through our own lives with fleeting social interactions with most people outside of our immediate circle. What gives a public place meaning and character is not just the interactions that take place from day to day, but how a place evolves over time. It becomes a changing tapestry of personal experiences, meaningful to many people each of whom interact with the space in their own unique way.

FARMERS MARKET Grand Army Plaza at Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY 11238

40째40'20.36"N 73째58'11.17"W elevation 44 m

NEW york city

manhattan

LOCAL COMMUNITY: park slope

brooklyn

b e th

ns ee qu x n ro

I moved to New York from a small, southern, college town when I was ten; I tried sushi for the first time shortly after that. I imagine the kind of person I would have become had I stayed in Florida would be very different from who I am today. Growing up in an urban metropolis has had a marked impact on my world view and self-identity as an urbanite. A range of unique cultural experiences has been available to me and has influenced my development, something difficult to find in a small town. Those of us who choose to call New York our home share an urban lifestyle. And while this lifestyle does offer a large variety in the kinds of people we’re able to interact with, unique opportunities both in terms of careers as well as experiences and more delicious food than we have time to eat, there are certain drawbacks. My most meaningful social interactions occur widely across the city. The landscape of the five boroughs and beyond creates barriers on how often and how much planning goes into meeting up with friends. I’ve decided to take the good with the bad, knowing that I’m always going to be busy, running from work in one neighborhood to drinks with friends in other, an eight o’clock curtain to a late dinner back in Brooklyn, at least on a good day. New York is an active participant in my life, influencing the way I live it, both intimidating and sustaining me. It’s made up of people who have made the same choices that I have, that there’s something special going on here, that those “only in New York” moments come less frequently when you get used to them but remind me of why I live here. And since it’s not always easy to figure out where you fit in such a diverse world, I keep on exploring one neighborhood at time to find moments and places that I can call my own, or at least share with a few hundred people.

TRAVEL

ZEST

THE

CITY

THEA

NATURE FILM

ARCHITECTURE

OGRAP T O H

COMICS

KNITTING

ATRE

ART DESIGN

the

importance of

ART,

design and photography

and how it gives

PURPOSE to life Halfway through the spring of my sophomore year in college, I found myself spending roughly 40 hours a week in a silkscreen studio. I would work until two or three in the morning, go to bed and then be back with my screens and inks at nine AM. Considering I was a biology major who had stopped spending any time in the lab, it seemed my priorities had shifted. Somewhere in there, art was transformed from an interest to a career, and through that commitment, established itself as a central part of my identity. Or maybe I have that backwards; it was the most important interest in my life and so I turned it into a career just so that I would have the excuse to spend all my time designing, drawing, going to galleries and talking my family’s ears off about type choice and kerning. I can’t help it; it’s how I see the world, the relationship between objects and the impact of colors, the world as a continuous series of design problems waiting to be solved. Of course, when I use the term art, I apply that to design, writing, illustration and all means of creative expression since they ultimately share a few inherent similarities. Unlike many other fields of study which have a body of peer-approved work, the creative fields often do not have an objective measure of success. There are no facts or postulates in art, and the success or failure of a piece is often measured solely by a personal reaction. By its nature, art is open

to subjective interpretation. Its validity is often established by its ability to properly communicate an idea. In addition, art is very often a personal expression of self. The ideas presented well up from a personal world view rather than years of research and study. Art is vulnerable. Therefore my community, both in terms of artistic peers and intended audience, plays a critical role in the formation of my ideas and how they are ultimately expressed. The people with whom I surround myself become a focal point by which I can assess whether or not my ideas are properly communicated. For many years, my art and design has been about people, how we experience the world with our individual perspectives. In my life I find that I have tried to surround myself with people that influence and educate my artistic thinking and people who share my artistic love and approach to the world. There is an interplay between our ideas and I measure myself by their feedback. At the end of the day, though, I design for me. I do it because nothing else gives me the same kind of frustration and occasional sweet satisfaction that comes from an art project. It is the vehicle by which I am able to communicate my ideas and the language I am most comfortable speaking.

