The New Testament and Social Media

I’m writing this as I’m about to post, and not really editing (other than for typos), so please bear with me.

Lately I’ve been listening to Joel Osteen on Sunday mornings as I’m getting ready for church, and the last couple of weeks in particular have hit home with me, for one reason or another. Yesterday’s message boiled down to how we need to have in our “inner circle” (his phrase, not mine) people that will encourage us and who will be supportive in chasing and reaching our goal.  Those “toxic” relationships (as he described them) should be ones that we re-examine and possibly even eliminate from our lives.

Also, this past Sunday our church was visited by one of the pastors from a nearby church. The message he prepared and delivered was all about sharing. I believe some of the phrasing he used– to me– echoed in a weird reversed way Gordon Gecko’s speech about greed in Wall Street.

But I digress.

See, you can take out all the Biblical bibliography, and both messages remain extremely relevant. And, the way I see it, as designers/developers/artists– whatever, the idea of having people that are supportive of our goals and the idea of sharing what we have (knowledge, experience) are both things that are important to our growth, and are an integral part of living and interacting in the realm of social media. After all, isn’t that at least part of the reason we involved ourselves initially, and continue to do so day after day?

Create Something Every Day (#daily365)– for May 5

¡Oralé!

Even though I’ve begun working through the alphabet, I had already planned something to go along with Cinco de Mayo (never mind that I’m doing this in mid-July). That something took a little longer than my traditionally set up time restriction. Hope you enjoy.

artwork ©2010 rafael armstrong

To paraphrase Jeff Dunham and Peanut– Yes, it’s a jalapeño– on a steeck!!!!!

Create Something Every Day (#daily365)– for May 1st

So, this is what I got for today. No fancy intros, no purple-prosed laden explanations.

©2010 rafael armstrong

(And, yes, I’m well aware there might be some irony at play tonight).

Enjoy!

Create Something Every Day (#daily365)– for April 17

I’m driving in the car earlier today, and, for some reason (part of it, I imagine, is living in North Jersey, land of malls and diners you’ll see why in a sec), I started thinking about the visual language of mall directories (see?!). Completely random, totally out of left field. Then my mind started to wander into things like a person’s moral “compass” and the role that Theism (or is it Deism? Definitely some “ism”) may or may not play in all this.

I decided to play with those ideas in this piece.

©2010 rafael armstrong

I know I’ve used the figure illo before, but felt it fit with what I was doing. And, if it helped move things along, then all the better.

Your thoughts, comments and opinions are always welcome!

Create Something Every Day (#daily365)– Feb 10

I know I’ve said this before, and it’s especially appropriate today. Inspiration can sometimes hit in the most unlikely places.

Case in point. My part of North Jersey (according to the town’s Chamber of Commerce guide) is about 20 miles from The City (that would be New York City for my out-of-town readers). Throughout the day this area has been “graced” with over a foot of snow– so far. With schools closed and pretty much everything shut down, I had a chance to sit down and clean up the code on my site (I should point out that I’ve been working on a refresh of my site since the beginning of the year). I had fallen into a nice groove, cleaning and streamlining the html and css, and was making some headway, when out of nowhere…

The power went out.

Now, it came back less than 10 minutes later, but, of course, whatever edits I was in the process of making at the time were lost. It’s no major issue, just a minor inconvenience at best.

Fast forward a couple of hours, and I had started to think about today’s #daily365. While (how can I put this delicately and tactfully?)… answering a quick call of nature, an old joke (and not a particularly funny one at that, either) popped in my head. The punchline seemed appropriate for today. I sat down at my desk, cracked open Illustrator and cranked this out real quick:

©2010 rafael armstrong

Like I said– the most unlikely places… Hope you enjoy today’s piece and have at least been mildly amused with my level of personal disclosure. As always, your thoughts and feedback are appreciated.