Since it's Valentine's Day, I thought I'd share with you how I came about doing what I love.
Finding Beauty in the Unexpected…..
In 1979 the Sahara Desert experienced snow for 30 minutes and my mom gave birth to twin girls…twin b being me! Well, my birth isn’t quite as amazing as snow in the Sahara Desert, although my grandmother would disagree, I have learned that life is all about finding beauty in the unexpected.
I grew up in Texas, it’s home to me, and I believe it always will be until I live somewhere for longer. It’s where I learned to draw and paint with my dad, to be curious in the field that touched our backyard fence, to ride my bike and drive a car, and to wonder why some friends had more and others had less.
In college my curiosity followed. I tried out Journalism, Advertising, Interior Design, and landed on Architecture. I’m not one of the architecture types that knew what I wanted to be from age 6, I grew into mine, and as I get older I believe I’m similar in my approach to seeing the world.
Speaking of seeing the world, 2001 marked a watershed in my life. I was in my last year of studies at UT Arlington, I was taking care of my sick mother and managed to obtain an international scholarship to take an architecture history course in Italy for the summer. And for someone who had never been to a big city, nor ever seen anything that was older than 200 years, this was big. Rome was first, but my ah-ha moment was Florence. My atm card had managed to get jammed into the machine, it was my only source of funds, so I had to immediately run to cancel my card and have my family over-night fed-ex it to me. That unexpected incident provided me the opportunity to be alone in the city without my other 25 colleagues. As I walked over the Ponte Vecchio, of the River Arno, I entered the Uffizzi a thin narrow space that opened out onto the river from one side and opened up into a beautiful piazza on the other. For the first time, I truly understood the essence of architecture, it wasn’t about a single building, it was about it’s relationship to it’s surroundings, it was about the urban condition and how people felt when they walked through a place, it was how buildings made you feel squeezed and then releasing that tension into a beautiful opening, for people and events, it was about people, cafes, and eating and being together.
This passion for place continued to grow as I completed my studies in Texas, started my masters program in Denver, and upon graduation, moved to England and met Flip, an architect, sociologist and urban designer, the most amazing man (aside from my husband) that I have ever met. I spent 2.5 years in England, visiting Flip in Amsterdam and Flip visiting us, learning to see the world as Flip did. Because of him, I took a position as an Urban Designer and gained even more learning and understanding working with a great director at careyjones architects.
When the recession hit, although my departure from my new found role as Urban Designer was too soon, my passion was still alive. I’m coming up on 3 years in San Francisco now and just three months ago I launched Urban Matters, a small design lab dedicated to improving the social fabric of cities. It’s been a dream of mine for years, and I’ve finally decided to take the leap. I know that life is full of uncertainty, but as I look back on my time, both rewarding and frustrating, I am continuously reminded to find the beauty in the unexpected. I lost my ATM card, but I found Florence.
Urban Matters
What? New partner? That’s right…. we are! I am thrilled to pieces to have Katie Crepeau, a talented design colleague, join Urban Matters as a partner! Katie and I have shared an interest in public interest design for years now and we are thrilled to finally be making it happen. Katie brings years of experience in commercial work in the Bay Area along with a positive energy and shared mission to bring design and architecture to the masses. We can’t wait to share with you what we are up to….so stay tuned!! Greatness abounds…