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Category Archives: musings

Seattle Needs a Considerable Cultural Center

May 13, 2022
https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/chicago_culturalcenter.html

 

Seattle needs a Cultural Center like the one in Chicago. I have been saying this to anyone who will listen. Almost shouting it, really.

In the midwestern windy city, the Cultural Center is built in the old library that resides on Michigan Avenue in the heart of downtown. The building takes up half of a Chicago block with entrances on north and south. In a city known for its grand and historic architecture, the Cultural Center has multiple impressive Tiffany glass domes, lobbies lined with mosaics, and staircases that are somehow both intimate and grand. The building itself, set in a highly visited and visible location and with some historic significance as a designed structure, would be a draw in itself.

But, what is most impressive is what has been done to program the interior. With a momentum appropriate for a public library’s past, the Center is primed to display and encourage culture and discourse, is accessible from multiple directions, and is free and open to the public (with an information/security desk at each end). It houses ever-changing, and always compelling arrangements full of inhabitable inspiration. With a multitude of temporary exhibitions of various scales and attitudes, the spaces are always transforming, each seemingly organized within a particular cultural theme. Not only does the building have exhibits, but it also houses assembly places; a senior center; a concert/event area (with soaring ceilings, a glorious stained- glass dome, flexible seating, and a window that frames Gehry’s Millennium Park concert hall — i.e., Jay Pritzker Pavilion across the road); a large central lobby for sanctuary where anyone can rest among an array of changing art installments; a public lecture hall; etc. The rooms and hallways are varied and dynamic. It is a sensual treat to walk among them when they are empty, and it is exponentially uplifting when they are filled with art and displays.

It seems that almost any area of the building can be, and is used for exhibits. One exhibit area on the main floor is devoted to city planning. Two small galleries adjacent to this space sometimes expand the civic theme or show the work of individual, contemporary artists (usually activists with strong civic intentions and a high level of aesthetic ability). There is another changing exhibit space where there are often experimental interior and/or industrial designs as well as books and pamphlets for the taking. There might be a small exhibit about Chicago’s design history under the stairs. There is also a space lent to “Story Corps” (https://storycorps.org) where, with an appointment, people can open their hearts and minds to each other. There is a senior center near the north entrance that has its own exhibition space. The staircases are an experience unto themselves and, as you proceed along one you can view the interior courtyard where, for a time, there was a clever, contemporary, sculptural piece inspired by Piranesi.

Upstairs, galleries with tall ceilings and more expansive footprints have changing exhibits of the work of individual artists who are well-known or obscure, or of artist collectives, or exhibits on a theme. These larger galleries might, for a time, be filled with innovation from the city’s Architecture Biennial or about science and art.  I have seen shows that interpret and exhibit the work of internationally known artists such as the innovative and riveting walking wind-powered sculptures of Theo Jansen (https://www.strandbeest.com), or the provocative local and highly acclaimed contemporary Theaster Gates (https://www.theastergates.com), or a collection of lesser-known Chicago painters and sculptors from the recent past (at least one of whom I have since seen exhibited in major museums), or an exhibit on the visible history of immigrants in Chicago… A hallway in this old building has a new ramp and a permanent artistic structure of brushed metal that, I think, may also function as a structural reinforcing. Nearby, connecting the north and south, there is another hallway where photographs are on display, often about the history of the city. The exterior wall facing an alleyway is also a canvas for art.

A stimulating lecture series is part of the program. We visit Chicago often and we almost always make a pilgrimage to the Cultural Center. One day, we wandered in and there was a poster announcing a talk by Hannah Beecher. In the intimate lecture hall, Ms. Beecher sat for an interview and candidly talked to the forty or so of us who had arrived. Ms. Beecher was the Production Designer for the movie “Black Panther” and Beyonce’s video “Lemonade”, among other extraordinary artistic endeavors. I was feet away from the stage, riveted to my seat by her astonishing personal, generous, and inspirational tale of creativity and redemption. This year, I saw her work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where she collaborated on an installation about what Seneca Village — a thriving African American settlement that had been displaced to build the MET and Central Park – might have been in an imagined future. On that day in Chicago, one of the most compelling speakers I have ever heard, Ms. Beecher, welcomed us in and made anything seem possible.

while in Seattle potential stands by

So I am inspired by this. Seattle needs a Cultural Center like the one in Chicago. I am proposing that the Macy’s Building is poised to be that place. The location and the scale of the building are the ideal setting. En route from downtown to the popular Pike’s Market, this structure is of a rare Art Deco style in a town not necessarily known for architectural history. The building is central and accessible from multiple sides. It is near transit and shopping, restaurants, and waterfront views. It denotes solidity and openness. And our city needs a cultural anchor, both for tourists/visitors and for those of us who reside longer. We need a conduit to fill and describe the important art, architecture, design, and cultural stories we must share to keep ourselves vibrant and alive. I propose that we study the great potential of a centralized civic space that celebrates our rich, diverse, impressive culture and that we put this plan into action right away as the city core needs us to do. We are a city, at long last, and not a provincial afterthought. We can act like it. Proud and expressive. Showing our smarts. Large and impressive. Open to the public. We all need it. Now.

