soupablog

SXSW Interactive Sketchnotes 08 - @soupiset ((tag: #sxsw, #sketchnotes, #viznotes, #newpublishing)

Here is the #newpublishing sketchnote trail from yesterday’s #sxsw panel discussion :)

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from soupiset's posterous

SXSW Interactive Sketchnotes 05 - @soupiset ((tag: #sxsw, #sketchnotes, #viznotes)

Posted via email from soupiset's posterous

three cups i drew a long time ago

 

Advent Sketchbook: Steamroll

via flickr.com

Jean Baptiste, steamroller.

Posted via web from soupiset's posterous

St.Ormtrooper (I just discovered Scott Erickson)

via farm4.static.flickr.com

Scott moved from Seattle to Houston to be the artist in residence at Ecclesia.
He blogs and posts his amazing paintings at: http://transpireproject.wordpress.com/about/

Posted via web from soupiset's posterous

Advent Sketchbook: Ovoid

via flickr.com

"There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse, and a netzer shall grow out of his roots." Isaiah 11:1 (NKJV)

Posted via web from soupiset's posterous

livesketching

An Invitation to View: Laser Wars I & II

Thirty years ago this summer, a cinematic tour-de-force hit the big screen. The year was 1979 and the country's science fiction psyche was sandwiched in the liminal space between the first and second Star Wars releases. America needed more. And we gave them Laser Wars.

In the back yard / backlot of our childhood home in San Antonio, my brother Mark and I grabbed my grandfather's Bell & Howell Super8mm movie camera, wrote a script, cast neighborhood friends, created paper-plate flying saucers, and tin-foil constellations. We had just turned 10 years old, and we were ready for the fame and fortune a space movie would bring our way.

Thirty years later, the film – and its unforgettable 1980 sequel, Laser Wars II — have been unearthed, digitized, color-balanced, and readied for its world release, here on Soupablog.com.

Highlights include:

• Several scenes in which my mother turned the movie camera 90º sideways, believing she could achieve a 'portrait' orientation.
• Visible laser "blasts" made by pin-pricking the actual processed move film.
• A 1970's-era Simon™ game and headphone used as a torture device.
• Two dramatic death scenes featuring … me!
• Wet/dry shop-vac used for R2-D2-esque droids (plus many other Star-Warsian homages)

Interestingly, one of the supporting cast members went on to a full time career as a documentary filmmaker.

Happy Birthday, Mark

Today is my twin brother's 40th birthday, and here is a detail from the painting he'll open when he wakes up.

Kate's first gallery showing

Kate Soupiset recently had a piece hung at the Southwest School of Art & Craft. Her abstract painting, entitled Chutes & Ladders, was part of an arts installation from kids at various area schools. I'm just getting around to posting the photos here.

so much beauty in this world

check pablo reinoso's spaghetti bench and other pieces:

"If I only had a ball of string, a rock and some tape" — Rev. MacGyver

I'm reposting two fun iPhone snapshots from Tim Snyder at the new Netzer Co-op digs at First English Lutheran in Austin. Jonny Baker might need to further repost for one of his Worship Tricks.

Tim writes: "…This is why you shouldn't worship in a box -- well not literally anyways.

PROBLEM: Worship is designed and set-up. With the final touches in place, we discovered a slight problem — no remote to control the Keynote slide show as we utilize rear projection while worshiping inside a "box" of transfiguration white sheet (our dwelling place for Jesus). How will we ever control the computer placed outside the box while worshipping inside the box?

Solution: Call in Rev. MacGyver (Tim and Ryan with their powers combined)

RESULT: A ball of string, a rock and tape are acquired. We throw the ball of string up and over the rafters of the church and dangle a rock guided by other strings suspended from the pew to create a pully mechanism. One end will be in the box — the other will suspend a rock above the space bar of the the computer outside the box.

Brilliant.

Breakout Session: Between Heaven & Helvetica

“[A]n art work has value as a creation because man is made in the image of God, and therefore man not only can love and think and feel emotion, but also has the capacity to create. Being in the image of the Creator, we are called upon to have creativity.… We never find men anywhere in the world or in any culture in the world who do not produce art. Creativity is a part of the distinction between man and non-man. All people are to some degree creative. Creativity is intrinsic to our mannishness.” — Francis Schaeffer

Yesterday I gave an hour-and-a-half design breakout session for participants at the 2009 Baptist Media Forum at Camp Buckner, up near Inks Lake. The seminar was entitled Between Heaven & Helvetica: How Good Design Can Energize Your Existing Communications.  I hadn't delivered a talk that long before, so I was a little nervous to say the least. I figured I'd leave a half-hour for Q&A and prepared what I thought was an hour's worth of content.

My stated purpose was to "embark upon an interactive, multi-sensory conversation among 
designers, self-proclaimed non-creatives, quasi-creatives, and people who have 
to work with creatives in order to sketch at the intersection(s) of good design, good theology, and our role 
as culture creators." True to form, it was meandering and quirky — a soupçon of  history, theology of the Imago Dei, a little design philosophy and advice, and visual inspiration/stimulation (I hope).

About 15 minutes into it, I realized I had too much content, but pressed forward, and we ended up getting through most of it without much compromise. Before I went on, my friend Marcus Goodyear gave a great presentation on online community building; I knew he was going to skew his content heavily (actually completely) online, so I weighted my presentation toward traditional media and channel-neutral branding design.

