Coffee Sketch Podcast

120 - Good Coffee, Great Sketches!

May 29, 2023 Kurt Neiswender/Jamie Crawley Season 5 Episode 120
Coffee Sketch Podcast
120 - Good Coffee, Great Sketches!
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Show Notes Transcript

Thank you for listening. We both hope that you enjoyed this episode of Coffee Sketch Podcast. Our Theme music is provided by my brother who goes by @c_0ldfashioned on Instagram and Twitter. Our podcast is hosted at coffeesketchpodcast.com find more show notes and information from this episode. And finally, if you liked this episode please rate us on iTunes and share us with your friends! Thank you!


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Music on the Show

CNEIS - https://cneis.bandcamp.com/

c_0ldfashioned - https://www.instagram.com/c_0ldfashioned/ 

Compilation - https://triplicaterecords.bandcamp.com/track/cneis-more-or-less 


Our Links

Follow Jamie on Instagram  - https://www.instagram.com/falloutstudio/ 

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Kurt’s Practice - https://www.instagram.com/urbancolabarchitecture/ 

Coffee Sketch on Twitter - https://twitter.com/coffeesketch 

Jamie on Twitter - https://twitter.com/falloutstudio 

Kurt on Twitter - https://twitter.com/kurtneiswender 


On the Web

Website - www.coffeesketchpodcast.com

Kurt’s Practice - www.urbancolab.design 

Contact Me - info@urbancolab.design 

NFT Artwork - https://hic.af/urbancolab 


Coffee Sketch Podcast is on YouTube for extended cuts and more visual content of Jamie’s beautiful sketches. Please consider subscribing!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_lQkY3-OqmHaTl_jdOgtvw 


Kurt’s Practice Urban Colab Architecture, shares about the practice of architecture and is also on YouTube. Please Subscribe to: 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuMXvvQXgrQIVE1uJ8QHxsw 

Support the show

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Our Links

Follow Jamie on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/falloutstudio/

Follow Kurt on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kurtneiswender/

Kurt’s Practice - https://www.instagram.com/urbancolabarchitecture/

Coffee Sketch on Twitter - https://twitter.com/coffeesketch

Jamie on Twitter - https://twitter.com/falloutstudio

Kurt on Twitter - https://twitter.com/kurtneiswender

Kurt:

welcome, Jamie. Welcome one 20. We were one 20 celebrating episode one 20 in the pre-show Woo, woo stream. So we made it this far. Yes. Which is only 10% of how far of, of, of, of the,

Jamie:

like is this a1 percent of the distance to the moon? If you listen to podcasts. Like what, what? 10% of what?

Kurt:

I don't know. I don't know. How many episodes do you think we can make in our lifetime? Ooh,

Jamie:

ooh, ooh. This is like, this is like that game where it's like the jar of like hot dogs in a jar. Golf, golf of golf tees, gum, golf tees. There. That's a

Kurt:

good one. Guess the guess the quantity. How many golf tees in this? Usually people are well below the real number, so Right. May, may that fortune shine on Cocky Sketch podcast.

Jamie:

Have we, like in my, my strange memory of things as like, this is the non-sequitur part of Jamie's, like, like it's, I think it's maybe the lobe back here or something does this to me every once in a while goes, you know, have you thought about, so like, you know, like, are you like a, like I'm going to eat the pickle out of the, the jar kind of person at the fair, I don't know

Kurt:

what pickle what jar what fair so many I. So many things, so many things need to be explained. Plus, you know, up here, Michigan, I dunno if it fares as much as the south, the Texas State Fair as well known. So what's Oh, you got, you got somebody here. Let me, I gotta show this one. Look, you got some reactions on on YouTube. Sean, if you know the answer to this question, tell Jamie. Oh, I have no idea.

Jamie:

All right, Sorry.

