Well, this is where it all happens.

We’re in a converted garage.  Half of this building is an actual garage, and half of it is the studio.  It’s got electricity and heat and data and I put in a floor and made some shelving and insulated it.  Put in a skylight–the skylight, I’m proud of. I designed it. It’s designed to let in as much light as possible.

So, this space is like a library, and there are some art pieces that were gallery kind of pieces, and then there are a lot of models of larger pieces.  A lot of study models. A lot of books. A lot of the models are proposal models, so they’re made for a proposal that I haven’t yet gotten. But they also help me figure out the real piece.  And some of them are models of proposals that never were selected, never got built. But they’re important because they are ideas that–you never know where they’ll end up.

I do a lot of my work on the computer, and I use a walking treadmill, so I’m not sitting there.  I started doing that 6 or 7 years ago, and it’s great. I feel so good, I just never sit generally.  Even if I don’t use the treadmill, at least I’m standing there. But often I’m walking, and I keep track of my miles during the week.  If I walk 5 miles in a week, that’s pretty good. It depends on how often I’m in here. It depends on what kind of work I’m doing too.  If it’s really detailed work, I can’t walk and do it at the same time.

There is a manual drafting table as well.  I like to draw if I can, and get off the computer. It’s completely different to do things by hand. It forces me to not be precise, and to actually feel the material, the paper, the charcoal or colored pencil.  And a different speed of thinking.

Some of what’s here is just plain storage.  I do throw things out, but some of them I don’t–they have a value and so they end up in here.  And I think just being surrounded by them, it’s good. It helps me. They’re ideas, and they remind me–it’s like coming into a realm of thoughts and ideas, and it’s nice to be reminded that that’s the realm I’m coming into.

studio