[This is the second in a commentary series on our Groove Brand Training Course, an internal workshop in which Groove's creative leaders teach team members branding philosophy and strategies. Read Emily's introductory post here.]

Before anyone can care about your brand, your company, or even you as a person, they have to know who you are. But do you know?

The first and most important step in developing a brand is making that discovery. This is the goal of the Brand Setting Workshop ― to take key members of your organization, lock yourselves in a room, and hash out the nitty gritty details of who you are, what you do, and why anyone should care.

Ever try describing yourself in three words? Then you know this is no easy task.

In the Groove Brand Training Course, we found it takes some good, deep ― and slightly heated ―  conversation to develop a brand’s core words, or its Brand Essence.

In this training session, we worked to develop the Brand Essence for one of our clients (who was not present). As we got closer and closer to narrowing down the core descriptors, we found that we were stuck between two sets of words: one that was aspirational and inspirational, and one that was analytical and realistic. We had to go back to the client to see how they felt about these two directions. Funny enough, they came back to us with nearly a split vote themselves; but eventually were able to reach agreement.

The Brand Essence exercise is the necessary first step in creating a strong brand. There is power and deep gratification in identifying a simple three-word essence, or mantra, that fully encompasses who you are. And this clarity of Brand Essence is the solid foundation upon which you (or we, as the case may be) will build your brand’s story.

My three observations for the week:

1.    Disagreement is the answer.  It is so important to have a mixed group of participants in the Brand Workshop. Disagreement creates dialogue; dialogue garners results.

2.    It is amazing, the weight of three little words. Take your time, and try not to get overwhelmed. You really can find the right three words that say it all.

3.    There is a beginning, middle and end: who you are, what you do, and why anyone should care. These are the three components of great brand building.

Wine is, in many respects, a cottage industry. There are prohibition era regulations that have allowed brands to exist for more than eighty years without developing brand-driven customer relationships. The three-tier sales mechanics lay responsibility for brand relationships at the feet of distributors, trade partners, and powerful influencers; creating brand awareness gaps that make wine selection intimidating and undifferentiated. For the first time, wineries are struggling to build authentic brand relationships outside their tasting room experiences; they are trying to learn traditional “brand building” mechanics at a time when all of the mechanics are transforming.

Forced transitions

In some ways their job is easier.  They’re not forced to dismantle decades of infrastructure, processes and career trajectories breaking apart at the seams. However, in many more ways, they are being forced to transition from “producer and promoter” to “customer engagement architect” at all levels of a three tier system (distributor, account and consumer). By the way, the rules at all three tiers change from zip code to zip code; requiring complex, heavy lifting in all segments of the business.

Battling “In the aisle” decision-making

Groove 11 is helping our wine clients make the transition at all three tiers. From a distributor and account level, it remains true that a vast majority of buying decisions are made “in the aisle” — meaning that a vast majority of the marketing spending decisions are trying to influence consumers’ impulse decision moment.

With little differentiation in the aisle outside of price, promotion and label, it’s a branding nightmare to constantly depend on winning the moment — why do you think Kendall-Jackson and Gallo spent so much money fighting each other over copyright infringement of the color and angle of a leaf? Nuts, right? Imagine gaining deep and broad expertise about your product or service; spending endless hours (even years) honing your craft, putting blood, sweat and tears into making it real; raising funds and building an organization to take it to market; and then having no real brand voice at the point-of-sale. I don’t mean to under-value POS — it is an important piece in any buying decision — but, holy mackerel, what a crippling and debilitating sensation!

Does all that work as a wine producer come down to a label and offer in the aisle? Many people will tell you this entire industry is driven by that exact reality. By contrast, buyers could walk down a cereal aisle and provide you basic knowledge of the brand promise for Wheaties, Shredded Wheat, Total and Cheerios. And you would probably know a little bit about what Budweiser stands for, versus Heineken. But get to the wine aisle, and for many consumers (and by “many,” I mean the consumers who have never heard of Robert Parker and don’t care who he is), what they see is just a bunch of dark or light bottles with pretty labels, promotions and pricing. That’s it.