The preso was a mashup featuring three youth media case studies tied to some theological points I made at the presentation's "history unlesson" ... as well as a gallery of twenty logos I had designed, which I will glom together and present to you below. I also re-fashioned and re-presented my "six design nuggets for non-creatives" talk as a 10-minute overview.

I was really pleased with the mix of people — I asked the group of media professionals (I assumed I'd be getting mostly PR folks, writers and editors) to classify themselves (how modern of me): almost a third of the room comprised designers and creatives. Another third considered themselves quasi-creative, and only one guy thought he was a non-creative.

My friend Tim Snyder made the trip out to the hill country with his visiting friend (my new friend) Josh. They audited the whole session and Josh participated in the interactive [Playdoh sculpting!] portion of the talk as well. With them and Marcus and my friend Brad Russell from The Baptist Standard there in the room, I was more at ease than I would've been.

After the presentation, Tim and Josh and I spent the rest of the day together. On the drive back to San Antonio, we stopped in the Blue Bonnet Café in Marble Falls, TX. That's Josh and his chocolate meringue pie. After that we crashed at my house for a bit ( I really needed a nap) before heading to Alamo Drafthouse Theater to see Slumdog Millionaire.

It was a nice break in the middle of the week.

I leave you with an excerpt from an essay by Leland Ryken that I published in Communiqué back in the day, and dredged up for the conversation yesterday (but didn't have time to share with the group):

"What does the image of God in people say about the arts? It affirms human creativity as something good in principle, since it is an imitation of one of God's own acts and perfections. Someone once wrote, "As image-bearer of God, [people possess] the possibility both to create something beautiful, and to delight in it (Kuyper 142). Christian poet Chad Walsh once wrote that the artist "can honestly see himself as a kind of earthly assistant to God..., carrying on the delegated work of creation, making the fullness of creation fuller" (308). This applies equally to those who are not themselves creative artists but who delight to enter into the creativity of others. And it stands as a rebuke to those who disparage God's gift of creativity in people."

Here's a handful of the logos I've designed* — I used these in the presentation:

 

*the All Saints logo was a collaboration between myself and Von Glitschka, whose work also made it into the presentation.

stations of the cross

two of my stations of the cross from last year.
i miss that harmony guitar.
photographed by reallivepreacher

Station 10: Jesus is Crucified (detail on right)

Station 14: Jesus is Laid in the Tomb (detail on right)

i'm available by commission to finish the other twelve.

mother and child and mother and child

proto-neo-outsider-sketchbookish-iconoclastic iconography with a twist.

so here's a little sketch from the show recently; guess who nabbed it?

Folk Art

File under beautiful. In the wonderful tradition of Howard Finster, there's Grandma Prisbrey. I had forgotten about her beer bottle village until I rediscovered this ironic cathedral in an LA Times article this morning.

FOLK ART: In 1956, Tressa “Grandma” Prisbrey began constructing the buildings, scouring a local dump for the bottles, beer cans and other tossed-out items to fashion into walls and sidewalks. (Los Angeles Times) November 23, 2008

Preview of Sunday's show [updated]

^ Peace: SOLD  11/23 ^

 

^ Credo: SOLD  11/20 ^

____________

 

^ Chrysostom: SOLD  11/23 ^

^ Arbor Vitae: SOLD  11/23 ^

^ A Benediction of Sorts: SOLD  11/21 ^

____________

[plus, a lot of the giclée prints of earlier work sold as well. but there's still more available at Viva between now and January]

"An Illustrated Life" officially released

Some GREAT early morning news from the book's F+W editor, Amy, via Danny Gregory:

"The book just hit our warehouse on 11/11, so it should be on bookstore shelves in about two weeks. But it has now been officially "released" and Amazon pre-orders should begin moving very soon."

• We had to add more books to the initial print run because of all the pre-orders
• Also, on Amazon, we are #1 in Graphic Design and #1 in  Drawing. (#1,308 in Books overall!)
• You can still hear the An Illustrated Life podcast interviews (including mine) here.
• Please consider pre-ordering your copy today at Amazon - you save $6.40 -- 32%!

Paul Soupiset Sketches in "An Illustrated Life"

"An Illustrated Life" is shipping advance copies. With any luck, mine will arrive downtown at my studio tomorrow. see how many of my sketchbook pages you can find in this promo video artfully compiled and narrated by Danny Gregory:

sunday afternoon sketch

Integrity and the Path of Least Resistance

Hello and welcome to the one thousandth post here at soupablog.com.  Ta-da!

Thanks for letting me have fun with the campaign-season-inspired emotional buildup. Sorry if this post lets you down; if it does it only proves the point I was making about election-style hype.

This is one of those posts I’ve stopped and started writing numerous times over the past week, not because of its quasi milestone status but rather because here I wanted to drive a stake in the ground, clear the air, and start afresh, for my own health and for yours.

But before I do so, I’d like to sincerely thank all of you who have entered into conversation with me here at soupablog. These comments have spilled over into my ‘real life’ in so many enriching ways; I couldn’t begin to count. Dozens of emails, letters, lunches, coffees, and late night conversations about theology and thought, faith and doubt, art and music, design, politics, and myriad other threads have left me encouraged, provoked, breathless, strengthened, challenged and convicted.

I’m convinced this little blog has got some of the best readers in the world. Some of you are loyal strangers, some are family, some are lurking co-workers, some are in my tribe, and others are lifelong friends. And each of you knows different facets of the real me.

And it is for this reason I want to write tonight about integrity. I want to unpack my feelings about my own integrity because the more I insinuate myself into broad conversations with a wide variety of people — and the more technologies allow these widely various peoples to be in conversation with each other [1] — the more we — the more I — leave room for ambiguity and misunderstanding.