Danielle James

Catherine

Chris

Darya

David

Adrienne

Genevieve Jd

Dad

ZoĂŤ

Jillian

Jeremy

Sarah

Brian

Manfred

Dixie Marc

Mika

Dan

A friend and teacher once told me that art cannot be done in a vacuum because as soon as you put pencil to paper, or aim a lens, you’re already responding to the world around you. At the time, he was trying to convince me that I shouldn’t try to create something no one has ever done before because chances are that would be impossible. Instead, I should work on expressing my own voice. A lot of what he taught me over the years has stuck. Quite a few times since then I’ve thought about what it means to call something “art,” and pondered what makes a piece of art successful. These are questions that have been tossed around since the Renaissance and I’m not convinced I could ever come up with a novel answer. But for the purposes of getting through a class and being able to sleep at night, I decided that art is ultimately a conversation. It is an abstract discussion between the artist—or designer, photographer, illustrator—and the audience. Often

this lacks a real face-to-face conversation. Art and design are primarily concerned with the communication of information. Artistic expression is wrapped up in the connection between two individuals and only by looking at whether that connection is clear and strong is there any hope of deciding if a piece of work achieves its intended purpose. I’ve always tried for my art to clearly communicate my feelings. Sometimes art ties closely to a specific mood or emotion. Other times it can more precisely convey a message, such as my intentions in creating this very book. I’m really only successful, however, when the viewer walks away with a reaction, thinking about what I’ve been trying to say with a given piece. The reason I create art is to be heard and to have my thoughts and feelings understood. But where do these conversations start? In creating this book and exploring my own sense of artistic identity, I’ve thought a lot about the genesis of my ideas. So often in answering that question, I go back to the people around me since I’m primarily interested in the kinds of lives we live. Over time, I’ve concerned myself with trying to understand identity and how the people that form my community shape my understanding.

As this book clearly demonstrates—something that I did not foresee when I set out to make it— art for me is a reflection back on the connectivity between us and the different levels of intimacy we share. The people and places, the things I see everyday, are what I respond to as a designer. It’s what I want to create art about and for whom I want to create. The one thing that so far this book has failed to address is the concept of history. I have tried to use myself as a model by looking at my life at a moment in time, examining the people and places that influence me at a given moment and from that, tried to extrapolate some sense of my identity. However, while I think perhaps this does give a sense of a person at that given moment in time, it doesn’t take past experiences into account. The people and ideas that have influenced me over time have helped form me as a person as much as anything else, especially in relation to my creative expression. Something happened over a period of time that defined me as an “artist,” that most dreaded and selfindulgent of titles. Early exposure to the delicate beauty of Monet’s haystacks in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is no less significant than the day

I finally understood the design grid. In thinking about how I identify myself, I wanted to focus on the themes I’ve been attracted to over the years and the people that have influenced my thinking. It seems fitting to include them here, the most complex section in terms of personal identity for me. So rather than solely focus on my life as a snapshot in time, this is a look back at some of the people and ideas that have brought me here.

Dad

Guiding me through a

My father

museum paintings how to see

showing me photographs and

teaching me to

appreciate

Recalling PEARSON INKsplattered hands,old jean with

and a black

turtleneck

We create images

his words

made m e a n

He taught me that ART is a because we have something to say

a r t i s t

ns conversation

CHINA with your

bright red chilies and

and grey brick walls

full of sharp

unfamiliar smells

A continuous source of inspiration and passion

where would I be without

our time together?

ZoĂŤ

Manfred Dan

sitting on

mountain tops

comparing SKETCHES

as young children look over our shoulders

Many years confidant and artistic

listener

What better fountain of ideas

than the

collage of

Brooklyn colors and

streets

feedback from a thoughtful source. In my case, I find it incredibly important to be able to talk through my ideas with other people. This is vital not just to clarify my own thinking but to have my ideas questioned from an outside and fresh perspective. A critical evaluation of the images I’ve created is essential to make sure that what I’m trying to say is being heard. It’s necessary to surround myself with people whose opinions I value and who can give me the sometimes harsh feedback that is required to push myself to the next level of creativity. All of this will sound familiar to some and obvious to others, but it underscores that the relationship back to one’s community is integral to the artistic process. As I’ve seen in the creation of this book, a love of the creative world certainly binds my community together, more so than any other passion. In a city like New York, with its huge range of artistic institutions and creative minds, that is not surprising. Nevertheless, I count myself lucky to be in the midst of this environment since I’ve realized that solving creative problems helps give my life direction and brings me happiness. In the words of Studs Terkel, it’s what makes me feel needed.

