That’s an esoteric question of “why do we do art?” Commerce. I picked graphic design because I wanted a job where i could wear heels to work like my sister.
Memory. This is a subject that’s near and dear to my heart, and because its also my job, its near and dear to my pocketbook.
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Bonnie Tanaka (my Typography professor at SMC) Dr. Douglas Nitz (my Systems Neuroscience professor at UCSD) Before I took up science, I was pretty sure that I wanted to do art. I eventually decided that it wouldn’t pay the bills so I thought a business career might. Realizing that this was a soul-less endeavor, I went into psychology and though about medicine. After discovering that biology was a painful subject I decided to take a year off and go back into art. During this year off, I asked a lot of deep questions, and in this case, even questioned art. Bonnie Tanaka was one of the only professors cool enough to give me a straight answer. We do art professionally for commerce. A lot of friends had told me that art school was lame. That they made you sell your soul. For whatever that meant, I felt like it was a bad idea to try and sell a product of your emotions and creativity. Science seemed immune to such problems. Tonight, just before bed, I dawned on me that science is not immune. I remembered the first few words of one of Dr. Douglas Nitz’s brilliant systems neuroscience lectures, which I have quoted above. Like graphic design, we do science professionally as commerce. At the end of the day, I guess there is a difference between truth-seeking and doing professional research just as there is a difference between artistic expression and professional graphic design. Commerce. But does this take away its soul? I don’t know. |