From birth we all desire to be understood. We learn there is powerful potential energy stored up in vocabulary and syntax and grammar. We communicate with sentences and paragraphs and hand gestures and facial expressions and emoticons and color and symbol. Each time we gain a new communication tool, we potentially become more understanding and more human (this evening I sat down and taught my twelve-year-old son the difference between imply and infer — it’s a great distinction to apprehend earlier rather than later).

But it’s the misunderstanding — or the propensity to misunderstand — that I want to explore, for when meaning is obscured or misunderstood, one’s hard-fought reputation — one’s integrity — goes on the line.

This weekend, Abe Levy, a local religion editor for the San Antonio Express-News, interviewed me for an article he was writing on religion and politics. He had contacted me once a few years prior when he was looking for emerging churches in San Antonio, but as I recall, I declined the interview at the time. But this time I felt compelled to action, to insert myself into the conversation.  But I also had an equal-but-opposite reaction: palpable fear of being misunderstood, of being misquoted, for I knew the feelings of frustration and violation upon being misquoted a few years earlier in the San Antonio Business Journal. That’s another story for another time.

I called and left a message with Mr. Levy.  I was willing to go on the record but I had some real misgivings about being misquoted or misrepresented.  When he called I voiced those fears but he quickly allayed them.

The interview commenced, and the whole experience was rather white-knuckled for reasons of integrity: I knew going into the interview that I’d sort of be fulfilling the interviewer’s desire to find a “moderate evangelical voting left-of-center this year” who would go on record about congregational discussions of politics, or the lack thereof, whether from the pulpit or elsewhere. And I knew my words would be typeset and published in the local newspaper of record and read daily by relatives and old friends whom I love and who would self-identify as being very conservative Christians. Many of those relatives and friends would probably, incorrectly, presume that I too would (still) self-identify as very conservative.

But by granting this interview I’d be clearly stating my intention to vote for Barack Obama — so this would be a coming-out of sorts in their eyes. Although I consider myself a moderate (progressive on some issues, conservative on others, willing to vote either side of the aisle for matters of faith) I knew some could read my words and perhaps feel betrayed or bewildered, confused or disappointed.

Here’s the awkward little snippet from the article. I’ll deconstruct it a little, below.

“Such political activity caused Paul Soupiset to move away from conservative Christian churches, he said, because his former church, in voter guides and from the pulpit, put pressure on its members to oppose abortion and homosexuality. Now, he attends Covenant Baptist Church on the North Side, which, according to its pastor Gordon Atkinson, avoids discussion of politics from the pulpit and other official church settings.

‘My friends and conversation partners about faith sort of reject the far right and the far left and there's sort of a more winsome middle ground to be had,’ said Soupiset, who is voting for Obama. ‘For example, I can state clearly that I'm probably pro life but to me, how that phrase has been defined has been narrow and insufficient. Life's not just about the abortion issue but about being pro-people who are living imprisoned or met with the short end of justice.’

When I read it for the first time in print, I panicked, focusing not on the broad brushstrokes of the interview which were good, but rather on the finer points which weren’t: In my mind, I had once again been misunderstood (or else my over-editing during the phoned-in interview actually, inexplicably, produced some of these words which is even more alarming). My face went red, flush with anger. I felt betrayed.

First off, the opening sentence implies a cause-and-effect relationship that just wasn’t there. I didn’t communicate and/or certainly didn’t mean to communicate a move away from conservative Christian churches simply because they shoved voter guides in our faces; rather, leaving behind the frustration/intrusion of so-called pro-life voter guides only made the leaving a little easier. Our family left, rather, for many reasons, largely because we were trying our best to follow Jesus and because we felt his Spirit was blowing in a new direction and we wanted very much to be about following Him into the inner city and to be available there for His use.

Secondly, the author missed the point I was trying to make — my point was and is that the gospel is so much bigger than the abortion and homosexuality issues, yet that’s what evangelicalism is focusing on. I have more of a problem with the conservative church wasting so much of its precious resources, sharpening their knives, polishing their armor and battling these two Big Issues, when so much more pressing, more real, Kingdom work is at hand, such as changing the circumstances which foster rampant teenage pregnancy in the first place.

Third, the word “probably” in the middle of the second graf was particularly irksome (especially following the phrase “state clearly”) — this had to have been some kind of internal monologue type blunder while reviewing my words, collecting my thoughts and backing up to get a fresh start at the next statement. I have clearly stated before that I consider myself pro-life and anti-abortion, but also that the conversation is not as cut-and-dried as others have made it. Complexities abound.

Next, I simply kicked myself for giving the interview in the first place. My friends and family wouldn’t — couldn’t — know the Jesus-underpinnings of my beliefs that necessitated that change in my beliefs (orthodoxy) and actions (orthopraxy). They wouldn’t know that following Jesus meant rejecting the current war and researching peacemaking, rejecting fear and embracing hope (both eschatological and social hope), rejecting the pursuit of wealth and opening myself up to a preferential position toward the poor.

And finally, I remembered what it was like to be a conservative. I remembered the visceral hatred I felt toward progressives. That smug AM talk-radio feeling. Heck, I wouldn’t have given myself a fair shake. I feared when people read my little part of the interview they’d take on the tone of the gentleman from Concordia Lutheran in Abe’s article (which was published on the September 28):

“Yeah, maybe we're only looking for conservatives, but I'm sorry, that's all we have at the church,” said [John], a founder of Salt and Light at Concordia and former chair of the Bexar County Christian Coalition. “We know — do I dare call them heathens — are going to support their candidates. So we know we have to find conservatives, and where are they? They're in church.”

