We're reviving our photo series with another installment of brief on-the-street interviews and snapshots from our friend Dijon of Souls of San Francisco. (Here are the first and second installments).
Today, we present a few portraits that Dijon took recently in the Upper Haight.
Right - “We’re both born and raised in the city.”
“What are you interested in?”
Left - “I’m a designer. I’m starting a project called the Living Innovation Lab. It’d be putting architects, designers, and biologists together to see if we can use nature’s wisdom and nature’s designs to improve our human designs.”
Right - “We’re always looking towards nature subconsciously, because that’s what’s around us, but if we can use nature consciously and decide that nature has these perfect systems we can copy, a lot can be changed and achieved. We can try to coexist.”
Left - “There’s something called biomimicry that’s about nature having 3.8 billion years of research and development. The trees are in perfect balance, in terms of their waste and their carbon ... if we can design like nature we can solve some of our global problems like sustainability and social problems like equitability.”
“Very cool, and what about you?”
Right - “I’m an artist. I do wash painting and oil painting. I also like to draw for my personal expression. I was trained classically so I draw what I see. When I see something beautiful I draw it. Whatever grips me. I really like to draw views and people.”
“So what you see in the external world?”
Right - “Yeah, but I do branch out with my color and expand beyond what I see.”
"Tell me about your book."
“This book is a graphic journey through 500 years of history through the Renaissance to the present day. It’s doing it in five year time stamps and giving up to 12 facts for every five years, and then a design to go with it. For example, between 1895 and 1900 Bram Stoker was writing Dracula. In that same time period aspirin was invented. If Bram Stoker had known about how aspirin thins the blood, he could have had Dracula giving his victims aspirin before he went to take a drink.”
“Are you looking to have a specific impact in the world with this book?”
“I would like people to be less judgmental, just pause and think. There’s more going on than your little niche area. Whether you’re an English teacher, or a politician, or if you’re cleaning the streets…there’s a lot more to the world than what you’re doing. It’s always of benefit to stand up, look around, and appreciate what else might be going on. If this way of learning and approaching history was adopted in the future, getting lots of people and things together, some artists, some scientists, some women, some men, some people of color, to collaborate to move things forward, I’ll be happy. And I also want to say ‘trust young people’. They tend to be very fair deep down. I love working with young people. They’re more open-minded.”
“I love this one, this is Thomas Edison. You know Edison, he employed Nicola Tesla. Tesla was developing alternating current whereas Edison was using direct current. Tesla told Edison he could make his generators more efficient so Edison said ‘If you do that I’ll give you $50,000.’ So Tesla went and did it, came back to Edison and asked for his money and Edison said, ‘Oh, you don’t understand our American sense of humor’ and gave him an $18 raise. So Tesla resigned and went to work elsewhere. In this same time period in the 1860s, Pinocchio was written. So in this design we have a Pinocchio nose on Edison, and it’s done in the style of pointillism because that art form was developed around this time too.”
“How’d you two meet?”
Her - “A corny wave from across the bar.”
“Who waved at who?”
Him - “I waved at her. No crazy story.”
Her - “It was just the old-fashioned way, no Internet, just face to face ‘let me get your number’.”
“What’s one of your favorite things about her?”
Him - “What she embodies. The challenge, the will, the potential to make myself better through her.”
Her - “Well said.”
“And for you?”
Her - “His crazy passion for everything he’s involved in.”
When I walked by this guy, he was doing one whippet after another, after another.
“Damn homie, I’ve done whippets before, but I have to sit down and chill after I do one.”
“Yeah, it ain’t no thang to me now. I do 3-5 boxes a day.”
“My tolerance is so high I don’t really get the auditory part anymore. It’s not all like
‘wowowow’ but it’s still cool. I still feel wobbly.”
For more of Dijon's profiles, visit the Souls of San Francisco Facebook page. And stay tuned for future installments here on Hoodline.
For more of Dijon's profiles, visit the Souls of San Francisco Facebook page. And stay tuned for future installments here on Hoodline.
