The worst thing that happened to me was acceptance.
I spent my life in full acceptance that I thought differently than most people around me. Encouraged by my sister’s continuous references to me being an alien. But I always owned it. I only had two birthday parties as a kid. Both times only one person showed up. But knowing that was a very real possibility, my parent made the parties a joint party with my sister who was 3 years older. And each time, sans friends of my own, I had a ball. I never gave much care to who did and didn’t like me. I learned not to. But moving to DC as an adult messed that up. I was being myself and people liked it. And the more people liked it, the more it became a performance of being myself. And as that grew my popularity, then the performance became a necessity out of fear of losing that acceptance that I never cared about in the first place.
I do not regret this time in my life, even though it caused me to lose my relationship and compromise on my principles. Maybe it’s my naive belief in the cliche “everything happens for a reason”. Or my evolved version “a reason can be extrapolated from any situation”. Because of this experience I understood that I was a loyal person that was defiantly independent and agnostic to others opinions. Because for me to have lost that, I had to of had it at some point. And it had to still be in me somewhere. That was enough to encourage me. And from that broken place, grew my career. Initially a very isolating experience; leaving corporate america, everyone doubting me, blah blah blah (we know the story). but after a couple years it happened. My work as a designer was validated by the mainstream. In this case it was the ultimate main stream on my industry, HGTV.
And here is where the cycle began again. One would think that I had learned from the first time. But this system of conformity and validation is no lightweight. It is a beast and a formidable opponent. There are many designs I have done throughout my career that I don’t like now, but none that I regret. My projects have been real world practice in creating tangible forms of creative expression. I admit that my past work seems so plebeian to me now. Even my current client work has elements of many things that I criticize privately. I am not proud of being critical and judging what’s real design. It is an objective judgement. There is no real authority on what’s beautiful or what’s high design. But the fact still remains that I do not want to do what I have done in my past. I have no interest in trends or marketable design. And once again, mass validation has had me stuck doing work that I outgrew years ago.
When starting my career, the focus was skewed heavily towards aesthetics. It wasn’t a marketing ploy or anything, it was just what I liked and what I knew. It’s also what makes the people say “oooh” and “wooooww”. That’s how you get booked for the next job and featured in the magazine. That’s what landed me on HGTV, a network increasingly centered on the “look” of things. I never voluntarily talk about that time because that’s just not me anymore. Having more experience with life has made me vehemently against affectation in all areas as I find it to be a severely destructive force. As much as I love visually beautiful things, I abhor the imitation of wealth, status and trends. The homogenizing of style could have very well existed before, but only now is its infestation of the design world unavoidably noticeable to me.
It pains me to be associated with trends. But I am. Maybe my past work reflects that. Or maybe that’s just the the only lens some people have to see a designer through (Which is one reason I am thinking of dropping that title). It is more than likely my fault. What I present is not revolutionary. It is not groundbreaking. It’s the creme of the basic crop. Which is why I am summoning the bravery to not placate to the masses. It is unfulfilling. The applause is not enough. I die as an artist if I don’t grow in my art especially as I grow as a person. I need to use the visual language and practical experience of these last 2 decades to really say something; to say what I believe is my role in this story. To show how I believe design is to continue shaping who we can be as a civilization.
The work I dream of doing is function first. It is detail oriented. It is small. It is crafted. It is simple and it is raw while somehow still refined. Stripped down to its most core elements, resistant of waste, with all elements beautifully comprised of sensible materials.
But those things do not invoke an “oooh” or a “wooow”. from the masses. It will not get likes on IG. At least not at first. I will have to become undeniable among my contemporaries. Proclaimed a genius by some mainstream publication before the masses jump on board. That’s what I begrudgingly desire and obviously dread simultaneously. Because that mass acceptance threatens the very foundation of fearless creativity. And then, more than likely, the cycle of creative death and life will have to start again. And again. and again. Until I have been pushed to the very limit of expression of the creative voice that is my birthright. But it must start with the death of what I have been doing for the life of what I truly want to do to exist.