Plastics

September 20, 2018

PLASTICS

I usually sleep reasonably well. But I didn’t sleep well last night. I woke up various times. Probably, this because I got into bed too early as I tend to do these days. I get into bed and I binge watch something on Netflix or Amazon or HBO. Sometimes that is fun. Sometimes though, it makes me feel guilty. I do read books, but I would probably be reading more if it weren’t for the guilty pleasure of binge watching streamed shows. I almost entirely assuage my conscience by reasoning that the shows are clever and well produced. There are a lot of good shows available now. And I do need a break from politics and responsibilities. But the guilt mostly comes from the fact that I long to PRODUCE more than consume. I know that the clock is ticking.

But that isn’t what I mean to talk about.

I did not sleep well last night because I am concerned about our planet. At one point, I woke up and thought about how I use plastics in my life. And I thought about how I might improve myself. I want to “check myself before I wreck myself” (paraphrasing a Zach Galifianakis character in a boy flick). I am taking stock again. I wonder if it would help the planet if each of us took a moment to reflect upon this.

Although I have almost entirely stopped using plastic bags from stores, and my dry cleaner has been handing out re-useable covers to protect the clothing in transit (I purchase fewer and fewer clothes that need dry cleaning anyway), and I no longer buy facial products with microbeads, and although stores no longer automatically put things in plastic bags, etc… there is still a lot of plastic in my life, much of which has added up over the years, and much of which still winds up in landfills, waste-to-energy plants, or even possibly in oceans and in the air.

Plastics can be helpful as it lightweights products in transit which means that there is less fossil fuel used to transport products, and it also helps protect certain products from damage or destruction, before or after purchase, so that there is less overall waste. It has made great medical and technological advancements possible. But, I would like to use less plastic because I like the earth and the animals on it and I would like to be part of a solution, not a problem. Yet, even as a relatively conscientious consumer (who tries to consume less and better), I find that I cannot yet avoid using plastics as they show up without my control in products I consume.

What really bothers me is when wilderness-product companies have the smallest of plastic hooks holding their tags to their clothing, since these are companies that build their identity on promoting that they are ecologically minded. And it does erode confidence when a cosmetic company professes to care about your skin or health but then uses one-use plastic as the container for their products, and worse, use multiple polymers of plastic with plungers, for instance, that cannot be recycled. It undermines their message, at the least.

So, as I said, I am taking stock. I wonder if we all take stock and then maybe communicate with companies, could we produce and use less plastic, keeping it out of our water and air and the animals who need both? Here is a list of plastics I use.

Toothpaste tubes
Moisturizer tubes
Toothbrushes
Makeup holders/containers and brushes
Toilet seat and lid
Parts of this laptop
Coffee maker parts
Food containers (the containers I use and reuse to store food, like Tupperware)
Materials in certain clothing (makes them more stretchy)
Telephones
Remote controls
Occasional ziplock bags
Newspaper bags
The little parts for your nose on eyeglasses
Food containers (the containers they came in, like cottage cheese or yogurt)
Milk containers (or even the little spouts of the non-plastic cartons)
Bandaids
The patch inside me for the hernia from years ago
Hairbrush, comb, shampoo and other hair product bottles
Credit cards
phone case (and parts?)
Plastic bags to cover clothing in storage or from the cleaners
Packaging wrapped around certain foods at the store
Plastic bags and containers that I am given with take-out food
Containers/Packaging that come with products (molded plastic that is only for display and pre-purchase use)
Pieces and pieces of hardware used for furniture, pens, key holders…
Parts of my house: radiant flooring tubes, PVC pipes, parts of lighting, wiring, etc.
Fitbit parts
Clock parts
Connectors on clothing tags (hold tags to garments until purchase)
Technology wire covers
Fiber optics
Car parts

What about you?

In this regard, there is little we have control over other than not accepting a bag at the store, or by buying in bulk, or trying to avoid buying anything plastic, and certainly avoiding anything obviously overpackaged. Perhaps the next step is to pressure stores by leaving packaging at the store for them to deal with (and then they can pressure the manufacturer)? Any other ideas?

