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Hi, Tim.
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Hi Angela, thanks for having me today.
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I'm good, I'm very good.
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Good, I'm so excited to talk with you.
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So as usual, I just dive right into the conversation.
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What is one of the biggest misconceptions that you face as an architect as it pertains to
the importance of creativity, creative thinking, or even your profession?
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I think that people often put us in a box as creatives and they think of us as somewhat
one dimensional and they think that we only use the creative side of our brain.
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And the reality is, I think that a lot of creatives are informed by logic and rational
thinking and...
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they don't trust our judgment or our viewpoint on that side.
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They look at us as like, you're the creative people.
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I'm going to get the banker over here to figure this out.
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Or I'm going to get somebody who has knowledge in those specialty areas to help supplement
what you do.
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And the reality is, I think as creatives, we're the people who are.
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imaginative about those the other side of the brain.
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And I think that people will just put us in a box.
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So I always feel like we're kind of like running uphill to try to prove that what we're
suggesting is accurate.
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And at the end of the day, the other people often catch up with us.
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But it takes some time.
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Well, it's interesting to hear you describe that because when I think of one dimensional
thinking, I think of a banker.
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No, sorry to any.
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Well, we don't have, I wouldn't suspect that our audience listeners or bankers are, you
we're talking to creatives.
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So for me, it's the creative notion or what you bring is multi-dimensional because you see
things multi-dimensionally, correct?
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yeah, I think that we are able to connect disparate issues.
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So we're able to expand the conversation and have a broader discussion.
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So we don't just think about it in terms of the established rules or protocols that are in
place or conventions.
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We look at it from a standpoint of what could be, what's the potential here?
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And that kind of creative thinking.
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is not good if you're interested in expediency.
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It's not good if you're interested in repetition and efficiency, which actually our
society has unfortunately prioritized.
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So I often...
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You know, I teach as well as being an architect and I'll have students who really take
pride in how detailed they are.
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They like say, I'm just really detailed.
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And I think, why are you so proud of that?
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Precision is what you build to.
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I would be really proud of me having the ability to think broadly.
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or I'd be really proud of someone who can introduce new concepts.
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That's true innovation, when you can actually bring new discussion to the table.
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I think the way we do it is we connect to a broader context.
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I once had a professor who taught me this lesson, and I've never forgotten it.
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Every time you have a problem that you need to solve, you need to step out.
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So if you're looking at and trying to design a
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setting for a table, you need to think about the table.
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If you're trying to design the table, you need to think about the room.
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If you're designing the room, you need to think about the building.
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If you're designing the building, you need to think about the neighborhood.
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If you're thinking about the neighborhood, you need to think about the city and blah blah
blah, right?
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And so as creatives, we're always looking at things in relationship to a brighter context.
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So I have, as always, when I talk with you, my mind is pinging everywhere.
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So one thing that I say is we live in stagnation as creatives or the creative sector,
meaning we're on, and now I'm primarily talking about funding, investment, understanding,
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support.
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I also say that the arts need to come out of the closet.
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When you talk about
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putting, we're put in a box.
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How much do you think we put ourselves in a box as well as we're put in the box?
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Maybe we're put in the box because we put ourselves in that box.
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You're nodding so clearly you understand where I'm trying to go with this.
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Yes, that's the total issue.
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So let's back up and say, you know, why did we end up pursuing a career in something this
creative?
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So we all are introduced to many different things in our lives.
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We have math, we all take math, we all take English, we all take history, we all take
science.
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And when we select the creative process, for some reason, we...
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tend to sharpen our skills related to artistic endeavors.
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that would be, you know, thinking, like I just said, thinking broadly, beginning to think
of new things, evaluating and researching what's happened in the past in the creative
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sector.
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We actually do not practice our skills related to analysis and proof.
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And the other thing is we're taught to believe in individual genius.
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So as a creative, we really appreciate those people who are...
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the individual genius, right?
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So the Einstein, the artist, the Picasso, the Frank Gehry, the people who are actually
bringing their own unique talent to the table and moving the dime.
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So if we believe in individual genius, we don't realize we have to prove our
recommendations to people.
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Explain that.
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So we live in a society, so if we want to be valued, we have to explain what we do to
other people because they don't understand.
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So what we do is we create things and we present them as art, as music, as architecture.
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And we expect everybody to just accept it because we are the creatives.
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But the reality is we actually have some work to do.
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to help people understand why what we're suggesting is worthy.
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And if you are really talented, you're brought in through a culture in your training that
you don't feel like you need to justify things, right?
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Yeah.
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So tell me then when I think about the arts need to come out of the closet, I, you know, I
spend all day long talking, thinking, believing in advocacy.
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But I find that a lot of times our sector creatives talk to creatives about.
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they don't understand, nobody understands, meaning how can we better cross collaborate
with other industries or punch out of the box so we are having conversations with.
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other business leaders.
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A thought has come to mind quickly that I'll explain and then I want your response.
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Speaking with a woman about a month ago who owns a performing arts company in Atlanta, and
it's a for-profit, but she runs it.
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Her mission isn't that all of her students are going to end up on Broadway.
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Her mission is that they're learning valuable transferable skills that one day will make
them well-rounded human beings that they can contribute in any field that they go into.
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but she goes to her local business chamber luncheon and they go around the table and say,
you what do you do?
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And she brings up this performing arts business and it's this, you know, invisible kind of
pat on the head like, well, isn't that nice?
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And then these then these other business leaders proceed to talk about how there's their
employees lack communication skills and they lack collaborative skills and they lack being
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creative.
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I'm
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I want to define a new vocabulary to which we can better communicate that that is what we,
that is our foundation, are all of those skills that are lacking in other industries.
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Yeah, so when we propose on a project, I've been working really hard to communicate with
more detail exactly what we're going to do.
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Because we presume that it's not important to them how we get to the end, but just that
we're going to design a building for them.
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And we're not going to need to explain to them all of the things that we do.
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If you don't explain the complexity of what you're doing to people, they will not value
it.
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But if you actually help them understand the complexity that is required in order to be
creative and come up with creative solutions, I think that people will have more empathy.
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Additionally, I think we do this to ourselves because we, you know, the other side of the
coin here is that we lack empathy for their opinion.
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yeah.
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So because we find creative solutions to be so valuable and we really respect the
recommendations of other creatives, we tend to dismiss the people in finance or scheduling
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or business leadership that is more analytically based as uninformed
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problems.
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I actually have had my life checked in this way because I married one of them, right?
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So she's this person that's really analytical and I often have to, I often say to people,
I can't believe that I've been married to you for 36 years and I still have to prove
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things to you more than I do my clients.
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But it's because of who she is and she feels safe and comfortable telling me that I need
to prove these things.
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So I think a lot of clients, a lot of people we interact with who provide, let's say
funding for the arts, they don't,
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understand the complexities of why it costs so much.
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But if you go in and you actually try, if they're trying to fund a project for science, I
can guarantee you this is science proposal is 300 pages long and it's so overwhelming that
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they don't understand it.
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We just do a two paragraph thing saying we're going to create a piece of art.
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Would you like to fund it?
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We don't talk about the impact on people.
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We don't talk about the complexity of how much things cost, why you need to do things in
certain ways, and we don't justify it.
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So I think part of it is because we don't want to live in that space.
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We find that to be mundane.
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We don't really have respect for a lot of those things, and we don't feel we have to
explain it to people.
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But what I think is that society is in such a disarray
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and needs us so much.
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Like you're talking about the colleagues at the business luncheon.
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I was a Rotarian for years and I could not get over how much they valued my opinion
because I was one of the only ones that was bringing problem-solving skills to the table.
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A lot of people just do not have problem-solving skills.
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They're implementers or they are people who analyze.
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They don't connect everything together.
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They don't bring problem-solving skills to the table.
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And as creatives, I think we are the people who doing that, right?
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So think about an artist who's doing a painting.
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So you have an issue with trying to improve the...
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the texture of the paint on the canvas, you're going to experiment in many different ways
and you're going to find creative solutions to get the texture that you feel is important.
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And you're going to try and fail and try and fail and try and fail until you have success.
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And we're very accustomed to that process.
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Others are not.
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So when we explain our process to bring people along, we need to help them understand
we're going to go through failure.
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We're going to fail many times.
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This is a process of prototyping, and we're going to model things.
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And the reason we do this is we want to test it all so that we can reduce the cost
implications for change during construction or whatever.
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So in leading a renaissance of relevance, I am hearing a lot of what you're saying and you
mentioned that you've taught or you teach in higher ed.
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We're seeing more and more these humanities, arts and humanities classes being reduced.
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And you're talking about problem solving, which I agree 100%.
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And I believe that artists creatives are the ultimate entrepreneurs.
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Like that's where that comes from.
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I too teach and I teach at a school where it's an arts management, arts entrepreneurship
program.
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And the only way that they're allowed to use the word entrepreneur is if they have the
word art in front of it.
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the business school says that they own the word entrepreneur.
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Yeah.
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I know.
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So how do we, where's the tipping point if we know this and if we continually see industry
leaders, non-creative sector industry leaders saying we need more innovation.
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at the table, we need more creative solutions.
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Here's another quick fact.
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Local college, Fine Arts College, says that a national bank, one of the top leading banks
in the country, they hire art students because they know that for every...
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three engineers they have in the room that's developing some product for the consumer,
they need a creative at the table to help them figure out how they get it from conception
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to consumer.
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Where are we missing the point or is everything just the bottom line?
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Because you also talk about complexity and every time I hear you say complexity, I think
expensive.
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Yeah.
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But if we don't face that, we end up spending more money fixing problems because all we
were concerned about was a short term, low cost, high return on my investment.
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Do you know what I'm saying?
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There's all of that.
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So I think we tend to think in terms of polar extremes.
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So what we really need here is we need diverse viewpoints to come to the table.
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And we need those diverse viewpoints to have mutual respect and contribute in a way that's
not the Ford process line.
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that's much more about planning and establishing, understanding criteria, all the
parameters, the implications of decisions, and all of that kind of collaboration up front
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will actually help save money.
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So...
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I think that we have, so let's look at the history of the 20th century.
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We actually exploited issues of control.
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So the assembly line was about control, right?
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So how can you be efficient?
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How do you teach somebody to just do this, this, this, this, this, this all day and
perfect that so we can be expedient?
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And we're going to have a creative process over here for the design of a car.
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And then that car is going to be produced by a completely different, excuse me, different
set of people.
