An unfulfilled childhood dream of becoming an archaeologist combined with observations brought about by everyday life experiences led to an epiphany: our ability as humans to imagine and create makes us all archaeologists in a sense.
When we subconsciously dream up or ideate a "gem" (be it a painting, melody, or solution to a difficult problem) without acting on it, it gets buried inside our minds and we've unintentionally created a lost artifact of our own past self. The hope is that one day something will push us to tediously excavate those gems and bring them to light for ourselves and the world to see.
This is one way East Ruin defines art: an internal excavation for a sensorial, intellectual, or other external display. And this is why and how East Ruin was born.
This sentiment is well-captured in the following words by American naturalist and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau:
"I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore-paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine.”
At East Ruin, we believe that the countless lost-but-not-forgotten (and not yet dreamt) humane pursuits and visions of a better world are gems worth excavating, and like Thoreau we will use our minds for "burrowing" our way "into the secret of things."
We do this by constantly learning and improving our business processes more everyday to adhere to ethical creative practices that restore rather than destroy; contribute rather than extract; and focus on building the new rather than tearing down the old.