Design Education, Facts Versus Interpretation, The FAIA, and an Apology for a Lack of Humility

March 26, 2018

In an astonishing turn of events — with impact or interest that is probably insignificant to anyone but myself — I have been elevated to be a national Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. I am now FAIA, or as some architects like to say “I am an F”. It might sound disingenuous of me to sound humble or doubting. After all, I started on this track when I was twenty-one. I studied architecture and interned in the field for about ten years, and I have had my own business as an architect for nearly thirty years. Also, this year, it took months of complicated, full-time work to even prepare the complicated 40-page submittal for the FAIA award. Only 3% of all the 91,000 AIA architect members receive this honor. According to an article in “Architect: The Journal of The American Institute of Architects” (May 18,2015), females comprise only 28% of architectural staff in AIA member–owned firms, 26% of licensed architects (who are not principals or partners), and 17% of principals and partners. I am proud that I have overcome norms and expectations, and that I may be a good role model. And perhaps I should not be surprised for my work to be recognized? Still, I keep thinking that there will be a letter soon, advising me that they meant to send the congratulations and award to another person and that it mistakenly came my way. I seem to be addicted to my Imposter Syndrome, despite this high recognition that should have convinced me otherwise. Yes, I am a registered architect. Yes, I have worked hard, I have loved my work, and I consider it worthy. But I have had an unorthodox approach to the field of Architecture which has led me into the strange and eccentric realm of Interpretive Design. And I have done my share of bitching about the AIA. So, this win on a first try is a shock.

I am honored. I am humbled. I am happy. I am grateful. Now, what should I do about this? What are my responsibilities?

I think that one way to pay it forward is to describe Interpretive Design, or even the value of interpretation at all. In this world there is now a background din of “fake news!”, and you would think that I, a rather extreme liberal, would prefer to stick with the facts. I do. I recognize facts and try to stick with them. For instance, I have honed my Facebook sharing so that I post only those items that show original sources of consensual integrity. But to find any facts that are “indisputable”; well that is proving to be harder and harder. You might say (as did e.e. cummings) that “death is no parenthesis”. Death is fact. But I have a life-long practice of skepticism, and I would probably even argue about that.

This is not a small or even simply a philosophical issue for me. I have had arguments about this (arguments with serious personal consequences) with a good friend who is a lawyer. She would say “there are facts”. I would agree. But then, I am an architect working in the field of interpretation, and I would counter that in the world of human experience, in the practical world, interpretation is often more important than facts. I would press that this is true almost all of the time. Obviously, she thinks that what she is doing as a lawyer arguing the “facts” is essential and honest work. I was not contradicting that, but I was arguing that even her argument is really an interpretation of the facts; that an argument by definition is an interpretation. What we communicate and how we communicate it are, at least, equivalent in value. In human experience, most of all content that happens at least one split moment after “fact”, is not devoid of, nor divorce-able from form. I am not saying that we should present lies. I do believe that we need to attempt to convey truth (and fact) as well and as honestly as we can. To do that, you need integrity, you need to be listening well, and you need to have a mastery of your manipulation of form.

In our human efforts to get closer and closer to truth and beauty, we now are deeply into data mining. Currencies that move nations are based upon speculative interpretation. We support (though, arguably do not base) our political inclinations upon accumulated “data”. Statistics and algorithms abound. Still, I would say, that what you cull from these seemingly impersonal facts are based upon the questions you ask and the plateaus of decisions or inclinations you already hold. In the long distant past, Geomancers gave rich people the greatest promises of good karmic flow. Now, the more expensive lawyers do that.

In the world of exhibits, which is the world I have inhabited and helped to furnish for the past thirty years, I have seen that a pure reflection of facts is impossible. Interpretation is able to be manipulated. And it is a great responsibility. So, I have accepted projects in which I believe, and clients who seem to share my point of view, and then I have tried to honestly reflect ideas in the Big Picture and specific details of my designs (and the designs of my teams). I know that a worthy conveyance of fact is at the mercy of one’s ability as a designer. You have to have a concept and you have to have the ability to state it well. I am arguing that if you want to be a designer, become a good and capable designer, the best you can be.

In the field I have chosen, it is imperative to know how people learn. I am fascinated with this. And so, I have studied education. For decades, education in the USA has focused upon linguistics and math. Whenever I think that anyone might listen, I have insisted that we need to learn design literacy more than math. Oh yes, we all need a foundation of mathematics. But most of us need math only to a point. We need to know addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, percentages, and fractions. Beyond that, I would argue that math education could be optional. Instead, I have maintained that design education should be mandatory. It is my assertion that design education should start in elementary school and continue from there. Not that all of us should be designers, but that we should all be cognizant and literate about design. Design surrounds us 24/7. It affects us every day and night, awake or asleep. Without good and proper education, many people do not understand how much design abounds and affects them. But design is in the technologies, the places, the tools, the furniture, clothing, devices, and buildings in which we live or with which we have a connection, ALL of the time. An understanding of design would, I believe, help us all to make deliberate and intelligent choices that would better our lives through an understanding of how form is an interpretation of content and intent.

My point, my admonishment, my plea, is that you (we, each of us) start out from a point of compassion, care, and love, and then that we learn our craft well so that we can carefully, with technical prowess, and with positive intention, manipulate form and interpretive conveyance to reflect and embody those deep and serious intentions. I would argue that we need to better educate people about design. We need really good education for everyone.