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The cars that are really valuable are the ones where there's a collaborative process,
where design and making are done at the same time.
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They become timeless, right?
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So when you look at the valuation on that process that's more collaborative,
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with the viewpoints coming together, you end up with a higher quality product that lasts
for a longer period of time.
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It becomes a classic.
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The same thing is true when you're doing a painting, or the same thing's true when you're
doing and designing a building.
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So if we look at everything in an extreme way, like it's this or that.
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we're going to have a problem.
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So I think what we can do is just sort of take steps to help build awareness about the
complexity.
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We don't have to go in and like make it overwhelming or scare people or make people
believe it's going to be super costly like you suggest.
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the perception would be that it's super costly.
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In fact, would say as an aside, one of the things I struggled with as an architect for
years is people would see our portfolio and be like, well, we can't afford you.
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We can't afford that.
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Why?
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Well, it's just too expensive.
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Like, you know, my firm did the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State, which is
this really great, iconic form on the campus.
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And of course we did it 20 years ago, but we did it for $165 a square foot.
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which is most of the institutional buildings at that time were being done by for 250.
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So why is it less expensive?
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We made choices to not add materials in certain ways.
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We did creative ways to structure it in a way that you needed to be able to use fewer
materials, et cetera.
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So you can save cost through that kind of collaborative thinking.
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And
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I think that because we have this mindset from the 20th century of productivity and speed,
we feel that we have to be expedient.
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The reality is, I think what we should be doing is tackling fewer problems, but in a much
deeper way.
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Because right now we're trying to do all of these problems.
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And there's no focus and we're getting about this much of all of them solved and it's just
becoming worse, right?
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So we have problems with housing.
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We have problems with.
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accessibility in terms of affordability.
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have problems with educational systems that feel like they're not appropriate anymore.
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So you can't attack all these issues at the same time.
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But if we were to creatively bring the people together that were important, like for
instance on the side of, I'm very interested in patronage for the arts.
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When I was in Chicago, I went and got a second graduate degree in history of architecture
and art.
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And my thesis was about patronage in European culture through time and how the Roman
Catholic Church funded the exploration of new.
207
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cathedrals that really had an impact on the time and then during Mussolini's term he had
Tarragni who was this modernist who created a new architecture for Italy.
208
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But anyway, I think that a lot of times we don't understand the value that patrons have on
the creative process and we can't just take their money and ignore them.
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We actually have to hear them and we have to help them understand
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And there's a leadership process that needs to be done.
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And like I said, if we go back to this issue of us as the creative genius, if you're the
creative genius, you don't really have an interest in explaining yourself to others.
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Yeah, I often say that we need to not focus on the performance, but focus on the process,
meaning
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Most times, and again, my world predominantly is with public officials and trying to
explain to them the value that the arts bring beyond the performance.
214
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But really, most institutions that I've engaged with, when they think about engaging their
public official or community stakeholder, they bring them to the opening of
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their big fall concert, they bring them to the yearly black tie ball gala.
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What we're showing is perfection.
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We're showing something that has taken thousands of hours of honing a craft to perfect and
put on a show.
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You don't see the lighting techs or the sewers or the stage engineers or
219
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You don't see all the manufacturing that happens behind the scenes, and you don't see the
transformational process that happens day in and day out by individuals who are
220
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participating in that, whether they're a professional creative artist or you are bringing
in schools and having them engage in workshops.
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So I often encourage, go ahead.
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I think that there's a reason why that we do that though.
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Why?
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I think we're trying to control the creative process and we don't want them to really see
it.
225
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And if you bring them in, they're going to ask questions about why you're sewing it that
way.
226
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Why are you doing it this way?
227
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So interestingly, we are the creatives and we are the problem solvers, but we don't like
it very much when people come in and question our ways, right?
228
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So as an architect, the biggest insult
229
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is when you're presenting an idea to a client and they dismiss it and suggest their own
idea.
230
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And you've just spent three months coming up with this concept.
231
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And when I was a young architect, I used to be super offended by that.
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As a more mature architect, think...
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What am I missing, right?
234
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What are they bringing to the table?
235
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What perspective is it that they're thinking about that's not informing the design?
236
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Because otherwise they would really be fond of what we're sharing with them.
237
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Or are we not communicating it in a way that the design does include what they want,
right?
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And I think we don't really often, we don't want them.
239
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like I'm a big volunteer at the national level for the American Institute of Architects,
and I often ask the staff at the national level to stop doing it so well.
240
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And they say, what are you talking about?
241
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Well, we're going to do a program that's trying to engage young architects, and we want to
have a reception.
242
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Why are you just going off and doing the reception instead of coming up with a concept for
this reception and then discussing it with us?
243
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Stop showing us the cake that's already made.
244
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Well, you don't want to worry about those things.
245
00:25:07,631 --> 00:25:13,972
Yeah, we do actually, because we need to be collaborating because your perspective is
singular.
246
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Our perspective is also singular and there are other perspectives.
247
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We need to create a forum for all of that discussion to occur.
248
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That actually enriches the creative process, although it makes us as creatives very
vulnerable.
249
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Because we're exposing the sausage and
250
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people might say, why did you make that choice?
251
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Right?
252
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So I think that's a little bit of an issue.
253
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So interesting because I had a client one time that I suggested that they show the mess
behind the art.
254
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And I was told I was work.
255
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Yep.
256
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it's like, okay, yes, I am work.
257
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It is work.
258
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So way back in the day, I worked for an architect named Lucien Lagrange.
259
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He was a French guy.
260
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He had been a partner at Skidmore, Owens & Merrill in Chicago and went off on his own
because he wanted to have his own design leadership.
261
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He was a classicist.
262
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And he had a presentation room in our office that was about 20 by...
263
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20 by 30, and all of the walls were homosoic painted white.
264
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And there was a big table in the center of the room, and at every presentation, we would
bring every drawing we had ever done and put it up on the wall.
265
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And as young architects, were like, Lucien, why do we need to do this?
266
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Like, that's an old idea.
267
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We've progressed past that.
268
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We now have a completely different elevation that we're showing, and the plan's very
different.
269
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Why do we need to show this?
270
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And he says, we need to show them the journey we've been on.
271
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We need to show them the work we've done.
272
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They need to understand how far we've come.
273
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We understand how far we've come.
274
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they've forgotten.
275
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we need to, they might actually say, wait, back here, that was better.
276
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There was something back there that seemed to be better.
277
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That's a really interesting way to approach it.
278
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To have enough respect for the people who are paying you to do the work, to help them
understand the journey you're on.
279
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And it wasn't overt.
280
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We didn't sit there and say, look at all the work we've done, but it was very, very
recognizable.
281
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we had done all of this work.
282
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And I can guarantee you on every project I worked with him on, we would go back and recoup
some of the ideas from previous concepts.
283
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We would always pull things forward that we had left go.
284
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There was something that was missing.
285
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We felt like it didn't have the same kind of spark and we'd go back and pick those things
out.
286
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So I think that's a big, I mean, let's just talk about that with the arts community.
287
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If we just expose,
288
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ourselves and make ourselves vulnerable, we actually might build empathy for what we do.
289
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And that actually might drive funding.
290
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Yeah, I agree.
291
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it's, it's, it sounded a little spiritual, if you will.
292
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I was reading a reflection recently that talked about quit, quit putting down who you once
were because who you were helped you be who you are today.
293
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Yep.
294
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And it's a very similar thing that you just described, which is we have to all go through
that process.
295
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But I agree.
296
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think part of too how you're describing it, why do the arts have this elitism reputation?
297
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And that as I was told by a legislative leader, the arts are for rich white old people.
298
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They don't need our help.
299
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And so.
300
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When I became an architect, I'm from this little working class family in Appalachia, Ohio.
301
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And I have a personality that's unique in architecture.
302
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I'm very outgoing and gregarious.
303
00:29:10,528 --> 00:29:17,821
I have been known to swear and I've been known to be very direct and say things that kind
of ruffle the feathers.
304
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In fact, my first boss told me I was the only person who could insult the client and
within three minutes explain it.
305
00:29:24,594 --> 00:29:28,698
But the reason I'm
306
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I have always been like that is I feel like we get more success as creatives if we're
307
00:29:38,808 --> 00:29:40,699
more honest, right?
308
00:29:40,699 --> 00:29:45,923
And I've never really felt like I needed to pretend to be something that I'm not.
309
00:29:46,224 --> 00:29:57,083
I would feel really uncomfortable in my first few years as a professional because, I mean,
if you come from a working class family, you don't even know what a pinpoint Oxford shirt
310
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is.
311
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You do not know how to wear a suit.
312
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You don't understand.
313
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how to eat at a restaurant.
314
00:30:07,188 --> 00:30:09,569
I mean, I'm not kidding.
315
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You don't learn these things.
316
00:30:12,470 --> 00:30:20,044
And so I would look at some of my peers and they were really, really...
317
00:30:20,044 --> 00:30:25,118
working hard to be polished and I would be just like, I don't know, what's this fork for?
318
00:30:25,374 --> 00:30:27,861
I wanted to be vulnerable.
319
00:30:27,861 --> 00:30:31,524
I wanted people to realize that I was not that.
320
00:30:31,524 --> 00:30:45,816
I was a unique person and to this day I'm still, you know, I mean the irony is I've always
been kind of a uppity person anyway so it wasn't hard for me to be a snob but.
321
00:30:48,246 --> 00:30:50,431
I mean, it's at least as truthful.
322
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true that, you are not a snob.
323
00:30:54,744 --> 00:31:06,292
But let's talk a little bit about the intersection of architecture and art and the role
that that plays in building vibrant communities.
324
00:31:06,292 --> 00:31:14,997
And then second part, so I want to hear your thoughts on that intersection and how we
build vibrant communities and place making.
325
00:31:15,078 --> 00:31:22,523
And then what advice do you have to arts leaders in thinking about collaborating?
326
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with architecture, urban planners, things like that to help that process.
327
00:31:30,562 --> 00:31:35,924
Yes, so this is like my life's pursuit, this question, both of them.
328
00:31:35,924 --> 00:31:50,468
feel like where I, yeah, I mean, I really feel like where I've been is in the space of
helping try to justify the impact of architecture on communities and also help people
329
00:31:50,468 --> 00:31:54,989
recognize the importance of our viewpoint at the table.
330
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And...
331
00:31:58,306 --> 00:32:05,609
I think that we've been really proud to become implementers because we're fixated on the
building.
