← The Grand Tourist with Dan Rubinstein
The Grand Tourist with Dan Rubinstein
Sharing the Spotlight: Lindsey Adelman and Gabriel Hendifar
00:48:21
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- [00:00]
A
You can kind of tell when work's designed on a computer and you can tell when it's not. You can tell when it's come into the world because someone's really considered how their body relates to it. It's such a rush to work with people who are so amazing at what they do that I want people to feel in the end.
- [00:19]
B
Hi, I'm Dan Rubenstein and this is the Grand Tourist. I've been a design journalist for more than 20 years and this is my personalized guided tour through the worlds of fashion, art, architecture, food and travel. All the elements of a well lived life. May in New York brings an onslaught of gallery openings, art fairs and trade shows where the design industry comes together to discuss display and, well, drink. But despite all the events and shindigs, it's a rare thing for two designers, especially competitors, to share their thoughts not only about their own work, but each other's. Today, I'm bringing together two talents that have made lighting design the bulk of their life's work together for a rare chat about about the values and creative paths they've taken to achieving success. While technically rivals, their work is quite different but equally loved. And before I recorded today's chat, I had no idea the two shared such admiration for one another. My first guest hosted us in their Manhattan showroom called the Red Room and will be familiar to fans of this podcast. Gabriel Hendefar of the brand Apparatus. His booming decade old company is known for its highly considered lighting and is one of the hottest names around, but has also expanded into things like furniture and accessories. And like we discussed on a previous episode, he's inspired by his Persian heritage, his fashion references and an unrelenting pursuit of perfection. We're joined by someone who has been instrumental in building the contemporary design scene in New York and through her innovative and artistic practice has inspired legions of designers, Gabriel included. Lindsay Adelman if you've picked up a Shelter magazine in the past 20 years, you've seen her work that combines an industrial nostalgia with something she pioneered with an utterly crafted and hand blown appeal that has won her legions of fans. Most know her iconic branching bubble chandeliers that have been copied widely. I might add to her latest pendants called Overglow, where metal frames hold bulging orbs of glass. She's also elevated her pieces to collectible levels and has been a frequent exhibitor to fairs like Design Miami. I sat down with both Gabriel and Lindsay at the Apparatus showroom to talk about how light inspires them to create their art, how the two View each other's work, finding the creative frequency that makes it all possible and more.
- [02:39]
C
Thank you guys for doing this. We've been talking about this for quite a while, so I'm glad to actually be here in this incredible space, which will be. We'll be taking beautiful photos for the print issue in the Apparatus Studio. In the red room. Technically not in the red room or. Gabriel, tell me where exactly we are.
- [02:58]
D
We are in this room. Um, we call this a number of things. I would say right now it's serving the dining room, which is how we design the space. It's. We're in a. We're. We're at a burl wood table, and we're surrounded by mirrors. So we're kind of infinitely reflected as we have what I think is going to be kind of like a metaphysical conversation.
- [03:21]
B
We don't.
- [03:22]
C
We don't often get into metaphysical conversations, but Lindsay Adelman, you know, we're here to have this little moment, right. And to talk about something that's totally vital to life on Earth, but also extremely intangible and something people don't often think about, which is light and the many ways in which it kind of manifests itself from design and just the spirit also. But before we get started, I've known you for quite some time, going back here in the New York design scene, even though I just realized a few moments before we started rolling that I've been mispronouncing your last name. Gabriel, obviously your returning champion here on the Grand Tourist, one of our more popular episodes, I might add, of that season, which was. I looked it up.
- [04:05]
B
It was quite successful, of course.
- [04:08]
C
Tell me about Lindsay. For the people that don't know you, tell us a little bit about you and your studio.
- [04:15]
A
Yeah, I founded it almost 20 years ago, and I've been doing lighting in other ways since about 1995. So it's 30 years.
- [04:26]
D
I want to get into that years,
- [04:27]
A
which is wild to think about. And now my studio is. Yeah, we're based in Manhattan. There's about 20 people on the team, and I continue to make sculptural lighting.
- [04:40]
C
Yeah, I wrote an article about, like, which was back then called the Brooklyn Lighting phenomenon for Monocle, Many, many, many moons ago that I interviewed you for. And it was interesting to see how many of the amazing people in New York, especially. Especially in this kind of world. I think this is before Apparatus that, you know, kind of everyone intersects. It's kind of like in fashion, everyone worked at Ralph Lauren at one period of time. And I think both of you now are kind of like these sort of nexus points for sort of American design and especially for light and Gabriel. I mean, people can listen to the entire podcast about you, but give us a little bit of a penny tour of the.