Changing the game

So, what’s a quality wine producer to do? Groove set out to flip the conversation on its head by designing comprehensive customer engagement strategies that reach consumers before they hit the aisles. We’re driving an aisle transformation from impulse decision to brand reinforcement — converting the aisle into a confirmation of what the brand already stands for to that customer, with clear differentiation and value. How, you ask?

First, we’re flipping the conversation from horizontal to vertical. In the wine business we’re not talking about tens of millions of consumers “per brand,” because we don’t have tens of millions of SKUs to sell them. We’re not beer or spirits; we can’t turn on a spigot if a product gets hot. No, we’re talking about building real relationships between tens of thousands of people and a few hundred wines brands. It’s a sifting of the digital landscape, not a land grab. Programs need to be focused on a specific target (and, by specific, I do not mean the same target every other wine brand is chasing) and need to find that target where they live. Field of Dreams is dead; if you build it, they will not come.

Second, you need a multi-channel digital ecosystem — based on combinations of “push and pull” touches (our secret process) and a healthy combination of “paid, owned, earned and organic” engagement.

Finally, you need to work it — constantly, everyday, with every potential customer. If you digital ecosystem is going to be a virtual tasting room, it needs to be open for business whenever someone wants to try your wine. We’ve been able to create a repeatable methodology for building customer engagement and we’re experimenting everyday with new ways to build brand relationships so that our fans are not making impulse decisions in the aisle for much longer.

The formula for building a successful online presence has become much more complicated over the last few years. It’s no longer sufficient to create a brochure site with no user interaction. We’ve all heard the mantras of this new era: Engage your users. Join the conversation. Measure your results.

However, when it comes to living these mantras, there’s still quite a bit of confusion about what tools to use and how to use them. As a Web developer and a relatively knowledgeable tech guy, I am often asked to help implement strategies that deliver this next level of Web experience.

The problem is, most of the time, people don’t really know what they’re asking for. They want something, but they don’t know the details. And sometimes those details include complications or commitments they don’t anticipate. It’s my job — and the job of anyone in a technology thought leadership role — to explain these important details to anyone involved in selling or planning digital projects.

Here are three things people ask for, but often don’t really know what they’re asking for:

1) SEO
Improving the ranking of a Web site within search engine results is much more work than most people want to believe. I typically give the advice that there are two tiers of SEO efforts:

The first tier involves basic best practices and can be done without much extra work. It mostly involves tasks that a Web developer should be doing by default when building out a Web site: using standard HTML that degrades well if styles or Javascript is turned off, proper use of header and title tags, creating and submitting a sitemap.xml file, etc. Basic best practices also means the copywriter needs to focus the content on each page around as few keywords as possible; preferably one.

The first tier, as I have loosely defined it, really only plants the seeds for SEO success. If you don’t do anything else the seeds will just sit there. The second tier of SEO efforts requires much more time and effort; it can be tantamount to a full-time job. This is the side of SEO that’s often surprising to people. A Web page is never going to find success within search engine results unless other sites are linking to it; and it usually takes a lot of work to get those links. Someone needs to be putting in time, finding relevant sites, building relationships with bloggers and other content creators, and earning those links. There’s also competitive analysis to be done, metrics to be monitored…

2) Social Media
Adding social media to your online presence is another undertaking whose difficulty is often underestimated. It’s fairly simple to set up Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts and to add widgets to your site; but these actions alone will not bear much fruit. Like basic SEO best practices, these are merely the seeds.

Also similar to SEO, taking social media to the next level requires a full-time, dedicated resource (or resources) to truly engage your customers and create a community that thrives. Finding people who want to join your conversation and maintaining that connection are time-consuming, strategic duties that can’t simply be tacked on to an already busy work load.

Successful social media programs require a multi-faceted approach. Executed correctly, they will generate real, personal relationships. These relationships must be nurtured by a team with clearly defined roles — even if that team is a single person. Social media is far too important today to be an afterthought.

3) Analytics
Measuring the activity and success of your online presence falls into the same pattern social media and SEO do: the basics are straightforward, but the real benefits are only found by putting in work. Setting up a Google Analytics account to monitor a site’s activity is very simple and the out-of-the-box results are surprisingly sophisticated. It’s easy to take this low hanging fruit and feel like something significant has been accomplished.