332
00:32:05,609 --> 00:32:10,931
And when you're really interested in the building alone, you become a person who is an
implementer.
333
00:32:11,131 --> 00:32:17,073
But actually, architects offer a really creative approach to...
334
00:32:18,496 --> 00:32:20,987
strategic vision.
335
00:32:20,987 --> 00:32:33,433
So if you take a developer who's a person who's taking the money and establishing the idea
for a building and you take the architect who's perceived as the creative implementer,
336
00:32:33,433 --> 00:32:35,974
there's a handoff that occurs.
337
00:32:36,695 --> 00:32:40,756
And I've actually always been super offended by that.
338
00:32:40,897 --> 00:32:41,317
why?
339
00:32:41,317 --> 00:32:42,237
No, no, no, no.
340
00:32:42,237 --> 00:32:48,440
We want to participate in the strategy and we want you to inform the creative process by
341
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:50,421
being collaborative through.
342
00:32:50,601 --> 00:32:59,745
And so I think that the intersection occurs at us recognizing the individual value that
each person brings to the table.
343
00:32:59,745 --> 00:33:01,705
you know, go back to...
344
00:33:02,626 --> 00:33:05,478
Michelangelo and others doing St.
345
00:33:05,478 --> 00:33:06,348
Peter's.
346
00:33:06,348 --> 00:33:12,632
I can guarantee you there wasn't a committee that planned it out and conceived it in the
Roman Catholic Church.
347
00:33:12,632 --> 00:33:16,874
And then there was another committee that was over here establishing planning.
348
00:33:17,155 --> 00:33:19,496
And then there was an implementation committee.
349
00:33:19,496 --> 00:33:22,878
These people worked for years together.
350
00:33:23,299 --> 00:33:27,321
You can just look at the renovation that just occurred in Paris.
351
00:33:29,158 --> 00:33:30,479
Notre Dame.
352
00:33:30,479 --> 00:33:35,761
I watched a special on CBS about it and it was amazing the collaborative process that
occurred.
353
00:33:35,761 --> 00:33:45,666
The artists were working with the artisans at the same time as the architects, the
structural engineers, the fabricators, the makers, the builders.
354
00:33:45,666 --> 00:33:47,587
All of them had to do it all at the same time.
355
00:33:47,587 --> 00:33:56,231
They were all informing each other and it is clearly a stunning result in record time and
it's because of that collaboration.
356
00:33:56,231 --> 00:33:59,132
So I feel like the intersection occurs
357
00:33:59,132 --> 00:34:02,664
when we recognize the value in each of those areas.
358
00:34:02,664 --> 00:34:11,560
And so as an architect, we need to step forward and ask questions about the initial
conceptual strategy.
359
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:13,702
We need to understand the business plan.
360
00:34:13,702 --> 00:34:15,053
We need to understand why.
361
00:34:15,053 --> 00:34:17,344
Why are you doing this building, right?
362
00:34:17,544 --> 00:34:25,890
Then in the public realm, we will be asked to be involved with projects, excuse me, on
commissions.
363
00:34:25,890 --> 00:34:29,264
We will be asked to sit on the downtown
364
00:34:29,264 --> 00:34:44,032
planning strategy for business leaders because we will understand it not just from a
standpoint of implementation, but we'll understand the entire cycle from including the
365
00:34:44,032 --> 00:34:54,778
money, including the process of making, understand why we need to go through a process of
getting funding in the public realm.
366
00:34:57,024 --> 00:35:05,868
approved in certain ways, explained to the government, decision makers why the funding
needs to be at the level that it is.
367
00:35:05,868 --> 00:35:11,777
But right now, we're being represented by people who are not us at that table.
368
00:35:14,632 --> 00:35:16,628
or don't understand the process.
369
00:35:16,752 --> 00:35:20,915
Or don't understand fully, don't understand the process.
370
00:35:22,156 --> 00:35:31,384
So I think actually my opinion about a lot of this is it's sort of a dilemma.
371
00:35:31,604 --> 00:35:36,248
Because specialty breeds a lack of creativity.
372
00:35:37,349 --> 00:35:42,853
So if you look at an artist or an architect or a musician as a specialist,
373
00:35:44,622 --> 00:35:48,963
and they know something, you're putting them in a box again.
374
00:35:48,963 --> 00:35:50,924
You're saying this is what you know.
375
00:35:52,544 --> 00:35:56,045
I just had this conversation with a good friend of mine about painting.
376
00:35:56,765 --> 00:36:03,557
We paint together and she's really good at interiors, like painting interior scenes.
377
00:36:03,557 --> 00:36:06,508
And I'm like, why don't you just do that?
378
00:36:06,508 --> 00:36:10,899
like, that's, I want to explore.
379
00:36:10,899 --> 00:36:13,710
I mean, my idea of art is exploring.
380
00:36:14,542 --> 00:36:25,482
So what you're talking about is something that maybe has commercial appeal or is something
we're known for.
381
00:36:25,782 --> 00:36:32,142
But I think it's, we seek that because it's really hard for us to understand complexity.
382
00:36:33,222 --> 00:36:35,282
I mean, it's why we have language, right?
383
00:36:35,282 --> 00:36:41,122
There are letters, the letters go together to make words, the words go together to make
sentences.
384
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:48,939
all of the complexity gets like simplified and there's definition and meaning to words.
385
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:52,324
So when we're thinking about the arts, we do the same thing.
386
00:36:53,326 --> 00:36:56,309
When I say Maya Lin, what do you think of?
387
00:36:57,866 --> 00:37:00,046
Why are you putting me on the spot?
388
00:37:02,186 --> 00:37:04,606
That's why you're, I knew I knew that name.
389
00:37:04,606 --> 00:37:05,626
Thank you.
390
00:37:05,626 --> 00:37:06,206
Yes.
391
00:37:06,206 --> 00:37:07,401
Yes, I do.
392
00:37:07,401 --> 00:37:10,664
Veterans Memorial.
393
00:37:10,664 --> 00:37:17,189
Do we realize how limiting that is in terms of her as a creative to think about that?
394
00:37:18,031 --> 00:37:25,057
Like I saw a singer, a songwriter and a singer and.
395
00:37:26,030 --> 00:37:28,630
they were singing like they were from the 70s.
396
00:37:28,630 --> 00:37:29,290
can't remember who it was.
397
00:37:29,290 --> 00:37:31,830
And they were singing the same old song they used that everyone loved.
398
00:37:31,830 --> 00:37:39,110
And I'm thinking, can you imagine being on the 50th year of singing the same damn song
every concert?
399
00:37:39,270 --> 00:37:44,550
Like that's not what we should be valuing in that artist.
400
00:37:45,930 --> 00:37:50,130
We should value their viewpoint of how they're.
401
00:37:50,378 --> 00:38:02,083
analyzing society and looking at problems and using music as a way to help us, I don't
know, escape, understand, transform, whatever it is they're seeking to do.
402
00:38:02,083 --> 00:38:06,065
you don't think that subconsciously we do value that?
403
00:38:06,345 --> 00:38:20,033
That that's why we go to that concert to hear the song for the 50th time, because it puts
us in a state of escapism or nostalgia, et cetera.
404
00:38:20,247 --> 00:38:27,131
So that's why those artists will do them and they continue to do them, but they often are
introducing new music at the same time, right?
405
00:38:27,131 --> 00:38:29,092
So that's the go-between.
406
00:38:32,526 --> 00:38:43,286
So I think you need to create a body of work and understand why your work is in a certain,
you know, for me, I'm, know, 80 % of my work is adapting existing buildings.
407
00:38:43,486 --> 00:38:49,706
So yeah, I do ground up buildings, but most of the work I do is in response to some
context.
408
00:38:49,706 --> 00:39:00,806
And what I'm trying to do is take the bones of a building that was meant for warehousing
or some,
409
00:39:01,376 --> 00:39:09,812
industrial process potentially and translate that into something that can support housing
or office work in the 21st century.
410
00:39:10,293 --> 00:39:23,514
So that's what I have in terms of a gift is the ability to look at existing buildings and
figure out how they can be repurposed in a way that makes them relevant.
411
00:39:23,514 --> 00:39:27,047
so yeah, go ahead.
412
00:39:28,799 --> 00:39:49,210
Did you have a, hearing you reflect is making me wonder if you had an event in your life
that happened that formed or reshaped your perspective on your purpose.
413
00:39:50,146 --> 00:39:51,048
Yes.
414
00:39:52,399 --> 00:39:53,843
I can point to it.
415
00:39:54,974 --> 00:39:56,904
Would you like to share it?
416
00:39:56,974 --> 00:40:02,314
Yeah, the great recession of 2008 through 11.
417
00:40:03,434 --> 00:40:04,114
Yep.
418
00:40:04,434 --> 00:40:07,014
So I was flying high, Mr.
419
00:40:07,274 --> 00:40:14,354
Fancy Pants, young entrepreneur, taken over a firm, younger than most people do.
420
00:40:16,834 --> 00:40:21,077
By any measure, people would view it as a great success.
421
00:40:21,778 --> 00:40:26,121
when the economic forces changed, the needs changed.
422
00:40:26,121 --> 00:40:31,385
And what I held, what I valued, wasn't important anymore.
423
00:40:31,445 --> 00:40:34,407
And I found myself completely out of sync.
424
00:40:35,649 --> 00:40:39,351
And I was holding on to way too much.
425
00:40:39,832 --> 00:40:42,533
I was trying to be everything to all.
426
00:40:42,926 --> 00:40:47,109
because I was trying to live up to this idea of what I thought I was supposed to be.
427
00:40:47,250 --> 00:41:03,524
So when the economy tanked and we had to really consider what we are, I really decided I'm
just gonna go with my heart and actually be less desperate and more intentional about the
428
00:41:03,524 --> 00:41:04,845
work that I do.
429
00:41:06,147 --> 00:41:09,269
So, and just recognize that
430
00:41:10,464 --> 00:41:15,775
I cannot just keep doing things to pursue money.
431
00:41:16,094 --> 00:41:24,398
I needed to do things to pursue a wholeness because everything I'd done before didn't work
out, right?
432
00:41:24,398 --> 00:41:37,642
So when you have failure at the level that I did as a professional in a mid-career point
and you felt really confident about what you had done previously, you recognize how
433
00:41:39,874 --> 00:41:52,521
You can try to serve all the masters you can, but things change and you can lose your, you
know, I have a friend there, their firm was selected as the National Architecture Firm of
434
00:41:52,521 --> 00:42:00,745
the year a few years ago and he said to me over coffee recently, you know, I feel like
when that happened, we became sort of the,
435
00:42:01,944 --> 00:42:07,878
bell of the ball, know, like everybody wants to dance with us, but I know that that dance
isn't going to last forever.
