Peace Garden. Interior Courtyard.
Is a sparrow who kills a hummingbird in cold blood and proceeds to eat him a cannibal? Is he something else?
I am getting ahead of myself.
Peace Garden. Interior Courtyard. Brooklyn.
The sun is shining and there is a woman with a clipboard. I do not know who she is, and I do not know why she is holding a clipboard; I assume she works at the hotel, because why else does a person have a clipboard? She comes outside in something of a rush. She seems alarmed, but calm. …
I thought about writing a book about excuses.
I could use having written the book as an excuse for not doing all the other things I want to do. “I know I planned on doing _______, but I was busy writing a book about excuses.”
That’s probably a heavy-handed metaphor, but what I've got is serious. It’s like time-cancer. Excuses have overrun my life. Please allow me to categorize a few of the most malignant.
The Three-Month Plan
For a long time, I've felt like my ideal life — the real beginning of my journey — was always a very specific time away…
The Wednesday Purge
Removed:
- Tumblr blogs: 5
- Twitter accounts: 4
- Facebook Pages: 4
- Domain names set to “do not renew”: 2
- Emails unsubscribed from: I lost count (lots)
The domain name part was especially hard for me to do, which is probably a good indication why this sort of thing is ultimately good for me.
Related: https://medium.com/@mjchamplin/inspiration-has-destroyed-my-productivity-aaeccc48f38c
On feeling creative versus being creative.
The list makes me cringe, which is why I feel the need to share it: 10 Tumblr blogs, 4 WordPress installations, 6 Twitter accounts, 3 Instagrams, not to mention Facebook, LinkedIn, Dribbble et al. This is my social media / blogging footprint. I’m probably forgetting some. That’s telling in itself.
My procrastination has made me an experienced curator of other peoples’ stuff. Maybe that’s good, right? Maybe I should work at a museum or edit a magazine. Or maybe I’m already doing that, with Facebook and Tumblr and everything else. …
How studying to become an architect taught me to think about design
I learned two major lessons in my years in architecture school: first, that design is my passion in life, in all its forms. Design is not a collection of geometry and color on paper; great design lives and breathes. It touches people.
Secondly, I learned that I have no interest in being an architect.
In telling this story I’m often met with a response that implies that three years was some kind of a waste, a path to nowhere. I don’t see it that way.
The staunch traditionalism of this Beaux-Arts-styled program meant that computers, in the first two years…
Michael J. Champlin
art director, designer, storyteller, photographer. Passionate about breakfast foods. #ui #ux Dallas, TX