W manhattan

My world is a tangled web of connections among people and ideas. I am constantly searching for new ways of thinking and inspiration and this affects the kind of community I build around myself. The way I look at the world is filtered through a design perspective that insinuates itself into everything I do. I have willingly and joyfully given myself over to this lifestyle, one that involves hours upon hours of time spent working through initial concepts, refining ideas and images so that they convey meaning in as succinct and original a way as possible. Social calendars begin to revolve around gallery openings and retrospectives at MoMA. As with any vocation, a lot of work goes into becoming adept in the skills and abilities of the creative process but design also seems to absorb my whole world view, largely because everything around me is a problem waiting to be better designed. It is only natural then that I have gravitated towards a community of creativity-driven minds. They feed my artistic impulses and lifestyle, offering an essential source of inspiration and feedback. Art cannot be accomplished in a vacuum, as my mentor taught me, and the other side of this idea is that it is critical for an artist to have

brooklyn

NEW york city

LOCAL COMMUNITY: park slope

b e th

ns ee qu x n ro

LEARNING

ARCHITECTURE

OGRAP

COMICS

KNITTING

HEATRE

ART DESIGN

FOOD

how

FOOD

is many

things including

culture, health

giving to others,

and

CONNECTION, from soup to nuts My father taught me how to cook. Everyday he would come home after work and we would stand in the kitchen, All Things Considered on the radio. We would talk about our days while I watched him chop onions. More than teaching, he instilled in me an appreciation and understanding for the importance of food, how it nourishes not just the body but creates a connection. The smell of curries wafting through the house brought back memories and spoke of past experiences, travel and shared meals. Cooking brings many of the themes of this book together for me. My life seems composed of various people and places interacting with each other, much like the harmonious balance of ingredients and spices. Personal interactions can be just as easily represented by the combination of onion and garlic in a hot pan of butter. At its heart, food is about bringing people together, both at the dinner table or when you insist

that a friend try a new taste you just discovered. It’s the way I’ve come to explore new places, learn new recipes and bring flavors home to the people I care about, since cooking for others is ultimately an act of love. When I cook, I try to bring joy and comfort through sight, smell and taste and share a little bit of myself in the process. Unlike art, which I’ve discovered can be completely subjective, food is much simpler; for most people, it’s easy to say if a dish is good or not. It makes people happy or it doesn’t. It satisfies or it misses its mark. So like my father, I don’t mind spending at least an hour a day in the kitchen preparing dinner, especially if I have someone with whom to share it. It gives me a chance to focus on the simple act of making a good meal and hopefully pass those tastes on to others. Put simply, food brings people together, as long as it’s seasoned to taste.

Liz

Mom

Dad Brian

ZoĂŤ

Sarah Barrett

Sosinna Megwen Bartender @ Ghennet

Rachel Nick

Lady @ liquor store

Andreas

Emily

My father was heading to China last week and asked if he could bring anything back for me. “A plate of dumplings?” I replied. Many of us collect things when we travel. It gives us something to look for and helps us remember places we’ve been. I collect recipes. Trying new and excitingly different foods seems to be the primary reason I travel to new and excitingly different places. Why trek to Xinjiang province in western China? Sure, it’s great to see the mosques and talk to some Uygurs but more importantly, I went because it’s the home of succulent lamb kebabs and different types of nan. What better way to understand the bazaars of Kashgar than to talk with a spice merchant about the providence of his saffron—a topic on which he had a very strong opinion. Through traveling, I’ve learned it’s important to share glasses of tej in Ethiopia and no one should eat a plate of wat covered injera by themselves. China taught me the importance of sharing meals rather than eating alone and I’ve tried to hold onto that sentiment. In fact that axiom holds so true there that most important conversations occur at the dinner table, for how can you really know someone until they’ve tried your local noodle dish? My love of food was not fully born until I lived in a country that’s passion was eating ev-

erything. China taught me to try all things at least once and that to fully experience a place, the path is through the stomach. Food became my inroad for accessing the middle kingdom since in order to eat, I needed to learn the language, and in order to eat well, I needed to invite my friends to dinner. They usually pushed the meal into more exotic territory. Donkey? OK, if you think it’s good. Coagulated pig’s blood? Um … sure. Dining was about sharing something new with friends, eating from communal plates and heartfelt toasts that are professed as the bottle of bai jiu makes its way around the table. In an area where the change of the seasons greatly affects the quality and availability of food, and cities are identified by their regional cuisine, it’s no wonder I began to see the world more and more through the eyes of a gourmand. It became very closely linked with cultural understanding and shared experiences. So for me, food is not just about nutrition or culinary enjoyment since it has also taken on additional importance. Living abroad, I learned a lot about what a tradition of food can give a person and I have tried to share that with others.

the

DINNER PARTY 10.24.09

Nothing exemplifies the connection that people feel more than sharing a meal, especially when that meal is eaten in the home and has been cooked for friends. In holding a dinner party, I try to put a lot of myself in the food, drawing upon my time spent in China and what I learned from peering over chefsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; shoulders. I spend a few hours in the kitchen, trying to make everything taste perfect with the confidence that this is time well spent. The meal is designed to impress all the sensesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;especially when cooking Chinese with its explosive sizzleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and in essence, bring pleasure to people.