So, I am now an F. And I will wear it as proudly as a progressive politician wearing a “F” rating from the NRA. I know that this is great. I am honored. And now that I have achieved this high rating and recognition, I cannot just be content.

Japanese Carpenter in Retrospect

April 5, 2017

My niece just wrote to me. “You were the first female carpenter in Japan? What? Tell that story please!“ It is so strange to realize that she does not know this about me. This is the story as I wrote it to her in reply.

When I was twenty-one, I went to MIT for my first year of graduate school in the architecture program. I soon realized that I really didn’t know anything about carpentry or building and that this was a deficit to being a fine designer. I did not want to be an architect who only knew how to design on paper. My school work was super pretty and attention-getting. Maybe it was good “art”. In crits (critiques at which professors would judge and comment on the students’ work), I  would get praise for my imagination and creativity and my projects would draw people from across the room because I could manipulate visuals well. I could also argue anything, and compellingly too, I soon discovered. But the criticism that stuck was that “It is not Architecture”. I argued that I knew that it was not Architecture, but that that was not the point. I knew that it was my work on paper and in models for school. But I still felt insecure. I wanted to really be an architect, and I wanted to know more about how things were built.

I decided to work as a carpenter. In my mind, I was choosing between wood (post and lintel) or masonry (stone and/or concrete). It was a sort of starting from the beginning, self-education process as far as I was concerned. And, I really did not have an upbringing in which this sort of thing was taught to me. So, I decided to take a year off to learn carpentry. I looked at all of the possible places to study woodworking for construction and my short list was Scandinavia, Vermont, Oregon, northern Italy, or Japan. I chose Japan. I was into all things Japanese at the time. I loved Japanese film, literature, design, food… (I think that my first introduction to it was through Aunt Sandy and Uncle Ed as they had brought back items from Japan where they visited when they honeymooned. So those items were part of my early childhood and they were unique since not many other families we knew had things that looked like these.) Japan was the farthest away and most adventurous, and I was into that. I had the idea that I would take one year in school, one year away from school, one year back in school, and so on, indefinitely. It was a beautiful dream.

So, I had saved enough money for a flight to Japan and the equivalent amount for a flight home. I bought a one-way ticket for a little over seven hundred dollars and I started to spend my return ticket the moment the plane landed in Japan. But I knew that I would be okay. I had researched it and it sounded as though the worst thing that might happen was that I might be pick-pocketed in the city or that the government might deport me. I was willing to take that risk.

My first year at MIT, I had taken a Japanese Gardens course by a woman who had just returned from Japan, a “Building in East Asia” course by a German man who wore orange and had “surrendered himself” to Bawang Shree Rajnesh, and a studio course (which comprised the majority of school hours) with a Japanese instructor. Clutching a letter written in Japanese by my studio instructor (the gist of which was that I was a student at MIT and that I was interested to learn carpentry — although, of that letter, all I could read was “MIT”), I landed at Narita airport in the middle of the night. The telephone numbers I had for contacts did not work and I wound up taking a night bus into Tokyo which let me off in a dark alley where one of two homeless guys came over to “help me” and who pointed to the phrase “be careful!” in my phrase book, and then pointed to his buddy. I knew one phrase which was “Where is the police box?” since there was supposed to be one on every street corner. The helpful homeless guy grabbed my suitcase handle, and I grabbed it at the same time, and together we wheeled the thing to a police station a few blocks away. I sat next to a guy with bloodied nose and a woman who looked like a hooker and the police, who spoke not one word of English, called the number I had which was a friend of a friend who lived in the Shinjuku neighborhood not far away. He picked up the phone in the morning, then picked me up at the station, and generously hosted me for my first few days in Tokyo. I went to Kyoto from there.

I am getting off track.

I did not have time to study Japanese my first year in grad school. I tried to learn it on the plane using a phrase book. But I also found a Japanese language course for $250 and I signed up. I am generally a quick study with languages. I could sound like a one and a half year old in no time. J

Ok. I am still off track.

I met a cute guy in a café. I was writing fast and he came over to tell me that he was amazed at how fast I was writing. I told him what I was doing in Japan. He took me to a party at the home of an architect. I dressed up in a white satin dress, with my hair up in a high “do”, and lots of makeup. I was told that people really dressed up in Japan. The house turned out to be a unique building that was inhabited by an architect (whose name literally translated means “Dragon One”) and his family but also by a carpenter who helped design and build the house. There is a long story about the history of Japanese architecture and society that goes with this that substantiates my claim about how rare or even totally avant-garde this living arrangement was. But I will refrain from telling it right now.

