Cubelandia

For six years I subsidized my art habit with a full-time administrative day-job at a large, corporate not-for-profit medical association. This series of drawings was produced while at work, using office supplies. Coming from a creative professional background, I often felt like an outsider observing a simultaneously exotic and banal world. Corporate culture was new to me. Thankfully I worked in an academic area of the organization, and my very kind boss and co-workers tolerated the mess of pens, postit notes, rubber stamps and pilfered files that littered my desk, despite my pathetic attempts to conceal "art projects." Looking back, I see how much the leader of my small department recognized this and cultivated a sincere (and I mean this in the best way) wacky spirit of fun. It fueled this work in ways that I now appreciate years later. I am grateful for this. My fond memories of this time come from the lifelong friends and fellow co-workers I met there. This is not a personal attack on specific people, but rather a critique of corporate culture.

Purgatory, 2011

I doodled through meetings and phone calls with one ear on the conversation, and as a result, managed to glean information from co-workers about public health and dysfunction within the American healthcare system. We worked closely with counterparts in Europe who benefitted from much more worker-friendly policies including generous vacation time. In addition, I observed and experienced how the American corporate workplace and capitalistic "work ethic" can undermine healthy living, discourage innovation, contribute to a stressful family life, crush creativity and ultimately leach the life-force out of people.

My Stapler Gently Weeps

Busy at Work

While conducting "business" activities on the phone, I doodled incessantly and unintentionally on the same post-it notes that contained important organizational information. These notes covered my desk like a tablecloth. When my work area finally became too cluttered, I arranged them into formations to create new compositions. See examples below. The image above was selected for American Illustration 31.

Meeting Notes

Department meetings-- seemingly infinite speechifying blabfests freckled with (to the untrained ear) cryptic corporate-ese, abstract job goals, confusing jabber, and word salad blather managed to consume large chunks of time, and accomplish so little. People were doing real and very important work on a daily basis, but it did not translate accurately during these interminable meetings. To pass the time, I started taking meticulous "notes" during the meetings. Here is a sample:

↑Back to Top