Fruition

I do love the process of design.  I get so inspired by so many things, when a project comes in the door, whether it is new or a continuation, my brain just starts to hum.  This week I am beginning a bathroom for a client I have done work for in the past and I am completing a basement remodel for a new client.  The previous three weeks have been spent working on some very creative proposals for new and very interesting out of state clients.  So, you aren't here to read about how I schedule my days, but for me the timing of these things has crystallized what is so appealing to me about the creative process.

First, I had weeks spent sitting in my head, sketching, searching, viewing and then putting it into a plan.  I love Virginia Woolf and have read her biography on several occasions.  I relate to her search for the perfect words, the structure of the sentence and then its context within the story.  I see that within my work.  That effort to make the concept harmonious while being interesting.    The concept growing up around me, it is so exciting to see that development, it comes from my head but there is still a level of detachment that has to be in place to ensure a cohesiveness.  An insurance policy that the client's vision is in place. A natural symbiosis if you will.

Then, upon returning from presenting this out of state project, I jumped into a new idea and completed another at the same time.  While this timing isn't exactly new to me, I have been breaking new ground on how I look at the development of a concept from beginning to end. Engagement at this level has yanked my head in so many new directions that the relationships between beginnings and endings have taken on a new perspective.

 The Coral Room, Denver

This basement completion has come together beautifully all the pieces cogently connected.  Getting there can be a hard wrought battle.  Designing space while selecting finishes and furnishings is of course how it should be done.  Seeing it come together seamlessly and months later is a whole other ballgame.  You typically know whether or not the design will hold together.  You know when a project is weak and when it is "fine" (as a good friend likes to say) and you know when you have something exceptionally strong.  However the magic that makes a project exceptional is always a bit of surprise.  Like a well earned exhale with a smile at the end.

I love the talk that Elizabeth Gilbert gives on Ted.com on the Daemon of Genius.  I really relate to that understanding of the daemon not really being mine.  It is something we are blessed with and should be thankful for, the muse that can choose to leave at any time.  Knowing that I am not the genius takes some of the pressure off too, the next design can be as good or better than the previous best. Whew!  Well as long as I am properly appreciating the muse and she wants to continue her visits.

Now I head into the new.  The small quietly elegant bath.  The bath that, because of its size, will challenge how it all comes together since you see every inch in one glance.  The client has already pushed me further than I thought we would go, not in a bad way, just in their sublime utterly understated request of pure white simplicity.  Sort of ubiquitous in a bath right?  Ah, but how to make it not so, therein lies the rub...off I go.

So there it is, finding the new, finishing the old which are really one in the same.  Each piece of the puzzle must be crafted and made and then put into the frame of the whole.  It must be beautiful and cogent and constructable. Lately I have been listening to Mariachi El Bronx, I bought it when it came out in the fall of '09, however it did not go into heavy rotation until several weeks ago when I started working on the new Cabrito.  The punk band Bronx did a mariachi album, it is in English and decidedly modern, the lyrics are sly and humorous.  The mix of the modern and traditional has really struck me, not to mention their innate talent.  I love how they created a new thing with the old style, their inspiration brought to fruition.  Hopefully, there will be a new Brooklyn, Cabrito and I can show you my combo of traditional gritty Mexican design combined with rubber coated modern Pueblo Deco.  I think I just exploded a brain cell or two.

 I have trained myself over time to see most inspiring visuals as usable material (hello, how many of you have seen the late Alexander McQueen's new fall collection?  Get on that!), then I can pull what I want or need and discard the rest.  Whatever visual candy I can feed myself that keeps me moving is my inspiration.  I now have a visual of the shark who cannot stop swimming or he will drown.  There I am, on the hunt for the visually stimulating inspiration that I can then take to completion (Jaws music plays in the background, quietly fading off).

Psychic Interior Design for Fun and Pleasure

I have been out of town for the last several days, a couple days into my trip I really wanted to post a new blog but didn't have time.  I have been percolating a new thought...  I think this is a good sign that I liked writing that last post!

So, at my office I have a box that contains random things I love.  The box holds furniture photos and tear sheets, certain fabrics and leathers, color chips, accessories, chunks of stone, pieces of trim and wallpaper samples.  What is unusual about this? Most designers have samples of product they like to use in their office, their mini library, a derivation and compendium of the showrooms they like to visit and product they like to use.  I have those samples too, but this lidded box sits away from the other samples.  The contents within the box are my absolute favorite things.  I save these things for years,  I squirrel them away because when I find one of those things I know it belongs to a client I have not met yet. 

It is funny how I find these future components of someone's bedroom or living room.  I am usually looking for something else entirely, and suddenly there, out of the corner of my eye I spot a gem.  I always know it when I see it that it belongs to a project but I am not sure of just where or when it will land. 

In the beginning I would try and make it fit into whatever project I had going on currently.  The client would never select that element, in fact they steered themselves far away from it.  I would be frustrated because I could see how fantastic this piece was, couldn't they?  So then I would put that piece away, into my box of perfection, so that at least I could appreciate it properly.  You know, stare at it on a rainy day like old photos.  Nutty.

I can't remember how it came to me the first time, that I suddenly knew where one of these elements belonged, but there it was.  The tile sample I had been holding onto for 18 months belonged in a client's home and I knew where it was going to go, I mean I really knew!  I pulled out the sample, and next stop was the client's bathroom floor.  Designer psychic.

When I have one of these moments it is really inspiring.  It doesn't happen with every client.  In fact, when it does manifest it is because the client is open to the possibilities and allows it to happen.  I have several clients that I have known over the years whose homes are filled with these things.  One especially amazing client, she must have done something very good in a past life because her home design karma has given her the most amazing project I have ever composed.  Every single element was divinely wrought.  Her window coverings are legendary.  I know you all will want to see pictures once it is photographed.

Some of these pieces fall away.  Without ever knowing who the client was or what happened, I can look at my stash of treats and know that this or that can now be retired from its place in the box.

Really cool pot I found in Mexico with random words etched

into the body, top to bottom.