Kurt:

I didn't know where that was going to go. I just still don't know. So what's the metaphor or allegory? I don't, dude, there is no metaphor. Oh, it's, no, it's just

Jamie:

no metaphor. No simi, no onia. Like no hyperbole. This is just, I told you it's like sometimes, sometimes there's that moment where like all of a sudden I'm in a conversation and I'm not saying that I'm bored cuz that would be rude cuz I'm not bored. It's just, it's just more like there's something that somebody's saying and like all of a sudden. The mind wanders. And

Kurt:

so you got bored already,

Jamie:

No, no, no, no. I'm just saying the mind wanders and then that lobe just kicks in and goes, you know, that reminds me. And you like, it's, it's like some weird anecdote and like

Kurt:

I've been meaning to ask Kurt about

Jamie:

Yeah. I've been mean to ask you about your experience with state fairs.

Kurt:

You know, I will say, so I grew up on, in, in Connecticut on the East coast. Does

Jamie:

Connecticut, is Connecticut one of those states that goes, you know, we are so small that we're gonna have a state fair, but it's gonna be like three or four states altogether.

Kurt:

I don't know, new England, the New England State Fair.

Jamie:

Yeah. Like a New England State

Fair,

Kurt:

like Christ state area. Yeah. No, the, no, we, we, I often, every year I always looked forward to the St. Leo's Church. Fair or whatever the, you know, carnival, whatever. So the Catholic church always did a Catholic church. Yes. You know, not the, you know, but a Catholic church in, in Stanford, Connecticut, St. Leo's used to do, a carnival for fundraiser, all that. And, and they had rides and food midway and all that stuff. But in, in the east coast, right. So very close to New York City. So around here in Michigan and maybe down Texas, you would, you would call it like a funnel cake or an elephant ear. Oh,

Jamie:

funnel cake. Yes. That's like, that's the best

Kurt:

pizza

Jamie:

fruit. Like a, like fruit, like a french fry. Well,

Kurt:

no, it's like, You know the Italian influence, so they called it pizza free. So like a potato? Well, no, it's an elephant ear. Same thing, but a pizza.

Jamie:

How does the pizza figure into this?

Kurt:

Well, it's just fried pizza. Pizza free. But it's not pizza. It's the same dough as an er. The, yes, but because it's Italian influence, they just call it that. Was there powdered sugar? yeah, I got mine with powdered sugar. Okay. Some people put tomato sauce on it. What?

Jamie:

Yeah. Did they just not understand the assignment or what

Kurt:

Well, you know, there was a little bit of, it's, it's, it's hyper local.

Jamie:

Sure.

Kurt:

I didn't get it with the tomato. I wanted the sugar, man. I got the sugar.

Jamie:

Okay. Did Charlie get it with the tomato sauce? No.

Kurt:

No, no, no. Okay, good. As, as twins, we followed the same rules on that one. Okay. Okay. Good.

Jamie:

Okay. All right. So, speaking of

Kurt:

other, so I'm not really into pickles as just leave it

there,

Jamie:

No. Okay. So like, I don't know if you have this, like, cuz we've talked about, and this is sort of a, a, just, just again, another prompt you gave me. You like giving me all of the treasures today. So

Kurt:

unpacking, you're this like,

Jamie:

this is like, like maybe it's because we were talking about like how your fellowship application, like involved unpacking all the episodes. So this is, this is like going in for the Easter eggs within the episodes. And so, and then there's a whole lever, you know, there's the Easter egg and then there's the subtext, and then there's a sub, then there's this, a subreddit under the subtext. Layers, layers, layers. Like a really good mocha cake, but so

Kurt:

too many inside jokes, one after another.

Jamie:

I'm on now. So, so this is going to, when we've talked about your pension and you're sort of like, like in your heart, your love of convenience, store coffee, So right here when you're going, when you're going to the up the upper peninsula, for those who've not listened to the podcast before, or not a Michigander by nature, And you stop at that convenience store and you're gonna get the, you're gonna get your coffee when you go up to the counter. Like is there a big, big like plastic, like gallon jug with, that's sort of green and it's got like a lot of pickles in it.