If my following Jesus out into the world means being mislabeled a heathen, was I up for it? I was experiencing feelings similar to sitcom character George Costanza when his worlds collided in Seinfeld, Episode 118 [2]:

[Inside Jerry's apartment -- Jerry sits on the couch listening to George.]

GEORGE: Ah, you have no idea of the magnitude of this thing. If she is allowed to infiltrate this world, then George Costanza as you know him, Ceases to Exist! You see, right now, I have Relationship George, but there is also Independent George. That's the George you know, the George you grew up with — Movie George, Coffee shop George, Liar George, Bawdy George.

JERRY: I, I love that George.

GEORGE: Me Too! And he's Dying, Jerry! If Relationship George walks through this door, he will Kill Independent George! A George, divided against itself, Cannot Stand!

(Elaine enters)

GEORGE: You're Killing Independent George! You know that, don't you?

George’s existential crisis had to do with a different kind of integrity issue. Not to get too Jungian about it, but he was maintaining two personas, living one reality around his friends and an entirely different reality in front of his girlfriend. This duplicity produces tension. Like a rubber band stretched taut around two poles that are slowly diverging, eventually something’s gotta give.

What different kinds of Pauls am I projecting? Husband Paul? Designer Paul? Contemplative Paul? Musician Paul? To some friends, like my amigo Jeff, I am simply ‘more progressive’ than he is. He’s voting for McCain, I’m voting for Obama. No big deal. In fact, because of this difference we sit around after a night of playing music together and have wonderful theological conversations wherein theories find currency, iron sharpens iron, and the deep roots of our friendship get watered. To many of my other friends and co-workers, I am simply ‘more conservative’ than they are.  Again: no big deal. I might have a more provincial view of many issues, but maybe I learn something from them [3]. And at the end of the day we’re both enriched.

I’m growing increasingly tired of keeping up appearances. I’m going to do what I can to peel back the veneer and truly be me. This might be a little rough at times for all of us. If you’re right of center and need to call me a liberal so that I fit more easily into your worldview, so be it. I won’t be offended. If you’re left of center and need to distance yourself from me because I’m not progressive enough with you on all your issues, so be it. I won’t be moved on some things.

Let’s circle this back around to soupablog and its next thousand posts. What’s that gonna look like?  I wouldn’t expect too much to change. Hopefully the next 1,000 will be full of creativity and wit and observations.

My goal will still be to look at art, faith, design, music, architecture, politics, and my own family’s adventures through the lens of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If that’s too spiritual for you, then so be it. I won’t get offended. If your view of Christ and culture doesn’t allow for gospel-transformed culture, then so be it. I won’t get offended. But in order to know the real me, you’ll need come along on his little journey.

One of my readers, someone very close to me, recently took issue with a posting I had put up about the current presidential race. They suggested that by introducing politics into my blog, I was “changing the emphasis, changing the discourse, changing from a pleasant walk in the park to the cacophony of The World.”

I gently take issue with this description, and hope this reader doesn’t mind my anonymously quoting them. Here’s my take on this. As an artist who is a follower of Jesus, a huge part of my calling is to prophetically lean into current situations (such as the war) in order to artfully, creatively bring about change and to speak truth to power. This includes the art I create and the artifacts our culture creates — I plan to be right there in the middle of the cacophony of the world: in the world yet not of it [4]. Some of our best art comes from the margins, from places of real hurt where salvation is something real and imminently needed; I want a Christ “seeking out the poorer quarters where the ragged people go / looking for the places only they would know”, and for the same reason, I want to follow him there, too.

That’s where I’ll be, god-willing, trying to figure out my place in this world. I’ll engage and then reflect right here on the virtual pages of soupablog. You’re all invited along for the ride. Family, friends, co-workers, strangers.

Thank you for reading.
— Paul R. Soupiset, San Antonio

footnotes:

1.These would include commenting on a blog, engaging in a threaded discussion on Facebook, tagging, rating, forwarding or engaging in other so-called Web 2.0 behaviors. A current example: when my friend T.J. launched into a spirited discussion on the abortion issue on Facebook this week, I replied and in doing so became involved in a multi-person conversation with his aunt across the country, an old church friend of his who relocated to another state, and other strangers, all of whom I’ve never met.

2. Transcribed by Dan Coogan http://www.cooganphoto.com / Originally posted on The News Guys(Mike's) site http://www.geocities.com/tnguymFrom

3. From these folks I’ve learned, for example, about immigration and the gospel. I’ve also grappled with my previously hard-line stance on labor unions after having seen the plight of a worker through the lens of the gospel. These are just top-of-mind examples.

4. I reject the isolationist, suburban gated-community temptation to be removed from (not in) the world, for life is not a sanitized walk in the park; if it is, Christ’s incarnation would’ve played out a much different way. When we try to protect ourselves from the world, we miss the lepers and the orphans and the needy. We miss out on living as well. My dad's been a huge encouragement on this fornt recently: he just wrote an essay about his interactions with hurricane ike survivors.

