I love this flower, the Dahlia, for its soft layers and beautiful colors. The way each petal falls into place creates a perfect, full bloom. It thrives in different conditions and keeps blooming even when other flowers fade. Many years ago (2016), as I imagined my tent in the fog of Mount Everest, I saw it as a Dahlia—delicate yet strong enough to endure.

I ask myself so many questions about intuition and inspiration. At their core is a creative force, an energy that wants to spill out and unlock the mysteries of the world. These questions (and at times their answers) have always been revealed to me through the context of making, being in nature and interacting with others. These everyday activities connect my experiences and my understanding of the world, to nature, to patience, persistence, dedication, etc… It is with movement, that our desire and drive to make a better life for ourselves, and through beauty- the engine that drives my energy towards a higher being- that we can birth something truly new. It is the beginning and the end of everything.

“The way one moves through spaces, the way one passes one’s life.” – Italo Calvino

Buildings have always seemed to me to be composed of a series of events.  The ways in which a building reveals itself can be both immediate and measured.  This is the way I remember experiencing architecture. To study an event from beginning to end, from trigger to happening to memory offers a possible way to recognize the experiential and elusive qualities of space. The fact that events, like architecture, can be both abrupt and gradual is the derivative measure within which I approached my investigation.  

Once rotated manually the tubes trickle down the piano wires at different speeds and make resonant sounds, engaging the viewer to probe the event and become a part of it. It is a memory-making instrument that transports the viewer to a place through time, sound and movement. 

Embedded in this array of yarn balls is a collection of memories, a vibrant history, and an embodied process of making and belonging. In the last two years, I’ve observed Bedouin women wind yarns by hand, gently, to create dense yarn balls. The sense of ball winding is part of a global textile tradition that does not rely on complex tools apart from the woman’s body to manage the yarn. The winding and unwinding process is an art in itself – a system that relies on a set of rules practiced by all women. I am constantly reminded not to wind the yarn too tightly “because it will affect the tension of the yarn when creating a cloth.”

Adjacent to the process of making, is the winding and unwinding I am experiencing on the individual level. How is my overall state of being woven, or indeed unraveled, through cycles of winding and unwinding? How does an ancient practice so deeply embedded in a community manifest itself in a cerebral landscape?

The three-dimensional patterned studies that I created during my sophomore year at RISD (1998) have a ghostly quality that still haunts me. This simple geometrical configuration transforms with an altering light, casting shadows that convey a sense of time. I am reminded that it is light that helps architecture achieve it’s true purpose.

Light is the spirit of architecture.

Light is Architecture.