Design Inquiry
I just returned from Design Inquiry. I feel very lucky to have learned about an opening in the collaborative design seminar that takes place several times a year around the world. The little engine that could - it started right here in Maine by a couple of neighboring designers Margo Halverson and Charles Melcher. It is a brainstorming deep dive into all things making and design. This fall seminar had a theme of Solid • Liquid • Gas and the idea of entropy. This is what I read in the prospectus that appealed to me, especially in this time of flux:
“Life reveals the underlying principles of matter and energy — the progression of a seed to harvest; sketch to product; draft to essay; hum to composition. Changes of state are by nature examples of transformation and entropy.
Entropy lowers as systems conserve and rest. As summer's maximum biological productivity draws to a close, autumn will bring cooler temperatures and shortening days. It measures disorder, and randomness; in the context of climate and seasonal change, it can be seen in patterns of weather, degradation of ecosystems, and transitions through seasons. As early winter sets in, we will witness a palpable shift in our surroundings—trees shedding their leaves, temperatures dropping, and landscapes transforming.
Solid/Liquid/Gas will explore and respond to these transformations, encouraging participants to reflect on and interpret the increasing unpredictability of our environment. We invite participants to delve into the liminal space between the natural world and their own creative research, exploring the potential that lies at the intersection of the two. As water transitions between solid, liquid, and gas states in response to its environment, participants will be encouraged to embrace change and adapt to the people and ideas around them. How does entropy manifest in beauty and chaos and how can design respond to and interact with these changing conditions?”
The other ‘carrot’ by which I was led that it took place at High Meadow above Fallingwater in Mill Run Pennsylvania. Frank Llyod Wright’s FW house designed in 1935 and built during the depression is a design that has become iconic. I am not one for a bucket-list per se, but I have been rubbing elbows with architects and designers my entire life. Of course when I worked for several over the course of a decade in the 2007-2017, and served on the board of Architalx & before that at Cranbrook where I studied.
Most recently visited the Gropius house and realized architects/designers and artists homes are really important to me. Upon visiting the famous Lincoln Massachusetts home I was struck with all the coincidences I have surrounding Gropius and the legacy of the Bauhaus. I was friend’s with the son of his first biographer and in fact met Reginald Isaacs at the time he was working on the first edition translated into German because it was two volumes (perhaps needed a little editing). Just last year I visited the campus of Black Mountain College realizing the porch in his Lincoln home was echoed in the porch of the building at BMC in NC. I suddenly saw the artwork of Gyorgy Kepes and his wife Julia on Gropius’s desk in the home and in a flash remembered being in the Kepes’ home back in 1986, meeting both Julia and Gyorgy, when he called me a “rare bird” for wanting to go to Hungary. Through the pursuit of that study & travel I came to meet a gallerist in Szentendre Hungary and spent three weeks with arhcitecture students from all over East and West Europe which eventually brought me to both Berlin and Weimar. As with Wright I had already visited Taliesen West, so it seemed apt that visiting Fallingwater was an opportunity not to be missed. I have similar coincidences and connections to Buckminster Fuller.
My research while at High Meadow was to be a bit scattered and “research-lite”. I was not quite sure how to plug myself in with the workshop or others that might have met or collaborated before - so for me it began with walking, observing and collecting and eventually in dialogue with others. What I think took me in at first was the meadow. The plant and seed variety before me was hard to ignore, so I began with collecting and drawing plant natives. No surprise there. In just four days it was hard to fully realize anything, my cyanotypes were far from glorious, my painting was unfinished, my attempt at a quick zine was far from elegant or even complete. However my take-away was the new relationships. I met some new and very diverse makers and thinkers. I had amazing and enlightening conversations about time, in the practical sense but also in the more philosophical sense. Conversations about technology, about drawing, about algorthyms & about the pressure and sometimes off-putting gap between idea and result. Further conversations about food systems, relationships, about the third act, about teaching and so much more. In fact in re-reading the description above I think this theme will carry me through the winter in my thinking. Eno too has been an inspiration of late.
I have also been reading his diaries that were recently reissued as a 25 year anniversary of the first edition in 1994, when I graduated from Cranbrook. He lists pages of words that came to exist only since 1994, he has surprising insight about politics, human nature, music and worthy pursuits. He is a true polymath and it has reminded me that daily notations of our thoughts are important and for me the glue that tethers my thinking with my work that can in fact feel cavernous in their separation. So it is here on November 30th, actually now December 1st that I will begin in earnest - marking time and my thinking with language on a page..
Only now I am realizing this blog needs a slide show feature for a visual diary as well. stay tuned…