I was never really happy with the most recent incarnation of my portfolio site, WalkerPickering.com, as the design was really just centered around the way I designed my business card . So over the past couple of days I’ve worked (and re-worked) a design into something I’m pretty sure I like… for now. I seem to redesign about once a year, so I’m sure it won’t be long until the design bug gets me again.

This can all be traced back to two things: my love of web design in the mid-90s and my short stint as a graphic design major in undergrad. Even though I don’t really enjoy designing for most things, I still like having creative control over how something like my own portfolio is laid out. I know that’s a good thing, but it means I spend too much time changing it to actually establish any kind of real long-term brand identity.

So please feel free to leave some feedback on the design. I’m happy to field any questions and resolve complaints—if I happen to think you’re right, of course.

Also, I’ve updated a few of the different portfolios on that site. If you liked the Joe K. work, there are a few new (never-before-seen) images there, as well as fresh stuff my New Work portfolio (along with a new title, etc.). (I love parentheses.)

Stacy and I are driving to Texas for a 2700+ mile roundtrip Christmas visit. Both dogs are leaving with us, only one will return. Crazy Homer the Basset Hound will spend the winter months with the in-laws, and I will get some sanity and sleep back. We’ll be gone for 11 days to such exotic locales as DALLAS, TEXAS, HOUSTON, TEXAS and ORANGE, TEXAS. We may even drive over Lake Charles, LA if we’re lucky! Ha.

The day after my 28th birthday, I apparently ran a red light in Elk Grove Village, IL on the way to Ikea. Yay. Incontrovertible proof above.

My friend Katie Waugh, who’s a new MFA candidate in fibers at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, recently worked on a project where she needed photographic documentation of the performance. She also created a video, and I contributed this along with about 23 other frames that day.

It’s a repost, I know, but enjoy this now-dead bird:

Well I’m almost finished with my first semester of officially teaching, and I’ll say it’s been fun for the most part. I definitely had some preconceptions that were shattered throughout the course, but I expected that. I’ve come to realize that, as one of my students aptly noted, I’m a “hard grader”, which I think makes me a tough professor… ? I’m ok with that label. One of my most difficult professors as an undergrad seemed to have a lot in common with how I run my class now, and in looking back I realized that I actually did learn quite a bit in his class. I hated him at the time, but any animous I have for him now is simply residual. It probably took becoming a professor myself to realize he wasn’t just being difficult for the heck of it.

It looks like I won’t be returning to MCC in the Spring, however, because they won’t be offering my section. I was given the possibility of another course, but scheduling/transportation became enough of an issue that I wasn’t able to make it work. It’s unfortunate that I live so incredibly far from the school, because I really enjoyed it out there. They’ve mentioned having me back in the Summer and Fall, and I think I’d like that.

There is an upside, though. There’s a decent chance that I’ll be teaching an art history course at one of the City Colleges of Chicago in the Spring. It could be a great opportunity to get into that system (which, let’s face it, is one of the reasons we moved to a city like Chicago), and teaching something so different would be a nice challenge. I’m also hoping at least one major school (if not more) that I’ve had my eye on will pick me up for at least a single class. That would rock my world.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and we don’t have a whole lot planned. Stacy’s friend Hope has flown in for a few days, so we’ll be showing her our admittedly shallow tour of the city. It’s gotten pretty bitterly cold, but I’m told it gets much worse by January, so I guess we’ll be counting our blessings for the “warmth” we’ll experience walking down Michigan Avenue.