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Being displaced from my normal office for six months due to our hot water heater bursting and flooding our ground floor, I miss my desk art work.

After the hurried removal of all furniture and art, it took some time to reunite the artifacts on my temporary desk.

NEXUS

On the left is my 3D printed metal “Nexus” sculpture from Bathsheba Grossman. This sculpture so perfectly represented my abstract image of a new company that we formed.

The 3D printed Nexus Sculpture captures the unique thing that happens when through the combination of artistic innovation and mechanization (3D printing) we can create things by computer and CAD that we cannot do in ‘nature’ or through craft.  That is my fondest hope for what will happen with the platform of content with context’ in both the material world through the revolutionary innovation of distributed 3D printing and through a content with context platform for other forms of content and applications.

That company was ten years in my past and I couldn’t remember the name of the company or the name of the sculpture. So I took a photo of the sculpture and Google lens took me to the artist’s page. Nexus was the name. Creating a nexus of people, process and technology is my life’s work.

KLEIN Bottle

I first came across the notion of a Klein bottle when interviewing Paul Ryan many moons ago. One of his papers described a relational circuit:

“Klein bottles belong to surfaceland. Kleinforms do not. While in surface topology the surface is not permitted to pass through itself, in tubular topology this rule does not hold. Kleinforms are not Klein bottles. In Kleinforms, at least as I invented and named them (Ryan 1971 1974 1993), self-penetration is permitted. It is this self-penetration that enables Kleinforms to map the duration of time that occurs in the process of video feedback, the process that led to formulating the Kleinforms. The continuity within the chamber of the tube is being rendered, not the connectivity possible on the surface of the tube.”

What excited me about Ryan’s relational circuit is using the circuit to compose educational videos. His Nature in New York city video is my favorite example of his video composition technique. I had hoped to use this technique to do video summaries of meetings in our KnowNow product.

Blown Glass Sculptures Washed On Shore

Many moons ago I came across this article about glass blowers who shared their work by tossing their art into the Puget Sound. Their creations would then wash ashore and be gifts to the universe.

Shortly after seeing these images, we visited the Carberry Glass studio of Ann and Morgan Seeley. They had several glass sculptures that reminded me of the fishing floats. The yellow striped version caught my eye as it reminded me of the sun glancing off the floats.

Seeing the floating glass art brings a smile each time I glance at it.

Japanese Zen Garden

The most interactive of my desk art objects is the tiny Zen garden. How it has survived for twenty years on my desk through several moves and four grand children is beyond me.

My tiny Zen garden reminds me several Zen gardens we visited while on a Japan Study Mission in the late 1980s. My favorite city on the trip was Kyoto. I was thrilled to finally meander on the Philosopher’s Path. As we left the walk we toured Ryoanji Garden. I was captivated by the simplicity and complexity of this calming space.

My small cardboard Zen garden is a constant reminder of the hours contemplating Zen Gardens.

Napoleon’s March and the Rosetta Stone

My desk art objects sit on a shelf in front of the larger images that provide a context for my daily work. After six months of being away from this space, I am about to reenter my home office. I can’t wait.

I can’t wait to stare at Napoleon’s March. This diagram with six variables is perhaps the best visual analytic I’ve ever experienced. Right next to it is the Rosetta Stone reminding me that my job is to translate between my experiences and the many languages of my colleagues and customers.

So much context. So little time.