If these wabi-sabi walls could whisper . . .

22 August 2010 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

Yesterday I started painting the whitewashed walls in our little bungalow. The plaster walls are 70 years old so bumps and cracks and drips abound. When I helped remodel old houses in Arkansas we would have hand textured the walls to cover up all of the imperfections. This texturing technique was nice, a bit of a stuccoed appearance. It made the place look new on the inside.

Work with the painter I’ve been helping out this year has been slow the past couple weeks, so I’ve busied myself with other things as much as I’ve been able (other things that are somewhat financially advantageous in these lean times, things not necessarily sculpture related as I’d prefer). I spent some time in my dad’s shop, The Milestone Gallery, painting walls, signs and staining furniture.

Our Sand Trap walls with a Marissa Lee Swinghammer print hanging on the chimney chase

Dad has noticed that people even want their antique furniture to look and function like new. Doors that are warped or don’t close all the way, the crazed finish of a tabletop or patina from age on a cabinet can deter people from purchasing the unique objects he collects. “I thought that patina was something people liked,” he said.

Indeed, why do we as Americans so often crave the new? The walls in our little house do just fine at what they were built to do, and as I spread “Sand Trap” — a taupe-y tint with hints of rose or purple in different lights — over the scuffed up old walls I began to appreciate their textures. In fact, I’ve concluded that perfect walls are actually boring in comparison.

By saying this I’m not necessarily advocating any kind of trumped-up aging process, no intentional distressing of new walls or surfaces. When you build a new building you should do it properly, straight studs and square corners. The history of a place must come organically; our little Nebraska bungalow may have more of an overall patina than most places, having been a rental for most of its years according to our neighborhood historian.

And now for an uncomfortable question: Does our dislike for the appearance of age or imperfection in our buildings hearken back to the same aversion we have to age in our own person, or in our American culture of human beauty where maturity is not esteemed as it is in other cultures?

My uncle, whose home also boasts whispering plaster walls, took advantage of the patina by exaggerating it, showing it off. I haven’t seen how he’s done this yet, but the idea is intriguing to me. If I feel like I have the time, I’ll probably try something similar.

Filed under Aesthetics, Architecture, Beauty, Feminine aesthetics, Interior design, Modern culture

The switch to renewables requires a redesign of American life

12 August 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

On the way down to Nashville for the Hutchmoot we stopped for lunch at a friend’s home near Kansas City. While there I began looking at a magazine called World, as I recall. I glanced at an article in the publication pointing at holes in the recent plans for renewable energy.

The long and short of what my skimming told me — I didn’t have time to finish the article — Renewable energy such as wind and solar won’t work for the cars we drive. No kidding! The article also, if I recall correctly, pointed out that these energy sources won’t even provide enough electricity, even if they are developed to the nth degree, to meet our current electricity needs.

I’ve made the point on the blog before, as I recall, that we need to revamp the culture and our environmental design in order to get to where most or all of our energy needs come from renewable sources. We can’t work from the assumption that we can maintain the cultural status quo while at the same time switching over to renewable sources of energy. Instead, we must become creative in all aspects of our lives. Developing more efficient lifestyles seems like common sense to me — regardless of where our energy is coming from (Per my cursory skim the magazine article suggested nuclear, but I’d still rather see other avenues developed further along with more intentionally efficient living.).

Cameraphone capture of part of a wind turbine, going down I-80 on our way home from Nashville.

On our way down to the Hutchmoot last week, my wife and I were introduced to Rodney and Sidney Wright. Rodney wrote The Hawkweed Passive Solar House Book. He showed us around their house — inserting at least one pun into every sentence — pointing to all of the attention paid to making the home more energy efficient. The energy bill for the home was less than $50 a month for the 1,200 square foot structure in Paducah, Kentucky (a walkable community, he pointed out). The couple paid good money for energy efficient appliances, used prefabricated wall panels with dense foam insulation to build with and of course designed the home with climate and geography in mind, in a passive solar fashion.

It’s going to take this kind of intentionality in our design of life, I believe, in order to make renewables work. Sure some things might cost more now and then, but Wright made a point of saying that even though their uber efficient Swedish microwave/convection oven might have cost them $3,000 they built the home for only $85,000 (doing some of the work themselves, such as painting) just four years ago.

Wright also pointed out that we used to do better at designing our dwellings and communities as they relate to their local environments. What will it take as a culture to forgo the more common and under-considered living spaces we create in the United States?

Filed under Architecture, Basis for designing well, Community planning, Environmental stewardship, Interior design, Living incarnationally, Modern culture, Sustainable living

Let your squares be squares

13 July 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

Julie Rozman, an architect-slash-ceramics blogger I’ve followed for a few years now, posted some images of her work for sale. She’s moving from Chicago to Urbana to study ceramics, and one of her sets of work reminded me of a post I’ve been thinking about for a while.

