Finding reward in the process & getting unstuck

Tim Belonax on art, design, & self publishing

(Please excuse any typos this week, I am late and I wanted to get this out for you asap. So I valued being on time over having it be perfect.)

This week, I spoke with Tim Belonax, a friend and the Design Director at Pinterest. I met Tim in the wild in 2010 when we were both young and just out of school. Tim graduated from RISD and then went on to CalArts to study design. He left before finishing his degree to work at Facebook’s Analog Research Lab. Tim helped create a art lab where people could make posters/prints/zines, and creatively work through issues in the physical space at a tech company.

I really wanted to ask Tim about how he got where he is - why he studied what he did, what he was exposed to when he was a child, and how he made the decision to go to art school. He is a person who has behind the scenes control over how we consume digital content. Making decisions on who and what gets seen and how.

Tim views design as taking complex chaos and making it simple and understandable. He talks about how he sees Art and Design these days; He cites this zine he is reading titled, “ART IS THE THING NOBODY ASKED YOU TO DO.” And then turns the question around on me, “Why does it matter?” (Spoiler alert, I think it matters. Words and our understanding of them help us ground, understand, and make meaning out of life. Our shared reality is something I value. In my opinion.)

Tim defines his style as thoughtful and human. Tim recently published The Reward is in the Process. It is a series of process-based assignments that are a starting point a creative problem-solving. For me, I am interested in how we can enjoy what we are doing, find satisfaction in the making and flow states as well as being proud of the final output.

Tim and I talk about inspiration, the benefits of self-publishing, and teaching. Our talk is cut short by my internet dying. Comment here if you are interested in a copy of Tim’s book:

The video cuts out at the end, but I hope you get inspired to teach, self-publish or just find something you enjoy doing and do it.

A couple of Tim’s creative inspirations (help getting unstuck):

Brian Eno’s Oblique Stratigies. “Oblique Strategies (subtitled Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas) is a card-based method for promoting creativity jointly created by musician/artist Brian Eno and multimedia artist Peter Schmidt, first published in 1975. Physically, it takes the form of a deck of 7-by-9-centimetre (2.8 in × 3.5 in) printed cards in a black box.[1][2][3] Each card offers a challenging constraint intended to help artists (particularly musicians) break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking.”

and John Baldessari’s list of “assignments” for his CalArts class, 1970.

I am going to add one more! When I am stuck, I visit Grapefruit by Yoko Ono. They are poems, mini-performances, and ways to get out of whatever spiral you are in.

Thanks, everyone for opening this email. And for overlooking the fact that this email is not perfect - but I hope it is still interesting. Next week, on Monday I will be chatting with Susan Cain!! Oh my gosh. Pinch me.

Have a restful weekend if you can. Love, Carissa