Tusen takk for ingenting.

It’s chilly here. The Easterly Manhattan wind is wreaking havoc on my already dry, scaly skin. And there I was, walking the streets of NYC with my Nordic buddy, who I have jokingly called “Two Farms” for many years.

Having grown up in Ohio, I should be used to cold weather. I should maybe even enjoy it. And I do- usually. I survived the Great Dayton Blizzard as a kid. I was made of tough stuff, right? And wanting to represent my roots as a hearty, intrepid Midwesterner, I braved the wind and cold as we made our way between lots of scaffolding, the blustery nips, impatient vehicles (at least the drivers were warm), and fellow pedestrians. With lips stinging, and eyes watering, I thought, “C’mon…just a few blocks more… we’ll be at the restaurant and all will be well. Besides, you want to be able to keep up with Two Farms, right? He’s a decedent of Vikings!”

You see, Two Farms grew up in Norway, so he should also have been used to the cold. No bit of wind or low temperatures would stop him from getting to our destination.

In the blessed shelter of one of the many tall buildings of the Big Apple, and while we were waiting for the light to turn green at a crosswalk, I ventured a look to see if I could visually glean just a bit of wisdom from a native Scandinavian, whose home country is known for its sometimes absolute and brutal cold seasons. It was my hope that I could quickly learn some stalwart tactics of how to defeat the cold. There just had to be techniques that this ignoramus - that’d be me- (of chilly weather) could use.

I found out- and quickly- that my Viking ‘venn’ was having NONE of this cold weather. Not. One. Iota.

"I (expletive) hate this (expletive) (expletive) cold weather!"

Did my ears deceive me, perhaps? There was nothing- I mean, nothing- forthcoming. Except for frowns and bad words. (Two Farms may have ESL, but his command of bad words is impressive.)

Okay, I had to get to the bottom of this. Something isn't adding up here...

Me- But you are a Viking, aren't you? This should be child's play for you.

Two Farms- What?! No- ay! (Expletive!- because a gust of wind hits him in the face.) Sheena Felece, I live in a city, not the forest. I want to be (expletive) warm.

Me- But what about your ancestors? They did it, right? C'mon, don't tell me that you've abandoned your heritage. Their blood still runs through your veins.

Two Farms- They lived (expletive) years ago. I learned that history (expletive) in grammar school. I like the sun. I want to be warm. What the (expletive) is this weather?

A long pause.

Me- Wow... Well, you do your ancestors proud.

My apparent sarcasm is not lost on him, as he hazards a turn in my direction to frown crossly at me.

Me- Just sayin’. And I offer a wink.

We continued our walk, and upon reaching our destination, the frowns and bad words, to some extent, abate. Because Two Farms is now warm. And he has a beer. I would remain woefully ignorant of the mastery of survival in the cold. And me, being me, just had to pay him back.

Me- So, you are an oxymoron, then.

Two Farms- Huh? Are you calling me a name? Something (expletive) insulting? Shame...

Me- Oh no, I'd never... but instead of Two Farms, I'm going to call you Urban Viking. You deserve it.

Two Farms- A giggle. The beer must be taking affect. That's an oxy... oxy...

Me- moron, Moron. Like Free Gift, or... lemme think... Useful Idiot. Got it?

The light of understanding hits, and I am given another giggle.

Two Farms- That is a good one, Fish.

(It's a nickname he's used for me for years. I am a Pisces.)

We toast- my glass of bubbly to his beer. Skål!

(Cold-1, Sheena Felece/Fish- 0)

So, it has been a while. And I'd like to think that my absence from the digital space was only for a short while, until I realized that 'short' meant more than a year.

It would be easy to say that I was doing something fun (like travelling to new places). Or trying new things (which is somewhat true). Maybe I can say that I was designing and building new projects (again-somewhat true). Alas, there is only ONE thing that would take precedence over maintaining my website.

Hands.

Large, expressive, and wrinkled. The hands that fed me a bottle when I was a baby. The hands that endlessly brushed my knurled and knotted hair, and that of my sisters. Hands that stirred and stirred the orange juice I remember him making each week (yes, from a can…it was the 80s, mind you).

Fingers on the hands that thumped my brother and cousin upside the head during church services because they were acting up. The hands that spanked our bad bottoms when we misbehaved, and then comforted us as he explained why he had to discipline us. Strong hands that always held us lovingly whenever we were scared.