A long while, actually. Probably since I graduated from college almost ten years ago now.

Julie's sculpture does not forget it's roots.

In my architecture classes, in my graphic design classes and some of the time in my ceramics classes I watched aspiring artists and designers, myself included, forget the basics of design. We’d go after an assignment with passion, with dreams of being featured on the front cover of Architectural Digest, and forget that there are certain building blocks to every visual and spatial solution. They were overthinking the problem.

I suppose this is a symptom of the genius mentality, the drive for stardom usurping the desire to make useful and beautiful contributions to our surrounding environments.

Filed under Aesthetics, Affluenza, Architecture, Art, Art education, Artist as genius, Basis for designing well, Beauty, Ceramics, Design, Modern culture

Conceptive creativity vs designing spaces

3 July 2010 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

My predisposition towards creating and refining interior spaces is getting the better of me again. Here we are in our new little home which we moved into — I avoid the word purchased since the bank still own’s 90% of it — in part because it was livable. Livable, yes, but not ideal.

First project underway, now complete.

The trick in part will be not putting too much time or money into the place, and working on projects that add the most value. The home isn’t in the best of neighborhoods and we won’t be able to add infinite value to the space with our projects. This, however, is a practical point of view. Merge this with a designer’s sensibility, which considers the practical as well as the aesthetic, and that’s where I’m headed.

The most expensive project will be replacing the kitchen cabinets. In our previous home we got away with painting and replacing the hardware, but the cabinets there were in better shape and more plentiful. We have a lot of saving to do before I tackle the kitchen. Before then will come removing the wall between the living room and kitchen (which is done), adding walls and flooring in the basement to create a family room and a bathroom (the bathroom is already partially plumbed) and painting inside and out.

Part of creating an organized studio space for myself to work in will be adding the walls in the basement. This is a relatively inexpensive project when you don’t include flooring, but it takes a fair amount of time. As in probably a month of weekends start to finish when you consider the wiring and pluming that will also be involved. And building in an entertainment center.

The struggle comes with another pervading inclination, that of creating works of art. Today I want to start a small series of paintings. My clay is either too wet or too dry at the moment (I’m still looking for a local supplier of a new clay body that I like since we moved) so I thought I’d do something in the way of conceptive creation, in this case painting (something I do on occasion). I quickly realized, however, the lighting over the new work surface I scrapped together is insufficient, so I’m back to thinking about spaces and projects around the house.

It’s a vicious cycle for me.

Filed under Aesthetics, Ceramics, Interior design, Painting

Art is supposed to be challenging; what is design supposed to be?

23 June 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

According to jazz musician Henry Threadgill, art should be challenging. From an NPR interview:

Threadgill says art is supposed to be challenging, and that he doesn’t care if his audience likes his music, as long as it moves them.

“My only hope is they’ll have a reaction, and the reaction doesn’t have to be positive,” Threadgill says. “It could be negative. It’s fine with me if I drive you away. That’s as good as if I kept you there. If it was strong enough to run you away, then it’s going to do something to you. It’s going to make you think about something. It’s going to make you feel something that you weren’t feeling or thinking about before. And that’s the whole idea.”

Generally speaking, I agree with Threadgill, although this doesn’t always have to be the case. What’s challenging to a person is a somewhat subjective idea anyway. Most American’s ideas about art, I’d venture a guess, make them think about anything fluffy and sugar-coated, warm and fuzzy. Most Americans, thus, aren’t going to be interested in war-related images to hang on their walls and set on their shelves. They’ll be thinking of pastoral Kinkade’s or wildlife or an innocuous architectural scene with impressionist brush strokes — pictures in their head that sooth, not challenge.

Going with the idea that art should be challenging, though, I’m wondering what design should thus be. Should design (architectural and interior) actually be geared towards giving us a sense of comfort while the art within our spaces pushes our boundaries, asks us to think outside the box?

Filed under Architecture, Art, Interior design

On missing loft living

26 May 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

A follow up to this and this, talking about living downtown.

I also miss the living space, living in a loft.

I miss the large open living area and the [inefficient] high ceilings. I miss the large windows (even though we didn’t have windows so much as storm windows) on a second floor with, well, more of a view than most first floors in common city neighborhoods.

Sure the living arrangement we were in wasn’t the best. We shared a bathroom 50 feet down a hallway and a kitchen literally half a block away, and we didn’t have closets either. But the overall living space was still desirable.