The fruit filled with jewels and other treasures, however, is at the top of the tree (You didn’t know that?). You’ll need to spend some man-hours to really exploit the power of analytics. Goals need to be set, user activity needs to be tracked at a more granular level, and you need to experiment – continually tweaking to improve results.

If you weren’t overwhelmed by all the fruit and seeds metaphors, hopefully you’ll see a common thread: creating a thriving online presence requires dedicated resources. It’s too much to ask a sales person, a project manager, or a developer — let alone a CEO — to perform these tasks on top of their daily duties. They won’t be able to put in sufficient time, they’ll be unhappy because they’re putting in extra hours, and the project will suffer at the hands of unfocused brains. You must find people who can focus on these tasks every day.

I was meeting a friend at Stanford recently, and by some kind of planet-aligning fluke, I was early. I decided to reward myself with a little snacky treat at the nearest on-campus eatery; a small, progressive franchise called Coupa Cafe, where the coffee is strong, the trade is fair, and the food is slow[ish].

While waiting for my almond croissant, I cracked open a bottle of sparkling water and let my eyes wander around the dessert case. Because I have commitment issues. Next to a cake stand full of proud fresh-baked muffins, stood a most interesting sign:

Oh, really, Coupa Cafe owner? Text you on your own personal phone, any time of day, and you’re listening? Alrighty.

Within moments of pressing send, I received a reply: an automated text message from a service called TalkBin, assuring me that my message has been passed on. I was half way into my “I knew it” eye roll, when a second message came in. And this one appeared to have been sent by a real, live human.

Well, I got excited; my mom doesn’t even text back that fast!

And that’s the hook. Whereas text message conversations between two friends or family members might be viewed as informal and impersonal; communicating directly to a business from a safe, but intimate distance — without having to first say or type the first 18 digits of pi or sit on hold for a California minute — felt different. It felt urgent. Special.

This simple and somewhat obvious customer service strategy seems terribly cutting edge. And what is this TalkBin client all about?

TalkBin, which was acquired in April by Google after only five months running, makes a software platform that lets customers send real-time feedback, suggestions and questions to local businesses via text messages. According to Techcrunch, “users submit their opinions and critiques via mobile applications, and it looks like the businesses can read and respond to them on the fly through a web app.”

Social tools like Facebook and Twitter are helping big businesses get intimate with consumers. And while those tools can and do work for small businesses, too; they require a degree of daily nourishment that can be challenging for a slimly staffed small business that wants to stay close to customers and progressive technology, but can’t dedicate necessary bodies/hours to the specific task.

TalkBin could be the answer. Or question.

Over the next 12 weeks Groove 11 is going back to school. Well, at least a few of us are. The second round of the Groove Brand Training Course is officially in session. This internal training was designed to share our language and philosophy on brand to the entire company through a Groove-teaching-Groove approach. We have teachers and students from across the agency, and a real client to work with for a true hands-on learning experience.

To capture the Brand Training in all its glory, I’ll be taking notes and posting updates on how and what we’re doing.

Our first class met this week with lots of coffee and our client in-house to learn about the process of the Brand Workshop, a facilitated workshop with client stakeholders designed to get them to arrive at their brand essence. Each slide of the presentation sparked a new dialogue, and we continually became side-tracked discussing our client’s business. Luckily, one of the most important elements of developing a brand, or of participating in the Brand Workshop, is conversation. While the lively conversation resulted in our not getting through the entire agenda of the meeting, the information we gained from our client was well worth the slightly diverted lesson plan.

I’m looking forward to next week when our internal team will meet again to debrief on this week’s information overload and work through the next steps for the course.

My three observations for the week:

1.  I’ve missed school: reading assignments, vocabulary terms, intelligent conversations. It’s refreshing to be visiting academia again, even if it’s only for a little while.

2.  Step one: listen. The best way to find out about a brand is to ask the right questions and have the client start talking.

3.  We have some wicked smart folks here at Groove. From Rainey Straus, Design Director, who was our tour guide and teacher for this week’s class – to Chris Schmidt, fellow contributor and Director of Digital Strategy here at Groove. I’m excited to participate in this course and learn from some of the best.

