Given our travel schedule this week, this is another page of travel related drawing. I noted that I seem to have a fondness for moving bridges. The example at the top of the page is of the Summer Street Retractile Bridge in Boston. Each roadway segment rolls on rails diagonally so as to open. Although […]
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28Dec
2015
SPANISH HORREO
2015
We are traveling this week. So I have prepared ahead of time a couple of thoughts and impressions of our past travels. An iconic image of Northern Spain are what are called horreo, or granary. We observed these in various sizes. Some of them are perched high above a barn, and might be 20 feet […]
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23Dec
2015
IMAGINATION AND MEMORY
2015
What about imagination and memory? How are imagination and memory linked? Imagination is a word that is used freely. We like to think that it is our imagination that enables us to solve problems creatively. The word imagination has a cultural charge that is ingrained into us from day one. How many times have we […]
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21Dec
2015
CALLIGRAPHY AS A GRAPHIC
2015
I have been using the beautiful graphics of Islamic writing as a way of generating forms. I have been using Islamic calligraphy as a graphic to generate ideas. I continue to think of the absolutely amazing panels that we saw in Istanbul of religions texts and passages both in museums and at the mosques. So […]
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18Dec
2015
IN SITU TRANSPARENT DRAWING
2015
It finally happened. I made an in situ transparent drawing in a cloister in northern Spain. In these pages I’ve been extolling the virtues, ad nauseam, of drawing from photographs on your phone. I’m sure that anyone will be surprised that I actually took time to sit outside and draw from the objects that were […]
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16Dec
2015
NON KNOWING
2015
From The Poetics of Space: “Even in an art like painting, which bears witness to a skill, the important successes take place independently of skill.” 1 A meta mantra in these pages is that there is no bad drawing. And it is great to hear Bachelard confirm this; the success of our drawings is independent […]
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14Dec
2015
IMPROVISATION
2015
I listen to a lot of music. And as I listen, I always think about the improvisatory quality of what I am hearing. If you can play a piece of written music and it sounds like you are improvising, that is a wonderful thing. Peter Serkin’s improvisatory reading of the Goldberg-Variations, for example, came thru […]
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11Dec
2015
RISK, SATISFACTION, CHOICE, AND COST
2015
We don’t understand our client’s brain. Yet we should. We should understand the mental landscape of how design decisions are made. This requires an understanding of risk, satisfaction, choice and cost. One of the fun things about a blog like Transparent Drawing is that it can be taken in unexpected directions. Or to put it […]
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9Dec
2015
ENDOWMENT EFFECT
2015
Psychologists apply the term endowment effect to the value that a person puts on something when they own it. For most items that we own, because we own them, we endow them with a greater value. There is an emotional cost to selling something that we own. So for example, psychological studies have confirmed that […]
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7Dec
2015
UTILITY THEORY
2015
Utility theory is a sociological term used to quantify satisfaction. Economists have devised theorems which attempt to give ways to measure the satisfaction that we derive from items that we buy. The best definition of utility theory is that there is a correlation between the utility of and the price that we are willing to […]
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