Here’s the cover art:

Yesterday evening, we had an album release party and invited a bunch of our friends over to check it out and take a look at our studio (sorry, didn’t get any pics). That was a load of fun, although trying to launch a Web site and get the word out at the same time as putting a party together was pretty crazy! Kids, don’t try this at home.

We’ll upload a video tour of our studio at some point, as well as some other musical tidbits down the road, so when that happens, I’ll let you folks know. All right, that’s it for my advertisement — now you know why some of my blogging has been erratic in previous months!

Have a great Sunday…Jared

Read the first part
Read the second part

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may know that in the previous incarnation of the site, I had a Flickr widget on my sidebar. I have been attempting to get into a semi-pro level of photography since 2006, but for some reason have had a doozy of a time disciplining myself to take pictures regularly and (more importantly) post them regularly. Hopefully this feature will give me the incentive to get my skin in the game.

So I hope you really enjoy the new feature, and be sure to check back next Monday for the first installment!

Some of the album is mostly my work or mostly Shayne’s work, albeit with copious feedback, and a good portion of it was done in tight conjunction. I think it’s safe to say both of our abilities are greatly sharpened when we are able to bounce ideas off each other. So much electronic music is created in someone’s cave of a studio in lonely isolation — and we’ve worked that way ourselves in the past — so it’s nice to be able to put something out there that is really the joint product of two minds.

I’ll be sure to let you know when the album is finished and ready to purchase! Hopefully soon we’ll have more free downloads for you as well.

Tonight was particularly nice because while I was playing in the Spirit, a tune came to me that I knew was a piece I had intended to compose as the title track of an album project I’m going to record next year. I had expected to start messing around with some ideas in January; I didn’t realize today would be the initial session! Thank you Jesus!

IMC :: Communicating Without Words Rough Notes

IMC :: Design is Credibility Rough Notes

To get right to the point, there are a certain number of creative projects I’ve had in my head for a considerable duration, but I’ve not begun to realize them due to a lack of the appropriate tools (and a dearth of available time, but that will soon change). It’s absolutely true that the tools don’t make the talent, and it’s true that talented people can bang on toys and make them sound decent. For example, some of the early 1800’s photographers created amazing art using stone knives and bearskins (so to speak) — check out the work of Julia Margaret Cameron for some jaw-droppingly gorgeous fine art portraiture.

Nevertheless, with professional tools and practiced skill, raw talent will transfer into a realm of creative authority whereby the artist can is able to bring his or her communicative and emotive purposes to bear. The goal is to streamline the flow between imagination and final result. Once that process has been perfected, the only excuse the artist has left for bad work is what’s between his or her ears.

There are three creative projects which I currently have in my peripheral vision: a new electronic music album + live setup (to appear on our Binary Sea Web site at some future date), a push into fine art studio portraiture (just waiting on some additional backdrop and lighting equipment), and a series of short video presentations or sermons in conjunction with one or more Christian ministries (see my first stab at such a thing on my church’s Web site).

It’s been a while, but the fog has lifted, the engines are at full blast, and I can see that summit clearly now. Lord willing, by the end of the year, the mountain will be mine.

For creative, multi-talented people who are driven to strive for excellence, it can be very hard to maintain focus. We want to do this…no wait, we want to do that…no wait, we want to that that too! And we want to be good at ALL OF THEM. It’s not acceptable to be merely adequate. And allowing for any semblance of mediocrity is an insult to all notions of common decency.

The problem is that there is not enough time, energy, money, and resources available to us to be excellent at many things. It’s hard enough to be excellent at one thing. Some people spend a lifetime achieving true excellence in one field. Why do we think we can achieve that in a few short years with multiple callings?

It seems to me we need to learn how to orient ourselves around an excellence pyramid. At the top of the pyramid are one, possibly two things that we truly prioritize in our lives and strive to be not just good at, but great at. We might even rise to global prominence with enough effort. These are the things that consume us, that haunt us in the night watches. The vision we have of our future creative potential in these areas is so visceral that it’s hard to believe our dreams haven’t yet become reality.

Below that narrow, top-tier is the larger, middle part of the pyramid which represents our hobbies and side-projects. They help provide a change of pace from our first love(s) and provide an occasional escape into “fun”. We might spend a fair amount of time on these pursuits, possibly even getting quite good at them. They might not be our #1 creative priorities, and we might not be geniuses in these areas, but we nevertheless might achieve a decent amount of success with them.

At the base of the pyramid, which is the largest part, are our many, many “I wish I were good at it” pursuits that will always be just out of reach. We might dabble in many of them over the years, but they’ll always be more of an occasional “kicks ‘n’ grins” sort of deal where we can laugh at our ineptitude. As a bona-fide computer geek, I consider pretty much any sport in this category.

The challenge isn’t just to identify which of those few things we can focus on for true excellence, which of those several things we can be reasonably good at, and which of those many things we can dabble in as time and energy permits. The challenge is also to be content with those priorities. I know I often find myself upset that I’m not better at something that I love to do. It can be a major source of frustration until I realize this isn’t a primary focus for my life. It’s OK I’m not that good at it. Maybe way down the road it’ll become more important for me, but for now, I can keep it on the back-burner. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as they say.

It’s taken me quite a number of years to realize that the #1 thing at the top of my creative pyramid is music. I’ve spun my wheels in so many different pursuits at the expense of my focusing on music and honing my composition and performance skills. It’s easy to get side-tracked into working on Web sites, playing around with photography, shooting or editing video, programming, inventing physical objects, landscaping the backyard, designing a bistro (I kid you not…I bought a book on modern café design recently)…and so on and so forth. I’m not good at all of that. I’m not that great at most of it. But I am good at music, and I am good at Web development. I need to maintain focus in those key areas. The rest will attend to itself organically.

That faded repeat of the header you see at the bottom is something I’m playing around with for my “thick footer” — something that’s all the rage in the blogosphere these days. I do have a sidebar in place, but it’ll be fairly narrow and only contain “sticky” content like my bio and perhaps a list of recent posts or highlighted content.

My original goal for this blog (as you can see on my current About page) was largely to discuss people’s spiritual journeys and ask a lot of questions. I still intend to stick with that overall mantra, but I feel I need to transition a bit more into conversational teaching and wrestling with the great philosophical questions of our day. I’m rather astonished, for example, how many “myths” are floating around out there in regards to the nexus of spirituality, faith, reason, knowledge, etc. — and certainly how many strange notions are propagated in regards to Christianity. I’m not interested in simply writing essays from an “apologetics” frame of mind — there are others far more qualified to do so than I. What I am interested in is describing the experiences of my own life thus far and the questions I’ve wrestled with as they pertain to these topics, and I also LOVE to probe the underlying assumptions behind the “clash of worldviews” and the cultural battles we see ranging in the world today.

I have a firm belief in the power of Love to overcome all hatred and animosity, so it is in the spirit of love that I write this blog. My goal isn’t to convince anyone I’m right and “convert” them — my goal is see barriers broken and walls pulled down that might be blocking people from receiving God’s love and blessings for their lives. The spiritual reality of the Kingdom of Heaven is superior to the physical reality we inhabit, according to Bill Johnson, and I definitely agree.

Great days are ahead of us! Rejoice and be glad!