The carpenter, whose name is Hasegawa, came up to the architect’s house during the party. He was wearing pants, no shirt, an impenetrable expression, and he was barefoot. Furthermore, he was still chewing his dinner. (It turned out, as I realized when I go to know him, that he was the SLOWEST eater I have EVER met.) We talked for a long time. He listened as I ardently affirmed that I wanted to be a carpenter, and I admitted that I had no experience. The boy who brought me to the party finally got angry since he thought that Hasegawa was only humoring me. But, Hasegawa told me that he was working on a shop only a few blocks from where I was living and that I was welcome to stop by.

Now, I had already gotten introduction somehow to a group of carpenters who were working on a temple, and I had given them a copy of my letter. They took the letter to the government somehow (their job was a government job). They asked me to wait. They had me wait for weeks. They eventually agreed that I could come to work on their temple job but that I should bring a book to read since there may not be much I would be given to do. I think that one of them smile/laughed, but I might be making that up. I didn’t think that they understood, and I thought that they would treat me at best as a scholar and not a carpenter, and I chose to work with Hasegawa instead. (Years later, when Hasegawa visited me in San Francisco, he apologized for treating me like a male, Japanese apprentice carpenter and not realizing the culture shock I was experiencing. I tried to assure him that the way he treated me as my boss/mentor was exactly what I was seeking.)

It is worth mentioning that Hasegawa could only become a Master Carpenter by being the foreman on a temple job prior to opening his own shop/kobu. He had the knowhow and creds from this venerable experience. But, when I knew him, he wore a full leather suit and rode a 750 cc Honda motorcycle. He was unconventional.

I am getting off track again.

I visited the okonomiyakia that Hasegawa and his crew were building. It was a small shop that was going to sell what amounts to pizza-pancakes. I hung out and eventually, after days, he gave me a broom and let me clean. One day, he went away on an errand, and his apprentice, Kai, gave me a chisel to use. Hasegawa came back, saw me trying to use the chisel, and chewed out Kai for doing that. He said that I was not ready. But, he did give me more challenging things to do after that. Hasegawa had me use an electric planer at his shop, an ad-hoc open-air portico next to his house. I was to take eight-foot long, eight inch square pieces of lumber, and run them through a planer, holding them down to keep them level as they went through the machine. After a day or so of this heavy work, my right wrist swelled up like a tennis ball, and Hasegawa tried to fire me. I reminded him that he had told me that the same thing had happened to him when he was an apprentice. So he relented, and instead, he gave me a few days off. I took that time to nurse my hands that were covered in blisters while the wrist swelling subsided. Somewhere, I think that there is a photo of this.

I went back to work after a few days. There was another incident and I am unclear about the chronology of it now, though it may have been the same time when he was trying to fire me. That was when I asked Hasegawa “why” once too many times. He lost it. He said “WHY? WHY? WHY??????? If I tell you to shine my shoes or take my kids to school, YOU DO IT and you DO NOT ASK WHY! After you do things MY WAY at least three times, then you can suggest trying it YOUR way. But first, you DO IT MY WAY and do NOT ASK WHY!!!!!!!”

After two months, the okinomiyakia was complete. Hasegawa invited met to attend the opening. There, he handed me an envelope that contained two hundred dollars and told me that he thought that I was serious and he offered to have me join his “shop” (his crew, his team”, the kobu).  I was so flattered. Hasegawa was taking an unconventional step to accept a foreigner, a female, a novice on to his team. It just was not done. And so it goes.

After that, we worked on the renovation of a country home (one room) but not much else. I think that I mostly worked at ruining Hasegawa’s tools as I tried to sharpen them in the mud from seven thirty in the morning to seven thirty in the evening, six days a week (I taught English in Osaka the other day and, whereas I made $6/day as a carpenter, I made $17 an hour teaching English. So teaching subsidized my carpentry “career”.) I remember crying in the rain as I crouched on my knees and from the window I could hear the client’s radio playing “Country Home” by John Denver (“take me hooooome… country road… to the plaaaaaace I beloooooong….”). At another time, there was an elderly gardener who liked me and who said “Why don’t you go back to America and be a woman?”

I learned a lot. About myself. About Japan. About carpentry and building. I say that I was “the first female carpenter in Japan” and I believe that is true, although, I never “became a carpenter”. I have friends who are or were carpenters, with the scars and lost fingers to prove it. I am intimidated by carpentry tools.

I forgot to mention that after my six-month student visa ran out, a kind, gentle, soft-spoken, elderly Landscape Architect who was the host of the teacher of the Japanese Garden Design course I had taken at MIT, agreed to officially support an extension of my visa for another six months. I met his family on New Year’s Day when I had completely lost my voice and had to whisper the few words I thought I knew in the only language he and all but one son of his family spoke.