436
00:42:07,919 --> 00:42:17,707
So I'm really just focusing in on what really is important to me and my colleagues that we
can, we can endure.
437
00:42:18,207 --> 00:42:26,394
And I think that those kinds of, for me, it was like, it wasn't a moment, it was a period.
438
00:42:27,630 --> 00:42:29,241
It was a period.
439
00:42:29,241 --> 00:42:35,455
it had to do with when it hit me in terms of my maturity as a professional.
440
00:42:35,496 --> 00:42:41,640
And it forced me to rethink what I wanted to do and become much more purposeful.
441
00:42:42,681 --> 00:42:46,924
And interestingly, since then, the firm's been way more successful.
442
00:42:47,805 --> 00:42:49,446
Way more successful.
443
00:42:50,473 --> 00:43:04,503
which says a lot because it goes back to what I hear is be transparent, authentic,
vulnerable, collaborative, true to oneself.
444
00:43:05,986 --> 00:43:06,826
So.
445
00:43:06,913 --> 00:43:09,358
And kind of get over yourself a bit.
446
00:43:10,042 --> 00:43:11,745
That's the biggest lesson.
447
00:43:12,875 --> 00:43:14,255
Yeah.
448
00:43:14,255 --> 00:43:20,455
So we are at the time that, and this is perfect because I, I've been toying with this
idea.
449
00:43:20,575 --> 00:43:27,455
So when I started this podcast, I wanted to conclude every conversation asking everybody
the same question.
450
00:43:28,575 --> 00:43:32,475
And I came up with what I thought was, oh, you know, nice.
451
00:43:32,475 --> 00:43:33,755
Oh, so kind of take it on.
452
00:43:33,755 --> 00:43:37,435
Do you remember James Lipton who had the inside the actor's studio?
453
00:43:37,435 --> 00:43:39,655
Did you ever see that on?
454
00:43:39,655 --> 00:43:40,395
Yeah.
455
00:43:40,395 --> 00:43:42,415
And so he would ask.
456
00:43:42,561 --> 00:43:47,903
the actors that came in the same five questions at the end of every, which was great.
457
00:43:48,423 --> 00:43:51,785
And so I was kind of going along those lines.
458
00:43:51,785 --> 00:43:54,766
So I started asking, you what's your favorite color?
459
00:43:55,947 --> 00:44:00,408
And it's nice, you know, really at the end of the day, thought, it'd be great.
460
00:44:00,408 --> 00:44:07,751
Like Crayola would want to sponsor that segment of the podcast of, you know, or like Blick
art or whatever it is, right?
461
00:44:09,289 --> 00:44:10,220
Totally.
462
00:44:10,220 --> 00:44:22,380
But as I've gone through this journey, I really want it to be more meaningful, or I feel
more content now in my life than I ever have.
463
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:34,820
And it's not about money, it's not about wherever even I thought I would be, but I feel
like it's all because I'm solely focused on giving.
464
00:44:35,574 --> 00:44:41,189
creatives who feel that they don't have a voice, voice and give or giving them a platform.
465
00:44:41,870 --> 00:44:49,937
And I had a art gallery, which I know you know, which is completely left field out of my
background, which is politics and journalism.
466
00:44:49,937 --> 00:44:54,941
But that whole calling was I really loved giving artists a platform to show their work.
467
00:44:55,102 --> 00:45:02,067
And I just view what I do now is how can I continue to expand that platform to highlight
468
00:45:02,584 --> 00:45:07,938
how foundational and essential creatives are in our society.
469
00:45:07,938 --> 00:45:11,081
Anyway, long story short, you know me.
470
00:45:11,081 --> 00:45:24,851
So to get back to James Lipton, because I always do loop it around, he would ask at the
end, when you die, and should you enter the pearly gates, what would you, what's the one
471
00:45:24,851 --> 00:45:27,593
thing that you would like to hear?
472
00:45:27,874 --> 00:45:29,174
And,
473
00:45:29,228 --> 00:45:36,385
believe it or not, I was reminded of this on Christmas Eve mass, the priest that was part
of his homily.
474
00:45:37,126 --> 00:45:40,954
And he mentioned Steven Spielberg's answer.
475
00:45:40,954 --> 00:45:44,875
I mean, it was just a very weird way that all of these things were connecting.
476
00:45:44,875 --> 00:45:50,580
And apparently Steven Spielberg's response was that he would like to hear, thank you for
listening.
477
00:45:51,489 --> 00:45:53,890
which I thought was very interesting.
478
00:45:53,930 --> 00:46:05,976
So I took that homily as a sign that maybe I need to shift away from what your favorite
color to say when you die and if you should enter the pearly gates of heaven, what would
479
00:46:05,976 --> 00:46:06,917
you like to hear?
480
00:46:06,917 --> 00:46:15,417
So Tim, you're my first that I'm asking and I won't trust me get that long winded when I
ask this to everybody else going forward.
481
00:46:15,417 --> 00:46:17,029
everyone else to know, yeah.
482
00:46:17,599 --> 00:46:25,390
So Tim, when you pass and should you enter the pearly gates, I'll come up with my own way
of asking this question, by the way.
483
00:46:25,390 --> 00:46:27,674
I haven't quite got there yet, but you get it.
484
00:46:27,674 --> 00:46:29,255
What do you hope to hear?
485
00:46:30,914 --> 00:46:32,352
He loved people.
486
00:46:37,079 --> 00:46:39,771
That's what I want to hear.
487
00:46:39,951 --> 00:46:42,693
Boy, you really showed a lot of love to people.
488
00:46:43,254 --> 00:46:44,986
You gave of yourself.
489
00:46:44,986 --> 00:46:54,883
you used your talents and your intentionality to actually help people.
490
00:46:55,364 --> 00:46:57,646
And that is an act of love.
491
00:46:58,892 --> 00:47:01,258
And that's what we're all called to do, right?
492
00:47:03,528 --> 00:47:07,842
to me if you're super spiritual is you know God working through you.
493
00:47:09,003 --> 00:47:12,066
So yeah that's it.
494
00:47:12,707 --> 00:47:14,988
I want people to say he loved people.
495
00:47:16,510 --> 00:47:19,713
Now if you really know me you kind of chuckle at that but...
496
00:47:20,577 --> 00:47:21,869
Ha ha ha ha!
497
00:47:23,032 --> 00:47:24,034
But yeah, that's it.
498
00:47:24,034 --> 00:47:24,981
That's it.
499
00:47:24,981 --> 00:47:27,344
Yeah, well, I think it's fitting.
500
00:47:27,386 --> 00:47:30,662
So thank you for joining me for this conversation.
501
00:47:30,662 --> 00:47:32,496
I really appreciate it.
502
00:47:32,496 --> 00:47:32,907
Yeah.
503
00:47:32,907 --> 00:47:36,269
really great about this, Angela, is you've made me think today.
504
00:47:37,130 --> 00:47:39,912
So I can go away enriched by this.
505
00:47:40,193 --> 00:47:41,734
And that's really great.
506
00:47:41,734 --> 00:47:44,305
So you're showing me your love.
507
00:47:44,305 --> 00:47:47,357
mean, that's actually how, that's what you're doing, right?
508
00:47:47,357 --> 00:47:48,758
You're lifting all of us up.
509
00:47:48,758 --> 00:47:52,341
You're giving all of us creative as a platform and it's so valuable.
510
00:47:52,341 --> 00:47:54,102
So thank you for what you're doing.
511
00:47:54,167 --> 00:47:55,959
Well, that means the world to me.
512
00:47:55,959 --> 00:48:10,037
And especially coming from you to say that I made you think, that's a huge compliment
because I've always been so in awe and respect your thoughts and your wisdom.
513
00:48:10,037 --> 00:48:13,180
So I appreciate you.
514
00:48:13,622 --> 00:48:15,616
Alright, thanks.
515
00:48:15,616 --> 00:48:16,340
you.
00:00:01,491 --> 00:00:02,726
Hi, Tim.
2
00:00:03,384 --> 00:00:05,644
Hi Angela, thanks for having me today.
3
00:00:05,644 --> 00:00:07,109
I'm good, I'm very good.
4
00:00:07,109 --> 00:00:10,609
Good, I'm so excited to talk with you.
5
00:00:11,470 --> 00:00:15,050
So as usual, I just dive right into the conversation.
6
00:00:15,931 --> 00:00:32,695
What is one of the biggest misconceptions that you face as an architect as it pertains to
the importance of creativity, creative thinking, or even your profession?
7
00:00:33,602 --> 00:00:45,934
I think that people often put us in a box as creatives and they think of us as somewhat
one dimensional and they think that we only use the creative side of our brain.
8
00:00:46,075 --> 00:00:57,365
And the reality is, I think that a lot of creatives are informed by logic and rational
thinking and...
9
00:00:58,136 --> 00:01:01,629
they don't trust our judgment or our viewpoint on that side.
10
00:01:01,930 --> 00:01:04,632
They look at us as like, you're the creative people.
11
00:01:04,632 --> 00:01:07,715
I'm going to get the banker over here to figure this out.
12
00:01:07,715 --> 00:01:15,072
Or I'm going to get somebody who has knowledge in those specialty areas to help supplement
what you do.
13
00:01:15,072 --> 00:01:19,345
And the reality is, I think as creatives, we're the people who are.
14
00:01:19,928 --> 00:01:24,482
imaginative about those the other side of the brain.
15
00:01:24,682 --> 00:01:27,044
And I think that people will just put us in a box.
16
00:01:27,044 --> 00:01:36,092
So I always feel like we're kind of like running uphill to try to prove that what we're
suggesting is accurate.
17
00:01:36,373 --> 00:01:42,758
And at the end of the day, the other people often catch up with us.
18
00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:45,800
But it takes some time.
19
00:01:46,197 --> 00:01:52,279
Well, it's interesting to hear you describe that because when I think of one dimensional
thinking, I think of a banker.
20
00:01:52,279 --> 00:01:54,399
No, sorry to any.
21
00:01:54,399 --> 00:02:00,821
Well, we don't have, I wouldn't suspect that our audience listeners or bankers are, you
we're talking to creatives.
