L'Etate , c'est moi.

Fate Follows Fantasy.

The new BAR. Two opposing offset wedges with the left (unexposed cantilever) for bar stool seating and the right end for belly up, foot on the concrete rail, standing and drinking. Form Follows Function. Can't wait to see the whole.....Might be beautiful.

DESIGN FORGE not DESIGN FORGERY.

I ignite the flame of the forge in the mind and gather the necessary ingredients for casting a brand new idea. Dimensions, materials, strength of materials, color, structure, everything. All the while concentrating, searching, visualizing, imagining, negating then back to concentrating and on and on it goes. Only until a NEW one is conceived, is the hand allowed to draw or fingers to enter a command.

And any lies, the forgeries of others are not included. No copycatting. Only the unknown is exciting. At least half a dozen designs for bar stools have been imagined and committed to paper but none are worthy. Close but not the real deal. But I am self assured and get strength from knowing that my mind will forge a new idea with more concentration, more hard work. This all may sound big, as my wife says but You can't do the talk without doing the walk.

All GLADITORIAL events have been cancelled today due to snow.

And it must be snowing inside the Pantheon!

Another rainy day in Santa Monica which there aren't many of......but being in Architecture always makes me feel sunny!

Bernie and me. Bernie retired last Thursday, January 7th 2010. I worked with him for twenty years and it choked me up when he gave me the news.

I learned a lot working with him. I learned a lot about carpentry and making things and thinking about what I was designing that would eventually be built, often by him. You have to throw away a lot of junk before you get to goods. And after you get to the reality there is more work to make it a little more beautiful and then a hell of lot more work to get it built and built right.

If I may paraphrase my hero, Louis H. Sullivan....I have to say that in design: "Fact follows fiction." Bernie helped me to see reality more clearly. He helped me to lose the bullshit. He helped me get to the truth more expeditiously. I will miss him a lot.

A new design of a glass and reinforced concrete seating terrace for Mr. Jim Goldstein's beautifully landscaped hillside property in Beverly Hills. He has approved it!

However, the high only lasts so long. I need to do a NEW design....Feeling like a junkie with out his fix.

May next year bring a better economy and may next year be fruitful! Happy New Year!