Here it is — the book that almost didn’t make it (see Paper, Well Almost). It certainly looks different from the way I originally intended it to be, but I’m proud to say it’s a 100% recycled product made from materials found around my apartment, like the hard back of a used legal pad, a brown paper bag from World Market, a torn picture from a AAA magazine (that’s the cover pic), left overs beads from another old project, etc. The paper itseft was made by turning junk mail and sawdust into pulp.

Acrylic on canvas, 36″ x 48″

What I ended up with resembles cardboard. No, more like thick non-crunchy potato chips that feel like they’re going to crumble if I try to fold them. Well, except for the blue one that feels like semi-thick fabric that going to tear if I try to fold it. These are the results of my paper making workshop. I can’t do with them what I had originally intended to do — create a nice little quarter-page sized book, which I was going to fill with words and images that inspire me. For that I ended up starting another blog. Now I need to figure out what to do with these unbendable pieces that I’m having a hard time calling paper.

A few months ago it hit me — I was not being creative. True, I was doing good work, I was being productive, I was working at twice my capacity and spitting out one product after another at work, but somewhere along the way of being productive and efficient, I had left creativity sitting far behind.

People may ask, “So, how can a graphic designer not be creative?” The thoughts that come to my mind right away are: first, graphic design had become second nature to me, so I don’t have to consciously use my brain; second, I was not solving any new design problems, I was producing the same product for different projects under different looks; and third; I was working at such high speed that I didn’t even realize that the first two were happening. And, that was my biggest mistake.

My uber-efficiency at work was impacting my life at home, too. I was so spent when I left the office that I had no energy to do anything afterwards. I was not being creative at home either. So, ignored, unused, and overlooked, my creativity quietly said goodbye. I didn’t even notice. I was too busy at work and too tired at home.

It was only when I started feeling restless, anxious and stuffed into a box, that I started looking around me. I slowly became conscious of what had happened (it took some work). I realized I was in what I’ll call “unconscious existence.” The lack of conscious creativity and unawareness of my daily brain usage, had left me in a barren and uninspired landscape. I was horrified at the bleakness. I could no longer allow myself to be in “unconscious existence.” Things had to change.

Thus began my journey to reconnect with my creative-self and to explore my relationship with creativity. Now, a few months into the game, I’m a lot better off, but I still have a long way to go. And, why am I writing about this? Because I don’t want to go back to unconscious existence ever again; if I write about it, I will remember the lessons better; and if I hit a wall — which, I’ve already hit a few times and which, undeniably, will happen again — I can come back and look at my notes.

I never thought about ships. I neither knew or cared about how or where old ships are dismantled. That is until about a month ago when I saw an article about toxic ships. A few minutes on Google and I discovered the horrifying reality of what happens after ships can no longer ply the oceans. Children without proper gear or protection from the toxic residues of the ships were doing backbreaking work. I’m sure there are economic benefits of sending ships to Third World nations to be dismantled — that’s why it’s happening, yet another example of extreme poverty and exploitation of the poor. I can’t help being deeply disturbed by the human and environmental cost of shipbreaking.

I learned about Blog Action Day from zenhabits

Sometime during my kindergarten years, one of the activity books had a project where you cut an okra horizontally, dip it in ink and stamp it on paper. Maybe that’s where my fascination with okras came from. Anyways, I decided to repeat the feat. I had my ingredients after a trip to Meijer and another to Michael’s. This is what resulted…

Close-Ups

This is the result of a bookmaking workshop that I attended last Wednesday. It was one of the best 2 hours I had ever taken off work in the middle of the day. I got somewhat lost on my way there and then again inside Snyder Hall. I knew we’d be making books, but beyond that I had no clue. It was taught by Guillermo Delgado, under whose guidance we made accordion style pocketbooks. It started with us sketching out, in rough, a map of our personal journeys — any journey we wanted the pocketbook to hold. Then we used watercolor to paint a background on the strip of paper that was to become the page or pages (not sure which, since it was one long strip of paper — should I call the whole thing a page? or should I call each folded section a page?) Anyways, after that we wrapped the front and back covers using vintage butter paper from MSU Diary and glued it all together. We all left with our own pocketbooks to fill with our own journeys.

Two nights ago I sat down and sketched out a map of my journey. I liked the thoughts the entire bookmaking process evoked. It made me re-examine different times of my life; a trip down nostalgia lane with all its good and bad memories. There was so much I wanted to put in. One book was definitely not enough, so I decided to go with an general overview — future pocketbooks will have to hold more details.

Seven years ago today, I got on a plane from London Heathrow to Detroit. Approximately eight hours into the flight, the captain announced that the US had declared a state of war and the border was closed; he was going to try and land in either Canada or Mexico. But both Canada and Mexico closed their borders and the captain’s voice came back on and announced he was turning back. All of us on the flight had no idea what had taken place – the captain kept saying that he had received no specific information. I was sitting next to a couple who was returning from their honeymoon in Europe. All sorts of speculation abounded, but none of us even got close to imagining what had taken place.

A total of 15 hrs on air later, the flight landed in Manchester, England. After disembarking, we went through 3 rounds of security screening – the most thorough security screening I’ve ever seen or experienced till date. The airport was dark. The usual hustle and bustle was missing, all the television screens were black and everyone looked tired. We learnt that ours was the 72nd flight to have turned back. Somehow, I found my baggage. An elderly gentleman who couldn’t speak English attached himself to me; I translated for him.

Some higher force must’ve been watching out for me that day. I did not have enough money to stay on in Manchester. But the ticketing agent booked me the last seat on the last flight for free to London, where I have an uncle. My body and the darkness outside told me it was late at night. I can’t remember what time the flight left Manchester, but I arrived at Heathrow around 2am. A couple of security checks later, I started to look for a pay phone to call my uncle, when a fellow passenger pointed out the baggage belt to me. And, again, my luggage was there – the one red suitcase with my yellow comforter. I had another bag that I can’t recall anything about anymore.

I finally spoke to my uncle. All he said was, get in a cab asap, come over, we’ve been worried about you and hung up. There was a long line outside the airport for the black London taxis. It was chilly and unusually quiet. The heavy feeling somehow stopped the passengers from asking questions or talking to each other. I realized that it had been over 20 hrs since I boarded the British Airways flight. Finally, after a wait that seemed longer than the flight from Manchester, I got into a cab. I asked the driver what was going on. He silently turned on the radio. I started to cry.

I stayed in London for some weeks after that. For a long time, I couldn’t get any open seat to fly to Michigan or back to Dhaka. It rained ice drops all the while I was there. I remember a bomb scare of some sort in one of the London underground stations and I walked past/peeked into a Salvador Dali exhibition close to the London Eye. I made it back to Michigan eventually. What ensued next was the worst 3 years of my life, where I learnt important life lessons in some very unpleasant ways. My yellow comforter kept me company.

Whole okras, by no means, are pretty vegetables (or fruits, cause that’s what the are). But, it’s an entirely different story once they are cut. To me they have the prettiest cross-section of any veggie or fruit that I have seen on my little red cutting board.

I like to know the history of food that cross my plate. My biggest surprise was not that okra is a fruit, but that it comes from the same mallow family as cotton and cocoa. Some of my favorite ways to eat okra: stir-fried with garlic, onions, and some Indian spices; Middle Eastern style stew with tomatoes; and in gumbos…yum!