I lived and worked in Japan from July 4, 1978 (Independent’s Day) until April 10, 1979. It was a total of nine months and six days, I realize that now, although I sometimes say “about a year”. I was 22 when I left (Olivia’s age now) and 23 when I returned and went back to impatiently complete my time at MIT and receive my “Master’s” degree as fast as I could. I lectured a bit about Japanese design and so on. That was a long time ago.

In Japan, I wrote to a friend every day and would send off letters in packets of five. He saved them and returned them to me – all but one. I still have them. I think that they may be more raw and juicy than this retelling. Maybe I will write a novel with them someday. Life goes on.

Love, Your Aunt Miiiiiindy (a.k.a. Mindysan)

 

 

Essays on Art, Culture, and Design #1- Exhibition Design

December 14, 2016

aww-w-mindy-by-beverly-denenberg-cropped

Well, it is almost my birthday — an inconvenient two days after Christmas — and I did promise myself that I would post in my new blog. I also promised that I would write about art, design, and culture.

Still, all I have written about lately is politics. I am a Facebook addict and I yell into that wind constantly, preaching to the small circle that some distant algorithm determined would be my closest friends. These friends do already agree with me for the most part. On the rare occasion that I “speak” with someone who doesn’t, I get both thrilled and somewhat scared and I tend to write so copiously in response that they are either put off or do not know where to begin to reference my tangents. I think that I come off as though I were heeding advice I read when I was in my teens about how to act crazy if you think that some guy is following you.

I do not mean for these Facebook people to steer clear and walk to the other side of the road. I mean to meet them in the middle …and then grab their arm and pull them to my side. Ok. It is true. I think that I am correct on many issues and points. Yet, I do think that we probably share values (about compassion and caring, and so on) and that there is a place in the middle and that, being convincing and charming, and with well cited sources of information, I will ease them into a semblance of, or at least momentary self-knowledge and sense that will change their ways and their voting inclinations. Admittedly (and I like admitting this), I too can be given new information that might change my mind. I realize that, if I expect someone else to shake off their own mental shackles, I must be ready to do some shaking myself. I try to remain open to this. And I know that there are things I do not know. So, at least I am not victimized by the Dunning-Kruger effect …though, how would I know? (That makes me laugh.)

Back to the point. I launched my website weeks ago with a section for news and blog, and a new post is getting to the point of overdue. Even though all I can think about is that the soon-to-be-loser-in-chief might slip us into a military winter or a climate catastrophe from which we will never emerge… I will focus. I will exercise my disciplined mind. And, here at least, I will get back to Culture. It is possible anyway that art will save the world. Let’s be reasonable. No. No. No. Let’s NOT be reasonable. But, let’s focus.

These days, at least once a week, I see a live performance. I read novels. I watch, and even binge watch clever shows on non-broadcast non-stations. I meet friends to discuss art. I visit museums. I come up long lists of art pieces and projects that I would like to propose to people with money and influence. When old friends ask what I am doing, I say that I am turning down the volume on my design business and its work and turning up the volume on the solo studio stuff. People ask what intention I have for the new website and I am not sure, though I know that it is more to get a new level of recognition and a footing of authority than it is to get new work. I have no end of work. I work all of the time. I have a non-ending list of projects I do and am doing. I am lucky. And life is good. Therefore, the website is more portfolio and retrospective than it is application or supplication for a new job. As always, I wake up with a vague sense of guilt that I am not doing enough. But I do agree with Aunt Ester in August Wilson’s work in that I think that one must understand one’s past in order to go healthfully into the future.

And, so I will begin with a reflection on the business of exhibition design. Here is the first installment of reflections and essays on art, design, culture, and the work about it. Hope you enjoy.

_____

Exhibition Design 101

I have worked as an Exhibition Designer for about thirty years. Do you want to know everything I know as an exhibition designer? Here is what I have learned, along with some of the instructions I have given myself and the LCS staff about this type of work.

On an interpretive sign, in order to be legible and make the most impact, the main area of text (the body text) will mostly want to be between two feet and five feet above the finished floor. Titles can be above that. Odd miscellaneous text, such as captions, copyrights, and other acknowledgements, can be below. Use hierarchy in font size. Probably, you do not want text to be less than 14 points, unless it is for captions and other, rare miscellany. The area above five feet can be used for titles, but in larger font, or else it will not be readable enough, especially from afar. Pay attention to the contrast, spacing, and font style choices for legibility. You probably want about 75 words per sign but you can go to as many as 150. Over that quantity, it may as well be a newspaper or magazine – and you might as well just forget making an exhibit. However, it is generally a great challenge to get a client to agree to fewer words. To make the process most efficient and least frustrating, ask the client to have only one representative combine all of their review comments (and still you will be lucky if the client gives you reviews of your text with no contradictory remarks). The writing aspect of exhibit design takes much longer than you might expect. Everyone who writes thinks that they can write exhibit text, but there are rules about characters per line, lines per paragraph, paragraph per sign, and how all of this relates to the designs; how big, how far, who is reading… After initial writing, there are always words that may be edited out without losing meaning. Now you know this too.

