Full-Time Art

I resigned from my job at Meta a couple months ago, fleeing what could be called “burnout”. The once-thriving corporate culture seemed to be withering around me, and it slowly became clear that leaving was the only way to save my mind from those dark doldrums. The months since quitting have been a sort of recovery: I’ve been giving myself mental space to heal, develop new habits, and cultivate new interests. And believe it or not, I’m feeling much better! I’ve noticed that the colors in the world around me literally seem brighter than they did before, and that feels like a mighty good sign.

I’m fortunate to have some savings and a very supportive partner, so I have a few more months to experiment with alternate ways of living and working before I need to more seriously look for my next gig. In this lovely liminal space, I’m investing myself in “full-time art”, treating art-making as a form of self-employment. So far, this involves writing a lot of code; I’ve been programming for decades, and code still feels like the easiest way to express the designs that I’m seeing in my head. At the moment, I’m building off of my Sketchbook platform, developing systems to generate tunable vector graphics, and experimenting with drawing these out with an AxiDraw pen plotter.

It’s been outrageously fun to express my mathy artistry in the real world, projecting algorithmic precision into the imperfect realm of physical materials. Ink on paper is so much more tangible than pixels on a screen, and path-based design demands a much stronger understanding of form than the abstract shader work I’ve been doing for years. I’m plumbing the mathematical and algorithmic depths beneath this new sort of generative art, and learning so much about the craft of printmaking as I learn how to make beautiful plotter pieces. I’m also taking a 2D design class at CCSF in the upcoming summer semester, which I expect will inspire many new creative directions for algorithmic art projects, and support my continuing career as an artist & designer as well.

Beyond posting Sketchbook links on my homepage, I don’t have much evidence of all this work on my site yet! I’ll get there, but in the meantime, I’m actively posting about my projects on a new Instagram account, @longitude.studio. I plan to eventually develop a dedicated web presence for Longitude Studio, likely incorporating the work & functionality currently available in Sketchbook, and including a shop for prints, cards, and other outcomes from my creative work. I may also invite contracted or commissioned projects as well. For now, you can follow along on IG if you’re interested in continued updates!