Key, I think, to that kind of residence would be figuring out how to make the loft as efficient as possible, particularly with regard to high ceilings and utilities. High ceilings are desirable, high utility bills are not. Well-considered window treatments, quality windows themselves and air circulation seem to be a must.

Photo of a July 2009 supercell west of downtown, Grand Island.

Filed under Architecture, Grand Island, Interior design

On missing downtown living

22 May 2010 by pcNielsen 1 Comment

I mentioned missing loft living a while back although couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. Last night the wife and I drove through downtown Grand Island, our old stomping grounds, just to see what was playing at the theater.

As we drove by she suggested that one reason we likely miss downtown is that we feel out of touch, disconnected. Even in a short five weeks (maybe it’s six now). Despite not deeply connecting with the downtown community — assuming there is one — during the eight months we lived on Third Street, there is something about living in the center of the city. (not speaking geographically).

We didn’t end up going to many movies at the theater downtown (though we intended to), but just knowing what was playing gave us more of a connection to the community than we have now. Watching the people walk to the theater, line up in the rain for a popular film. Or taking note of the empty parking spots for less popular films. Sure we have some great neighbors in our new hood, but that’s a small slice of the pie — a relational slice that I do count as quite important — even if we have more of a relationship with them than we did with anyone else downtown (and with effort we could probably have the same kind of relationships regardless of where we’re living).

Before living downtown I always assumed I’d like living downtown. After a while of actually living downtown, however, I wasn’t necessarily convinced. Part of the lack of enthusiasm on my part might, admittedly, have been a lack of effort on my part. But in retrospect, I did enjoy the place as I expected too.

Filed under Grand Island, New Urbanism, Personal reflection

Standing outside of American suburbia

18 April 2010 by pcNielsen 6 Comments

At some point in the last week I saw something that made me think, as I do on occasion, how nice it would be to be pursuing the suburban dream here in America. My wife and I could [in theory] be fairly successful [financially] if we chose to go that route. We both possess degrees in halfway decent paying fields that we have not pursued as avidly as we could have, even though both of us are still using those skills in our work presently. We could be living on the right side of the tracks if we wanted to be.

We chose instead, just after graduating, to serve in mission mobilization with Mission Data International, which we’re still doing. So from the get go we had to raise money for my own fairly frugal salary. My wife became editing manager of our small town newspaper while we raised support, but she quit as we had planned when my student loans were paid off.

I don’t remember exactly what triggered the desire to seek out suburbia this week. It may have been seeing that happy family driving down the road in their newer car, combined with the chaos of moving into a very small house in neighborhood I don’t know anything about.

And now I’m wondering — not for the first time — now I’m asking the question “What is the appeal of suburbia?” Is it merely social pressure or is there more to it? Could it be there is something about the suburban space that hearkens to our subconscious? Is there something in us as humans that yearns for more open spaces (Yes, I know I’m posting this just after suggesting I miss downtown living.)? In recent years I’ve become a little less of a critic of the American suburbs, realizing we can’t just summarily do away with them and wondering, as already stated, if they came into being and proliferated with some substance beyond the greed of speculative developers.

My wife and I certainly have our reasons for intentionally standing outside of the typical pursuit of American suburbia, keyword here being pursuit. Our own interests, passions, point our time and efforts towards ends that, while still personal, attempt to look beyond our own comfort. We hope to be a counterculture for the common good. While this can be done — and should be done by people who feel called to it — in the context of the suburbs, it’s not where we’re at.

As an aside, another aspect of this week’s enigmatic desire to have a suburban life — which the wife very accurately pointed out has enough problems of its own since it’s also populated by people — might a sense of isolation I’ve had over the past few months. Working a more or less full time job away from the computer (along with still working my part-time M-DAT job mobilizing, breaking in a puppy and moving) has taken more getting used to than I expected. I miss blogging, being able to read blogs, being able to read substantial articles on the arts or theology during the week. I’m not a news junky by any stretch of the imagination, but I was disappointed to learn just this morning (in an email from M-DAT HQ) that there was a volcano disrupting air travel for mission trips. We also miss our network of artistically inclined friends back in Northwest Arkansas.

How any of this relates to a desire for a suburban life, which is typically associated with isolation itself, I don’t know. But my mind seems to want to make some kind of connection to it at the moment.

Filed under Central Nebraska, Community planning, Grand Island, Living incarnationally, Modern culture, New Urbanism, Northwest Arkansas, Personal reflection, Siloam Springs

Moving ahead

11 April 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

I had drafted this post a couple weeks ago to start out saying “Today we signed a contract for a little house here in Grand Island.” That was supposed to be Friday. Instead, closing has been delayed until Monday because an appraiser couldn’t spell. We moved in anyway with an early occupancy document since we’d already arranged for help moving.