Ingredients Jeremy Sarah David Rachel Robert Julia

garlic ginger salt sugar vegetable oil Shanxi vinegar soy sauce flour water peanuts green pepper cucumber eggs plum tomatoes scallions chicken breasts soy beans green beans bok choy chilies tofu shallots oyster mushrooms bourbon sweet vermouth gin lime juice mogushi jiu beer

MENU zheng dadou steamed soybeans liangban huanggua crushed cucumber with garlic suanrong baicai stir-fried bok choy with garlic gongbaojiding chicken with peanuts and chilies cong doufu braised tofu with scallions ganbian doujiao sautĂŠed green beans with chilies ganzha mogu deep-fried mushrooms tizhi mian shaved noodles xihongshi chaojidan tomato and scrambled egg

Eight dishes were prepared due to the auspicious nature of the number. While many of these dishes can be found throughout northern China, these versions were decidedly from Shanxi province, especially the noodles for which the region is famous. Careful attention was given to ensure a proper combination of sweet and spicy, hot and cold, slippery and crunchy. Sharing food is one of the most important and symbolic activities in Chinese society. Not only is great thought paid to the combination of flavors but the importance of dining with other people is paramount. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s often said that the poorest man is the one that eats alone, especially since all dishes prepared in restaurants are intended to be split across a large group. Important business discussions should always be held immediately before, after or during a banquet. If itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an important enough meeting, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll happen between bites and the experience of sharing food will help solidify the bonds of business and friendship. Of course a key compentent to all of this is the drinking.

Bar culture is still a relatively foreign concept in mainland China and while vast amounts of beer and liquor are consumed, the drinking takes place almost solely at the dinner tableâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or lunch table, much to my everlasting regret. There is a great deal of ritual surrounding drinking at the table. Bottles of liquor often come in ornate and unique ceramic jugs and have caps that, once broken, cannot be resealed, forcing friends to finish the bottle during the course of an evening. The meal usually commences with a toast and a thimble of rice or sorghum based wine is often the first thing to hit an empty stomach. Toasts come in groups of three, first with the entire table and then individually between each of the guests. There is an acknowledgement of each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s presence that is inherent in this style of toasting and drinking. You gently touch the rim of your cup to the side of your neighborâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s before taking any sip, recognition of the connection you all share. Sharing these experiences and personal history with my friends is deeply important to me. China is the country where I truly learned to appreciate food and the ability to give a little bit of that back to people is very satisfying. It is an intimate gesture to bring friends into your home and feed them and helps reinforce the connections we share.

manhattan

LOCAL COMMUNITY: park slope

brooklyn

b e th

ns ee qu x n ro

NEW york city

The ideas surrounding food are probably less clearly defined than the importance of the city or art, especially since the latter ties so clearly to my career. Food is a proxy for a whole range of other thoughts and emotions. It represents the moment during dinner when you raise a glass or laugh with a friend. It represents a way of looking at the world in terms of local agriculture and global sustainability. It embodies a thoughtfulness towards what we eat to sustain our bodies and probably most importantly, it is the vehicle by which so many social interactions occur. Be it at someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home or a restaurant, meals are when we share the most of our social bonding, at least in a city with so many busy people (and good restaurants). This map shows a small sliver of the people who have influenced my own love of food and cooking and people who share those passions. It canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t encompass everyone since an appreciation of food develops over time much like our tastes. How can I talk about learning to cook without including some mention of my grandmother who convinced me that British food gets a bad rap? Or Zhao Ayi who first taught me how to pull a proper Chinese noodle? That being said, these connections, in some small way, try to show the bond that food creates. It is by no means complete and ever changing but it does show how at a certain moment in time, there is a community of people for whom I cook, from whom I learn and with whom I share my meals and passions.

