The eyes of the web industry will soon be turned toward Chattanooga as the Web Education Rocks Summit, also known as the WE Rock Summit, begins August 4th 2009.

The Open Web Education Alliance (OWEA), an international group of web industry leaders, is joining forces at the Web Education (WE) Rock Summit, to be hosted by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The Summit will provide an opportunity to the international leaders of OWEA to gather in Chattanooga to develop foundational documentation that will start a new movement in web education. In addition to building a foundation for the organization, the web industry leaders of OWEA connect with the local/regional community by kicking off the WE Rock Tour in Chattanooga to be held at the Hunter Museum of American Art on August 6th, doors open at 5:30 PM. The WE Rock Tour is a free event open to the public and will feature six of the web industry’s leading professionals who will paint a picture of the past, present and future of web education with a reception to follow the presentations.

WHY:

Web standards are needed to allow everyone access to the World Wide Web. In a society driven by the Web and it’s ever-evolving industry, it is of the utmost importance to ensure that everyone is able to experience the best of what the Web has to offer. This is where web standards and best practices come into play. Web standards, generated by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), promote accessibility for everyone by requiring the structure and development of a web site to adhere to certain guidelines that in turn make the site usable to someone with disabilities and generally user friendly for everyone.

In many universities and schools, web standards and best practices are not being taught; therefore students are not adequately prepared to enter the industry upon graduation. Graduates are then dependent on their future employers to get them up to speed on industry standards. Chattanooga has the unique opportunity to be a part of the solution, as host for the WE Rock Summit. Our community will serve as a guide to encourage other cities to follow our lead in embracing change for the Web and web education. By taking this important first step, Chattanooga will position itself as a hub for technology and innovation attracting the attention of the web industry and providing an opportunity for economic growth in Chattanooga.

Web industry professionals and web educators need to get connected. The WE Rock Summit will allow the international members of OWEA to connect and the WE Rock Tour will allow OWEA to connect with the region’s educators, industry professionals, and students. This connection will bring everyone together around a central methodology with the realization that tomorrow’s web experience is today’s web education.

WHO:

The WE Rock Summit is an open forum for the core members of OWEA to come together to further develop and outline their mission. Three key members of this organization available for interviews and further information: John Allsop, Leslie Jensen-Inman, and Aarron Walter.

John Allsop,
Owner of Westciv, a software development company
Founder/Organizer for Web Directions, conferences for web design and development
Lead for Open Web Education Alliance (OWEA)

Leslie Jensen-Inman,
Assistant Professor of Art, Design and Technology at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Author, Teach the Web
Summit Coordinator

Aarron Walter,
Author, Building Findable Websites: Web Standards, SEO and Beyond
Lead User Experience Designer for MailChimp, a HTML email marketing company
Lead for the Web Standards Project Education Task Force (WaSP EduTF) www.interact.webstandards.org/

In addition to the talents and organizations that these three represent, many other OWEA memebers will be participating in the WE Rock Summit and WE Rock Tour, including representatives from companies like Adobe, Opera and Yahoo, as well as representatives from organizations like WOW (The World Organization of Webmasters), WaSP (The Web Standards Project), WaSP Edu TF (The Web Standards Project Education Task Force), and the W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium).

For all of you that couldn’t make it out, I thought I would post some images of how the show turned out. There is more to see than what I can address in a blog, so if you can make it, I would highly recommend stopping by the Cress Gallery of Art at UTC before the show is taken down April 28th.

I thought this show had a much more organic/natural feeling to it in comparison to Show One’s high contrast and vibrant colors. Upon entering the gallery, an organic feeling is inspired beginning with my sculpture positioned in the front left floor space having live ivy and soft light reflecting off of frosted Plexiglas.

"Conflicted" - Jessi Taylor

Directly behind me low on the floor, Jean Pitts’ bisqued ceramic installation reminded me of a dry riverbed with rounded stones smoothed out by decades of rushing water.

"Familiar" - Jean Pitts

The positioning of the ceramic vessels lead beautifully to the “10″ panels and bookshelves leaning against the opposite wall. The panels where created using a system of rules inspired by the Ten Commandments of the Bible.

