Going Grey

Not me.  I just returned from Greenbuild, which was in Phoenix, and hopped off the plane at Portland.  I’m visiting Sasha, who’s got a new blog, but who’s been sick since she arrived here.  We had a lovely time last night eating lentil soup with Kyle, Adrienne and Sean, and a delicious breakfast this morning with Sean and Adrienne.  But, after walking around a bit, I have determined that Oregon has gone grey.

I’m ok with that, but I kind of wish it hadn’t happened while I was gone.  It seems too abrupt.

We stopped in to Bolt and Close Knit briefly, and I think we’ll see A Serious Man this afternoon.  It’s the kind of day that you want to watch movies and be surrounded by soft warm things.  I’ve always enjoyed getting away from the cold in December when I visit home – for me, being away from Florida is the only way I’ve learned to appreaciate it.  But, missing those few critical days, I am sad to come back and find myself in winter.

Although some things at the conference were, frankly, a waste of time, I think that overall it was quite worthwhile.  Despite the fact that I didn’t show my portfolio to anyone, I did get the sense that if I pursue a job with some intensity, there are jobs to be had, and also showed me again that the route I take might not be so straightforward.  I am very glad to have finished my portfolio and updated my resume in time for the conference, since it frees me up for time for other projects.  I’ll be working on a new skirt this week, and I’m also going to start learning a 3D modeling software.

We’re about to head out, but photos of Phoenix will be up soon!

APT! OMG!

I’ve been saving that title for weeks now. My future landlord called today and told me that I am approved for the apartment I’ve been thinking about for two months. Those dreams will now be a little more real. I’m going to take a look on Saturday just to confirm that I really do want to move in there. Always good to double check. But, I am sooo excited.

You know what else is good? I’ll tell you.

a) I’ve got a little portfolio to show off tomorrow, plus a very nice resume. I will get three copies of the portfolio printed and bound in the morning (hopefully, although I expect the line will be long), and ten copies of my resume, and I will go talk to the visiting firms and be professional. See what kind of recruiting I can make happen.

b) Which, on that front, I’m having a conversation with a local firm on Monday to talk about the potential for me to work with them next term in a practicum, which may turn into a summer internship anyway. Perhaps the poor studio offerings for next term will turn out to be a boon.

c) I’m announcing the Top Ten Green Projects competition tomorrow, at which point it will hopefully be a little bit more out of my hands and a little less work for a little while.

In the next few days, perhaps I’ll really have some time for studio! Actually, I’m about to head home and do a little bit of work right now.

portfolio of my dreams

I am making a portfolio for getting a job this summer. I started out with great difficulty, and I now have eight pages that I’m very happy with, but that I just realized won’t print the way I expected them too. No worries, should be able to work around that easily, but it’s kind of poopy.

It’s always exciting to hit the print button on something like this, even when you know it’s just the black and white rough. This semester has been so heavy, it’s really come down to moments like this – hitting the print button at 1:24 in the morning to see the draft of the thing that you want to have looking beautiful by Wednesday at 12:00 – that I’ve had to learn to savor.

Making a portfolio is lovely in a way, because you get to reexamine your work and cast it in a new and different light. What did you want to say with that project, what were you learning? So far, this portfolio is about fabrication, concept, system, and observation. I’d love verbs, but I think I’m okay with these nouns. Looking at my projects with these nouns, I’m seeing new patterns emerge – for one, my delight in pattern that I never would have said that I possessed – I think it’s the joy of something orderly yet a little off-kilter.  I see the desire to make something exciting happen in section and the attention to detail that means something quite different than I always thought it did.

Attention to detail is now a mode of thinking about construction – carefully choreographing how materials dance around each other. Where will they kiss, where will they float past, where will they collide, where will they nestle? I always thought attention to detail was in the way one would precisely staple one’s paper; I never thought I possessed it (which, looking back, I’ve always been fairly precise with my stapler, at least when I thought it counted). I’m sure now that I do have it, in droves.