22
00:02:01,661 --> 00:02:14,445
So for me, it's the creative notion or what you bring is multi-dimensional because you see
things multi-dimensionally, correct?
23
00:02:14,735 --> 00:02:18,936
yeah, I think that we are able to connect disparate issues.
24
00:02:18,956 --> 00:02:25,669
So we're able to expand the conversation and have a broader discussion.
25
00:02:25,669 --> 00:02:32,362
So we don't just think about it in terms of the established rules or protocols that are in
place or conventions.
26
00:02:32,362 --> 00:02:38,665
We look at it from a standpoint of what could be, what's the potential here?
27
00:02:38,665 --> 00:02:41,906
And that kind of creative thinking.
28
00:02:43,571 --> 00:02:46,512
is not good if you're interested in expediency.
29
00:02:46,512 --> 00:02:56,816
It's not good if you're interested in repetition and efficiency, which actually our
society has unfortunately prioritized.
30
00:02:56,837 --> 00:02:59,778
So I often...
31
00:03:01,528 --> 00:03:08,861
You know, I teach as well as being an architect and I'll have students who really take
pride in how detailed they are.
32
00:03:09,302 --> 00:03:12,363
They like say, I'm just really detailed.
33
00:03:12,364 --> 00:03:15,505
And I think, why are you so proud of that?
34
00:03:17,106 --> 00:03:19,787
Precision is what you build to.
35
00:03:20,528 --> 00:03:25,190
I would be really proud of me having the ability to think broadly.
36
00:03:25,494 --> 00:03:30,395
or I'd be really proud of someone who can introduce new concepts.
37
00:03:30,455 --> 00:03:35,096
That's true innovation, when you can actually bring new discussion to the table.
38
00:03:35,114 --> 00:03:39,798
I think the way we do it is we connect to a broader context.
39
00:03:40,278 --> 00:03:44,739
I once had a professor who taught me this lesson, and I've never forgotten it.
40
00:03:44,739 --> 00:03:49,681
Every time you have a problem that you need to solve, you need to step out.
41
00:03:49,681 --> 00:03:55,374
So if you're looking at and trying to design a
42
00:03:56,770 --> 00:04:00,754
setting for a table, you need to think about the table.
43
00:04:00,754 --> 00:04:04,198
If you're trying to design the table, you need to think about the room.
44
00:04:04,198 --> 00:04:06,911
If you're designing the room, you need to think about the building.
45
00:04:06,911 --> 00:04:09,854
If you're designing the building, you need to think about the neighborhood.
46
00:04:09,854 --> 00:04:13,827
If you're thinking about the neighborhood, you need to think about the city and blah blah
blah, right?
47
00:04:13,868 --> 00:04:19,914
And so as creatives, we're always looking at things in relationship to a brighter context.
48
00:04:21,086 --> 00:04:26,089
So I have, as always, when I talk with you, my mind is pinging everywhere.
49
00:04:26,089 --> 00:04:44,518
So one thing that I say is we live in stagnation as creatives or the creative sector,
meaning we're on, and now I'm primarily talking about funding, investment, understanding,
50
00:04:44,518 --> 00:04:45,128
support.
51
00:04:45,128 --> 00:04:48,600
I also say that the arts need to come out of the closet.
52
00:04:48,961 --> 00:04:50,186
When you talk about
53
00:04:50,186 --> 00:04:53,810
putting, we're put in a box.
54
00:04:54,352 --> 00:05:00,950
How much do you think we put ourselves in a box as well as we're put in the box?
55
00:05:00,950 --> 00:05:03,884
Maybe we're put in the box because we put ourselves in that box.
56
00:05:03,884 --> 00:05:08,069
You're nodding so clearly you understand where I'm trying to go with this.
57
00:05:08,487 --> 00:05:11,008
Yes, that's the total issue.
58
00:05:11,969 --> 00:05:17,812
So let's back up and say, you know, why did we end up pursuing a career in something this
creative?
59
00:05:17,813 --> 00:05:21,284
So we all are introduced to many different things in our lives.
60
00:05:21,284 --> 00:05:27,577
We have math, we all take math, we all take English, we all take history, we all take
science.
61
00:05:27,598 --> 00:05:35,734
And when we select the creative process, for some reason, we...
62
00:05:35,734 --> 00:05:44,821
tend to sharpen our skills related to artistic endeavors.
63
00:05:44,821 --> 00:05:57,681
that would be, you know, thinking, like I just said, thinking broadly, beginning to think
of new things, evaluating and researching what's happened in the past in the creative
64
00:05:57,681 --> 00:05:58,591
sector.
65
00:06:02,434 --> 00:06:12,201
We actually do not practice our skills related to analysis and proof.
66
00:06:12,201 --> 00:06:17,365
And the other thing is we're taught to believe in individual genius.
67
00:06:17,365 --> 00:06:24,109
So as a creative, we really appreciate those people who are...
68
00:06:26,178 --> 00:06:29,661
the individual genius, right?
69
00:06:29,661 --> 00:06:44,332
So the Einstein, the artist, the Picasso, the Frank Gehry, the people who are actually
bringing their own unique talent to the table and moving the dime.
70
00:06:44,332 --> 00:06:51,438
So if we believe in individual genius, we don't realize we have to prove our
recommendations to people.
71
00:06:52,190 --> 00:06:53,375
Explain that.
72
00:06:53,794 --> 00:07:02,038
So we live in a society, so if we want to be valued, we have to explain what we do to
other people because they don't understand.
73
00:07:02,258 --> 00:07:09,662
So what we do is we create things and we present them as art, as music, as architecture.
74
00:07:09,662 --> 00:07:14,023
And we expect everybody to just accept it because we are the creatives.
75
00:07:14,644 --> 00:07:19,246
But the reality is we actually have some work to do.
76
00:07:19,606 --> 00:07:23,769
to help people understand why what we're suggesting is worthy.
77
00:07:23,929 --> 00:07:34,958
And if you are really talented, you're brought in through a culture in your training that
you don't feel like you need to justify things, right?
78
00:07:34,978 --> 00:07:35,808
Yeah.
79
00:07:35,809 --> 00:07:47,682
So tell me then when I think about the arts need to come out of the closet, I, you know, I
spend all day long talking, thinking, believing in advocacy.
80
00:07:48,344 --> 00:07:55,511
But I find that a lot of times our sector creatives talk to creatives about.
81
00:07:56,216 --> 00:08:12,615
they don't understand, nobody understands, meaning how can we better cross collaborate
with other industries or punch out of the box so we are having conversations with.
82
00:08:12,822 --> 00:08:14,093
other business leaders.
83
00:08:14,093 --> 00:08:18,694
A thought has come to mind quickly that I'll explain and then I want your response.
84
00:08:18,715 --> 00:08:27,809
Speaking with a woman about a month ago who owns a performing arts company in Atlanta, and
it's a for-profit, but she runs it.
85
00:08:27,809 --> 00:08:32,320
Her mission isn't that all of her students are going to end up on Broadway.
86
00:08:32,421 --> 00:08:42,705
Her mission is that they're learning valuable transferable skills that one day will make
them well-rounded human beings that they can contribute in any field that they go into.
87
00:08:42,748 --> 00:08:49,599
but she goes to her local business chamber luncheon and they go around the table and say,
you what do you do?
88
00:08:49,599 --> 00:08:58,361
And she brings up this performing arts business and it's this, you know, invisible kind of
pat on the head like, well, isn't that nice?
89
00:08:58,361 --> 00:09:09,303
And then these then these other business leaders proceed to talk about how there's their
employees lack communication skills and they lack collaborative skills and they lack being
90
00:09:09,303 --> 00:09:10,483
creative.
91
00:09:11,623 --> 00:09:12,423
I'm
92
00:09:12,424 --> 00:09:27,811
I want to define a new vocabulary to which we can better communicate that that is what we,
that is our foundation, are all of those skills that are lacking in other industries.
93
00:09:28,770 --> 00:09:37,340
Yeah, so when we propose on a project, I've been working really hard to communicate with
more detail exactly what we're going to do.
94
00:09:37,340 --> 00:09:44,718
Because we presume that it's not important to them how we get to the end, but just that
we're going to design a building for them.
95
00:09:44,718 --> 00:09:49,392
And we're not going to need to explain to them all of the things that we do.
96
00:09:50,998 --> 00:09:56,162
If you don't explain the complexity of what you're doing to people, they will not value
it.
97
00:09:56,182 --> 00:10:09,654
But if you actually help them understand the complexity that is required in order to be
creative and come up with creative solutions, I think that people will have more empathy.
98
00:10:09,654 --> 00:10:19,541
Additionally, I think we do this to ourselves because we, you know, the other side of the
coin here is that we lack empathy for their opinion.
99
00:10:21,754 --> 00:10:22,698
yeah.
100
00:10:23,446 --> 00:10:42,274
So because we find creative solutions to be so valuable and we really respect the
recommendations of other creatives, we tend to dismiss the people in finance or scheduling
101
00:10:42,274 --> 00:10:50,617
or business leadership that is more analytically based as uninformed
102
00:10:53,496 --> 00:10:54,629
problems.
103
00:10:58,130 --> 00:11:03,413
I actually have had my life checked in this way because I married one of them, right?
104
00:11:03,413 --> 00:11:13,097
So she's this person that's really analytical and I often have to, I often say to people,
I can't believe that I've been married to you for 36 years and I still have to prove
105
00:11:13,097 --> 00:11:15,798
things to you more than I do my clients.
106
00:11:15,798 --> 00:11:21,781
But it's because of who she is and she feels safe and comfortable telling me that I need
to prove these things.
107
00:11:21,781 --> 00:11:27,956
So I think a lot of clients, a lot of people we interact with who provide, let's say
funding for the arts, they don't,
108
00:11:27,956 --> 00:11:31,258
understand the complexities of why it costs so much.
109
00:11:31,359 --> 00:11:43,379
But if you go in and you actually try, if they're trying to fund a project for science, I
can guarantee you this is science proposal is 300 pages long and it's so overwhelming that
110
00:11:43,379 --> 00:11:44,890
they don't understand it.
111
00:11:44,890 --> 00:11:49,793
We just do a two paragraph thing saying we're going to create a piece of art.
112
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Would you like to fund it?
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We don't talk about the impact on people.
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We don't talk about the complexity of how much things cost, why you need to do things in
certain ways, and we don't justify it.
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So I think part of it is because we don't want to live in that space.