"the smaller the footprint of the house, the greater the footprint of the land" more micro housing in NYT

i've posted before on my fascination with micro-housing.  it stands against excess. it's quaint and comforting. safe. it's cool. minimalist and distilled. womb-like. every small house presents a good design problem. it eschews the tendency to amass possessions. a prophetic voice against "bigger-is-better" consumerist bent in me and for that reason, it also interests me as a follower of Christ. as an artist, these lilliputian sheds interest me as potential statements of beauty. and the spiritual introvert in me loves daydreaming about the monastic possibilities. i've dreamed of an art space / cell for years that would be like this. possibly something like the art silos in downtown san antonio.

i hadn't noticed until now, but the new york times has been covering this beat with regularity: today they published a story by steven kurutz about a tiny house built on the back of a pickup truck. one year earlier they published this about "high-style sheds". And back in February, Bethany Lyttle wrote "Think Small" — funny, it's a small headline which stands juxtaposed against the NYT "GREAT HOMES" section header (see photo, left). Lyttle also narrated a wonderful companion slide show where she shows the rural getaway of one Mr. Adams, a lawyer in San Francisco. Her narration says something to the effect that, "being in a small space makes the land seem greater," and she continues with this small profundity: 

"the smaller the footprint of the house, the greater the footprint of the land"

these photos bear witness to that little truth. so maybe one day when my lovely overcrowded nest thins out a bit. in the meantime, i'll enjoy daydreaming.

all of these photos above are copyright the New York Times, taken by Peter DaSilva, Michael Falco, Heidi Schumann, Alchemy Architects, John Friedman, and Jay Shafer for Tumbleweed Tiny Homes.

 

RESOURCES FOR TINY HOME MOVEMENT / MICRO-HOUSING:

prefab homes
fabprefab — which has links for many micro houses including:
zenkaya
smallhouse
kitHAUS

House Concert Photos, one week late

last sunday lane ayo took some photos of our third Casa Soupiset house concert,
hailing from woodland park, colorado, tim and laurie are the blackthorn project.

my mandolin never sounded so good.

more house concerts to come. if you weren't on the invitation list, contact me and i'll add you.

interesting ikon @ sojo

Christ of Maryknoll

From Sojourners

"…endeavor to see the Christ among the least of us, and to serve the Christ that lives in the margins of this world. Maryknoll priests, brothers, sisters and lay people have been imprisoned in China and elsewhere for their work among the poor, the broken, the oppressed....

The icon does not make clear which side of the fence Christ is on. Is he imprisoned or are we? Through our cultural institutions and personal lives we all place barriers between ourselves and true happiness. We and our institutions also try to imprison Christ in various ways, to tame him and the dangerous memories he would bring us of our goals and ideals."

—Robert Lentz, September 11, 2002

San Francisco Trip, rear view mirror

So like I said, Amy and I just got back from eight days in California.
Click for a first gallery (more to come)

It was wonderful on so many levels. First and foremost? Time alone to rediscover, enjoy and relax with Amy. A celebration of fifteen years of marriage. The weather and the flights and food and the downtime were all superb, the journey and the destinations were picture-perfect and meaningful. The friends we reconnected with along the way were hospitable and fun and funny and myriad. The trip was even educational (learned a little about wine during the first third of the trip and a little about youth media in the last). I did a much better job about living in the moment. Didn't spend my whole time behind the lens or buried in sketchbooks. Our 5 senses were each a little more alive, aware, acute.

Wednesday
We flew San Antonio to San Diego to San Fransisco (the via santa?); wove through the City, over Golden Gate Bridge (stopping only long enough to snap a quick photo) and drove all the way up hwy 101 to our B&B in Cloverdale. Stopped along the way in Santa Rosa for farmers' market. Italian  for dinner. Strolled Cloverdale's main street; Explored our B&B's gardens.

Thursday
On Thursday, Amy and I were awakened by the time zone difference and the excitement of being in a new place — plus, we got a good night’s sleep in a very comfortable bed. Where the night before had been hot and humid — Wednesday had reached 106°F in this inland part of northern California — this morning was crisp and cool. Large temperature differentials are a hallmark of Sonoma County — good for grape-growing. We got up and milled around the upstairs of the B&B a little: there’s a little hospitality room on the other side of the house that has coffee, hot tea, a small ice maker, and a fridge with sodas, juice and water.

After a bit we decided to go out for a pre-breakfast walk in downtown Cloverdale. The B&B is on Third St. just a block off Cloverdale Drive, the main street, and pretty much in the center of this tiny town. We took our time, snapped some iPhone shots of interesting buildings, and after some searching, eventually found Underground Coffee wedged in the back of an antique store. Amy: a blueberry muffin; me: a dolce latté. On the side wall of the antique store four large murals depict historical scenes of life in Cloverdale — one for each season, though the seasons were vaguely depicted and to the point where for  a while we weren’t sure which painting matched which season. Heading back, I snapped a tiled panorama of Pick’s, a hamburger joint that’s been around for 70 years or so.

Breakfast was fun: we had two house mates, a young couple from Stockholm, who were enjoying California while on vacation and probably enjoying the favorable exchange rate as well. We were served Dutch pancakes with homemade pomegranate syrup— as well as some apple-gouda sausages, mini muffins and coffee. I also had a light peach nectar which had the consistency of apple juice, and Amy and the Swedish couple had orange juice. Don, our host, would disappear from time to time, bringing out the small courses; first, the muffins, then the sausages and pancakes, then returning with the syrup. He’s a good conversationalist and was very interested in helping us plan our day in the Dry Creek appellation. Within fifteen or twenty minutes, we had recommendations and a highlighted map.