So, will the square format 11×11 set of plates get me a job? I never thought I’d make a square format portfolio, so I hope it doesn’t reflect poorly on me, as I thought it might (for no apparent reason, other than thinking that it maybe says you’re a square). I hope so – I’m going in with the recognition that it’s a work in progress.

I’ll let you take a peek.

Charge

I have retreated, and now I am ready to charge.

The end of this semester was quite abstract. I worked extremely hard on my studio final, completing several plates of highly detailed black and white pencil drawings. My presentation was a success; the architecture it conveyed was only marginally successful. My reviewers variously had little to say on the subject, or they told me that it was “unconvincing,” “too polite,” and looked residential on one side and like a library or airport on the other side. My professor, however, seemed happy with it, and told me to be a little less self critical, so maybe it’s not so bad. I believe that the work will be displayed in the Hearth (the little cafe in the middle of our school) at the beginning of next semester, which is actually very flattering.

After the studio review, everything else I had to do seemed strangely removed. I think I was reeling a bit from the criticism at the review – I’ve become so used to the Oregon style of review that even though I was excited to get a critical review, I was almost completely unprepared for it. So, I wrapped up the Kahn seminar, the seminar on urban architectural ecology, and my structures class. I have to say, smashing the two foot tall balsa wood tower that Sarah and I tied laboriously together with hemp rope was the highlight of the week. All in all, though, even with the low level of energy I had at that point, and the horrible cough I’d picked up, the end of the term was pretty satisfying.

And this weekend, after I finally finished cleaning out my studio, I turned right around and headed to the retreat. We went up to Odell Lake, and in the lap of luxury we played a lot of games to “get to know each other” and then we organized the Environmental Control Systems class that we’ll all be teaching next term. Simultaneous to my retreat, the Vermont crew got together in Leyden and partied. A shame to miss it, but duty, and tuition, health insurance, a stipend, and professional growth all called.

So, I’m not sure that any of that information will be particularly exciting to my readers, who must be clamoring for something fantastic after such a long hiatus. But sometimes life is pretty much just surviving the wicked cough you’ve got.

I’m heading back to Florida in a couple of days. Perhaps life will be exciting there – I’m really looking forward to seeing the fam, especially the bro. I’ll try to get some excellent pictures. Speaking of which, I put a couple more photos of Finland on Flickr, and I’ll continue doing that over break; also, when I get my scans stitched together, I’ll put up my final boards from this term. Finally, If you’re feeling very generous towards me, please refer to my updated wish list page. There are many ways you can demonstrate your love for me materially, and I encourage you to do so.

Facebooked

I finally gave up and joined Facebook.

I’ve been holding out for years, but since the people that I see every day in studio kept asking me, I could no longer ignore it. I’ll admit, it’s a lot of fun, and it reminds me of just how many people I’ve met in my life.

Talking to a friend recently about all of the relationship upsets that we’ve heard about this term, I couldn’t help but muse that the proliferation of people that we’ve met in our lives makes steady relationships much more difficult for our generation. We know a lot of wonderful people – we also know a lot of people that can’t live up to our composite of all of the wonderful people that we’ve met. We’re moving around all the time, which makes it difficult for us to comprehend being set in one relationship with one person (even if that doesn’t necessarily mean in one place, it implies it).

So, just musing on the fact that I’ve taken a small step away from being here. I’m also, now, being everywhere, with everybody, at least until I get tired of it.

BTW, Studio is pretty intense, in part because everyone else is kind of freaking out about what a short time we have left. I’m just slogging along, continuing to design. Haven’t decided what media I’ll use, but I’m imagining I’ll be hand drawing, perhaps in pencil (I’d like to use some color, so I’m not sure that I won’t switch to ink; but I did some more tone rendered drawings earlier in the semester, and I really liked the way they looked).

No matter the intensity of studio, I’m planning to take Thursday off and relax with friends.

Here’s an image from this summer - it’s the drawing Michael and I did of the smoke sauna in Kiljava.