At first... Years ago I sort of accidentally started doing freelance graphic design and layout work. At a point it seemed a good idea to give the project a name, and I came up with "Omega Art". The "Art" part will be clear. As for "Omega": too many companies already had names with 'alpha' in them. Probably by picking the first letter from the Greek alphabet, they want to claim that they're "best" somehow -- thereby reinforcing the bizarre but, unfortunately by now quite common, idea that "first" and "best" equate in any meaningful way... As a sort of counterweight to that silly thought "Omega", the last letter of the Greek alphabet, is not intended to mean "worst", obviously. The somewhat ironic idea was that Omega Art would be the last you ever need. No need to go looking for another. Something like that. And as to why Omega Art would be the last you need: everyone is free to interpret that in whatever way (s)he likes, be it ironic or not.
there was Zen... Apart from the foregoing, the omega symbol had a certain appeal, as a symbol -- an appeal which is both aesthetic and... spiritual? The aesthetic part... well, a matter of taste probably. I like the symmetry, the roundish shape... However, at the same time it somewhat reminds me of the famous "Zen circle" -- the hand-painted, in one stroke, circle that often doesn't completely close. The symbolism will be clear. And if not, you should do some reading. For those not into Zen, there's always the biblical "I am the alpha and the omega"...
and the trashcan... In the meantime Omega Art has come to be a sort of "capture all" name for various activities. Commercial artwork, software, environments for Logic Audio. All sorts of stuff really.
Later life revealed... So even though it started out as a company name for stuff that was highly art-related, by now the name encompasses much more than that. And that is a fine example of how life often reveals things about yourself that you didn't even consciously know. (And the only thing you have to do is: pay attention!) What I mean is that in my opinion there's no such thing as "art vs. non-art". Anything can be art, and many so called "art" is non-art. Even though art is inherently impossible to define, I feel that true art (which maybe is more properly spelled as Art) has something to do with Quality (Robert Pirsig, anyone?). Which in turn has something to do with Love. Or whatever term you prefer.
art is everywhere... No need to point out that a lot of paintings, music, poetry, etc. qualify as Art. But to me a genuinely well-written piece of software can, in a sense, make the same claim. You know, the sort of software that is really user-friendly, non-obtrusive, and which lets you "go with the flow" and inspires you like no other tool does. Likewise, when comparing different mathematical proofs of the same theorem, some qualify as Art whereas others merely "get the job done". There is a difference, really, even though non-mathheads will find this difference hard to appreciate.
and Quality closes the circle... Does this mean I think that all I do is Art? No, to the contrary: most of the time I think that none of my activities qualify as such. I do however try to live my life in an Art-full way. That doesn't mean dressing up fancy or behaving like a Madly Gifted Artist. An Art-full life for me is a life in which one tries to understand something about the Quality (Love? God? Buddha?) that surrounds us. A life in which Content and Form, Mind and Matter are no longer opposites of a spectrum. A life in which truth and the search for Truth are predominant. A life in which one fails more often than one succeeds, but which is led to its end nevertheless, in pursuit of something that is of value. Or should that be Value? And even though leading such a life might never produce one piece of Art, I think it's the only life worth living. And therefore, in a deep sense, it is the only Art-full life possible.
Boring personalia, for the terminally curious...
Who: Hendrik Jan Veenstra. Often simply HJ for friends and students.
When: a '62 virgo (up to you to do the math) from the Netherlands.
What: I'm a fulltime math teacher, trying to get some abstract knowledge into the heads of 16-20 year old adolescents. Probably the best job in the world. Whenever someone over 30 complains about "today's youth" the only valid conclusion that can be drawn from that is that they're too old. Apart from that I'm a freelance graphic designer - logo's, cover pages, document layout, that sort of stuff.
What else: writing music, making paintings and writing the occasional software. Poetry when life calls for it.
Life: I share my home & life with the most amazing woman I've ever met. I mean, everyone capable of actually living with me and even be happy with it has to be extraordinary, right? For the rest: trying to have a social life, just like most of us. Although, to be honest, I probably am worse at it than most...
Purpose: to learn what it is to genuinely love, in the broadest sense. To never forget what it was like to be 18. To grow "old and wise" and stay a bloody child nevertheless.
Unlike many people nowadays, I'm not interested in showing you my holiday pictures, or trying to make huge amounts of money through the internet. In fact this website wouldn't even be here if there wasn't some stuff (like software and Logic environments) that I'd like to make public since I know some people can benefit from these items. Sure, I could have made a boring default page with just a bunch of links, but that's just not me. Either I do something and try to do it properly, or I don't do it at all. So that meant learning HTML and Javascript (only to discover that Javascript should be avoided whenever possible) just to be able to make something which somewhat conforms to my own aesthetic and other standards. So I thought that, since I was making something anyway, I might as well add some other stuff that others might find interesting or funny or worthwhile or horrible or... Oh well...
21st century, techno-age, and everywhere you see those smooth, slick techno interfaces pop up. Brushed metal, circuit diagrams, transparent glass buttons. My god, how boring and uninspired can you get? And, worst of all, it all looks so terribly dead. There's a quality to rusty metal, just as there is to old and often handled wood, that's just not present in new materials. Rusty objects, or wooden furniture that's shiny with age (etc) all have their own story to tell. They've lived a life and it shows. To illustrate the point: compare the two pictures below: left is the Omega Art logo, right the version as it might have looked if I'd liked the smooth modern look. Which one is dead and which one isn't? Anyone who doesn't agree, uhm... doesn't agree. Fine.
Or... compare any girlie band -- Spice Girls, Destiny's Child, whatever -- with a beautiful woman in her forties (women: substitute equivalent male examples). Sure, flat stomachs, smooth skin, all very attractive, in a sense. Until you've seen about a million of them and they all start looking boringly the same. In the end Sophia Loren in her sixties is more attractive.
Uhm... did I really compare the Spice Girls to techno interfaces and Sophia Loren to rust? I guess I did... :-)
Of course a website is inherently techno-ish: digital imagery, cable connections, bits and bytes... Nothing rusty or "old and worn" about that. I'll resolve the contradiction as soon as someone shows me how to put real rust on the web.
The object was to make a website that looks good, isn't crowded with stupid, pointless, time-consuming and nerve-wrecking animated gifs or Flash animations, doesn't have banners or other irritating unnecessary graphics. The site should be relatively quick to load without compromising looks. It should be viewable on the widest possible range of browsers (within reasonable limits). Navigation should be easy, clear and straightforward. All pages should conform to the HTML-4 specs, meaning a.o. that no deprecated tags should be used and all formatting should be achieved through the use of stylesheets (as opposed to the use of inline tags or tables-with-text-to-force-formatting (mega-yuck)). As little Java, Javascript or other stuff that's too browser- or user-dependant as possible.
(c) H.J. Veenstra 2001-2003