More soon. I’m off to do my reading homework!

Groove 11 is mounting a salon series called What Matters Now, with an Opening Reception on August 18, 6-8 p.m. in our San Rafael office. What Matters Now is an exploration of ideas that inspire thinking in new directions, and touches on a wide variety of issues from the environment to human rights, community to healthcare, among others. The series is also a chance to support dialog amongst artists, business, and the larger creative community.

Seven local artists are participating in our first show,. We spoke with each one about their work. Our next interview is with Manon Bogerd-Wada.

Dead Forest

Rolling

The theme of the show is What Matters Now. In what way did that strike a chord with you?

A year ago, I was questioning, “What do you leave behind when you depart?” …an inquiry I found myself pondering over quite often and which I later asked of people in my community. With the responses, I constructed a “community poem” that weaves the words of 85 people together and also archives each individual response. We leave the future behind in every step we imprint, which is inherited by the generations to follow. Now matters. Just as I remind the children I work with about the Golden Rule, being mindful and respectful of each other, the small things we do in the intricately woven web we exist within matters deeply. I have a tendency to think of where we are going, the blink of time we are in right now, and how our collective future matters – a vibrant one. Realizing our dreams in life dimensions throughout the stages of our existence elevates us. We exude a shade of brightness from the inside out when we are aligned with our paths and touching our dreams. In this way, we grow and also inspire others to their own vibrancy. This growth serves to illuminate our own well-being, our community, and surroundings. In these critical times, and as an artist, I find it is necessary that we remember to dream free and out loud in reality.

What interests you as an artist?

I am interested in the line between art and non-art, in pushing boundaries, and exploring new intersections. Reconsidering space and recreating our environment through art is a main interest for my work currently. Through my art, I aspire to touch people’s lives in a real way by connecting to everyday experiences and also in a playful way with thoughtful, creative concepts that spark other people’s minds. I am interested in exploring and making a seamless intersection of community, art, and environment. In bridging together these elements, I find we can demonstrate an ability to nurture the environment and ourselves by utilizing art for social change and justice.

Coming from a family of artists, I have inherited a legacy of art that I will continue to develop and through this vehicle, engage others. My community arts approach is linked to my art education practice. Teaching is a means for me to pass down and share something I treasure deeply, which is embedded in my value to make art accessible to all people. The specific traits of art that I work to expose to others, in the community and gallery space, are in its ability to empower through envisioning, reveal insight to our multifaceted existence, and to both transport and inspire new worlds.

What inspires you?

My environment and what I find along the way on my journey is often a source of inspiration. Elements of my surroundings find their way into my work, metaphorically or literally. The Reclaimed Landscape Keepsake pieces exhibited in What Matters Now aim to highlight items that are discarded daily and to reverse their state of being disposable into something of value worth keeping. This collage series of keepsakes is made from items I would normally throw away– such as napkins, food wrappers, bags, and coasters – but which I instead collected over a few months’ time. I am recreating nature from trash as my (art) form of recycling. My passion to reuse and recycle comes from an acute awareness of what is constantly being left behind. My use of coasters began when I was backpacking in Europe a couple of years ago. The coasters were abundant in cafes, restaurants, and bars, and they were something I kept as a memento of the time spent in a location.

I have a tendency to draw and write on whatever is around me, and also in my journal that I almost always have at hand. Journals or sketchbooks are their own places – this is where I brainstorm and record an internal journey. This space is important for my creative process. Traveling, or the act of being in motion, is another ripe space. I often find inspiration when in a moving vehicle, particularly on trains, when walking in the city streets, or in nature. Movement in space allows my thoughts to flow freely and make connections that I may not discover when focused too intently. Dreams have also been a strong source of inspiration. My gravitation to rooftops started from recurring dreams I had in which I always ended up on a roof. Now it is my (waking) dream to create community art rooftop gardens. This idea has manifested in part in my HEARTH Community Art Garden Project.

What new projects are you working on now?