Kurt:

yeah. There's also,

Jamie:

so they do have those up there

Kurt:

too. They do. And they have hot ring bologna in jars too.

Jamie:

that's a new one. See, see. And for those who've who've stayed with us

Kurt:

this long, we still got a couple. There is a, there is a treasure at the end and it is, and it,

Jamie:

it is a hot ring. Ring.

Kurt:

Ring. Yeah. Go from cos.

Jamie:

What

Kurt:

Coel? Coel meets a flint. A flint staple, an

Jamie:

anchor. Is this like a real meat processing plant or like a, like a like,

Kurt:

okay. Yeah, it's, it's legit. Yeah. So it's down by the airport, which is probably the only place you would want a hot dog factory.

Jamie:

Of course, of course. Like why, why would you put the meat processing processing plan anywhere else? It's like sim city, like airport meat processing plan. That's

Kurt:

right. Well, when they laid out Yes. When they, when they established, let's build this place. Yeah, we're, yeah, it's airport. Airport

Jamie:

me processing processor, FedEx Light rail. No. Light rail.

Kurt:

Well, maybe in, maybe in Texas you'll get a light rail.

Jamie:

No. Yeah. We, we can dream. We can dream. We can only

Kurt:

dream, you know how they have bridges to know where the, the Austin light rail will be a light rail to nowhere. Yeah. Because as soon as it hits the city limit, it's just gonna Yeah. to be, to be determined. Yeah. TB d Yep. So we should probably find out what's in your coffee. That's,

Jamie:

yeah. Right?

Kurt:

Yeah. Firing the synapses in a

Jamie:

lo bit now. yeah, so, today's coffee today was Qve coffee. and it was a dark roast from them, the West Pole. That's the, it is pretty dark. It's, it's not one that I can go to very often, but I will, I will definitely say that I do like it as a dark roast. but it's probably like more of the like, make a small pot, not a big, yeah. So there's that. What about

Kurt:

yourself? I, just, cracked into a new bag of rootless, our old friends here in Flint. And, I, I, it's the damn fine. Couple our

Jamie:

old friends. And our new friends because of

Kurt:

That's right. Yeah. We have a, well we should, you know, I'm gonna clip this, we'll make a little, a little timestamp and, send a shout out to our friends over at Ruis, cuz we should

Jamie:

brag about it now, right? Yeah. We to, this is, this is the time. This is totally like, like we've talked about all the crazy stuff. Like this is like, we've already hinted at this too

Kurt:

and we've hinted at it. Yeah. So, so we're, we're, the Coffee Sketch podcast is going to get, its own batch of, rootless Coffee in the near future. So get yours. While it lasts. Limited supply and, and it's going to, it's gonna bear, one of Jamie's fantastic sketches on as the, the label on the bag. And if you haven't seen, let's talk about Rootless coffee or her hear us talk about it before. Where have you been? Because we've been all over it for the past two years. What,

Jamie:

two? 2, 2, 3, 4. What? Like how many years?

Kurt:

Well, we've been podcasting for five years. Yes, we've

Jamie:

been talking about rulers for how long? At

Kurt:

least two, maybe three.

Jamie:

Yeah. So for those earlier listeners who aren't sure if they know Kurt or me and they've just stumbled on the podcast, Kurt has trouble with math

Kurt:

And as soon as, as soon as I ran out of that porch pickup coffee.

Jamie:

Yeah. Like, yeah, Kurt's like way back to rootless.

Kurt:

it's like, gotta gotta get that ru, you know? Well that was pandemic, scarcity issues. But anyway, that's, there was the, that's a whole other, yeah, that's a whole other, tangent that we don't need to go down, but Yeah. Yes. We're we're gonna get, A branded batch, and then we're gonna for sale. That's not just gonna be for us

Jamie:

as much as No, no, no, no. It's, yeah, I mean, it's gonna be fun. I mean, and, and I think that, you know, the, you know, for the, the special guests that we've had in the past, we like to, we like to send them like little care package. so, yeah, it's, it's great. I'm, I'm excited. We've been talking about it for a while. Sean over there has been great and very understanding, dealing with us as designer types. Kurt's work with them, both in the real life, with their facility, but also, as a, a connoisseur of many of their varieties as, as have I been gifted a few from Kurt. So, yeah. Good stuff all the way around.

