I recently turned down an offer for a Web Developer position with a very well-known and respected, Chicago-based company. Why, you ask? Well, for one thing, I’ve known people who’ve worked there before and they all ended up leaving after less than a year. The position was also just not a good fit for me, personally, and my instinct told me that my creative talents would be better utilized elsewhere.

But more importantly than that, I’ve taken some time to think about what kind of career I want to have. I want to explore as many exciting career opportunities as possible and I believe that I was destined for great things. Chicago is an amazing and rapidly-changing place to be working as a young web professional these days and ever since I launched this Bleachwave website I’ve had many interesting people contacting me about opportunities of all shapes and sizes.

It is for this reason that I have decided to start my own web design and development company: City Lights Creative.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, this is no longer happening as I have accepted a full-time position with the company of my dreams, Razorfish.

Continue Reading…

A blue jay would die in the desert. It would take years for it to adapt to that kind of climate and environment, and there are far too many native desert creatures that would prey upon it. The background of this watercolor and ink painting is Monument Valley, Utah, and is adapted from a photograph seen in my book, Open Range: From Monument Valley to the Mojave Desert (see below).

Another significance of this painting is that it was the last piece I did at my temporary art studio in downtown Columbus, Ohio. I did the entire piece in one day and then moved out of the studio less than a week later (in early June 2012), and came back to Chicago. Continue Reading…

Most forms of employment carry with them some stereotype that denotes the employee’s “rank” in society. Regardless of whether you subscribe to such foolishness—the role of a Custodian would rank fairly low in the average, middle class person’s perception of these ranks. But just like everyone else, Custodians have stories to tell, and many of them have seen and done some remarkable and tragic things.

Patrick Shen and Greg Bennick’s 2009 documentary The Philosopher Kings features many of these such stories, told first-hand by 8 different custodians working at colleges and universities across America. The powerful, introspective documentary shares insight on what it means to live a life devoted to cleaning up the waste left behind by today’s youth; what it means to be so important and yet so disregarded. Continue Reading…

On May 3, 2012, after living in Chicago for nearly four years, I moved to Columbus, Ohio to live with my parents for one month. That wasn’t part of my original plans and a lot of difficult decisions had to be made. I knew I would be moving back to Chicago after a month or so, but somehow I felt a month in Columbus might be good for me.

The original plan was to spend two months in Columbus, then fly out to Seattle and spend a one-month artist residency at the Grunewald Guild near Leavenworth, WA. However, I encountered some personal and financial problems and realized I would need to get back to Chicago and find a job. The Guild residency isn’t cancelled—just postponed.

The one month that I did spend in Columbus was a memorable experience for me. I learned some important lessons about life, money, and happiness—a few which I would like to share. Continue Reading…

The Web continues to grow and become a bigger and bigger part of our lives. The ability to create an identity for yourself online may one day be tantamount to saying you exist. Surely not everyone will need to know computer programming in the future, but ultimately I think we need to look at scripting languages in a different way.

I believe children should be taught basic HTML as early as 4th grade. In other words, I think scripting languages should be taught as early as children are allowed to learn “foreign” languages, such as Spanish and French (for me, this was 3rd grade). Continue Reading…

When I first created Bleachwave, I knew I wanted the initial site launch to feature a couple of brand new art works. They would need to be among my best works, and show the artistic direction I was currently pursuing. Those 2 pieces are (1) a portrait of the famous composer, Frederic Chopin, and (2) a re-imagined “movie poster” for the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Both images are now for sale as prints from my Society6 store, or if you would like to inquire about purchasing a piece, please contact me. Continue Reading…