Art in the margins: could time in the sidelines put your heart and art back in the game? - practice

Residential Architect, June, 2003 by Cheryl Weber

as a focused discipline, designing buildings has its virtues. Over the years you perfect the art of sizing up prospective clients, devising schematics quickly, and building a spec library and relationships with contractors. Done well, it's a satisfying way to make a living. But for some architects, not satisfying enough.

For a variety of reasons--as part of a business strategy for a large firm, as a way for sole practitioners to boost their income, or purely for intellectual enjoyment--many architects have well-developed sidelines to their practice. In their mind's eye, drawing, painting, sculpture, graphic design, and industrial design are all part of the creative process. And they've figured out how to get paid to push the limits of their creativity, while keeping up a mainstream practice.

"I've had two jobs all my life," says Jeremiah Eck, FAIA, Boston. For years, he taught design seminars at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. Recently, though, he sliced his professional life into thirds when he exchanged his garage for an art studio, where he paints landscapes. "I was trying to reinvigorate my intuition, because I found that as I got older in the practice I was spending most of my time talking on phones and answering e-mail," Eck says. "It has invigorated my right brain to the point where it's helped my practice more than I would have imagined. When you paint, you make design decisions quickly." Sold independently and in galleries, Eck's paintings are becoming a viable source of income, he says. And he envisions the art evolving as a larger part of his productive life when he eventually lets his partners take on more of Jeremiah Eck Architects.

melting pots

If established sidelines are a welcome exit strategy, they also subsidize the front end of a career. New York City architect-in-training Corvin Matei, who is on his last round of licensing exams, considers his fledgling practice a melting pot. He relishes his artistic independence and his work in any given week, which may include interior architectural design, furniture design and manufacturing, and doing models and presentation drawings for other architectural firms, such as James, Harwick + Partners, Dallas. "I think all these things are essential to the education of an architect before you go mainstream," he says. "I think of these projects as a way of growing from one scale to another, building up a library of knowledge."

The drawings and model-building represent about 20 percent of Matei's income. They're a window into other people's work, he says, and a way of exploring and thinking about architecture. "After I get licensed I plan to keep doing the same things," Matei says. "I've always thought there was something missing by just doing architecture. You get channeled into one way of thinking, whereas there's spark and excitement in also doing furniture and graphic design."

artful diversity

In business by herself for a decade, Seattle architect Anita Lehmann has also parlayed her love of drawing into a substantial source of income. Teaching architectural drawing and design for 10 years at the University of Washington gave her a solid base from which to launch that side of the business. In addition to designing residential remodels, commercial office space, and restaurant interiors, Lehmann has illustrated high-end marketing pieces for such local firms as GGLO Architects and Planners, and served as a scribe for the city of Seattle on public design charrettes. She has also worked with graphic design firms on projects as diverse as a bottle design for Starbucks and a cash machine for Wells Fargo.

"Some graphic designers don't think well three-dimensionally," she says. "I can illustrate all sides of a product, up and down and around. I can design an architectural application, and they'll put their designs into my drawings."

Not only does this multidisciplinary approach engage her creative talents more fully than a traditional practice, it also gives her flexibility. Working from an office in her home, where she's also raising a family, Lehmann is able to mix large- and small-scale projects. "If I wanted to practice architecture I'd have a larger firm, which would mean I'd be out of the house more and working 60 hours a week," she says. "What I like about the degree in architecture is that you can diversify so much--go into project management, illustration, architectural photography."

Whether Lehmann is sketching a three-dimensional idea for a Nordstrom store interior or designing a menu board for Seattle's Best Coffee, she says those facets of her work complement, rather than compete with, architectural design. "The process is the same," she says. "I still use a pencil and electric eraser and draw as many views as I can come up with. You don't have to worry about the roof leaking. But because I'm trained as an architect, I'm thinking about all those elements--scale, aesthetics, and proportion--that are also required on small projects." Lehmann adds, "I'm always careful to call myself an illustrator, not a renderer. I like to let people know that when I'm drawing I'm not just coloring bricks in, but figuring out how it goes together, what the light quality is, and dealing with architectural details."