Kurt:

Yeah. Excited and, Now I just forgot. Well shout out to Ben who's gonna be getting, who is on our last episode and he's gonna be getting a care package with some rootless in it.

Jamie:

And then Evelyn, who will also get one, even though she's not as much on the coffee tip as the rest of us. Mm-hmm. but, but, but appreciates the good coffee sketch. So this will be something she can maybe share with guests who, she, you know, thinks are special. Yeah. Visitors. Yeah.

Kurt:

Yeah,

Jamie:

yeah.

Kurt:

So, yeah, so that was, that's like some exciting recent news. Little, little breakthrough. And, we're heading off to San Francisco pretty soon, so this means gotta get this episode edited. Posted and then we continue our brainstorm on some of our live antics that we're planning. Yes. for San Francisco, for the AIA 2023 conference, which will include coffee sketching a teacher or two.

Jamie:

Yeah. Yeah. There there's gonna be antics. Yes. Walking tours. Yeah. All the things. Live takeovers. Oh, yeah. Yes, of course there will be. Oh, you

Kurt:

know, yeah. Expected. If it's expected. It's not a, is it a takeover? I don't know.

Jamie:

No, no. It's just, it's, you're just sort of giving them fair warning.

Kurt:

Right, right. Yeah. It's kinda like saying there might be a flash mob today.

Jamie:

Right, right. Yeah. Just, you know, there might be

Kurt:

a dog hiding.

Jamie:

If Kurt and I, yeah, if Kurt and I can figure out the time change, then we might be able to, you know,

Kurt:

1, 2, 3, 3 hours,

Jamie:

two for me, buddy. Oh, see, see there's the thing, right? We're already off

Kurt:

synchronize swatches. Yes.

Jamie:

Yeah, exactly.

Kurt:

So, well, we'll figure it out. Hopefully Google will figure it out for us. Our calendars will just automatically magically sync. You know what we should do? I think the way to do is you make a little test. This is total nerd tangent, but you make a little test calendar event at a time, and then when you go, you know, you fly and you check in. And if that hasn't moved, like you say, this should be at two o'clock. And then if it doesn't move, then, you know, something's up. That sounds like a lot of effort. It does. But, but that's what I do. I make easy things complicated, like

Jamie:

post-it notes, which need a lot of post-it notes. So

Kurt:

good old fashioned, adhesive sticky notes. Un un. Oh. Oh. We're not,

Jamie:

we're not, we're not branding today. Is that, what is that? Is that what you're like, Jamie? Come on now. We've talked

Kurt:

about the branding. Do, don't you love that when you watch you, you've gotten me on, on tangent today, but the, good, good. You watch YouTube and, and they talk about hook and loop closure, hook and loop as opposed to Velcro.

Jamie:

I have no, I didn't know where. I, I really didn't know. I didn't really, didn't know where that was going. And it was, I was worried. there for a minute. I thought this was gonna, I thought you were getting dirty or something like that. So I just like,

Kurt:

how could it be more dirty than a jar full of pickles? Well, that's true,

Jamie:

that's true. I mean,

Kurt:

all right. Should we entertain some fabulous new sketches?

Jamie:

That sounds great.

