To be designer - part II

Let me start by quoting Marina, because she wrote something that I've felt since I came back to blog world, and I completely mirror her feelings:

"Today I read the blog of my sister and decided to leave a comment. It's kind of funny how even though we don't meet or talk so much, I feel we are always in sync. We live different things, we make different decisions, but I almost always identify myself with what she thinks. It's kind of hard, to be so close to someone who has a different life. I think it's sometimes hard not to want to be in her skin. Of course I feel that sort of thing towards all people I admire, but it's more frequent in this case."

And I will continue commenting on what she said on her blog. This is for Mali, for my friends, designers or architects, for my family, or anyone who is interested.

I'm terrible at design.

I am. I think I'm smart, fine, and I think I can see things from different viewpoints, I like a lot to think of processes and people, and I end up doing projects because I have to (in the office or in life). But I suck at it. I'm a good analyst, I can arrive at a reasonable program, I can see consistency or not, I can think of ten different ways to solve a problem - but I can't solve a blank page without ending up in tears. When I start, I need to create about 15 options that are everything - ugly, clumsy, flimsy, inadequate, completely wrong, dull, lifeless, seems the great-grandmother's coffee table, or it's cracked for no reason, inconsistent. I need to draw without thinking (and incidentally I don't draw well), and must look at the results without evaluating them a lot - or I'll just give up. That's until I arrive to a solution I don't hate.

Project is an endless torture.

Then, with evaluation of the supervising professor (one even scribbled things on my drawing), it's easier, as I enter the part that I can do - evaluate, weigh criteria, modify, improve. And yet, every time it means a restructuring of the drawing, it is painful. Never as painful as the first concept, but still horrible.

I could only go through FAU because most of the work was done in groups, or at least pairs. With feedback, with others to add their two cents and scribble together, everything becomes infinitely easier. That is, it becomes doable. But as I said on saturday, I prefer not to design. I prefer to use what I know how to do, and that which I consider myself even good at - to coordinate, to take good ideas and organize them, to solve problems, to work with people, not the project itself.

I'll say it was frustrating to see other students with reasonable designs in a few hours, and I could only get a reasonable plan in a few weeks. I often thought of quitting. I didn't quit only because I had Alex, people, and I still think design is a beautiful thing. But that's okay - I always knew that architecture would be difficult - always. I chose the course because it was something I'd find difficult - and often regretted that choice. Flee from our talent is not always the best idea, not to you, nor to the world.

Not that I haven't found myself in there, somehow. If only, within the landscape architecture - whose design is derived almost directly from the program - making it much easier. All I hope is that I can sing in my own note. I don't seek anything else. (Like that's a tiny thing ...)