Option #1. Grab the nearby 2x4 and smash my current model and rip up my drawings.

Option #2. Go home and get some much needed sleep.

Option #3. Grab the parallel bar (or mouse), some thick trace and keep going. Until the sun rises. A shower can wait.

It was usually #3. Working a solution, hitting a ‘design wall’, then starting again.

Wait- where is that sketch I did 2 hours ago? That one held promise… Do I use canary trace or white? No, this sketch calls for cold press watercolor paper. Rats, my leadholder is missing. And who borrowed my adjustable triangle? Grrr…

This is one of the story arcs of my undergrad and graduate architecture studio experience. Making the commitment to stay at that drafting desk until, well, I had the beginning of some thing that resembled a form or a mass or, dare I say it, a base building.

Fool that I was to believe that it would end after my time at UK, OSU, and UPenn was completed. The projects for the firms at which I worked became a little more complex, and the deadlines were not as forgiving. The initial excitement at starting a new design soon faded into the panic of seeing that design to its conclusion.

It would be disingenuous of me to say that much has changed through the years in working as an architect- student or professionally. What I now realize is that there was/is only one option- choice. My choice. And while I took some pride in working so hard, I could have- and at times, maybe I should have- selected one of the other two choices.

The catchy title of this post is actually a revision of the name of one of my favorite songs at the moment. So, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Eirik Bøe (one half of Kings of Convenience) from the band Kommode. The song is infectuous and the video is clever. Come to think of it, dancing all night would have been an option.

But I got no rhythm and two left feet.

*The sculpture is a lucky find from 15 years ago at a little shop in Reykjavik. And check out Misc Goods Co if you like the incense holder. The amazing incense is there too.

2021 will be an anniversary. It shall mark my fifteenth year as an educator. It has been one of the most unexpected joys and privileges of my life to teach design to students- many of whom have become some of my beloved friends.

What does this have to do with NYC?

Last year, while I was in mid-town Manhattan for a few hours, I took a late evening stroll with someone whose job is in communication- broadcast and online media. One of my biggest complaints when I visit the Big Apple is that no one ‘looks up’ anymore, even at night. This statement was the beginning of a conversation in which my constant concomitant and alter ego Archi-geek emerged. Oh boy, here we go…

While walking up Ninth Avenue, I marvelled at the amount of skyscraper construction that was happening. Which lead to me to thinking out loud- the structural core and foundation of these impressive new projects must have an effect on the architectonic fabric of one of the most famous cities in the world, which gave way to thinking about the weight of people and furniture and equipment pressing down on the ground, and there was this fascinating documentary I watched on Londinium recently…

The blank look (Say, what?) on my urban companion’s face told me everything that I needed to know about my musings. Though I tried again to get the rush of observations and cerebrations about skyscraper structure effects out of my head and into the open, I failed disastrously in my aim to relay what was clear in my head.

What does this have to do with teaching?

As the years have progressed, I have reached a level of comfort in my ability to communicate with clarity in graphic and written means. Speaking? That is more difficult. Teaching university level students challenged me to hone my skill at verbal communication, something with which I still struggle, obviously. The clarity that I strive to attain when conversing is still quite translucent and opaquely muddled.

One of the reassuring elements of recognizing my limitations is that there is usually an opportunity to build upon my lexical foundations. With a little verbal Windex and practice, maybe I will reach the level of expertise of my broadcast confidant- someday.

Palimpsest. It has to be one of the most glorious words in the English language- at least to me. It is all due to my discovery of and admiration for a single man. Well, two, if you count the person that ‘introduced’ me to the aforementioned single man. That man is Carlo Scarpa.

Early in my architecture education, and even now in some cases, one of the scariest things to encounter is blank media. A single sheet of cold press watercolor paper. A torn piece of 18# trace paper. Sturdy textural canvas.

As long as I did not ‘do’ anything to produce an architectural solution to a given design problem, I could play it safe by never committing to anything. The fear of never finding the right solution gripped me a spiral of indecision after indecision. It seemed that I was caught in a vicious circle of wanting to craft beautiful base buildings and interior spaces, without having to ruin the selected media with graphite smears, charcoal, and pesky erasure crumbs. Bye-bye, perfection. Or so I thought.

Enter, Signore Scarpa. Museo di Castelvecchio. Fondazione Querini Stampalia. Olivetti Showroom. Brion Cemetery.

From the first time I saw the layered, colorfully animated and incomplete sketches of this Italian master builder, I was completely and deliriously in love. Progressions of lines revealed as deep thoughts, cultivated over and over on canary tracing paper or a crisp white sheet-each thought being not necessarily a mistake, but a mode of exploration- tell a story of his design process. Sometimes there are sweeping strokes, or sometimes there are little vignettes that invite the viewer into Scarpa’s deeply creative mind.

His imperfect perfect drawings stir me with inspiration. With each new design opportunity, being able to see every one of my mistakes compressed on a single sheet is a chance for me to quickly see new (or what would have been otherwise undiscovered) possibilities.

study for a wood sculpture

massing sketch on a proposed site

Mistakes, I learned, are for making. Making drawings. Making buildings. Perhaps though, most of all, making is for mistakes.

The black sand of Iceland, one of my favorite places on Earth

Years ago, while walking through MOMA with Brian, a dear friend, my heart skipped a beat. As we approached one of the galleries, there before my very eyes was it. Bird in Space.

Observing my rapturous delight at seeing the work of Constantin Brancusi in person, Brian asked me a simple question. It turned out that this would be one of the most profound and pivotal points in my life as a design and visual creative.

“Sheena, why do you like this sculpture?”

My typical fallback cerebral response to this question was nowhere to be found. In a panic, I started to come up with a litany of ‘excuses’- um, the lines are nice, it is simplistic, the form is…

With a small laugh, Brian stopped me. “You don’t have to explain it to me,” he said. “And you certainly shouldn’t come up with reasons only because they sound good to someone else. You like what you like. And that is it.”

It was then, that I stopped my burgeoning need to show erudition. Right there in NYC at a gallery in a museum, it ended. By humbly addressing one of my flaws, with the help of that dear friend, I began to understand how to embrace, and ultimately explain, when necessary, the why of things that inspire, delight, and move me.

Lines are my steady fallback for starting a project- whether it is a work of art, a photograph, or an architectural project.

My music tastes range from the jangly. dreamlike atmospheric quality of shoegaze, to the ‘oontz-oontz’ of EDM. From the sweeping harmonic complexities of bossa nova- traditional and modern- to the fun upbeat pleasure that disco and nu-disco brings.

The reverie that I experience when looking at a particular type of photography sends my mind soaring. (I can say without reservation or excuse that I prefer black & white, grainy film images over any other image).

The frigidly beautiful black sand beaches and majestic mountains & fjords that frame the linear architecture and landscape of Scandinavia fascinate me endlessly.

My certitude in embracing this recognition of the aforementioned did not truly become cemented as a part of my life until I was at the Dayton Art institute looking at a Wassily Kandisky exhibition after the MOMA revelation. While standing waiting to look at one of the paintings, I noticed a father holding a baby. Upon being shown the painting, the baby began to giggle and reach out toward the statically animated squiggly lines and beautiful colors. That baby could not explain the why of his joy. He just embraced it happily, fully, and unabashedly. Just as I do, after 20 plus years.