The hands that made us school lunches. The hands that always cranked the ice cream machine in what seemed like forever as we were impatient for that unmistakable flavor of truly homemade vanilla ice cream. Hands that made heavenly scrambled eggs, decadent coconut cake at Christmas, and irresistible crunchy-on-the-outside, soft-and crumby-on-the-inside hot water cornbread (if you don't know, you should).

Hands that could Gerry-rig, ahem, 'fix' anything (and I do mean anything) with duct tape. And those hands ultimately helped me to pursue goal of becoming an architect.

The hands that held mine, and squeezed my fingers to let me know that he loved me, even if he could not say it because he could not speak during those last few days in the hospital.

My dad's hands.

I miss holding his hands during prayer before a meal and before my travels back to Delaware during those trips home to Ohio that I made over the years. I miss the increasingly scribbly writing- from the big, sometimes puffy fingers on those wonderful hands- on the cards and letters he sent to me, without fail.

There will be no more new memories of Dad using his big puffy fingers to gently make the most delicate and creative jewelry. Nor will there be new instances of him using anything short of a crayon to fill out his favorite crossword puzzles and word searches.

Gone are the days of him using those hands to play board games with us. (We'd accuse him of cheating- which he totally did. And he'd either defiantly refute, or impishly smile at us with a non-response...). Dominoes, UpWords, Yahtzee, Caps, Banana-grams, Spades...

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My dad's hands were examples of the epitome of hard work, away from which he never shied. He taught us, his children, what it meant to cherish the importance and goodness of being tactile.

The last thing about his hands that is indelibly seared in my brain (and on my heart) is the very final time that I saw them. They were wrapped around his beloved Bible.

And I can think of no better portrait of hands than that.

Norman Lee Spearman 1923-2024

It was a phrase that I heard often while I was growing up. My dad, a WWII Navy veteran, used it particularly around situations involving food or nutrition.

“Down the hatch”.

Whether it was stewed tomatoes (ick), or the gross chartreuse-colored protein in liquid form that my mother kept in the fridge - on the right side where we kids would be certain to see it as we opened the door- for us to take weekly (no, no thank you), or the headcheese aka souse meat that my step-grandmother Miss Luanna made for us at Christmas (oh, heck no), there was no shortage of questionable culinary items.

Don’t get me wrong, I adored Miss Luanna. But as I excitedly opened the brown bag lunch packed by Dad, on the first day back to middle school from Christmas Break, and then biting with surprise into the über-peppery headcheese-with-mayonnaise-on-white-bread sandwich, it is a memory that sticks stubbornly to this day. Even now as I write this, my stomach is roiling at the thought of the lunch, and what must have been (to my table mates) the horrified expression on my face as my dad’s voice echoed in my head-

This looks infinitely better than the stuff Miss Luanna made. For starters, hers was square. And did I mention that it was grey?

“Down the hatch”.

One of the consolations of the Great Headcheese Sandwich Lunch Incident is that I think I know how biting into a slab of (mushy) concrete tastes. It certainly looked suspiciously like concrete. At least Miss Luanna’s did because her’s was grey. No lie. Or maybe terrazzo is more apropos in this case.

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So, having spent the greater part of my career making architectural representations by hand, I was also compelled to learn how to use a well-known stronghold of computer software for architects. If for only slightly less long than I have been employing analog means. AutoCAD. Anyone familiar with it should remember those days when the slow performance of AutoCAD defined its very essence- before computers were super savvy at the underlying arithmetic operations that power the foundation of the drafting program. It is a different story nowadays. Think Harder Better Stronger Faster.

There was- and I use that word purposefully- one command that caused us CAD jockeys ,aka intern architects, to pull out our hair, to scream at the top of our lungs late at night (usually the night before a deadline), and to consume way too much coffee to combat the effects of this aforementioned command as it crashed the computer while we called it forth like a king calling his subjects to heel.

HATCH. Or, BHATCH (boundary hatch).

Oh, boy. Oh, joy. NO other command could be so simultaneously seductive and maddening. Just like her.

