2015 | Studio City
I have built boats and the occasional piece of furniture, and apprenticed in the construction of my first studio, detailed with surplus Fijian mahogany, floored in salvaged Peruvian walnut, ceilinged with twice-milled redwood pulled from my parents’ deck restoration, but I don’t have many pictures of those efforts. The attention I gave to building details and solutions, and the dust, glue, stains, and paints, weren’t compatible with keeping a camera at hand.
For me, a clear building mind is essential to consistently measure twice and cut only the wood. A mistake with a camera might mean a lost length or sheet of film, but a mistake with a saw can be something else.
Before this picture, I had commissioned an experienced painter to finish this last built-in element in the re-working of our home, jut two years after the project was ‘finished.’ This was the final detail, so I was free to think like, even be, a photographer on this day. For the first time in the long process, I got to watch work being done, and stood back for a look.
It always pays me to remain curious; across all my disciplines and enthusiasms, this seems to be my core competency.
My uncle Donn, a solid architect, started planning his next house at age ninety-two. I spoke to him recently, and he told me that he had put off the project, quoting for me the Ninety-Ninety Rule of Construction Scheduling: “90% of the job takes 90% of the time, and the last 10% takes 90% of the time.”