We toured a handful of Dry Creek wineries and ended up sampling wines at fewer than we stopped at. Asti's Cellar No. 8, Fritz, Ferrari-Carano (mostly for its well-tended gardens). We enjoyed a picnic luncheon overlooking Lake Sonoma (note the Dublin Dr. Pepper we enjoyed with panini from the Dry Creek General Store. Later in the day we fell in love with Bella vinyard and its wine caves and checked out quaint Preston winery as well. Romantic drive along West Dry Creek Road to Quivira. Poked around bookstores and stationers in touristy-but-serene Healdsburg, and walked barefoot in the cool grass in their town square. Back at the B&B's beautiful gardens, we watched dusk turn into night as we traded stories with the innkeepers Don and Mary before turning in.

Friday
More fascinating breakfast conversation. More guests had arrived, and our table mates included a couple from Nova Scotia and our Swedish friends. We packed up the car and kicked back in the gardens before bidding farewell to Don and Mary and the Swedes. Instead of retracing hwy 101 back to San Francisco (hereafter, the City), we decided to take the scenic route, which allowed us to explore the Eastern side of 101, back through Healdsburg (found some cute shops and a really cool kwanset-hut antique store). Peeked into Simi winery but didn't stick around for the tour.

Lunch in Windsor, mostly to find free Wi-fi. Happened upon a pizzeria on its second day of business. During lunch's email-check, we discovered one of my dear high school friends is pregnant, and another high school friend was in the Bay area touring colleges with her son and her high school aged daughter.

Friday afternoon we made our way into the City, did a driveby of The Haight, and settled into Golden Gate Park where we toured the Botanical Gardens for a couple hours. Then it was off to Grace Cathedral (that's where my friends Vanessa and Will are both associate pastors), where we met up with Ryan, Holly, Paxton, and others in the Seven community, because the Jesus for President tour coincidentally had rolled into town. Cobalt Season played during the intermission, and I had an amazing evening, and got to say a brief hello to Shane and Chris. And I met the head of Grace's labyrinth guild. They have a guild that takes care of their two Chartres-styled labyrinths (one indoors, the other out). Made me want to learn more about the Psalters.

The Sharps pointed us to Liberty Café for a late-night nosh in Bernal Heights, but it closed as we were walking up. Rats. We ended up getting really turned around and frustrated with driving around the Mission District before settling on a 24-hour diner, then coming back to Ryan and Holly's and crashing.

Saturday
Slept in. Way in. Smelled the coffee sometime after 9:30 and stumbled toward the aroma. Then I saw it. The view. The house where the Sharps are house-sitting has this amazing view of the water. It's breathtaking in daylight and beautifully sequined at night. We chatted with Holly and Ryan, ate some AMAZING Cali cinnamon toast, watched Pax, and made plans to hook up with Lisa and her kids at the notable Zachary's Chicago Pizza at Berkeley (note to self: the drive from Oakland Hills to Berkely on 13 was amazingly beautiful in July). We walked around Trader Joe's, then made our way (with a hot pizza in hand for our hosts) back to Casa Sharp where our Emergent friend Adam Klein was celebrating his birthday. His extended family members were there as well as his Seven friends, many of whom Amy and I met for the first time. From about 1pm to maybe 1am we enjoyed the longest pool party in my remembrance, with some really neat people as well. I built a little fire when it got cold and we were thankful for the heated pool (thanks again, Ryan). At some point in the evening, rock-n-roll photographer and friend Daley came to the house as well, after shooting a wedding in Berkeley. Everyone was in rare form that evening. Rare form.

Sunday
Our original plan was to visit St. Gregory of Nyssa for a "now-for-something-completely-different" worship experience (watch the whole video if you have time). But the pool party and travels had decided for us: more sleeping in. So here's what we did. More morning coffee and cinnamon toast. (Sorry, Bob, we never made it to bakesale betty either)... we lounged and caught up on email. So did Daley and Ryan and so the whole breakfast table looked like an Apple convention. We just embodied the sabbath. Rested. Then said some sad good-byes and snapped some photos before Amy and I left for the Union Square area. Crossed Bay Bridge into the city and before long, arrived at Hotel Nikko. Checked in and rested a little in our room before walking up (and up and up) to California, back to Grace Cathedral, where Amy and I were the guests at a Sunday School class (in a beautiful library) where they were talking about being Ordinary Radicals. Vanessa and Will invited us there so we could talk about our faith-journey, our Trinity House experiences as well as our Covenant experiences, and a little bit about my role in illustrating Jesus for President.

Then we went up to the choir part of the cathedral and had a beautiful evening contemplative service with a Eucharist. Sigh. It was really amazing, and an amazing cap to an amazing weekend. Vanessa, Will, Matt, and Anna treated us to dinner and laughter at Farmerbrown afterwards. Then it was back to the hotel, time to shift into Conference Mode.

Monday/Tuesday
Soon I'll blog more about the 2008 YPulse Mashup, an international youth media conference that drew a diverse crowd. Prosocial was the meme this year. Like founder Anastasia said here:

"While we do focus on effective ways to reach youth with technology, our audience is about one third non-profit/advocacy organizations so branding could be branding for a company or branding for an agency serving youth. [We had] sessions on this year's election, youth activism, on whether girls are the new geeks, and [one on] what folks who create web sites for youth can do about cyberbullying.

So it was not just about "selling stuff to kids" it was also about using those technologies effectively and authentically to reach them whether it is with a product that is actually useful or a message that could save their lives or inspire them to create social change."

Wednesday
Was a travel day, so following a night of Chinatown and cable cars, it was nice to just sit on a plane and be. The kids gave us a great welcome, as did my parents, who along with my mother-in-law, took care of the four little ones.

