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.

First project underway, now complete.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Via Design Boom.

You just don’t know how connected you are to a place until you leave it.

When we moved to Siloam Springs I didn’t expect to become attached to such a small community, in Arkansas, nestled into them thar hills.

What I learned is that it’s easier, in some ways, to become a part of a smaller community. And that it’s the people that make the community what it is in large part. This is no revelation to me or anyone else who’s considered the topic, but living in Arkansas was my first adult experience, so to speak, far apart from a culture that I knew.

Granted, there were some ups and downs in our relationship with the place, but the same can be said for every relationship. And there is a little more to it than just the people, especially to a visual geek (what’s the visual equivalent of “audiophile?”) like myself. For Siloam, it helped greatly to have a liberal arts university, a quaint downtown in the midst of restoration, centrally located parks with a creek running through them etc.

So at this point I’m wondering how quickly a person can become an integral part of a different — and larger — community and by what means. I have an advantage here in Grand Island having lived here for a couple years during high school, but the same could be said for the move to Arkansas, going back to the town where my wife graduated from college. However, we’re not all that convinced we’ll be here for much more than a year as we wait for certain doors to open (or not open).

What we are convinced of is that we miss Siloam Springs — with the exception of the allergens.