"10" - Michael Mahaffey & Stephanie Tate

The warm color palette and lightness of the panels is reflected nicely in the next two pieces. The first is an ethereal series of drawings by McKinley Bryson on vellum which have an extraordinary play on light and shadow. The second is a series of oil paintings by Tom Shaw, positioned across the room from the “10″ panels.

"673780s." - McKinley Bryson

Individually Titled - Thomas Shaw

A few people have mentioned that they would have liked to have seen my presentation of Conflicted. So here are a few of my more explanatory slides and my complete artist’s statement for you to view at your convenience.

Conflicted

Everyday we make inconsequential choices: milk or orange juice? black shoes or brown shoes? Usually these split second decisions can be made with little hesitation.

However, some choices can be conflicting. These choices require something from us. They necessitate a commitment of our time, our finances or our intelligence. Commitments come in many forms by way of family, friends, faith, health, business, school or recreation. How do you determine your commitments? When should you say yes? When should you say no? The answer will vary as often as you ask the question.

However, each commitment a person chooses to make or chooses not to make will take them in one of two directions. The first direction is one of simplification, and the second is one of complication. The outcome of either direction can be positive or negative. This is entirely dependent on the person making the decision.

For myself, these types of decisions can lead to a lengthy mental struggle. A struggle between my social side that needs to be dependable and productive and my melancholy side which craves solitude and stillness. I could not exclude one side anymore than I could survive in complete isolation or thrive under a constant onslaught of pressure to perform.

This sculpture is a physical representation of an internal conflict. The ring of ivy represents a need for simplicity, a pared down existence outside of obligation. Ivy is a simple plant to maintain. It is a quiet natural element that needs only basic nutrition to grow and a temperate environment to thrive. In contrast, the composition of acrylic rectangles represents the complexity that results from multiple commitments. This juxtaposition of natural and synthetic elements speaks to a need for balance and perhaps, at least in my circumstance, the need for conflict to create balance.

Here is a hint of the mixed media sculpture that I’m showing tomorrow night at the Cress Gallery of Art at UTC and a sample from my Artist Statement:

This sculpture is a physical representation of an internal conflict. The ring of ivy represents a need for simplicity, a pared down existence outside of obligation. Ivy is a simple plant to maintain. It is a quiet natural element that needs only basic nutrition to grow and a temperate environment to thrive. In contrast, the composition of acrylic rectangles represents the complexity that results from multiple commitments. This juxtaposition of natural and synthetic elements speaks to a need for balance and perhaps, at least in my circumstance, the need for conflict to create balance.

If you would like to hear more about my artist statement come to the presentation on April 14th at 4:00 PM and to the see rest of the sculpture come to the reception on the same day at 5:30 PM.

The first installation of the Senior Exhibition on March 31st was a huge success with standing-room only at the 4:00 PM presentations and a lobby full of people at the 5:30 PM reception.

Here are a couple of photos from the first show:

Recently the writers of the InterAct Cirriculum have been talking about it. For more details visit Christopher Schmitt’s blog. He gives a great rundown of the material offered in the WaSP InterAct Curriculum. Or you can listen to Aarron Walter’s interview on Boagworld, which is a great podcast by Paul Boag and Marcus Lillington on all things relating to building and running websites.

About a year ago now I took a professional practice course and was tasked with creating my own brand. The result was something like this:

Looking back, I still like the ideas behind the visuals, but it doesn’t fit as well as it used to. First of all, I wanted to get away from the more traditional feel of the “jt” initials and try to explore a more expressive mark. Also, I don’t like being called ‘Jessica.’ When someone calls me by my given name I either think they are talking to one of the other three Jessica’s in the room or, upon realizing they are actually talking to me,  I conjure up images of an angry version of my mother with the finger pointing and shaking and looming disciplinary action. It’s a nice name and it sounds very professional (that’s what my mom originally liked about the name, ironic that she’s the one who nicknamed me and subsequently conditioned me to not like being called by my full first name) but outside of overly formal situations, I’ve always been Jessi, so. . . just call me Jessi.

Here is my new branding:

With this new look I wanted to highlight an element that is central to my design aesthetic: color! I love vibrant colors and I used a range of warm jewel tones to keep the brand happy and open. The structure of the mark also empathizes the coming together of two contrasting sides, this is a reference to that place that graphic designers often find themselves struggling between creativity and practicality. I think both sides often make valid arguments. Creativity is the spark that provides interest and excitement to any design, but practicality is the glue that holds it all together and gives creativity purpose and direction. As is implied in the positioning of the mark, the key to the struggle is to keep both opposing forces working together and in balance with each other.

