A recent visit to The Pancake Chef which is under new management. I had the sourdough pancakes which rival my all-time favorites, from Pancake Corral in Bellevue, and sides of bacon and two eggs sunny-side up were as flawless as the service. Visit the Chef if you find yourself in the City of Sea-Tac.
A hummingbird’s wings move in a figure-8 pattern which allows them to fly forward, backward, and upside-down. I am reacquainting myself with the Oxford comma
Not the kind of thing I normally post but I wanted to share a version of an email I sent at work recently – because when I say ‘extended group’ that also includes people outside Nordstrom HQ: producers, photographers, stylists, hair and makeup artists, set designers, photo and lighting assistants, manicurists, digitechs, casting directors and talent, DPs, colorists, retouchers, agencies … designers, writers, customers, past employees and colleagues, casual observers … it is truly a massive extended community. Thank you for contributing to this collective sense of curiosity we’ve shared and these visions I’ve gotten to be a part of at Nordstrom over the past nearly 15 years.
The term “creative director” gets thrown around a lot and it doesn’t mean much anymore. In practice, it’s each of those words, and it’s the combination of those words. I have always come back to the idea that you need to hire people who are better than you and you need to let them run, and know that if you are performing both of the words properly, a shared vision emerges. Over time the visions build a wider perception and experience. And if you do this long enough, the words don’t matter so much anymore. Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees.
This is a somewhat unexpected turn and I don’t see any point in pretending otherwise; from creative and business points of view this move makes sense to me and thankfully could not be more amicable. I’ve had a good run and I’m very ready for new ventures and adventures. Probably not in that order. After many years being a creative director for other businesses I am excited to creatively direct my self. And we will see
Surf and turf. Sunset at Strawberry Rock; a big herd of Roosevelt Elk which are native to the peninsula and precipitated the founding of Olympic National Park; little blue Velella Velella washing up on the shore; fishing for Lingcod; a China Rockfish*; extraordinarily good Lingcod and chips at Warmhouse on the Makah Reservation. Hama Hama Oyster Saloon through snow rain and fog for what I feel must be the best grilled oysters on the planet or at least on this relatively small corner of the map.
*China Rockfish can live to be over 75 years old and are reclusive and territorial, often sharing a crevice with a Giant Pacific Octopus, finding food at the bottom of kelp forests and traveling no more than 10 yards from home their entire lives. We let him go
The making of Arcosanti. I had wanted to do a shoot at this visionary utopian community in the Sonoran desert for many years. I stayed there on a roadtrip during Covid (scroll back if you wish) and we finally got to make a Nordstrom campaign there last fall. Finally getting around to posting some of it but as background here are some archival pics from when Arcosanti was first being constructed in the early ‘70s @arcosanti_arizona@arcosanti_archives