Kurt:

And we might find a way, steer a course back to our namesake coffee sketch podcast. But, you know, these are gonna be fun because like, and maybe I should zoom, should I zoom in on one? Because it's gonna be a little, there's, maybe I'll do two at a time and we'll, we'll, we'll, We'll kind of jump around, but there's a cluster of four here, which it won't mean that we're gonna spend four hours on, on the planet, but we're, it's almost like a, a sort of a, a mini lightning round. But these are some of my favorites, or in the style of some of my favorites of Jamie's sketches, cuz they have these sort of deconstructivists, abstract, speculative architecture. Yeah. A trend, you know, a, a sort of thought it's, it's, it's the truest form of a why a sketch occurs. Is this making a, a concept of what could be, and in using general, let's say, Form making ideas as in, you know, they have scale proportion relationship to human. So they perceive as a building, at least to me, right? They're, they kind of perceive as some object that could be occupiable. And so as ar, oh, hey, we gotta, we got, you know, let's, just take a little break here and thank Sean who's watching. Yeah.

Jamie:

Yeah.

Kurt:

And he says, love the sketches. Thank you, Sean. Please check out Jamie's, Jamie's Instagram page. Let me get you that link here. Just, just to, cuz So Jamie is the, the primary artist of the, of the podcast. And I am just the troublemaker that tries to cobble these things together. No,

Jamie:

no, you're, you're like occasionally draw, I mean like, if you're really gonna just like, like, just like, like compartmentalize yourself like that. At least refer to yourself as like the sommelier of the coffee sketch moment. I

Kurt:

like that sommelier. Can I get that on the back of my t-shirt? Yeah,

Jamie:

you can be like the sommelier and I'll be just like the guy who sketches like, I like prota to draw pro. Yeah. Like yeah. Protagonist. I'll be protagonist. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, ironically or not. or how about appropriately? You were also the one who was the instigator in all this. So that's, we'll just leave it at that

Kurt:

Catalyst Chief Catalytic Officer. Chief

Jamie:

Chief catalytic officer, like

Kurt:

connoisseur. I, if you do connoisseur, then it's three, three Cs. So Chief catalytic connoisseur of coffee, four Cs. Okay. Well, there's

Jamie:

a alliteration in that because we were playing with metaphors and simis before, so Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of, let's go, let's go for all the literary terms, because you know, there might be a test at the end where we Scantron Yeah, the Scantrons are coming. We, we might be tracking your progress. Are you ready to go to the next grade level? I don't know.

Kurt:

well, it, yeah, I, I, I thought the rules was no Scantron, but I guess there, the rules, the rule is, First rule, there are no

Jamie:

rules. Ooh. Is this Fight Club? Did We did, did we just create a whole nother sub rabbitt?

Kurt:

Like Coffee, coffee, fight Club, but, well, I thought the first rule of Fight Club was you don't talk about Fight Club.

Jamie:

That's why there's no podcast about Fight Club Can we be the first one?

Kurt:

And so we have to make it. That's a massive pivot. I, there, there was a moment

Jamie:

there. There was a moment there where your brain just went. I love it. Like you, like you admit it. Admit it. Like there was a moment there where like, I saw it on the screen for the people who were just listening on Apple iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. Right, right. Like, like Kurt was just totally in that moment. Just like that pause was just, it was just, It was perfect

Kurt:

except the, the very first and only episode of that would be Three Seconds Long it says, welcome this podcast. well, you know, our, our pop culture force is strong today. Yes,

Jamie:

totally.

Kurt:

But I appreciate it. It's been, it's, it's a lot of fun. And, we actually have a few people watching, so, I mean, surprise

Jamie:

welcome, welcome to the Fight Club. Copy sketch.

Kurt:

but yeah, so my point, my point was though, you know, in these four, and I've kind of panned back and forth between two and two, but these abstract. Object buildings have this, you know, the, the scale and proportion and the fact that, you know, both of us are architects. And so there is that, you know, theme or in influence toward orienting the view, the perspective of the sketch like a building would be. But these are in, in, in what we've talked about, like the paper architecture, the sketch, the idea, the, the, the, the generation or the generator of concept. And, I, I appreciate them. I enjoy them because they're, they kind of have this fun folly, like, and, and what, when I say deconstructivists, for those that are not super familiar with that, Realm of architecture practice or history. You know, they, there was a period of time where it was sort of a post-modern, or let's, let's try and break away from the jargon a little bit. But basically, a period of architecture that tried to reimagine classical form, but with certain advancements in material and structural technologies in the sense that we can, we don't necessarily have to react to just gravity and you can kind of, things can break up a little bit and, and sort of defy that gravity and, and, and being a little bit general.