Beginning this year, I am the coordinator and teaching artist of HEARTH Community Art Garden Project. HEARTH is a model of my pedagogy as a holistic practice. The vision of this project is to expose to young minds the possibilities of a sustainable future living in harmony with nature and the urban landscape, with each other and our community at large.

In HEARTH Project’s recent residency at Oakland’s Lincoln Elementary School, the students envisioned and designed dream houses with roof gardens. This began with drafting out ideas through drawing that were developed into clay sculptural planters. We took fieldtrips to study the natural and urban landscapes around the school to better understand the neighborhood and incorporate its traits into our designs. The students worked alongside one another to form a closeness of community, and together their dream house planters created a small-scale village with rooftop gardens. The sculptures will continue to serve as a garden that grows food and promotes healthy living at the school.

Each student kept their own smaller, planter-house at the end of the project, bringing their miniature dream houses into their own home. Currently, I am in production making larger, planter-buildings with the students’ designs for the school. The recent residency of HEARTH was in partnership with Lincoln Elementary in Oakland, sponsored by the non-profit organization ArtSeed, and was funded by Open Circle Foundation.

Is your work currently on exhibit anywhere else?

The tree cemetery has been traveling these past few months. They permanently live at the Thoreau Center for Sustainability in the Presidio of San Francisco. Just recently they took a trip to Modern Eden Gallery in North Beach for The Garden Show. The tree forest will be returning to the Thoreau Center after What Matters Now.

At CCA Center for Art and Public Life in Oakland, CA, there is an installation of paintings from a community art project I co-taught with Lilli Lanier at the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Center a few years ago, which was made possible by the Center for Art and Public Life.

What upcoming shows do you have?

Towards the end of August, I will be installing the miniature rooftop garden villages of HEARTH Project on the campus of Lincoln Elementary in Oakland, and in the edible garden of Laney College. These living art villages will be there permanently and their rooftop gardens will grow and change throughout the year, as used by these communities.

For more information on Manon, and to see more of her work, visit her website. And come to Groove 11 on August 18 for the Opening Reception for What Matters Now.

Groove 11 is mounting a salon series called What Matters Now, with an Opening Reception on August 18, 6-8 p.m. in our San Rafael office. What Matters Now is an exploration of ideas that inspire thinking in new directions, and touches on a wide variety of issues from the environment to human rights, community to healthcare, among others. The series is also a chance to support dialog amongst artists, business, and the larger creative community.

Seven artists are participating in our first show,. We spoke with each one about their work. Our next interview is with Pamela Belknap.

from Childhood Memories/Tub series

from Childhood Memories/Water series

The theme of the show is What Matters Now. In what way did that strike a chord with you?

The title is about the present moment, and I like to consider how that relates to a memory.

What interests you as an artist?

Memories, obviously. But also stories, and having a beginner’s mind, which I think as an artist is very important to have. I’m also interested in paying attention to what is right around me, everyday objects, and even simple text in its many forms.

I saw two shows this summer with the work of John Baldessari and Joseph Beuys and I’m studying their work.

John Baldessari has been called “the big daddy of California conceptual art.”  His text and images intrigue me. He questions the very nature of communication, a subject that grows more complex with every technological advance. To quote him: “I am interested in what gets us to stop and look, as opposed to simply consuming images passively.”

It has been said of Joseph Beuys that he approached every aspect of life creatively with a sense of inventiveness and ritual. He approached both his life and his art as one endeavor. I’m interested in that approach; making one’s own life and preoccupations the material of one’s art.

What inspires you?

Uniqueness in everyday life, wherever it may appear. I’m also inspired by impermanence.

What new projects are you working on now?

One of my next projects will be about impermanence using flowers and naming them as individuals. I will be using the flower as a way of studying the life span of the human being.

What upcoming shows do you have?

I’m submitting work to Photo Alliance’s Night/Light: Bay Area Photographers Take Aim After Dark. The exhibition is this September. Also, I periodically show at the SFMOMA Artist Gallery.

For more information on Pamela, and to see more of her work, visit her website. And come to Groove 11 on August 18 for the Opening Reception for What Matters Now.