Exhibition design is like architecture and takes all of the abilities of an architectural endeavor. It also goes through the same processes: Programming, Schematics, Design Development, Contract Documents, Construction Administration. It also has a parallel track of literal design aspects that result in Graphic Design, aspects that are essential to the work. While you are putting the three-dimensional process through its hoops, you are simultaneously working on two-dimension aspects including Research, Writing, Photos and Illustrations, and then the same process of Schematics, Design Development, Contract Documents, and Construction Administration (or Fabrication Administration, if you prefer) for this aspect of the work too. Contract Documents include Working Drawings and also gruelingly time-consuming, eye-crossingly complicated, and often boring-to-write, though necessary Specifications (which are the detailed written instructions that accompany the Drawings).

Exhibition design is a Renaissance Man’s endeavor (or, if the term “Man” offends you, a polymath’s endeavor). Depending upon the project, you may work with structural engineers, landscape designers, architects, lighting designers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, AV and multi-media experts, civil engineers, illustrators, photographers, writers, researchers, scientists, artists, teachers, administrators, politicians, metal workers, glass workers, woodworkers, animators, sign makers, and others. And you will have to know more than a little about each and all of their fields to work intelligently with them. You will be responsible to oversee Shop Drawings, Samples, and Prototypes. You will have to know where the materials and items you plan to use in your designs come from, how they age, what they cost, if and/or how they can be replaced over time. You will want to know everything you can about sustainability and environmentally-conscientious design — otherwise, why design at all? You will have to understand materials, lighting, composition, color, and have an impeccable business acumen. In Exhibition Design you really have to understand how people/visitors experience space, and exhibits in particular, which is also about the psychology of learning. The visitor experience is the point. You will have to be cognizant of curricula and the most current thinking in the field of Education. You will work, on average, one and a half to two years on any particular project, although often longer.

If you run your own business, the work of everyone who works for you — a staff of people you manage and for whose happiness you feel partially responsible — will ultimately be your responsibility and, at the same time, you will try to give them the recognition that they deserve, sometimes going overboard in this empathetic compensation and relinquishing your own reward. And you will be a therapist to your clients who are frequently comprised of multiple people who do not necessarily agree and sometimes would like to kill each other.

You will have to compete for almost every job you get. Clients will say that they want you to go all out and as far out as possible, and when you do, they will forcibly snap you back to their comfort zone. No one, not even your loving family, will understand what you do. Journalists will not mention you and might, in canonizing the hero architect, even give that architect credit for your work. It is likely that you will not have time to engage much in marketing efforts, unless you are willing to relinquish being involved in the work for which you have a passion and which brought you to where you are in the first place. You will spend hours upon hours managing your business and understanding the tax structure. You may try to raise your fees but project proposals will almost always be for fixed fees so that, once you get a project, you will work three to five hours for every one hour you are paid. Sometimes, you may have to buttress your firm and keep it afloat with your own savings. There will be no job security. Insurance costs are yours to pay, for you and your staff, and they will continue to precipitously rise. You will sometimes blurt out how you feel about all of this, with the risk that some people might think you are egoistical, obsessive, bitter (and, in my case, maybe a little neurotic)… and they may be right. Even in today’s world of rampant Hero Worshipping, it is hard to worship, or even recognize an Exhibition Designer, especially if she’s female and not very tall. And yet, you will often get into the Flow of it and feel a surge of happiness as good as life gets. You will often go home and feel as though you have done something worthwhile and you will have the satisfaction of often using so many of your talents. You will be one of the lucky few who enjoy their work more often than they dread it. You will feel satisfied and proud.

The point of Exhibition Design is, as far as I am concerned, to inspire positive change and action. The field of Exhibition Design is as complicated, important, and challenging as Architecture. And, even if I can tell you everything I know and you can follow every step, you still may not become a great designer. Because, beyond it all, there is that magical element. Intuition and character and persistence and wit, and maybe luck… whatever the brew is that, in your personal way, brings it all together.

What ya don’t know. Now you know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where Have You Been?

March 16, 2016

This is a story about Lehrman Cameron Studio’s recent whereabouts. It is mostly about place. But, as LCS News has been dormant for four years, it is also about time (wouldn’t ya say?).

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Lehrman Cameron Studio began in my one-bedroom basement apartment in Brooklyn, New York, in 1988, immediately after I received my architectural registration. It was also after I was just awarded my first major job – to develop and design a garbage museum in Connecticut. The project entailed a great deal of research about garbage, and all of the heavy lifting of designing in both two and three dimensions, with both literal and figurative outcomes. For this project, I worked from home, with one part-time design assistant, and I held a design/build contract, so that I also directed a dedicated and experienced fabrication crew. I loved the subject matter, and the process, and it felt as though it was telling a worthwhile story in a good way, moving people toward positive change. It was grueling and it was fun, and I got hooked on interpretive design from that time forward.