Look for the launch of my new web site on April 9th at jessitaylordesign.com.

As often happens in artistic endeavors, life intervened and gave me something to think about and center my thoughts on for a while.

My grandfather passed away last August, right at the beginning of the Fall semester, almost ten years after my grandmother. This event put several thoughts immediately in my mind, mainly nostalgic thoughts from my childhood. I remembered simpler times in my life, when I wasn’t trying to juggle family, friends, work and school, wondering which ball I was going to drop next. And I wished for those worry-free, idyllic days of irresponsibility.

This line of thought, in the beginning, lead me to focus completely on nature and of the peace/balance that can be found there, in contrast with the hectic, overcrowded schedule I, and so many others, face everyday. Thinking about this as a visual concept, I choose to implement symbolic imagery in the form of a circle. Specifically a ring of wire circles overgrown with live ivy plants.

As my thought process developed, I began to focus more on this struggle for balance and the race against time that we all have to face at one time or another. For some of us it feels like its more of a daily battle.

How did we find ourselves so over-extended? Why are we so busy?

When I’m being honest with myself, I know the answer: I’m busy because I want to be. I don’t like it when I don’t have anything to do. I don’t like it when I’ve only got a couple of things to do. I want to have a full calender.

It’s nice to take a break every now and then, of course, but stretch that out for more than a week and I just start to feel useless. So now the question becomes: how do we balance our busy/overextended lives?

This is where the visual symbol of the circle comes back into play. It is loaded with idealized thoughts of natural harmony, perfection and balance. It is also, as far as I can tell, rather impossible to attain living in today’s world. The best we can do is to order our lives in ways that are meaningful to ourselves.

In ordering our lives we arrange certain pieces to fit in such a way as to achieve our own personal balance. For example, we prioritize our deadlines and try to establish systems of order for relationships, work, faith, recreation, etc. We attempt to construct our own harmonious circles using the pieces that we already choose to include in our lives.

Visually this line of thought is set in contrast to the circles of ivy, by circles constructed of rectangular pieces of acrylic/plexiglass. These acrylic pieces are linear and man-made, thus inherently opposite of the natural, harmonious circle of ivy plants. Yet the pieces are arranged and ordered in such a way as to fill the void left by the circles of ivy with an imperfect sphere of acrylic.Though the acrylic pieces are linear and will never form a perfect circle, each piece is
carefully placed, resulting in a complex, disjointed sphere which is interesting and beautiful in its own right. Some pieces are frosted, some are shiny and completely clear. No piece is exactly the same, but each piece is intentionally placed to create a balanced three-dimensional sphere.

The ideal of perfect harmony is beautiful and admirable, but also to a large degree, unattainable. My only conclusion is to offer the theory that although life is full of complications, your own version of ‘peace’ or even ‘satisfaction’ depends on how you place all your pieces together.

Some of you might have heard me talk about the ChattanoogaWorks project in the past. I’ve been working on it at CreateHere since August. I even gave a presentation on it at Chattanooga’s Pecha Kucha Night on January 22nd. But the wait is over, the time has finally come for the project to offically lauch!

ChattanoogaWorks started out as a small project for myself and several other CreateHere newbies and has transformed into a community wide outreach utilizing all the resources in the CreateHere arsonal. Look for our new public ad campaign to go up around town via CARTA bus ads and several billboards, not to mention this series of posters that have been up for the past couple of weeks around town:

So what does all this mean for Chattanooga? It means it’s time for Chattanoogans to get out their cameras, and submit their photos to the new and improved site, which launches February 20th. This is not a traditional photo contest. It is not strictly for pros or strictly for amateur photographers, we want everyone’s take on Chattanooga. The end goal is not prize money, although winners will be chosen. The goal is to accumulate as many photos as possible to get a unique perspective on Chattanooga and to display these photos in our online gallery and to ultimately compile these photos into a book.

Inspiration for ChattanoogaWorks came from projects like the Next American City and The Everyman Photo Contest.