Groove 11 is mounting a salon series called What Matters Now, with an Opening Reception on August 18, 6-8 p.m. in our San Rafael office. What Matters Now is an exploration of ideas that inspire thinking in new directions, and touches on a wide variety of issues from the environment to human rights, community to healthcare, among others. The series is also a chance to support dialog amongst artists, business, and the larger creative community.

Seven artists are participating in our first show,. We spoke with each one about their work. Our next interview is with Rebecca Wallace.

Bon voyage

Untitled

The theme of the show is What Matters Now. In what way did that strike a chord with you?

I think there are a lot of things that matter now. We are more aware globally than we have ever been before. In a way this is great because people are becoming more conscious, but perhaps more conscious of their importance within their own communities, realizing how we are all interconnected.

I am really inspired by people who are thinking in terms of community, supporting local businesses, local farms. I am inspired by people who are finding ways to become self- sustainable, and looking outside large cooperate models for ways to live in terms of buying products and foods. There are also a lot of scary things happening in terms of our environment changing, and I think it can feel very overwhelming. It is important to keep things in perspective.

Perhaps we are starting to witness a change in perspective. Everything is interconnected. How we behave in our personal relationships is not independent of how we interact with the world. So much in the world is uncertain, but how we treat one another, how much we are grateful for what we have, these things remain in our own power. For me the relationships I maintain with people are the most important. We can become further removed from our relationships through technology, work, computers, stress, and in the end these things hold no weight. What is lasting is how you impact another person’s life through your actions.

What interests you as an artist?

I am interested in themes of longing and desire, attempts and failure. These are themes I incorporate throughout my work. The images I create are perhaps an attempt to recover something that has been lost. I am very interested in the idea of temporality and the fleeting present. These paintings are of landscapes that are fractured or fragmented. I use aspects of mediation, such as the camera or TV screen, as a way to discuss the viewer’s relationship to space, and to emphasize the ideas of looking and separation. The act of painting a landscape alone brings about a level of separation of subject and viewer, but there are several acknowledgments of removal within my paintings. I don’t think of mediation as a negative thing but rather inherent to our everyday experience, and for me it is interesting to use contemporary signifiers to reinvestigate the long-standing relationship between painting and landscape.

What inspires you?

Epic themes, music, reading, my fiancé, traveling. I like to listen to music and go driving, and usually the things I see or hear will start to inspire images I know I want to turn into drawings or paintings. What I love about music is that it has the power to generate a feeling within you, and great art also has the same potential. Lots of times just observing how light moves and changes the colors of its surroundings inspires me. And also sometimes my greatest disappointments and losses end up influencing and inspiring my work.

What new projects are you working on now?

I am currently working on some charcoal drawings that involve the theme of transition and change and incorporate water, film and photography as subject matter.

Is your work currently on exhibit anywhere else?

I have several paintings featured in the current issue of New American Paintings #87.

What upcoming shows do you have?

I am currently applying for several residencies, and working on a new body of work to show in the near future.

For more information on Rebecca, and to see more of her work, visit her website. And come to Groove 11 on August 18 for the Opening Reception for What Matters Now.

Groove 11 is mounting a salon series called What Matters Now, with an Opening Reception on August 18, 6-8 p.m. in our San Rafael office. What Matters Now is an exploration of ideas that inspire thinking in new directions, and touches on a wide variety of issues from the environment to human rights, community to healthcare, among others. The series is also a chance to support dialog amongst artists, business, and the larger creative community.

Seven artists are participating in our first show,. We spoke with each one about their work. Our next interview is with Michael ten Pas.

Photography by Michael ten Pas

Photography by Michael ten Pas

The theme of the show is What Matters Now. In what way did that strike a chord with you?

For me, what matters now is connecting with the physical landscape around me. Today, so much life is spent in motion and in virtual spaces that our immediate surroundings are made insignificant due to our fleeting experience with them. For example, the suburban landscapes in the photographs I have in this show, are places designed to get you in and out quickly so you can get to the next place – whatever that is. While I can’t break out of the fast pace of everyday life all of the time, photography allows me to do so some of the time. It is this experience that puts me in a unique situation to learn something about the world around me that I would not have learned otherwise.