When the Garbage Museum project was complete, it won a design award. My firm was off and running, and I never looked back. Since that time, I have designed and/or been Lead Designer for nearly one hundred projects and have managed thirty five staff members as well as hundreds of consultants, contractors, and collaborators. The complicated projects have employed my architectural training, my artistic abilities, my graphic design sense, my (perhaps limited, although you decide) ability to write, my love of conversation, my interest in education, and my willingness to learn. The work has been challenging, and, for the most part, the teams of collaborators have been a joy to work with. I have been quite happy and in the flow.

Confession, nevertheless: It was about four and a half years ago, when the drudgery of sustaining a business began to grate irreparably upon my spirit, and the pleasure of fresh realizations in exhibition design waned precipitously, that I began to turn down prospective projects. This was also in the midst of the USA’s most recent economic depression when downsizing was not uncommon. Furthermore, this timing coincided with my children’s imminent departure for college (thus opening up the prospect of more room in our house). I pulled inward, and Max (my husband/partner) and I moved the office back into our home.

Working from home was “coming home” in a real sense, since I had run my office out of my place of residence for more half of the time I had been in business. I had started Lehrman Cameron Studio in our cozy apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, kept it in our house on a hill in Mill Valley, CA, and then spent many years working on considerable projects from a single room with an expansive view of the Olympic mountain range in our home in Seattle. I continued this work-and-live-in-the-same-place trend while my babies became toddlers, and toddlers turned into adolescents around me. Eventually, I moved the office down the street and had a 42-second commute without crossing an intersection. The workload grew, Max joined the firm, and we moved the office two miles away to a larger place in another, hipper Seattle neighborhood. In 2010, I designed the renovation of our house. And then, the pull was compelling enough and I returned the office to home. I have always taken pride in building and sustaining a thriving business with little overhead while being in close proximity to my family. Given everything, this move back was comfortable and right for me. And, now we have meetings at the dining table, looking out on the garden.

Since returning to the homestead four years ago, Lehrman Cameron Studio and I have had various projects. We designed

  • the didactic interiors and exhibitions for “The Smart Building Center” in Seattle (an organization promoting environmental innovations for architectural renovations);
  • an exhibit concept plan for Northwest Energy company in Montana;
  • an interpretive plan for a new loop trail in the Washington Park Arboretum;
  • interpretive elements for a park in honor of Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson in Everett, WA;
  • an energy exhibit for a middle/high school in Seattle; and
  • an interpretive landscape for the park where Chief Sealth lived every winter for 60 years on Kitsap Peninsula.

I also pursued a public art project, gathered a spectacular team, and submitted a distinctive plan for a playground competition that was chosen as one of five finalists out of forty-five. (I was honored, although, ultimately, my project did not win.) I was a panelist on the subject of work/life balance for a women’s architecture group. Max and I lectured about our work to design students at the Seattle Creative Academy. We worked as interpretive designers for a new park on the northern shores of Lake Union in Seattle. And we developed a concept plan for interpretation to accompany the redesign and experience of a historic carousel in Spokane, WA.

Furthermore, for a year, I was the Creative Director for my mother’s magazine, the Nob Hill Gazette, and traveled often to and from San Francisco. For the Gazette, I led a group of website students at the Art Academy in the Bay Area to redesign the publication’s sorry and neglected website (a website soon to be relaunched) and I aggressively pulled the aesthetics of the publication into the 21st Century.

During this recent era, our now grown children left for college. Simultaneously, our aging parents began to need much more of our close attention, although they live in separate and distant states. I wrote various drafts of my mother’s biography.

Most central and personal of all, I have found that the pull to return to fine art is an irresistible one for me. I have set up my fine art studio again.

Admittedly, this has not been an easy period. I have felt somewhat burnt out — not a feeling I ever expected to endure — perhaps an inevitable accompaniment to the uncomfortably quiet Empty Nest Syndrome. Also, something strange was occurring in the exhibition design field or our particular small corner of the universe. For a quarter of a century, I was able to brag that almost one hundred percent of our projects were constructed. However, in the recent past, there have been several concept plans or even project developments that never made it to fabrication. There has been much soul searching on my part and, if I may speak for him, also on the part of my infinitely patient partner/husband.

But now, at this side of the whirlwind, I find myself with a clarity and a revived enthusiasm for it all. For Max and for me, our intentions are to continue to design and develop interpretive projects that intrigue us. At the same time, I will draw, paint, and write, everyday in my personal art studio. I also hope to teach, part time. There are projects I have dreamed of for many years, and they span fields and defy categories. My dreams are hard to pigeonhole with labels, but I plan to chase them – with as much energy, enthusiasm, and happiness as I can muster. From home. I encourage you to raise your expectations. And please join me. Here we go.