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We find that to be mundane.
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We don't really have respect for a lot of those things, and we don't feel we have to
explain it to people.
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But what I think is that society is in such a disarray
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and needs us so much.
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Like you're talking about the colleagues at the business luncheon.
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I was a Rotarian for years and I could not get over how much they valued my opinion
because I was one of the only ones that was bringing problem-solving skills to the table.
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A lot of people just do not have problem-solving skills.
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They're implementers or they are people who analyze.
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They don't connect everything together.
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They don't bring problem-solving skills to the table.
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And as creatives, I think we are the people who doing that, right?
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So think about an artist who's doing a painting.
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So you have an issue with trying to improve the...
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the texture of the paint on the canvas, you're going to experiment in many different ways
and you're going to find creative solutions to get the texture that you feel is important.
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And you're going to try and fail and try and fail and try and fail until you have success.
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And we're very accustomed to that process.
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Others are not.
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So when we explain our process to bring people along, we need to help them understand
we're going to go through failure.
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We're going to fail many times.
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This is a process of prototyping, and we're going to model things.
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And the reason we do this is we want to test it all so that we can reduce the cost
implications for change during construction or whatever.
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So in leading a renaissance of relevance, I am hearing a lot of what you're saying and you
mentioned that you've taught or you teach in higher ed.
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We're seeing more and more these humanities, arts and humanities classes being reduced.
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And you're talking about problem solving, which I agree 100%.
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And I believe that artists creatives are the ultimate entrepreneurs.
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Like that's where that comes from.
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I too teach and I teach at a school where it's an arts management, arts entrepreneurship
program.
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And the only way that they're allowed to use the word entrepreneur is if they have the
word art in front of it.
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the business school says that they own the word entrepreneur.
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Yeah.
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I know.
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So how do we, where's the tipping point if we know this and if we continually see industry
leaders, non-creative sector industry leaders saying we need more innovation.
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at the table, we need more creative solutions.
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Here's another quick fact.
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Local college, Fine Arts College, says that a national bank, one of the top leading banks
in the country, they hire art students because they know that for every...
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three engineers they have in the room that's developing some product for the consumer,
they need a creative at the table to help them figure out how they get it from conception
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to consumer.
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Where are we missing the point or is everything just the bottom line?
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Because you also talk about complexity and every time I hear you say complexity, I think
expensive.
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Yeah.
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But if we don't face that, we end up spending more money fixing problems because all we
were concerned about was a short term, low cost, high return on my investment.
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Do you know what I'm saying?
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There's all of that.
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So I think we tend to think in terms of polar extremes.
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So what we really need here is we need diverse viewpoints to come to the table.
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And we need those diverse viewpoints to have mutual respect and contribute in a way that's
not the Ford process line.
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that's much more about planning and establishing, understanding criteria, all the
parameters, the implications of decisions, and all of that kind of collaboration up front
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will actually help save money.
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So...
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I think that we have, so let's look at the history of the 20th century.
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We actually exploited issues of control.
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So the assembly line was about control, right?
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So how can you be efficient?
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How do you teach somebody to just do this, this, this, this, this, this all day and
perfect that so we can be expedient?
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And we're going to have a creative process over here for the design of a car.
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And then that car is going to be produced by a completely different, excuse me, different
set of people.
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The cars that are really valuable are the ones where there's a collaborative process,
where design and making are done at the same time.
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They become timeless, right?
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So when you look at the valuation on that process that's more collaborative,
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with the viewpoints coming together, you end up with a higher quality product that lasts
for a longer period of time.
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It becomes a classic.
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The same thing is true when you're doing a painting, or the same thing's true when you're
doing and designing a building.
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So if we look at everything in an extreme way, like it's this or that.
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we're going to have a problem.
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So I think what we can do is just sort of take steps to help build awareness about the
complexity.
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We don't have to go in and like make it overwhelming or scare people or make people
believe it's going to be super costly like you suggest.
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the perception would be that it's super costly.
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In fact, would say as an aside, one of the things I struggled with as an architect for
years is people would see our portfolio and be like, well, we can't afford you.
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We can't afford that.
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Why?
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Well, it's just too expensive.
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Like, you know, my firm did the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State, which is
this really great, iconic form on the campus.
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And of course we did it 20 years ago, but we did it for $165 a square foot.
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which is most of the institutional buildings at that time were being done by for 250.
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So why is it less expensive?
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We made choices to not add materials in certain ways.
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We did creative ways to structure it in a way that you needed to be able to use fewer
materials, et cetera.
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So you can save cost through that kind of collaborative thinking.
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And
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I think that because we have this mindset from the 20th century of productivity and speed,
we feel that we have to be expedient.
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The reality is, I think what we should be doing is tackling fewer problems, but in a much
deeper way.
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Because right now we're trying to do all of these problems.
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And there's no focus and we're getting about this much of all of them solved and it's just
becoming worse, right?
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So we have problems with housing.
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We have problems with.
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accessibility in terms of affordability.
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have problems with educational systems that feel like they're not appropriate anymore.
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So you can't attack all these issues at the same time.
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But if we were to creatively bring the people together that were important, like for
instance on the side of, I'm very interested in patronage for the arts.
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When I was in Chicago, I went and got a second graduate degree in history of architecture
and art.
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And my thesis was about patronage in European culture through time and how the Roman
Catholic Church funded the exploration of new.
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cathedrals that really had an impact on the time and then during Mussolini's term he had
Tarragni who was this modernist who created a new architecture for Italy.
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But anyway, I think that a lot of times we don't understand the value that patrons have on
the creative process and we can't just take their money and ignore them.
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We actually have to hear them and we have to help them understand
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And there's a leadership process that needs to be done.
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And like I said, if we go back to this issue of us as the creative genius, if you're the
creative genius, you don't really have an interest in explaining yourself to others.
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Yeah, I often say that we need to not focus on the performance, but focus on the process,
meaning
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Most times, and again, my world predominantly is with public officials and trying to
explain to them the value that the arts bring beyond the performance.
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But really, most institutions that I've engaged with, when they think about engaging their
public official or community stakeholder, they bring them to the opening of
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their big fall concert, they bring them to the yearly black tie ball gala.
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What we're showing is perfection.
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We're showing something that has taken thousands of hours of honing a craft to perfect and
put on a show.
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You don't see the lighting techs or the sewers or the stage engineers or
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You don't see all the manufacturing that happens behind the scenes, and you don't see the
transformational process that happens day in and day out by individuals who are
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participating in that, whether they're a professional creative artist or you are bringing
in schools and having them engage in workshops.
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So I often encourage, go ahead.
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I think that there's a reason why that we do that though.
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Why?
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I think we're trying to control the creative process and we don't want them to really see
it.
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And if you bring them in, they're going to ask questions about why you're sewing it that
way.
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Why are you doing it this way?
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So interestingly, we are the creatives and we are the problem solvers, but we don't like
it very much when people come in and question our ways, right?
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So as an architect, the biggest insult
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is when you're presenting an idea to a client and they dismiss it and suggest their own
idea.
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And you've just spent three months coming up with this concept.
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And when I was a young architect, I used to be super offended by that.
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As a more mature architect, think...
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What am I missing, right?
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What are they bringing to the table?
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What perspective is it that they're thinking about that's not informing the design?
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Because otherwise they would really be fond of what we're sharing with them.
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Or are we not communicating it in a way that the design does include what they want,
right?
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And I think we don't really often, we don't want them.
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like I'm a big volunteer at the national level for the American Institute of Architects,
and I often ask the staff at the national level to stop doing it so well.
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And they say, what are you talking about?
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Well, we're going to do a program that's trying to engage young architects, and we want to
have a reception.
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Why are you just going off and doing the reception instead of coming up with a concept for
this reception and then discussing it with us?
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Stop showing us the cake that's already made.
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Well, you don't want to worry about those things.
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Yeah, we do actually, because we need to be collaborating because your perspective is
singular.
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Our perspective is also singular and there are other perspectives.
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We need to create a forum for all of that discussion to occur.
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That actually enriches the creative process, although it makes us as creatives very
vulnerable.
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Because we're exposing the sausage and
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people might say, why did you make that choice?
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Right?
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So I think that's a little bit of an issue.
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So interesting because I had a client one time that I suggested that they show the mess
behind the art.
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And I was told I was work.
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Yep.
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it's like, okay, yes, I am work.
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It is work.
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So way back in the day, I worked for an architect named Lucien Lagrange.
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He was a French guy.
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He had been a partner at Skidmore, Owens & Merrill in Chicago and went off on his own
because he wanted to have his own design leadership.
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He was a classicist.
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And he had a presentation room in our office that was about 20 by...
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20 by 30, and all of the walls were homosoic painted white.
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And there was a big table in the center of the room, and at every presentation, we would
bring every drawing we had ever done and put it up on the wall.
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And as young architects, were like, Lucien, why do we need to do this?
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Like, that's an old idea.
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We've progressed past that.
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We now have a completely different elevation that we're showing, and the plan's very
different.
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Why do we need to show this?
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And he says, we need to show them the journey we've been on.
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We need to show them the work we've done.
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They need to understand how far we've come.
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We understand how far we've come.
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they've forgotten.
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we need to, they might actually say, wait, back here, that was better.
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There was something back there that seemed to be better.
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That's a really interesting way to approach it.
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To have enough respect for the people who are paying you to do the work, to help them
understand the journey you're on.
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And it wasn't overt.
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We didn't sit there and say, look at all the work we've done, but it was very, very
recognizable.
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we had done all of this work.
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And I can guarantee you on every project I worked with him on, we would go back and recoup
some of the ideas from previous concepts.
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We would always pull things forward that we had left go.
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There was something that was missing.
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We felt like it didn't have the same kind of spark and we'd go back and pick those things
out.
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So I think that's a big, I mean, let's just talk about that with the arts community.
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If we just expose,
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ourselves and make ourselves vulnerable, we actually might build empathy for what we do.
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And that actually might drive funding.
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Yeah, I agree.
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it's, it's, it sounded a little spiritual, if you will.
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I was reading a reflection recently that talked about quit, quit putting down who you once
were because who you were helped you be who you are today.
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Yep.
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And it's a very similar thing that you just described, which is we have to all go through
that process.
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But I agree.
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think part of too how you're describing it, why do the arts have this elitism reputation?
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And that as I was told by a legislative leader, the arts are for rich white old people.
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They don't need our help.
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And so.
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When I became an architect, I'm from this little working class family in Appalachia, Ohio.