More blogging soon. Again, check out the photos.

I'll post more once our 35mm gets digitized.

Budynek mieszkalny :: Single Hauz

you may remember my post last year about the m-ch micro compact home, a 2.6 meter cube intended for one or two inhabitants (it's now on display at moma until mid-october). i've always been intrigued by well-designed, compact living spaces (my son and my mom both tell me they share the same facscination). equally interesting to me are are treehouses and  teardrop trailers, such as the one pictured on the left. homes and mobile homes like these are, in my mind, testaments to good space allocation, a (relatively) conservative use of resources, and a rather romantic way to bunk down for the night. i've enjoyed reading about building one's own teardrop trailer, and if i were more handy with tools i'd certainly have it on my list of things to do.

now front architects in poznań, poland (north of wrocław and west of warszawa) have designed the billboard-inspired single hauz:

"…a kind of manifest, proposal of a house/shelter for a Western Worlder. The "basic unit of society", as marriage is called, is no longer the only model of life. As a detached single occupant house unit, Single Hauz fills a kind of a void in the field of housing proposal for so called "singles"…"

in any case, it's a joy to look at and to ponder a month or even a week living inside. enjoy their mockups:

lunchblog: child of the wind

Was thinking about incomplete projects today.
All our best-intentioned efforts.

Things I've said 'yes' to — because I'm wired to say 'yes' …
then set aside for many reasons.  play, pause. play, pause.

Not so much aborted because the thing didn't have merit,
but maybe more because something else had more merit.

Not so much ignored because of entropy,
but maybe more because I have too many plates spinning on sticks.

Not so much started because saying 'yes' was
modeled as a child in my artist-mom and fix-it-all-dad,
though that's in there somewhere.

Not so much started because my identity
is too enmeshed in seeking approval of others,
though the tendency to be a pleaser is in there as well.

And it reminded me of this stations of the cross project.
I only have two stations completed (the two above are
further along than when this shot was taken).

I allowed myself to give up the project for now because
it was already used in context with another group stations project.
And maybe because they weren't being
    executed the way I had envisioned.

Now they're sitting in a corner of an unused room gathering dust.
And I no longer have the drive to complete the project. for now.

Maybe

Maybe when the seasons turn cool and Ordinary Time gives way
to the rhythmic sway of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent
    maybe then I'll be inspired.

It of course brings up questions of the agency of the
Holy Spirit in the Christ-follower's life.
Are we to truly be children of the Wind?
Breeze-Flexible, Malleable, willing to follow the Wild Goose?
Yes, ¿no?

Then:

Is artistic inspiration extractable from spiritual in-spiration?
In-filling In-dwelling In-breathing?

And is this a cop-out?
    I just didn't feel inspired today. Or yesterday for that matter.

Or is it soul-care for the over-burdened, a lesson for the weary,
cardinal direction for the wayward dabbler?

and then there's the home-front:

the deck that's falling apart;
the soil beneath my dead lawn that's
starting to crack from dehydration;

a thousand points of shame to own and be
embarrassed about mostly when relatives come to visit.
lack of landscaping. dehydrated lawn. cracked
foundation. peeling paint. dilapidated deck.
do i own these failures more than others?
how do these not kill you all? nagging failures…
when it comes to labor, it's in much worse form
to pull the "i'm just not inspired" card.

there's always the "i'm tired" card.

i ramble.

Thin Space: the fountain at southwest school

I'm on my way out of the office, heading home, but I wanted to post this really quick since I didn't have time the last 2 days.

Lunches have always been really good alone time for me to muse, draw, photograph, be alone with my thoughts, pray. Yesterday I stole away a few blocks south of here to San Fernando Cathedral (this church is the oldest cathedral sanctuary in the U.S. and the official geographic center of my home town). I walked their stations of the cross and then headed across the courtyard to their little café for a $1.95 grilled cheese sandwich.

At lunchtime the day before, I headed a few yards north of me to the Southwest School of Art & Craft (next door to our design studios) and stepped into another thin space -- the courtyard at the school has this little hand-cut limestone fountain that I really admire. Before heading into the Copper Kitchen (the century-old refectory at the former convent there on the school campus), I took a slew of tiled photos of the fountain and its surroundings with my little iPhone camera, hoping to merge them later.

Later, while I was busy doing other things on the Mac at work, I let Photoshop auto-merge the pictures. It detects edges and, depending on the settings, tries its best to create a seamless panorama.

I ran it through several different ways, and it's fascinating to see how the computer rendered the composited scene Two different auto merged files are shown here (click on each thumbnail for a larger view):

paul interviewed on homebrewed christianity podcast

I sat down and talked with chad crawford (that's him in the photo, errr, not me) about a month or two ago. He's one half of the homebrewed christianity podcast, which is also co-hosted by his friend trip fuller. fun stuff: they've gone and published that interview on their audio podcast.

or just listen.

trip and chad are seminary buds who do the podcast both as a way to further explore their faith and as a way to keep in contact across  time zones, now that chad's relocated to san antonio.

Heads-up — for the soupablog readers out there who might be offended by the stray PG-13 word, you might want to skip trip's and chad's intro (there's a lot of banter at the beginning, the S-word, and some odd-but-funny glossolalia humor), and instead head straight to my interview about a third of the way in.

(Post)Lentenblog 2008 :: Labyrinth 16 [slide show]

It's not quite complete, the labyrinth.
But that didn't keep Kate's Sunday school class from checking it out.
This made my day.

I posted a Flickr slide show here.