This post isn’t about the house, but since this blog often deals with architecture and living spaces I’ll elaborate just a little. Keyword here is little, 720 finished square feet bungalow built in 1940 with a very usable full basement. It’s not something we’re in love with, but it’ll do Donkey, it’ll do. It was the best home we’d seen for the money in a few months of looking: Newer roof, AC, water heater, electrical, some flooring. It needs paint but I can take care of that in my sleep. Kitchen also needs to be updated.

There are a number of practical reasons that make this move into our own place a good one (and, yes, we’ve thought of renting, but it’s just not as cost effective or practical considering both my wife’s and my creative pursuits). One of those is our puppy, another is our own kitchen in light of my wife’s dietary needs.

But the reason I’m most excited about, and this may not make sense to anyone else but me (which is OK), is that it’s marking time, marking a moment in time when we begin to move forward in earnest on the artist retreat idea. Moving forward on the retreat isn’t directly related to buying this house, but I hope this space becomes the place that leads to the retreat.

Filed under Architecture, Art, Christian art retreat, Grand Island

Community revival and the artist retreat

27 March 2010 by pcNielsen 5 Comments

Last weekend I came across a property in Hazelton, Kansas that seems like it would work very well for an artist retreat. It’s a very large building that was most recently either a farm implement or oil well supplier from what I can tell. The 1948 concrete structure — from what I can tell it would be best described as Mid-Century Modern — seems to be a organized maze of a five bedroom living space nestled in the midst of a series of garages and open spaces.

It’s exciting to find properties like this in light of the retreat idea, especially ones that seem within some kind of financial reach (best scenario would be if the property was donated to the effort, probably after we receive 501(c)(3) status although not necessarily). My wife will tell you I become obsessed when I find certain spaces that serve certain functions, which is probably a fair assessment.

But this post isn’t about the building in Hazelton. It’s about the community of Hazelton.

Hazelton, Kansas is a very small community (roughly 130 people) about an hour southwest of Wichita. It’s the type of place most people can’t ever imagine moving to, the type of town that’s dying off in America. From what I can tell in Google Maps, most of the downtown buildings (about 10 of them, seemingly well kept) are vacant. A water tower stands over a green space and what appears to be a water treatment facility lies east of its guard; a highway and railway pass by to the west.

This isn’t the kind of place I would expect to end up in, although the vacant schoolhouse idea could also land the retreat in a similarly tiny town. However, as happens when new ideas present themselves, I’ve found myself daydreaming of what Hazelton might become with an infusion of the arts.

How could the retreat I’m imagining help revitalize this small community? Granted, it’s not going to be the kind of economic boon many of these rural places generally hope for. It won’t be a factory with 50 jobs, but it might (on the high end) employ five people part-time. Instead I’m wondering how an arts related institution can give back to the place that it’s in, large or small. In the case of small, in the case of Hazelton, Kansas, the impact could at least appear more significant than in a larger city.

In my daydream, the retreat is able to employ a few part-time employees (eventually). It hopes to help put the presumably vacant downtown buildings to some good use, even if it’s not installing regular businesses. Maybe one of them becomes a community space available for birthday parties or community wide Thanksgiving celebrations or occasional gallery spaces for movies, music, theater and other art exhibitions. Maybe one of them is transformed into a place where a person with a passion for food cooks a monthly meal for anyone who wants to come. I’d like to see a bonafide park — I don’t think there is one from what I can tell, again from Google Maps — and sidewalks with decorative streetlamps along Main Street from the highway to downtown (donated to the community by the retreat, if God were to ever bless the retreat with such ability).

Adding: Of course, in this day and age of the internet, those buildings could be used for for profit businesses. They would probably be inexpensive to rent for storage for internet sales (thinking of the eBay boom, which is pretty much past now anyhow). Maybe one of them becomes a gluten free bakery that ships breads across the country. These aren’t the strongest ideas related to the point of the internet enabling far flung locations to succeed, but they’re what come to mind off-hand.

My wife was dreaming of creating a library for the community if it doesn’t have one. I would hope to turn the roughly 10 acres around the building into a public, park-like space with a walking trail — preferably one that’s tied to the rest of the community in some form or fashion) — sculpture garden and tennis court (which is already on the property).

This line of thinking is new to me, probably because most of the time (though admittedly not all) I imagine the retreat being on a farm or acreage outside of a city. This enticing piece of property is fostering this new line of thinking. Regardless, for any of the things I’ve brainstormed to happen we’d want to start by garnering interest from the residents. In many ways I’m thinking like a community planner here, a facilitator with the best interest of the place and its people at heart.

Filed under Architecture, Art, Christian art retreat, Creative catalyst, Living incarnationally

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