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And I have a personality that's unique in architecture.
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I'm very outgoing and gregarious.
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I have been known to swear and I've been known to be very direct and say things that kind
of ruffle the feathers.
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In fact, my first boss told me I was the only person who could insult the client and
within three minutes explain it.
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But the reason I'm
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I have always been like that is I feel like we get more success as creatives if we're
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more honest, right?
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And I've never really felt like I needed to pretend to be something that I'm not.
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I would feel really uncomfortable in my first few years as a professional because, I mean,
if you come from a working class family, you don't even know what a pinpoint Oxford shirt
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is.
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You do not know how to wear a suit.
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You don't understand.
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how to eat at a restaurant.
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I mean, I'm not kidding.
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You don't learn these things.
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And so I would look at some of my peers and they were really, really...
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working hard to be polished and I would be just like, I don't know, what's this fork for?
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I wanted to be vulnerable.
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I wanted people to realize that I was not that.
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I was a unique person and to this day I'm still, you know, I mean the irony is I've always
been kind of a uppity person anyway so it wasn't hard for me to be a snob but.
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I mean, it's at least as truthful.
322
00:30:53,063 --> 00:30:54,744
true that, you are not a snob.
323
00:30:54,744 --> 00:31:06,292
But let's talk a little bit about the intersection of architecture and art and the role
that that plays in building vibrant communities.
324
00:31:06,292 --> 00:31:14,997
And then second part, so I want to hear your thoughts on that intersection and how we
build vibrant communities and place making.
325
00:31:15,078 --> 00:31:22,523
And then what advice do you have to arts leaders in thinking about collaborating?
326
00:31:23,612 --> 00:31:29,262
with architecture, urban planners, things like that to help that process.
327
00:31:30,562 --> 00:31:35,924
Yes, so this is like my life's pursuit, this question, both of them.
328
00:31:35,924 --> 00:31:50,468
feel like where I, yeah, I mean, I really feel like where I've been is in the space of
helping try to justify the impact of architecture on communities and also help people
329
00:31:50,468 --> 00:31:54,989
recognize the importance of our viewpoint at the table.
330
00:31:54,989 --> 00:31:55,829
And...
331
00:31:58,306 --> 00:32:05,609
I think that we've been really proud to become implementers because we're fixated on the
building.
332
00:32:05,609 --> 00:32:10,931
And when you're really interested in the building alone, you become a person who is an
implementer.
333
00:32:11,131 --> 00:32:17,073
But actually, architects offer a really creative approach to...
334
00:32:18,496 --> 00:32:20,987
strategic vision.
335
00:32:20,987 --> 00:32:33,433
So if you take a developer who's a person who's taking the money and establishing the idea
for a building and you take the architect who's perceived as the creative implementer,
336
00:32:33,433 --> 00:32:35,974
there's a handoff that occurs.
337
00:32:36,695 --> 00:32:40,756
And I've actually always been super offended by that.
338
00:32:40,897 --> 00:32:41,317
why?
339
00:32:41,317 --> 00:32:42,237
No, no, no, no.
340
00:32:42,237 --> 00:32:48,440
We want to participate in the strategy and we want you to inform the creative process by
341
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:50,421
being collaborative through.
342
00:32:50,601 --> 00:32:59,745
And so I think that the intersection occurs at us recognizing the individual value that
each person brings to the table.
343
00:32:59,745 --> 00:33:01,705
you know, go back to...
344
00:33:02,626 --> 00:33:05,478
Michelangelo and others doing St.
345
00:33:05,478 --> 00:33:06,348
Peter's.
346
00:33:06,348 --> 00:33:12,632
I can guarantee you there wasn't a committee that planned it out and conceived it in the
Roman Catholic Church.
347
00:33:12,632 --> 00:33:16,874
And then there was another committee that was over here establishing planning.
348
00:33:17,155 --> 00:33:19,496
And then there was an implementation committee.
349
00:33:19,496 --> 00:33:22,878
These people worked for years together.
350
00:33:23,299 --> 00:33:27,321
You can just look at the renovation that just occurred in Paris.
351
00:33:29,158 --> 00:33:30,479
Notre Dame.
352
00:33:30,479 --> 00:33:35,761
I watched a special on CBS about it and it was amazing the collaborative process that
occurred.
353
00:33:35,761 --> 00:33:45,666
The artists were working with the artisans at the same time as the architects, the
structural engineers, the fabricators, the makers, the builders.
354
00:33:45,666 --> 00:33:47,587
All of them had to do it all at the same time.
355
00:33:47,587 --> 00:33:56,231
They were all informing each other and it is clearly a stunning result in record time and
it's because of that collaboration.
356
00:33:56,231 --> 00:33:59,132
So I feel like the intersection occurs
357
00:33:59,132 --> 00:34:02,664
when we recognize the value in each of those areas.
358
00:34:02,664 --> 00:34:11,560
And so as an architect, we need to step forward and ask questions about the initial
conceptual strategy.
359
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:13,702
We need to understand the business plan.
360
00:34:13,702 --> 00:34:15,053
We need to understand why.
361
00:34:15,053 --> 00:34:17,344
Why are you doing this building, right?
362
00:34:17,544 --> 00:34:25,890
Then in the public realm, we will be asked to be involved with projects, excuse me, on
commissions.
363
00:34:25,890 --> 00:34:29,264
We will be asked to sit on the downtown
364
00:34:29,264 --> 00:34:44,032
planning strategy for business leaders because we will understand it not just from a
standpoint of implementation, but we'll understand the entire cycle from including the
365
00:34:44,032 --> 00:34:54,778
money, including the process of making, understand why we need to go through a process of
getting funding in the public realm.
366
00:34:57,024 --> 00:35:05,868
approved in certain ways, explained to the government, decision makers why the funding
needs to be at the level that it is.
367
00:35:05,868 --> 00:35:11,777
But right now, we're being represented by people who are not us at that table.
368
00:35:14,632 --> 00:35:16,628
or don't understand the process.
369
00:35:16,752 --> 00:35:20,915
Or don't understand fully, don't understand the process.
370
00:35:22,156 --> 00:35:31,384
So I think actually my opinion about a lot of this is it's sort of a dilemma.
371
00:35:31,604 --> 00:35:36,248
Because specialty breeds a lack of creativity.
372
00:35:37,349 --> 00:35:42,853
So if you look at an artist or an architect or a musician as a specialist,
373
00:35:44,622 --> 00:35:48,963
and they know something, you're putting them in a box again.
374
00:35:48,963 --> 00:35:50,924
You're saying this is what you know.
375
00:35:52,544 --> 00:35:56,045
I just had this conversation with a good friend of mine about painting.
376
00:35:56,765 --> 00:36:03,557
We paint together and she's really good at interiors, like painting interior scenes.
377
00:36:03,557 --> 00:36:06,508
And I'm like, why don't you just do that?
378
00:36:06,508 --> 00:36:10,899
like, that's, I want to explore.
379
00:36:10,899 --> 00:36:13,710
I mean, my idea of art is exploring.
380
00:36:14,542 --> 00:36:25,482
So what you're talking about is something that maybe has commercial appeal or is something
we're known for.
381
00:36:25,782 --> 00:36:32,142
But I think it's, we seek that because it's really hard for us to understand complexity.
382
00:36:33,222 --> 00:36:35,282
I mean, it's why we have language, right?
383
00:36:35,282 --> 00:36:41,122
There are letters, the letters go together to make words, the words go together to make
sentences.
384
00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:48,939
all of the complexity gets like simplified and there's definition and meaning to words.
385
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:52,324
So when we're thinking about the arts, we do the same thing.
386
00:36:53,326 --> 00:36:56,309
When I say Maya Lin, what do you think of?
387
00:36:57,866 --> 00:37:00,046
Why are you putting me on the spot?
388
00:37:02,186 --> 00:37:04,606
That's why you're, I knew I knew that name.
389
00:37:04,606 --> 00:37:05,626
Thank you.
390
00:37:05,626 --> 00:37:06,206
Yes.
391
00:37:06,206 --> 00:37:07,401
Yes, I do.
392
00:37:07,401 --> 00:37:10,664
Veterans Memorial.
393
00:37:10,664 --> 00:37:17,189
Do we realize how limiting that is in terms of her as a creative to think about that?
394
00:37:18,031 --> 00:37:25,057
Like I saw a singer, a songwriter and a singer and.
395
00:37:26,030 --> 00:37:28,630
they were singing like they were from the 70s.
396
00:37:28,630 --> 00:37:29,290
can't remember who it was.
397
00:37:29,290 --> 00:37:31,830
And they were singing the same old song they used that everyone loved.
398
00:37:31,830 --> 00:37:39,110
And I'm thinking, can you imagine being on the 50th year of singing the same damn song
every concert?
399
00:37:39,270 --> 00:37:44,550
Like that's not what we should be valuing in that artist.
400
00:37:45,930 --> 00:37:50,130
We should value their viewpoint of how they're.
401
00:37:50,378 --> 00:38:02,083
analyzing society and looking at problems and using music as a way to help us, I don't
know, escape, understand, transform, whatever it is they're seeking to do.
402
00:38:02,083 --> 00:38:06,065
you don't think that subconsciously we do value that?
403
00:38:06,345 --> 00:38:20,033
That that's why we go to that concert to hear the song for the 50th time, because it puts
us in a state of escapism or nostalgia, et cetera.
404
00:38:20,247 --> 00:38:27,131
So that's why those artists will do them and they continue to do them, but they often are
introducing new music at the same time, right?
405
00:38:27,131 --> 00:38:29,092
So that's the go-between.
406
00:38:32,526 --> 00:38:43,286
So I think you need to create a body of work and understand why your work is in a certain,
you know, for me, I'm, know, 80 % of my work is adapting existing buildings.
407
00:38:43,486 --> 00:38:49,706
So yeah, I do ground up buildings, but most of the work I do is in response to some
context.
408
00:38:49,706 --> 00:39:00,806
And what I'm trying to do is take the bones of a building that was meant for warehousing
or some,
409
00:39:01,376 --> 00:39:09,812
industrial process potentially and translate that into something that can support housing
or office work in the 21st century.
410
00:39:10,293 --> 00:39:23,514
So that's what I have in terms of a gift is the ability to look at existing buildings and
figure out how they can be repurposed in a way that makes them relevant.
411
00:39:23,514 --> 00:39:27,047
so yeah, go ahead.
