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My name is Joshua Davis, Born in California, grew up in Colorado, New Yorker since 1992. I run a small Design Studio, Joshua Davis Studios, where we use computers and technology to create work. In the early 90’s I attend Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to study fine art, by the mid 90’s I switched to Graphic Design, but they late 90’s I started learning how to use computers and programming. This would usher in a major shift in how I perceive the concept of composition creation. A shift that would later get me inducted into the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s 2006 National Design Triennial.

My processes is split into 3 parts.

1. Algorithmic patterns. Using programming, I write code that creates a situation for mapping or moving things on screen. this could be a naturalistic equation like water flowing or wind blowing. This system is artwork agnostic, it is purely an environment in which patterns can be created. Which leads us to…

2. Asset creation, make tons of singular assets arranged into banks of drawings organized by theme. Then imagine taking these banks of assets and throwing them into our programming. What is produced is a “random” composition based on that programmings structure for creating pattern. Which then leads us to…

3. Being the critic. This programming can be run an infinite number of times to create an infinite number of compositions. So as the critic, I have to live with the programming and run the processes thousands of times to choose what compositions are aesthetically pleasing. From these few chosen outputs… parts get cleaned up and use in personal and client work.

There’s no question the processes is difficult. However the programming is capable of producing imagery that would take me a lifetime to reproduce manually… and the amount of compositions are infinite.

After 14 years of image making, I had this desire to showcase this journey I’ve been on. So I navigating to my work harddrive… and there are 100’s of folders staring at me. Each folder containing, a theme, art assets, trials, errors, failures and successes. So Pinterest presented a unique opportunity for me to archive my entire body of work, from past to present. Each Pinterest board is the exact name of the folder on my work harddrive. Starting at 001 and currently ending, at the time of this interview, at 244. As my work and Project become more social, it means that as people post additional photos of a project… each board can have new content added to it.

I know the majority of Pinterest users have a very universal way of organizing their boards with content they find all over the net, whether theirs or not. However, for me, Pinterest offers me the unique opportunity to archive my entire body of work… all viewable on one page. How great is that ? a snapshot of your life’s work… it’s pretty humbling.

Being a snapshot of my digital archive through time. I’d say it helps me more than the community… it lets me see how themes unfolded, how I grew, where I was lazy, where I was obsessed, how I got better, how I explored aesthetics, etc. Where I hope it helps the community is offers the ability for people to grab the images for inspiration for their own journey.

I created a folder on my desktop called pinterest_catalog_image_sets. It then took me 3 months of scrubbing my work harddrive to organize all my work into new folders which would become Pinterest boards. All of this was done before I ever published my first board. After the 3 month prep was done, I knew that it would take me a few days to publish… that this would become the largest single publish of my work I had ever done. People following me said they had to unfollow me until I was done because my constant, steady posting flooded their “what’s new page”. What I found my interest was this process, that something like Pinterest could rally me to finally create and maintain an archive of everything I have ever made.

I also find it very valuable to how the community responds to your work. With “activity” I can see how “likes”, “repins” and “comments” gives the community a voice about what they respond to. This in turn surprises me, finding that people respond to work that maybe I was too critical on myself with. It can be hard for me to judge the value of something as the creator of the content. People will LOVE things I just LIKE, and just LIKE things that I LOVED.

Right now my biggest focus is my upcoming April 2013 solo show in Toronto Canada, the Forty Thieves, where I’m hand drawing 40 computer generated compositions. I will be constantly adding to this board as each “thief” get’s finished… and will come to a close with photos from the show in April etc.

I can’t thank you enough for giving me a platform to archive and share my work with a great community.

Tell me a little about yourselves.

Well we’re sisters. I live in Washington D.C and Janet lives in New York. Lots of people mistake us for twins, but we’re actually three years apart. I’d say we’re both “east coasters” now, which is funny because both of our parents grew up in California. Our Mom grew up in Monterey. Our Dad, who teaches economics, grew up in LA.

Even though our parents weren’t artists, we think they’re definitely repressed creatives. Our Dad did all the architectural plans for our house in Indiana. Our Mom does beautiful calligraphy and amazing sewing projects. Our parents also love to travel. As kids we lived everywhere from Indiana to Singapore. Since we moved around a lot, part of our identity is a lack of identity. We get lots of inspiration from our travels and our parents.

Did you study art or design before starting your business?

Actually (Trisha) studied civil engineering and architecture in graduate school. I did graphic design after starting off in mechanical engineering. We didn’t get a chance to spend much time together over the last 8 years, but we ended up graduating around the same time. About a month after graduation, we were applying for jobs and realized that we had really similar interests. It was a magical moment! We were excited to do something together, and so Pawling Print Studio was born. Pawling Print Studio is an independent design studio that makes clean, understated, environmentally responsible products. on environmentally responsible production and clean, understated design.When we first started Pawling, we had a number of products in mind — tote bags, tea towels, maybe paper products. We decided to keep it open-ended. We’d love to do larger projects in the future, maybe even fabric design.

So where does the name Pawling come from?
It’s named after our Grandfather on our Dad’s side. He’s the one who introduced us to art outside of school or art class. He was a photographer and a painter. Whenever he would visit, our group activity was art. He would make us draw, which we hated at the time. He’d ask us to really look at something for like half an hour. When you’re a kid, that seems like forever. He passed away a little before we started the studio and it just felt right to name the studio after him.

How would you describe your style?

I’d say we’re minimalist but not necessarily modernists. We like to see ‘the hand’ in things. When we were in school, we were totally attached to the computer — whether that was for drafting plans or doing prints. Once we graduated, we really wanted to step away from that and go back to things that are hand drawn. We try not to manipulate our drawings on the computer too much.

We love nature and patterns. There’s something about large endless patterns that’s fascinating to us — things that have systems and geometry but still have an organic feel. We’re always looking for someting that is timeless and classic, but still feels new and fresh. We always think, ‘how would we feel holding this 20 years from now?’ And of course, right now we’re work with limited palettes. I think there’s a lot of subtlety that is overlooked in those palettes and it’s interesting to explore them.

What inspires you?
We love browsing the internet. There is so much to discover. You find one thing and suddenly discover 10 more things. Pinterest is like that on crack! It’s kind of obsessive for us.

So how do you two use Pinterest day to day?
Before our things were scattered everywhere. We had lots of little folders. The kind you start with good intentions and then things get convoluted…we had those 8,000 google reader posts, and flickr favorites, bookmarks on all of our different browsers, and amazon wishlists. There’s never been a good way to have everything together. Pinterest is great because it brings everything into one place and lets you see what you like about it. I was telling Janet that it’s made us a lot more aware of our aesthetic and has actually helped us become better bloggers.And I’m always discovering new stuff from new people! I feel like the blogs you get end up being limiting. The great thing about pinterest is that someone repins your thing, and then you can see what they’re inspired by even if they have just a couple pins on that board.

Anything you’d like us to add to make it more fun?
Even though Pinterest is really new, we thought it’d be cool to have a time travel feature. You could see popular pins from a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. Trends change so fast. I think next year we’ll be thinking - whoa - why were we all so excited about moustaches. We’d also like to see a master board where you have all your pins in one place. Oh, and a back to top button when you get to the end of a verrrry long page.

Do you have any favorite pinboards you’d like to suggest to other people?
Ha, so many!