Time Lapse and Topo Maps

topography from Huba Gancsos on Vimeo. HT to Kent Kingery

Paul Soupiset featured in An Illustrated Life podcast episode

or, A Tale of Two "Dannys" and Two "Everydays"

When I knew I was traveling to NYC recently, there were three people I wanted to sit down with and have conversations. The first was a former design intern named Danny Adrain, who is now a senior designer at Razorfish. The second was Thomas Turner, the young editor of Everyday Liturgy. And the third was Danny Gregory, a fellow creative director / author / sketchbook artist / podcaster, and creative force behind the Everyday Matters movement / craze / meme.

I ended up getting to hang with all three. I digress.

Danny Gregory, his wife Patti, and their son Jack welcomed me into their world for an hour or so — they live in a beautiful eighth floor apartment in the Village. Every inch of their apartment was either window glazing, book shelves, or space for hung artwork.

After talking a while [and letting the dogs smell me], we sat down and recorded this audio podcast about my moleskine journal sketching, about my faith and art and intersections therein. It's one of those things where afterwards, listening to it, I felt strange and self-conscious about all of the things I would've said differently (did I represent my art well enough? did I represent my faith well enough? my upbringing, parents and education? did I come off like a total dweeb? important questions like that).

Nonetheless, I invite you to listen. And commentezvous, por favor.

photos by oscar williams

bricolage :: manhattan, brooklyn, west cornwall, and back again

i waited to blog about my recent new york trip, hoping some unifying thread would be found running through the whole of the tapestry — some way to serve up the sights and sounds and smells of the last week that would remain engaging. some way to let you experience some of the energy of the city, some of the joys and loneliness of being a solo guy traipsing around manhattan, of being a fish out of water in a consultancy full of anglican vibe, some of the small pleasures in meeting new friends, in logging a few precious hours with some heretofore online friends, in spending a few quiet evenings with friends danny and kristen trying restaurants in their park slope neighborhood of brooklyn.

no magical thread has been found, other than a celebration of the beautiful, threadless remnants that would not be sewn together, and a new label for that tendency of mine towards assemblage, appropriation, pastiche, and montage: yes, the word of the week was bricolage.

bri•co•lage (n)  Something made or put together using whatever materials happen to be available

robert wuthnow's book after the baby boomers: how twenty and thirty-somethings are shaping the future of american religion was the preparatory text for the consultancy hosted by trinity church wall street; one of the main pulls from the text was the idea of spiritual tinkering:

Like the farmer rummaging through the junk pile for makeshift parts the spiritual tinkerer is able to sift through a veritable scrap heap of ideas and practices from childhood, from religious organizations, classes, conversations with friends, books, magazines, television programs and web sites. The tinkerer is free to engage in this kind of rummaging...

maybe i'll post some of my new york sketches soon. but for now, i'll post a few of the photos i shot (haven't been color corrected yet or anything).

m is for: manhattan. moma. mosaics.

then after brooklyn, guggenheim, apple store,
i headed out to west cornwall, connecticut:

450 pixels.

Sketches from New Mexico

The first three scans are the standard moleskine sketchbook; the balance are moleskine watercolor notebooks. This was about all the sketching I did while on vacation, but it was fun nonetheless. With the exception of the one pencil + watercolor, all of them were done using my standard supplies, staedtler black pigment liners (4-pack: .01, .03, .05, .07 mm),  and windsor & newton artist's watercolor compact set (11 cm × 13.5 cm)

panoramic :: new mexico trip

stitching together some panoramic photos of the trip.

An Illustrated Life: the podast

In conjunction with the upcoming book, An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration From The Private Sketchbooks Of Artists, Illustrators And Designers, Danny Gregory has launched  a new audio podcast to introduce you to the fifty artists who will appear in its pages.

"Each episode features a lengthy interview with a different contributor as well as examples of their work. Until the book itself appears on Amazon (October, '08), we will have to make do with these interesting conversations. Please listen to the first episode and subscribe via RSS  or iTunes."

When I'm in New York later this month, I hope to catch up with Danny over a shared meal and capture a podcast conversation in person. I'll keep you informed.

Pre-order "An Illustrated Life" today

Remember that "sketchbookbook" I told you about a few months ago? ¿No?

Last year I was asked to be a small part of a new book compiled by Everyday Matters author Danny Gregory. Honored, I gathered together some of my favorite 2007 Lentenblog sketches and a few other Moleskine goodies, and packaged them up and sent them off to NYC.

Over the next few months, as the sketches started pouring in from around the world, Danny gave contributors little sneak peeks, so we could catch a glimpse of the other artists' work. Trust me: this is going to be a cool book. One I'm honored to be part of. Anyway, it'll be 272 pages, full color, and chock-full of a wide array of illustrated journals, inky sketchbooks, watercolored Moleskines, with essays and interviews with the artists as well.

It's finished now, and being printed and readied for distribution in December:

An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration
From The Private Sketchbooks Of
Artists, Illustrators And Designers.

You can now pre-order it through Amazon and knock a third off the price!

I can't wait! Get the word out, bloggers, ye!

— paul

Lentenblog 2008 :: Labyrinth 12

this kind of captures last sunday.
the music makes the first part seem less stultifying.

like i said earlier, the first draft was too small.
not unlike the stonehenge in this is spinal tap :)

hats off to the kids at church
and to abigail (10) our camera person

songs by little ol' me.

an unused sketch from Jesus for President

an unused sketch (based on a line from the book) from the forthcoming Jesus for President