Fiumicino, Italy

Untitled (Fiumicino, Italy # 7235) copyright 2013 Douglas Stockdale

While I recently have been developing the concept of this project, I have come to realize that I have not been publicly honest as to who I am. There is a side of me that I have been keeping secret and as all secret’s go, over time it makes an emotional impact. In fact I keep separate social media accounts, such as LinkedIn, to conceal this. I am now coming to grips with the fact that who I am forms my vision and perspective and in fact makes me different. Part of the reason to keep this secret is the fear of reject in that I am different from the others, what would my friends think if they really knew who I was? That means that by revealing this I am facing head on the fear of rejection by the fine arts community. Perhaps it is about time. It’s my guess that some already suspected this.

Okay, here it is. I am an engineer. A photographer who develops conceptual projects and writes commentaries on contemporary photographic books who is also a trained engineer. I have now publicly disclosed it.

Yes, I graduated with a BS undergraduate degree in Engineering, not with a BA degree in literature nor a BFA in Fine Art. I have a graduate degree in Business Administration, not a MFA in fine art. In high school I did not take drawing, I did three years of technical drafting. In college I carried a slide rule (okay, so this also dates me a whole bunch) and coveted the latest calculators with all of their built in math functions. In college I was a geek. I was trained to think analytically using my left brain.

That said, regretfully I did not fit in with the other geeks on campus. I was drawn to the Industrial Design aspect of Engineering. I am someone who thinks in three-dimensional, like a sculptor, but who makes things for people to actually use every day. So now in the world of Pharmaceutical development, I am a internationally known scientist with a specialty in lyophilization cycle development for large molecule drugs. Most recently I was Head of European Manufacturing for a late-stage development biopharmaceutical company developing recombinant proteins for people with Hemophilia, specifically with a factor IX deficiency. Amongst the many three-dimensional Medical device designs I have created I even have a patent for a medical device I invented.

Thus I am one of those practicing right/left brain individuals. Thus as a highly trained left brain individual who has learned to use my right brain, I do have a uniquely different perspective than perhaps those who have extensive right brain training. So now I am going to more fully explore what that means, such as this project that I am investigating.

Cheers!