With that, I will share an artist statement that goes with the series of photographs I have in the show:

Somehow Familiar

I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. It is one of America’s fastest growing regions. After I moved away from my hometown, I made these photographs during my trips back to visit friends and family. Most of them were taken within a ten-minute car ride from my childhood home. Because of the population growth, the old places I had remembered received new faces and the unoccupied space became filled with new things: strip malls, rows of houses, parks and other elements of the vernacular suburban landscape. The photographs are about the development and construction that took place in the time I was away. They are about being home, but not recognizing home.

What interests you as an artist?

The main thing that interests me as an artist is humor. A sense of humor is a powerful thing, so it is important to use it. I find that it doesn’t exclude you from forming an opinion about the world around you, but at the same time, it opens you up to see things from different perspectives.

What inspires you?

Photographically speaking, the work of Luigi Ghirri and Kenneth Josephson I find inspiring. It is smart, witty, and deeply invested in looking very closely. Their work, made in the “pre-Photoshop days” of the 1960s through 1980s, has an optical illusion quality to it while referring to things from everyday life. When it comes to their photographs, a quick glance doesn’t do it justice, which is the case with everything in the world around us.

What new projects are you working on now?

Right now, I’m in the middle of a “just-photograph-everything” stage. I don’t usually start with a  specific project in mind. The real project is editing. After spending some time making thousands of pictures of whatever captures my interest, certain meanings and ideas emerge from my photographic responses to the world. During the editing stage, I ask myself, “What am I learning from the photographs?” Then I present the work in a way that communicates the answer to that question.

Is your work currently on exhibit anywhere else?

I just closed a show July 30 called Glimpses in Time 2010 at the Joyce Gordon Gallery in Oakland, CA.

What upcoming shows do you have?

Present Tense – Photo Center Northwest; Seattle, WA (August 6 – September 17)

Art of Photography – Lyceum Theatre Gallery; San Diego, CA (August 28 – November 7)

For more information on Michael, and to see more of his work, visit his website. And come to Groove 11 on August 18 for the Opening Reception for What Matters Now.

Groove 11 is mounting a salon series called What Matters Now, with an Opening Reception on August 18, 6-8 p.m. in our San Rafael office. What Matters Now is an exploration of ideas that inspire thinking in new directions, and touches on a wide variety of issues from the environment to human rights, community to healthcare, among others. The series is also a chance to support dialog amongst artists, business, and the larger creative community.

Seven local artists are participating in our first show,. We spoke with each one about their work. Our next interview is with Anna Ludwig.

Grass

People's Park – Detail

Lake Mattamuskeet No. 1

The theme of the show is What Matters Now. In what way did that strike a chord with you?

What matters now is history and the specificity of a particular place, as opposed to the nowhere space of the digital world.

What interests you as an artist?

The idea that history leaves a trace or a stain on the place in which it occurs.

The work of Wangechi Mutu, Luc Tuymans, Ann Hamilton, Ana Mendieta and Mika Rottenberg. The writing of Rebecca Solnit, James Berger and J.B. Jackson.

What inspires you?

Researching politically significant landscapes. Unexpected beauty. “Wait” was inspired by the suspense invoked by the fog around Mount Tamalpais. “He Eats Pigeons” grew out of a bizarre encounter while visiting a friend living in Hawaii.

What new projects are you working on now?

I am working on a large indoor mural for the new Capoeira Mandinga academy in Oakland. As a practicing capoeirista, I am excited to work on this project that I hope will honor the roots of capoeira while addressing some of the changes in this incredibly adaptable art form, which used subversive body dialogue to resist the brutal oppression of slavery in Brazil and has grown to be a worldwide celebration of Brazilian culture and a community-building tool.

Is your work currently on exhibit anywhere else?

“A Baker’s Dozen for the Goose Tower.” TUMULT. Vordingborg, Denmark. Group exhibition – collaboration with Mark Dion.

What upcoming shows do you have?

“100 Under 1,000” Group exhibition at Lee Hansley Gallery, Raleigh North Carolina. November 2010 – January 2011.

I’m also organizing a group exhibition with some other San Francisco and Oakland artists.

For more information on Anna, and to see more of her work, visit her website.

And come to Groove 11 on August 18 for the Opening Reception for What Matters Now.