412
00:39:28,799 --> 00:39:49,210
Did you have a, hearing you reflect is making me wonder if you had an event in your life
that happened that formed or reshaped your perspective on your purpose.
413
00:39:50,146 --> 00:39:51,048
Yes.
414
00:39:52,399 --> 00:39:53,843
I can point to it.
415
00:39:54,974 --> 00:39:56,904
Would you like to share it?
416
00:39:56,974 --> 00:40:02,314
Yeah, the great recession of 2008 through 11.
417
00:40:03,434 --> 00:40:04,114
Yep.
418
00:40:04,434 --> 00:40:07,014
So I was flying high, Mr.
419
00:40:07,274 --> 00:40:14,354
Fancy Pants, young entrepreneur, taken over a firm, younger than most people do.
420
00:40:16,834 --> 00:40:21,077
By any measure, people would view it as a great success.
421
00:40:21,778 --> 00:40:26,121
when the economic forces changed, the needs changed.
422
00:40:26,121 --> 00:40:31,385
And what I held, what I valued, wasn't important anymore.
423
00:40:31,445 --> 00:40:34,407
And I found myself completely out of sync.
424
00:40:35,649 --> 00:40:39,351
And I was holding on to way too much.
425
00:40:39,832 --> 00:40:42,533
I was trying to be everything to all.
426
00:40:42,926 --> 00:40:47,109
because I was trying to live up to this idea of what I thought I was supposed to be.
427
00:40:47,250 --> 00:41:03,524
So when the economy tanked and we had to really consider what we are, I really decided I'm
just gonna go with my heart and actually be less desperate and more intentional about the
428
00:41:03,524 --> 00:41:04,845
work that I do.
429
00:41:06,147 --> 00:41:09,269
So, and just recognize that
430
00:41:10,464 --> 00:41:15,775
I cannot just keep doing things to pursue money.
431
00:41:16,094 --> 00:41:24,398
I needed to do things to pursue a wholeness because everything I'd done before didn't work
out, right?
432
00:41:24,398 --> 00:41:37,642
So when you have failure at the level that I did as a professional in a mid-career point
and you felt really confident about what you had done previously, you recognize how
433
00:41:39,874 --> 00:41:52,521
You can try to serve all the masters you can, but things change and you can lose your, you
know, I have a friend there, their firm was selected as the National Architecture Firm of
434
00:41:52,521 --> 00:42:00,745
the year a few years ago and he said to me over coffee recently, you know, I feel like
when that happened, we became sort of the,
435
00:42:01,944 --> 00:42:07,878
bell of the ball, know, like everybody wants to dance with us, but I know that that dance
isn't going to last forever.
436
00:42:07,919 --> 00:42:17,707
So I'm really just focusing in on what really is important to me and my colleagues that we
can, we can endure.
437
00:42:18,207 --> 00:42:26,394
And I think that those kinds of, for me, it was like, it wasn't a moment, it was a period.
438
00:42:27,630 --> 00:42:29,241
It was a period.
439
00:42:29,241 --> 00:42:35,455
it had to do with when it hit me in terms of my maturity as a professional.
440
00:42:35,496 --> 00:42:41,640
And it forced me to rethink what I wanted to do and become much more purposeful.
441
00:42:42,681 --> 00:42:46,924
And interestingly, since then, the firm's been way more successful.
442
00:42:47,805 --> 00:42:49,446
Way more successful.
443
00:42:50,473 --> 00:43:04,503
which says a lot because it goes back to what I hear is be transparent, authentic,
vulnerable, collaborative, true to oneself.
444
00:43:05,986 --> 00:43:06,826
So.
445
00:43:06,913 --> 00:43:09,358
And kind of get over yourself a bit.
446
00:43:10,042 --> 00:43:11,745
That's the biggest lesson.
447
00:43:12,875 --> 00:43:14,255
Yeah.
448
00:43:14,255 --> 00:43:20,455
So we are at the time that, and this is perfect because I, I've been toying with this
idea.
449
00:43:20,575 --> 00:43:27,455
So when I started this podcast, I wanted to conclude every conversation asking everybody
the same question.
450
00:43:28,575 --> 00:43:32,475
And I came up with what I thought was, oh, you know, nice.
451
00:43:32,475 --> 00:43:33,755
Oh, so kind of take it on.
452
00:43:33,755 --> 00:43:37,435
Do you remember James Lipton who had the inside the actor's studio?
453
00:43:37,435 --> 00:43:39,655
Did you ever see that on?
454
00:43:39,655 --> 00:43:40,395
Yeah.
455
00:43:40,395 --> 00:43:42,415
And so he would ask.
456
00:43:42,561 --> 00:43:47,903
the actors that came in the same five questions at the end of every, which was great.
457
00:43:48,423 --> 00:43:51,785
And so I was kind of going along those lines.
458
00:43:51,785 --> 00:43:54,766
So I started asking, you what's your favorite color?
459
00:43:55,947 --> 00:44:00,408
And it's nice, you know, really at the end of the day, thought, it'd be great.
460
00:44:00,408 --> 00:44:07,751
Like Crayola would want to sponsor that segment of the podcast of, you know, or like Blick
art or whatever it is, right?
461
00:44:09,289 --> 00:44:10,220
Totally.
462
00:44:10,220 --> 00:44:22,380
But as I've gone through this journey, I really want it to be more meaningful, or I feel
more content now in my life than I ever have.
463
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:34,820
And it's not about money, it's not about wherever even I thought I would be, but I feel
like it's all because I'm solely focused on giving.
464
00:44:35,574 --> 00:44:41,189
creatives who feel that they don't have a voice, voice and give or giving them a platform.
465
00:44:41,870 --> 00:44:49,937
And I had a art gallery, which I know you know, which is completely left field out of my
background, which is politics and journalism.
466
00:44:49,937 --> 00:44:54,941
But that whole calling was I really loved giving artists a platform to show their work.
467
00:44:55,102 --> 00:45:02,067
And I just view what I do now is how can I continue to expand that platform to highlight
468
00:45:02,584 --> 00:45:07,938
how foundational and essential creatives are in our society.
469
00:45:07,938 --> 00:45:11,081
Anyway, long story short, you know me.
470
00:45:11,081 --> 00:45:24,851
So to get back to James Lipton, because I always do loop it around, he would ask at the
end, when you die, and should you enter the pearly gates, what would you, what's the one
471
00:45:24,851 --> 00:45:27,593
thing that you would like to hear?
472
00:45:27,874 --> 00:45:29,174
And,
473
00:45:29,228 --> 00:45:36,385
believe it or not, I was reminded of this on Christmas Eve mass, the priest that was part
of his homily.
474
00:45:37,126 --> 00:45:40,954
And he mentioned Steven Spielberg's answer.
475
00:45:40,954 --> 00:45:44,875
I mean, it was just a very weird way that all of these things were connecting.
476
00:45:44,875 --> 00:45:50,580
And apparently Steven Spielberg's response was that he would like to hear, thank you for
listening.
477
00:45:51,489 --> 00:45:53,890
which I thought was very interesting.
478
00:45:53,930 --> 00:46:05,976
So I took that homily as a sign that maybe I need to shift away from what your favorite
color to say when you die and if you should enter the pearly gates of heaven, what would
479
00:46:05,976 --> 00:46:06,917
you like to hear?
480
00:46:06,917 --> 00:46:15,417
So Tim, you're my first that I'm asking and I won't trust me get that long winded when I
ask this to everybody else going forward.
481
00:46:15,417 --> 00:46:17,029
everyone else to know, yeah.
482
00:46:17,599 --> 00:46:25,390
So Tim, when you pass and should you enter the pearly gates, I'll come up with my own way
of asking this question, by the way.
483
00:46:25,390 --> 00:46:27,674
I haven't quite got there yet, but you get it.
484
00:46:27,674 --> 00:46:29,255
What do you hope to hear?
485
00:46:30,914 --> 00:46:32,352
He loved people.
486
00:46:37,079 --> 00:46:39,771
That's what I want to hear.
487
00:46:39,951 --> 00:46:42,693
Boy, you really showed a lot of love to people.
488
00:46:43,254 --> 00:46:44,986
You gave of yourself.
489
00:46:44,986 --> 00:46:54,883
you used your talents and your intentionality to actually help people.
490
00:46:55,364 --> 00:46:57,646
And that is an act of love.
491
00:46:58,892 --> 00:47:01,258
And that's what we're all called to do, right?
492
00:47:03,528 --> 00:47:07,842
to me if you're super spiritual is you know God working through you.
493
00:47:09,003 --> 00:47:12,066
So yeah that's it.
494
00:47:12,707 --> 00:47:14,988
I want people to say he loved people.
495
00:47:16,510 --> 00:47:19,713
Now if you really know me you kind of chuckle at that but...
496
00:47:20,577 --> 00:47:21,869
Ha ha ha ha!
497
00:47:23,032 --> 00:47:24,034
But yeah, that's it.
498
00:47:24,034 --> 00:47:24,981
That's it.
499
00:47:24,981 --> 00:47:27,344
Yeah, well, I think it's fitting.
500
00:47:27,386 --> 00:47:30,662
So thank you for joining me for this conversation.
501
00:47:30,662 --> 00:47:32,496
I really appreciate it.
502
00:47:32,496 --> 00:47:32,907
Yeah.
503
00:47:32,907 --> 00:47:36,269
really great about this, Angela, is you've made me think today.
504
00:47:37,130 --> 00:47:39,912
So I can go away enriched by this.
505
00:47:40,193 --> 00:47:41,734
And that's really great.
506
00:47:41,734 --> 00:47:44,305
So you're showing me your love.
507
00:47:44,305 --> 00:47:47,357
mean, that's actually how, that's what you're doing, right?
508
00:47:47,357 --> 00:47:48,758
You're lifting all of us up.
509
00:47:48,758 --> 00:47:52,341
You're giving all of us creative as a platform and it's so valuable.
510
00:47:52,341 --> 00:47:54,102
So thank you for what you're doing.
511
00:47:54,167 --> 00:47:55,959
Well, that means the world to me.
512
00:47:55,959 --> 00:48:10,037
And especially coming from you to say that I made you think, that's a huge compliment
because I've always been so in awe and respect your thoughts and your wisdom.
513
00:48:10,037 --> 00:48:13,180
So I appreciate you.
514
00:48:13,622 --> 00:48:15,616
Alright, thanks.
515
00:48:15,616 --> 00:48:16,340
you.