Back then, HATCH could take a drawing-a section or detail in particular- to graphic heights nirvana that would make Frank D.K. Ching proud. When it worked. But when it didn’t- look out. It could mean hours of redoing work. In hindsight, it was probably not such a terrible thing since the second, or third, or twentieth outcome was usually better than the original drawing. In hindsight, I realized that I was learning to be

“Down (with) the hatch”

Maybe it is the experience that comes with age, or (more than likely) the advances made in both computer technology and software efficiency (with Autodesk continually updating AutoCAD), but I am no longer afraid of using that command- even with my long, torrid and tumultuous relationship with it. With BIM (Building Information Modeling), hatches are built in. So, I don’t even have to really think about it. Though it’s a great resultant, I kinda miss the adversity. Just a little. But it makes using HATCH/BHATCH command- when I do use AutoCAD- totally worth it, since I don’t have to hand draw endless pieces of aggegrate for headcheese- I mean, concrete- details, or the never-ending 45° angle lines that symbolized earth cut through in section, or that dirty duo of wall details- aluminum and brick. Which is fantastic. Whoo hoo!

So yeah, you can say that I’m totally ‘down’.





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Entry title is courtesy of (the wonderfully unique) Komeda

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We were driving west on I-70. Well, Dad was driving and I was quivering with anticipation as our green and white sport van with my mom’s handmade gold and green brocade curtains (hey, it was the très chic in the ‘80s) traversed the highway. My mom was attending a work conference in Kansas City. We were tagging along, and we were stopping in St. Louis just to see it.

Ah, St. Louis. I could NOT get there fast enough. Mile after mile of concrete stretched before my not-fully developed brain. I wanted to get there NOW to see it. In person. An architectural masterpiece by a Finnish master builder that I admired from the glossy publications that showcased his work. My (then) gawkily stick-straight hind end was a fixture between the stacks in section 720 at our local library, absorbing all that I could about Eero Saarinen and the large iconic catenary structure.

THE GATEWAY ARCH.

photo by Intricate Explorer

Now, it is worth noting that these were the pre-internet (for the average consumer) days. What I thought I knew came mainly from photos in books or magazines. It may become clear why I am making this qualification should you choose to keep reading.

Indiana. Illinois. Closing in on Missouri. My face getting a glimpse of the sun glinting off the top and side of the south leg as I press against the window for even a little connection to the thing of beauty. I am enraptured. I am enthralled. Wait, what is that? Metal? Not stone- limestone- as I originally thought. COOL! It’s the GATEWAY ARCH, Y’ALL!

Seeing it from afar at that moment in my young life solidified my desire, and confirmed my decision to start an ardent love affair with architecture.

Fast forward (mumbling)-plus years later. I am travelling to Arkansas to check on a project. Traffic is horrible on I-64 because the the PGA is in town. The logistics for the tournament were amazing, but I’ll save that for another post, maybe… No matter. It gives me time to see my ‘love’ after 30+- oops!- after (mumbling)-plus years.

It is as gorgeous as I remember. Frankie Valli begins invading my brain. Late afternoon sun striking the south leg of the arch. Whoa, I better watch and be cautious of the car stopped just ahead of me. Also, I should be mindful of the tears that make their way to my eyes as I recall the memories of my childhood. Dare I stop? No, I’m already delayed enough…

The simple formality, even as I experience it dynamically, is not lost on my designer’s mind.

In undergraduate school, we were usually taught that simplicity and complexity in volume|mass|form making were not prioritized one over the other, necessarily. As in many things- architectural and otherwise- this perspective depends on the context. BUT, and it is a big one- I remember more than a few of my professors letting us know that simplicity in a project was usually harder to successfully achieve. Oh boy, how I took that as a challenge. Before realizing that this grand declaration- from people who were smarter than I- was a definite truism, my educational pursuits gravitated to the complex forms associated with the Deconstructivsts. Eric Owen Moss. Morphosis. Zaha Hadid. Daniel Libeskind.

Another love affair began for me with that realization. My constant pursuit to explore the endless architecture potential indelibly embedded within and offered by the simple and humble line.

Now, let me return to that childhood scene…

We stop to visit the arch. I think my parents were tired of me droning on and on about it. It was during that visit that I began to understand the idea of scale. It was a glorious day, and I was deliriously happy. Even with all of the reminiscing about architecture in this post, there remains one memory of our stop that I shall never forget.

My mom asked a passerby to take a family photo of us underneath the arch. When it was time to smile, everyone else said the requisite ‘cheese!’. I, however, said ‘prostitute’ a photo trick I learned- similar to Ralphie Parker- from my mom. It was a moment much to the chagrin and embarrassment of my parents, but guess who had the biggest smile in the photo?

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