in conclusion Throughout this book, I’ve tried to uncover and understand the relationship between the individual and the community, using my own life as a point of departure. Since age, race, career or location did not seem to tie my community together, I looked for patterns in what we were passionate about, with hopes that those interests would reflect a more empirical picture of my life than my own subjective self-image. After surveying as many people as I could, I found that three interests stood out as symbolic of my own need for purpose, belonging and connection: the city, art and food.* These three ideas became the avenues through which I could explore my life and map the connections I share with people. So here’s what I’m left with: an image that reflects the core of my community, those people that nurture my own experiences with these themes the strongest. So in the end, did it work? Have I made some sense of why community is important and what it gives me? On one level, yes; the passions identified by the survey very closely reflected the heart of my own interests and I have evidently either subconsciously sought out like-minded people or circumstances of our lives brought us together. The values I hold most dear are reflected in the relationships around me and while this is an ever changing picture, my community is largely composed of people with overlapping interests. And in truth, going through the surveys and tracking the interests of my peers really forced me to evaluate the parts of my life I value and why. Understanding the kinds of relationships I form has given me the definition of community that I initially struggled to find. However, this map fails to take into account the subtlety that comes with life. While it hits the major themes, there are

plenty of other people and interests that affect my life and create a richness to experiences. Furthermore, it doesn’t include certain people who are extremely important to me, irrespective of common interests. My sister and I are very different people, but we have a close relationship based on shared histories and mutual understanding. Other friends not included on this map are extremely important to me and provide a valuable sense of connection but again not because our priorities are aligned but because chance brought us together and the friendship stuck. So while this is an accurate rendering of my world, it is only a slice of my life, at a specific moment in time. History, chance and undefinable chemistry also play a role in forming a community. In examining the different relationships in my life, both significant and minor, I have uncovered how these relationships and the kinds of experiences that they bring with them reinforce my own sense of personal identity. In that regard, the individual and the community are inherently linked, one inside the other rather than at odds. The community certainly does play a strong part in my life and exerts a great deal of influence on my interests and experiences. At the same time, I am part of someone else’s community, or in fact, part of everyone else’s community, and thus provide my own perspective like the tiny pull of a particle on its neighbor. So while my life is not solely reflected in the people around me and the places I go, I have found a balance between my own history and individuality and how outside influences shape my daily experience.

*Some might note that Friends and Family was a more prevalent theme than The City. Due to the inherent importance of personal connections on the whole basis of this project, I decided to exclude it as a separate topic since it permeates everything I’m doing already.

NEW york city

manhattan

LOCAL COMMUNITY: park slope

brooklyn

e th

ns ee qu nx o br

OOL

ROCK

CLIMBING

FITNESS

DERBY

YOGA

FOOD

IETAL

UES

FRIENDS

LEARNING

OGRAP

Y ARCHITECTURE

COMICS

ART

KNITTING

DESIGN

(it’s all about the)

PROCESS or

What I’ve Learned

(and how it helps)

the workspace/07.11.09

cards iPod wooden box

wooden dish

speaker

cinema display

keyboard

notebook

wooden headrest

bag of pens

wire pencil holder

ceramic mug

notepad

notebook

notepad

notebook

Apple 20” cinema display keyboard pro mouse stack of buisness cards (mostly mine) wooden dish (walnut) contains: t humb drive (2) a screw paperclip

receipt for a roll of PMA iPod nano external harddrive Burt’s Beeswax chapstick pencil sharpener (no batteries) halogen desk lamp paper with a list of telephone numbers bag of pens contains:

chinese runner

triangle (2) small tube super glue 6” ruler pack of compressed charcoal X-acto knife plus blades paint brush (1) pens (lots)

pen stapler

tape dispenser

receipt

hard drive

paper scrap

ink

picture frame metal ruler old designs

cloth runner from China stapler tape dispenser (small) tape dispense (industrial, double roll) half-full bottle India ink 18” ruler wooden Ethiopean headrest with jewelry glass paper weight marker (1) pen (1) mechanical pencil (1) black wire pencil holder contains: scissors pack of charcoal pencils pens (lots and lots) ceramic mug contains: c aligraphy brush (7) paint brush (2) X-acto knife

books:

notebook

otepad

T he Grammer of Ornament Owen Jones The Visual Display of Quantitative Information Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative Envisioning Information Edward R. Tufte The Gashlycrumb Tinies Edward Gorey

notebook

book

notepad glass

book book

book

notebooks (5) notepads (4) picture frame Devil Robot figurine (2) Ugly Doll roll of old designs Wacom pen and holder Polk audio stereo speaker empty glass

