Lessons June 24, 2018

Spring Term 2018 has come and gone, and somehow I continue to be on track to complete the M Arch program by next May.  Translation:  “somehow” means a little luck and a lot of very long hours.

One thing I have to say for architecture is that it fosters a continual process of getting to know oneself, and in many different ways.  What is important to me?  What am I good at, and what are my weaknesses?  What resonates for me, and what seems like bullshit?  What advice do I follow, and what should I simply dismiss?  How can I balance what is of interest to me with what is expected of me in the classroom?

Last week I happened to read the January post for a New York Times series on leading a better life.  This particular treatise explores creativity and points out the importance of downtime to let ideas percolate.  I couldn’t agree more, but it seems my teachers couldn’t agree less.  The pace is relentless, and in my mind, it can be antithetical to careful and considered creativity. 

I am slow. I like to explore many different ideas and paths, and I embrace logic, method, and meaning along the way.  I keep hoping, as with any endeavor, that intuition and self-confidence will gradually kick in and that I will be able to generate ideas more quickly, test them more efficiently, and reach the final critique with fewer parts lagging.  Of course, efficiency and deadlines are the stuff of architectural practice, so I do need to learn these lessons.  And here is my ear worm, in the words of Leonard Bernstein, “You need a plan and you need not quite enough time.”  

Reality Check January 11, 2018

I return to the subject of grief. 

Over the holidays, I received a book called “Boundaries” from my sister.  She bought a copy for herself too, as we both have struggled with troubling family situations that had no obvious solution.  At the end of the day, it was incumbent on each of us to simply step back, realize that we were not in control of anyone other than ourselves, and let go.

I seem to have weathered too many of these challenging family problems, and I would have thought that by now I would be immune to their trauma – a devastating divorce, then a remarriage and a death, then my daughter’s plunge into drug addiction.  Responding to addiction in a child – what a boundary challenge that is!  

The book stirred up a new problem that I had not seriously heeded.  I had swept reality to the far-back of my mind as I swirled in the vortex of grief over my daughter.  This new challenge is to let go of the hope of developing a deep relationship with a man I care for.  He has moved on to another relationship, and I now have no choice but to acknowledge his decision and to move on, too. 

I don’t know how to “do” grief, despite its recurrence, but I do know that somehow I can muddle my way through and eventually make it to the other side of acceptance, tranquility, and even joy.

After the death of my second husband, I needed to find a way to heal, and I turned to yoga.  That was exactly twenty years ago this month, and I have been a yogini ever since.  Now, I renew my commitment to this practice, and hope that it will bring me the same strength I found years ago.  I am sure that it will.

Inflection Point January 10, 2018

Once again it is January, and once again I have a little break in the action to renew and reflect.  This past semester was as intense as I had expected, and not just for me – all of us limped across the finish line on December 18^th.  This was the last semester in which our courses were prescribed; spring term brings choices, but making decisions is not my strong suit!

I know why I am struggling:  I am thinking about what I want to do when this agony/ecstasy of school ends and I find myself without its rudder to guide me.  Most graduates will take a job in a traditional architectural firm, learning the ropes as their career develops.  But I’m not “most graduates” – at my age I feel that I need to carve out some niche quickly so that I can hit the ground running.  Now, I am taking a moment to contemplate and catalog ideas for the future.

One option would be to abandon the city and move to Point Reyes Station full-time, perhaps joining the practice of the architect who designed my home there.  This has so many pluses!  It would involve small projects and residential architecture, learning from a friend and master, being fully integrated in the community, living at my little piece of heaven, with the horses clomping about, and working out of my studio.  Perhaps I could even carve out a pre-fabrication residential business, creating clever, net-zero residences, and prototyping them right on my land.  Wouldn’t this be a lovely way to spend the next two decades of my life?

But there remain tugs to San Francisco and the bevy of wild opportunities this city provides.  I know that I would enjoy set design as it couples my love of opera and ballet with my love of design.  But how does one move into this area, maybe by apprenticing with the technical director at SFO?  Building scientific exhibits at the Exploratorium or Cal Academy of Sciences is another idea: again, integrating my knowledge of science with my interest in design.  What about trying to work at SFMOMA in their architecture and design department, a more “scholarly” endeavor that sounds absorbing and exciting?  Or perhaps apprenticing with one of my amazing teachers, designing installations or public art, entering design competitions.  This has a ton of appeal, as I would continue to be a student, be fully engaged, and maybe even have the opportunity to turn an idea into physical reality.

So, there is a lot to consider, and the opportunity to explore will come with this summer’s internship and with thesis preparation next fall.  What a journey this is! 

In the mean time, I am excited about my course work for the term, and looking forward to another healthy dose of architecture abroad, either in Berlin or in Mexico.  What a lucky woman I am.

A (very little) pause in the action November 22, 2017

I am sitting on the window seat in my cozy kitchen to take a break from the intensity of this semester.   I have shoved aside the Building Energy homework, the papers to be read and written for Architectural Theory, the drawings for Analysis, and the renderings for Studio.  For a few moments, I want just to pause and to reflect.

My “post-retirement” journey as a student of architecture continues.  This past summer, under the auspices of California College of the Arts, I spent three weeks drawing in Rome and two glorious (but hot) weeks exploring architecture in Japan.  Then followed a three-week intensive studio, which proved dissatisfying for a number of reasons.  Yet all of this got me pumped up for the fall, so I put in a request to take the full set of courses, including Studio 3.

This year, the theme for Studio 3 is collective housing for seniors.  Each of us had to choose a very narrow demographic, and I selected single, female visual artists.  I designed a neighborhood of detached individual living pods with shared dining, wellness, and studio centers.  It is a rather complicated scheme but seems to be panning out.

Studio should be the centerpiece of the architectural curriculum, but Studio 3 is my least favorite course, and I attribute that entirely to the instructor.  He and I butted heads on my very first “desk crit”.  As it happened, that evening my book club met and they sympathized when I lamented that I was going to drop out because, "If I can’t survive Studio, what is the point?"   But I needed another ear and reached out to my ex-husband.  He is a surprisingly good listener, and by the end of our conversation he said, “You can’t let one guy ruin what you’ve set out to do and worked so hard for.”  I got back on the saddle, and now the end of Studio is in sight.

But it has not been easy.  I do not feel intellectually or emotionally safe with this instructor, and as it turns out, none of the other students do either.  He is abusive, either through design or cluelessness, and we are all suffering.  Indeed, one young student has even developed stress cardiomyopathy.

Fortunately, the other three classes are superb, and with each of these I’m on an incredibly steep learning curve.  My theory teacher is a goddess and my analysis teacher is a god.  My energy teacher is whip-smart and lots of fun.  And so I will continue in the spring semester, looping back to take Studio 2 in addition to three other classes, and hoping for inspirational and kind instructors.  Perhaps next summer will bring another opportunity for study abroad and a chance for an internship.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  Later today I get on a plane for Minneapolis to spend this holiday with my sister Mary and my daughter Annie, who is living in Minnesota, in and out – and back in again - of yet another rehab.  Our visit, like this little respite to write, will be all too brief.