In a nutshell- before Robert began painting full time he had a bout with kidney disease. He needed a kidney transplant and he eventually was able to get one which was good news. The bad news was that Robert’s new kidney developed cancer. Suddenly Robert went from being a kidney patient to being a cancer patient. I guess a lot of things come to you when you are knocking on death’s door and for Robert it was the realization that life is short and he decided that if he pulled through he was going to do what he was supposed to do… paint!

Robert beat kidney disease and cancer and now he paints about his experience. According to Robert all of his paintings are basically about his kidney’s fight for survival- the struggle of life and transformation in the face of death. And that brush stroke that reminded me of Japanese sumi-e painting was actually Norwegian in origin. Robert had taken a “rosemaling” class which is a technique that derived from farmers and working class people who had developed their own motifs and style out of the infulence of the painters guilds. Naturally since they were poor and often times nomadic the technique found its way onto everyday objects like plates and bowls as opposed to actual paintings. Which would explain why Robert said he took the class with “with a bunch of old ladies.” Anyway that folky brush stroke got him hooked and he has been developing his own unique approach ever since. It is mesmerizing watching him paint and it seems more like meditation than work, very much like watching a sumi-e painter.

Robert and I are now good friends and when he is in town he stays with us. Recently he was in town to visit Big-Giant the ad firm responsible for the new Dell laptop designs. He basically had to approve the final product. It was all top secret at the time and I couldn’t wait to see what they looked like. Finally today I got to see them and they look like candy! If I wasn’t such a fanatical Mac guy I would go right out and buy one.

Robert has four designs in the so called “Dell Design Studio” series…”Cathedral” which is shown above and also “Mold,” “AuraAnonymous,” and “Catholicon.” If you click the Dell link you can see the complete line. The laptops come in two models Studio 15 and Studio 17 and are the latest greatest offering by Dell. Hats off to the crew at Big Giant. They chose a broad field of artists for the series that should ensure a design for everyone. But for my money it would be one of the aforementioned but by now you know I am partial. It is not very often that product design and high-art meet, let alone dance with one another.

If you have not heard of Robert Hardgrave and you want to learn more, visit his website (which I did for him by the way) and take a look at the beautiful work he does.

My first 2.0 project was for the Sri Ram Orphanage in India. They needed a inexpensive and reliable content management system so I studied up on all of the various engines. It seemed like TypePad, Drupal and Wordpress were the big players. TypePad looked OK but they wanted money and didn’t seem to cater to DIY’ers like myself.  I’m a full grown man web designer guy! Drupal was out of the question because they had a horrible looking brand, an even worse name and if I had to see their little raindrop logo (with sunglasses) again I might just put my eyes out with a pencil. I plunged into Wordpress and reluctantly began exploring the blogphere. I never really thought it would be right for me since I don’t need any help updating my own sites, but over the years a lot has changed including my attitude about information architecture and page design. I realize now that content really is king and clean (the cleaner the better) site design presents content in the best way possible. It’s not that I didn’t always know that, but I guess I liked making those animated little buttons and coming up with unique interfaces so much I rationalized my madness by thinking it was important to the branding/story-telling, and maybe it was at the time but this is the freaking “information age!”  And I am down with the 2.0…

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