Jamie:

well, I mean, I, I think it was, it was, it was like a, a good way that I've, I've tried to explain it to folks too is just, it's, it's a, it's a time period where the idea of what if. Sort of reemerges in architecture in a, in a really salient form. Like where it's just like, that's the three line is you have, you know, modernism, blah, blah, blah. You know, there's, there's certain rules to it. post-modernism, you start to, you start to increase the ornament in the building. and, and people are kind of playing with materials and color and, and then, and then there's a reaction to things, right? There's, there's, there's this kind of, this tumult of like, emotion and energy and, and then, you know, with any kind of good art or architecture movement or any kind of movement, literature, you know, film, whatever you're thinking of it, it's, it's paralleling what's going on in society too. And so, you know, the, the thing about deconstruction is there's this. Kind of tension in the world that people aren't sure what to do. And then from an architecture point of view, a lot of folks weren't building things because there were sort of recession and sort of a downturn in the economy. And so a lot of architects who were, of a particular generation were, you know, coming out of a one school of thought, questioning that school of thought, but then not having the ability to actually see their designs realized. So there's this paper architecture that kind of comes from that a little bit. And deconstruction really, you know, sort of an, an advent to that. There's a whole lot more to it. There's, you know, there's a MoMA exhibition, Philip Johnson, you know, Philip Johnson. There's tons to unpack there.

Kurt:

but I mean, if there was architectural.

Jamie:

Like, could you imagine? Oh, even better yet. Like, could you imagine like if No, that's like, this is gonna sound bad. No. Okay. So like Okay. We're, we'll, we'll save that for another episode. I just was imagining like, going to Philip Johnson's office, not the one, like, like in the glass house. Cause that would be super creepy. okay. But like if, like, like in some tower, you know, I don't know which tower, like of his maybe the lipstick building. but you know, like, you know, there's a, would he have a desk? Would, like, would his desk be mahogany? I don't know if it would be like a big mahogany desk or like something, but what if on the corner of that desk was this big jar of pickles, And you're just, and you're, and you're having a super serious conversation about deconstruction and architecture. And at the same time, you're kind of like eyeing outta the corner of your eye and like this jar of pickles and you're just like, there is like, there's a weird kit non-sequitur here, but yeah. Too much to unpack.

Kurt:

Yeah. Well, we'll go. We have to go to the history books and figure out. There could be,

Jamie:

but I did meet him once. I did meet him once. So, really? Oh yeah, that's a story. We'll save that for the Philip Johnson deconstructed episode. That's, there's a, there is a sketch like for those who are like actually listening right now. There actually is a sketch. okay, I'm gonna tell it. Can I tell the story?

Kurt:

Sure. Well, did we, we we did, remember we did an episode on the, the cf?

Jamie:

Oh, yes, we did. We've already have, we already talked about this. We've told the story. Hmm. We might go, let's, let's go back and do a, we'll do a rewind. We'll, we'll, because you have to do a deep dive on the episodes. Maybe we need to do a deep dive on some of these episodes. deep dive. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Pickles. There's no pickles involved with the sketch in the story I was gonna tell, but, okay. So back to these. So back to these sketches. Back to these sketches. what's interesting to me, seeing them, like, and this is something that is fun about the, the podcast and Kurt sort of curating some of, like, what we talk about is these two though, they're, they and those two in particular are in sequence. Oh. Up here. Yeah. Those two are in sequence. But, and oftentimes for those who don't follow us, like I do draw every day or try to draw every day and try and post every day. sometimes I get in a rut and I don't do'em. But those two up there, they're both in, they're both in sequence. And I, you know, just from a technical point of view, the perspective is identical. And even the scale that I'm perceiving about that realm is identical. And only seeing it now am I kind of making that connection. and I think that's sort of an interesting note. The, the world's though, stylistically my sketches have a similar quality. the buildings are very different. The spaces are very different, but the perspectives are iden almost identical. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. the scale of the buildings is very, very similar. and I just, I just find that. for myself, kind of particularly fascinating. the other thing too is the one on the left, I don't, when I do these kind of city scapes, I usually don't render the foreground with a lot of architectural detail. It's just something that like, it's, it's always, and, and I'll admit as a sketcher, the foreground, I usually ground the image. I know where it is. I know what I'm gonna do there. I know what the scale of the person is, and I kind of know where I'm standing as the viewer. you know, so you're feel immersed in the sketch. But generally I don't as, as an artist, spend a whole lot of time rendering it. I think it's interesting on the one on the left, upper left, I actually rendered it like, I like spent a lot of time rendering that sort of space, that sort of plinth, that sort of, you know, your, your viewing platform for this environment. and I don't normally do that, so, something different.

Kurt:

Yeah. That, that's true. And actually I think the bottom right one is close-ish to the same. It's a little, it's about the same perspective too.

Jamie:

and it is the last one in the series of that sort of like, train of thought too. that one has a different story. that one of the four was after doing the first three, the fourth one for whatever reason, I was reminded of a, a speculative. Ideas project that I had done years and years ago, and it was one for a site in Dallas's, deep Elm District. And the, the, the proposal was, you know, kind of looking at a infill site, kind of a space between buildings, you know, burned buildings in a downtown district. You know, what do you, what do you put in the space in between? Kind of idea. because Deep Elham in Dallas was a, predominantly African American district, that had kind of this, burgeoning music scene for decades. really the Dallas Sound and, and a lot of amazing musical artists kind of came out of that area. it, it, it remained that way for, and to this day, I mean, it's, it's still kind of an artist enclave. it's been gentrified, you know, quite a bit. But, because of the art and performance space kind of concept, I was like, well, what if there was a performance space sort of inserted into that zone? And then of course, you know, took it to an extreme of scale and proportion and, and things like that. And this is a kind of a riff on that earlier idea that I had played with, you know, years and years ago.

Kurt:

Yeah. What's, what's, what's nice about that fourth one? The, the, the lower right here is that, I don't know if you've done the sky. You, you know, we're familiar with the, the streak lines here as a sky. Reference, but this sort of, sort of squiggle hatch of, you know, crits, this really heavy darkness contrasting against the more sort of, you know, starker, you know, plainly rendered the building the box. Right. That's kind of floating. And I think why I'm drawn to this one is I even going back to architecture school, like the idea of like a floating box has always been kind of a fascination of mine, right? And, and maybe it's because of the, the, the period of time of deconstructivism and, and that what if statement. It's like, you know, what is in the floating box and, you know, how does it float and levitate? I, I, and so anyway,

Jamie:

well, I mean, it's the anti-gravity moment, right? It's, it's sort of, I mean, you and I both grew up with the work of Zaha. And so Zaha at the, you know, you know, she's, you know, going to school in London. She's Iranian, she's a woman architect. Iraqi, I thought it was Iraqi. Yes. Iraqi not Iranian. Iraqi architect. but, you know, she's, she's, you know, befriended rem, you know, she worked for REM for a little while. But the, the, the work that she, she does at the architectural association, you know, is, it, the, the first word that often is used to describe her work of that period, that earliest work is anti-gravity. And, and that. Concept, like as an architect and as an architecture student, as a designer. and, and their paintings are beautiful. I mean, they're absolutely gorgeous. you know, kind of modernist, you know, but, you know, with a whole different flair to it. and it's clearly a building, like you say, like similar to the way you were sort of starting to talk about our sketches, where, it's, you know, it, it's a building, it's a place, it's, it's something, some kind of reality. those were feelings that I often had with her work. And I think that anti-gravity moment that she was playing with, and then, you know, contemporaries like, you know, Cole plo and, you know, I can't think of other, you know, morphosis Amorphous, yeah. Or, you know, it, that floating box, that floating architecture, like what's holding that up? You know, why that move? How does it, how does it, you know, is it on stilts, you know, is, you know, all those types of things we're fascinating concepts. And then I think as, as a, you know, you become more immersed in it and then also mature as a designer where you're just, you know, not throwing away that idea, but sort of trying to, trying to really interrogate it for yourself. And this isn't an age thing again, it's more of a like, you know, a process thing. You know, you have moments like this where like, I mean, what's interesting to me about the sketch is I tried to make the box as pristine as I could. Mm-hmm. you know, against this dark sky. And I'm so glad that you loved, you know, or noticed sort of the squiggly black sky. Cause it's like, how, so how do you draw a night? You know, you know how, how do you draw a night with one pen and, and do it in a way where you're in that environment and you can still see because there's light around you. And so that was sort of the effort in this sketch was trying to do that where it was, you know, centered on the object, you know, make it this pristine kind of box-like form a little deconstructed. the stilts and the structure kind of a little, kind of messy. but then there's a scale of other buildings that look older around it that's intentional. There's a solitary figure in the foreground to give it, to give the whole environment scale. Yeah, you can almost imagine this is like a rainy scene. It's like this is like straight out of a Kira. So

Kurt:

Yeah, for sure. And well, plus the box has these little scars in them, right? The, the sort of death star style, like scarring. I mean, I call them scars, but you know, they're little slashes, openings, maybe, you know, light comes in, something light comes out. yeah, I, I, I did notice too, like the, the contrast to some sort of maybe cla, you know, somewhat classical proportion or, or sort of everyday architecture at the, at the base with, you know, the, the punched windows, the regularity, stuff like that. And, and, I guess it's like, there's also a thing about this, which maybe we can, we can end in a minute here cuz we, we, we, we like to keep'em short and sweet. but the, the idea of like, if a building grew out of the, out of its context, you know, physically grew and, and this, you know, so you have the box that's kind of be supported by these sort of, organic stilts, I guess. Like this sort of, you know, growth out of the ground. It like a mushroom, I suppose. It kind of pop pops up and then floats and anything I'll just reference is kinda like the. The, the sort of dystopian, or like even the show that you, you got me watching Peripheral Right. Book too. Right? And, and how we render certain potential features and things like that. And so, yeah, I mean, it's kind of a fun series of sketches to, let me zoom out a little bit to, to kind of go back and forth on, you know, this one would be fun to see, you know, maybe I can take some time and build it into the computer and, and fly around that. But, it's almost got that robotic y you know, machine aesthetic

Jamie:

Right, right. Much more than, much more than any of the others. But yeah, I think that that's the, I, and I think that that's the whole thing is that, you know, and each of them, I'm, there's a, a level of experimentation. I, I just, it's, it's fun to see them in this kind of context and talk about them this way, knowing they're all done within a week of each other. but at the same time, it, it both exploring a theme, but at the same time, sort of getting at other ideas that are in my head. which, and you know, the last one, like I described it, it was sort of, re interrogating like an old idea and, and trying to, at the same time, experiment. the sky was an experimentation. Have done that a whole lot. I usually do those kind of sky experimentations with figures. and not necessarily like a scene like this. so that was, that was new, especially in the sketchbook. So, I enjoyed it. This was great. Yeah,

Kurt:

Jamie. So keep it up.

Jamie:

right. Keep it up and then get ready for San Francisco where we're gonna be like doing this, like, and who knows where. Yeah, I,

Kurt:

yeah, I, I, I shouldn't be teasing you because I'm the one that needs a little bit of a, reps. I need the reps because this, this hand if we go on the sketches walking tour, so I'm gonna cramp up Yeah, yeah. It's all good. But yeah, thank you. And thanks for those that watched live. it's been fun. And we will be back for episode 1 21.