Happy Birthday tbd
Today is St. Patrick's Day. In addition to wearing green, here at tbd, we celebrate the 13th anniversary of the genesis of an amazing working environment that just happens to produce great branding work for our clients. It has become the norm to expect the unexpected here, so when Paul announced we were going to have a special exercise on creativity, I made no effort to predict what was to be. With the rest of the team, I arrived at a blank canvas of sorts, a 4x4 foot piece of plywood with an assortment of paints, accompanied by Sarah from the tbd loft community of artists, the Poethouse. Sarah led us in an intentional exercise in creativity. Gasp! We were going to collectively create art.
It's worth noting, my last experience in creating art dates back to 1998 when I used oil pastels to create a piece for my then future wife. It entailed a nice mountain scene with tall timbers reflecting on a peaceful lake. It included a giant man and giant woman, disproportionate, but conveniently naked, lounging in the chaise that was the ridges of the mountains, all in the midst of a colorful sunrise, maybe, sunset, I don't know. It made no sense to anyone including me when completed. I poured my soul into the art for a weekend, and gave it to my future wife. I never painted again. So, you can imagine the trepidation for which I approached today's exercise.
Through the process, some interesting themes arose. First, when 10 or 12 people are painting at once, your bound to lose control of outcomes. How many times did I put a little dab of red over some yellow, only to find a giant swath of blue tracing behind a 2 inch brush overpower my red, leaving only a slight trail of purple?
As we progressed, the decorations of dots and swirls became passionate fusions of color, texture and shapes. We were all getting into it, even me. What started as one layer, turned into five, and then was scraped off the canvas, leaving artifacts of shapes and colors only to be buried again with new colors, blends and imprints.
As the painting transformed with each iteration, it became obvious our creation was unfolding collaboratively but without any linear intention or plan. And, it was beautiful to us as a symbol of the team and culture we've created over the years at tbd. It was exciting and refreshing to see each member of the team participate and add. The piece's true aesthetic is probably questionable, but as an account of the spirit of creativity and teamwork it's a bona-fide work of art.
Come to the loft for art hop on april 2nd to view our piece and other collected works of the community. We are showing "Who are we?", a collection of work from the Central Oregon community expressing just that. We hope to see you there. Who knows, maybe I'll submit my untitled gigantic love piece. Not.
kevin smyth