the afterword

A lot of me went into this book. At the outset, I was interested in the how people lived in a city like New York where individual worlds are squirreled inside each other. I was attracted to the thought that my world—my community—intersected in places with other peoples’ worlds but in the end, I believed we remain fairly isolated from each other in our individual lives. But try as I might, this book became more and more of a personal exploration and statement about my life than I anticipated. Like any good thesis project, it evolved to include more of my own perspective, stories and voice and therefore became closer to my heart than most design projects. This book is me, uncertainty and all. As a result, it’s been very difficult for me to wrap my mind around some of these ideas, firstly because they are rather abstract and secondly because I have to pull something out of myself to be able to put it on paper and I have a hard time seeing the forest for the trees. Naturally I’m much too close to all the subjects in this book to have any kind of objective understanding of why I included the topics I did. Hopefully I’ve painted a vivid enough picture that the reader can get a sense of my own process. And unlike most visual arts pieces, here I have a chance to step back and share my thoughts about these pages. My desk became the home for my project, where I spent countless hours sketching out ideas, and like other places I’ve highlighted in this book, it too is a location that speaks to who I am and how I work. As more of my life got put into the thesis, it grew in scope, size and how much of my apartment

was overtaken by mock-ups, drawings and photographs. But because it expanded to be so personal, it also gave me more than I first set out to accomplish. It became more of a visual journal of my thoughts than an objective assessment and has helped answer some of the questions that I had been struggling through and difficulties that drove me to this topic. As I struggled to figure out how to express my ideas, I found myself increasingly going back to the people that are and have been important to me. It became more of a homage to them and the stories that we created over the years than any kind of analytical scientific study of collectivism. I’ve discovered that the thought process that I’ve been involved in has helped me identify the trinity of purpose, belonging and connection, things I never knew I needed until they kept popping up in my thinking and explanations as to what this book was about. They were certainly not things that I realized community gave me until I asked myself why I so valued that idea to begin with. Since I can now see that these are real needs in my life, I have tried very hard to keep the three in balance and not let any of these aspects be neglected. During those times when

I feel little purpose or connection to the world around me, my life feels askew as if the legs of a stool have somehow become uneven. It’s remarkable how once something is identified, it’s painfully obvious how important that need is and like some therapeutic exercise, the introspection that I’ve put into this book has helped me carry that lesson with me. Becoming more acutely aware of these themes extends to my definition of community. I’ve realized that different aspects of these connections influence vast areas of our lives and I have increasingly seen this theme echoed back at me. My own ideas of community only touch upon a few aspects of what this word means, however. I mentioned at the beginning of this book that community represents many things to different people and after living with this project for a while, I see it emerging not just in terms of personal identity but also as an indicator of how neighborhoods evolve, how city planning progresses and how our digital relationships take form. My own definition has been somewhat limited and narrow in scope to express a more personal story but I feel the greater themes are universal, that whatever our definition or stand-

ing in a community, we struggle with the same feelings of inclusivity and place. In the end, this book became less about grand ideas, abstract passions and community clusters and more about relationships. I’ve always been drawn to ideas of how we interact in a society, both as an artist and person, because my own relationships define me in many ways—for better or worse. We react to different people in a unique way, codeshifting to create new bonds and connect. For me, having varied and complex relationships enriches my life, offering a unique set of interactions as I turn to different people for different things. Throughout this project, I’ve tried to look at these relationships from both a macroscopic and microscopic viewpoint to put my life in as much context as possible, delving into neighborhoods and highlighting specific people. Somewhere in between the broad view and the specifics, that sense of self hopefully comes through. Even though this book is a static picture of my life, it’s shown me how quickly life moves along, as the picture of my community today is not what it was a few short months ago. New connections have been made and other people have left, in some cases creating remarkable change. I take great solace in this. You never really know what’s going to happen in life and events have a wonderful way of surprising you. If this project has taught me anything, it’s that the difficult times will

this book became more of a Personal

exploration about my life than I anticipated.

be over faster than you expect and that I should enjoy good moments in the present because those too are fleeting. I’ve also found that I rely on that forward momentum, the changes that create punctuations in my life and indicate some kind of growth and progress. Perhaps this is the feeling that comes from leaving youth behind but I’ve noted recently the desire to look back and realize I’m not the same person I was a year ago, that my experiences have helped shape me. As this project ends, I’m finally able to see why I chose to start it and why it swelled in scope to encompass more and more personal elements. More than anything else, it’s helped me reflect on where I am in life and, as community is such an integral part of the book, I hope others find some connections of their own.