- [05:21]
D
Sure. Apparatus was founded in 20, and, you know, over the course of the last now 16 years, I've come to understand what I do as creating an envelope for human experience. It's really thinking about how to calibrate choices that create an environment in which I hope a certain kind of experience will happen. And lighting found me. That was sort of my entrance into this world, this way of thinking about space. We make furniture, we make objects. And, you know, I have to say and acknowledge, as you said, I'm here because of the people in New York who showed me that this was possible. So sitting with you right now feels like a full circle moment, because I was a little, you know, gay boy in LA going like, how, you know, how do I. How do I make a thing for myself that I want to live with? And you really created such a. A beautiful way of expressing an idea through. Through light, sort of through a whisper of form. And it. It's, you know, just such a. Such an honor to be here with you and talk about making light.
- [06:35]
C
And so how. How long have you guys known each other? Because I didn't. Actually didn't know before we kind of explored this whole idea that you guys did know each other. Do you guys remember meeting or how long have you been.
- [06:45]
D
I remember meeting you at the BDDW Weenie roast.
- [06:49]
A
Oh, right.
- [06:50]
D
Like up in. Up in that beautiful castle.
- [06:53]
A
Right.
- [06:54]
D
Maybe that was 10 years ago, I would say. And, you know, at that point, you know, I, you know, I met you, but over the course of the years, you know, as we've sort of overlapped in each other's spheres. Yeah. I feel like maybe. Maybe even though we're not in touch all the time, I feel this sort of connection to the way you think about what you do, and that's just become more apparent over the course of the last two or three years.
- [07:22]
A
Yeah, yeah, there's. There's definitely a connection there without having to maintain it a lot. I feel like you and I are sort of. While our work is specific and the way we approach it is quite different, our sort of basic drivers, I feel like, are very in sync.
- [07:39]
D
I. I agree. And I guess maybe I'm curious to ask you how you define those basic drivers and how you got to understanding that they were the drivers.
- [07:54]
C
And Lindsey, if you could explain to people that don't know your work at all. How do you describe a lot of your work if you can? And just sort of the creative process that you take to kind of my work.
- [08:08]
A
I do both sometimes. I design lighting systems that are intended for mainly interior designers to be able to order standard models. But also a lot of my intention with designing systems is to give people like a kit of parts to play with. So designing for designers is a lot of my thinking and methodology. And working with really sort of like very restrained components trying to distill down a formula in order to then create something kind of unexpectedly organic. And then I'm also making more and more work with the intention of being for the design gallery market. So that's like a very different way of thinking. I really love both and I'm still doing both. And yeah, the Branching Bubble was our first collection and it's today still what we're known for most and is like continues to be really the foundation of the studio in many ways.
- [09:21]
C
And I remember visiting your studio back in the day kind of after Branch and Bubble, I guess or in the middle a little maybe post that point when it was super popular and was sort of struck by your studio and your creative space and how much little lighting inspiration or our design inspiration was around us. It was really more about mood and about a feeling that somehow then got translated into glass and brass and things like that that I've never seen in the industry. Someone be copied as much I think as you like. I can. So many people kind of took your way of thinking about lighting and kind of like ran with it. But it all kind of comes from a very sort of different place.
- [10:05]
A
It does come from a different place. I. I think my work is. Sometimes I don't even really understand it. It's. It's self expressive but I feel like I am sort of capturing this mysterious essence of some sort that really moves me and it's. If I don't have a choice, like when I envision something, I'm very compelled to realize it and see what happens in three dimensions. And it's actually. It's such a great privilege to operate this way so I can't really force things on a schedule and I don't. And I treasure that. It's sort of like if there's an urgency for the work to come out, I give it away.
- [10:50]
D
That's so beautiful. I think my understanding of or my impression, very deeply held personal impression of your work is that it feels like you are compelled to express this like distilled truth, like there's some essentialness, and then you, like, you cast it in brass and glass. It's the sort of like this ephemeral spark that feels like you've frozen it in these noble materials.
- [11:19]
A
I really appreciate that. There is something that I aim to do which is to create work that's not self conscious, which is such a challenge because humans tend to be so self conscious. And so in doing that. Yeah, I guess it's sort of. It's sort of obvious to say something like, I'm trying to get out of the way. I want to figure out another way of saying that. It's more like. It's like his balance between being a really clear creative director, but also leaving so much room for this kind of power and force that is kind of scary sometimes. And dark.
- [12:03]
D
Yes.
- [12:04]
A
And also just achingly beautiful. It's sort of like beyond us. And it's ironic, but I think a lot of the inspiration for being a lighting designer and working with light is darkness.
- [12:18]
D
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I've found, you know, the reason I was excited to have this conversation with you is, is, you know, this, this. This beautiful privilege of being able to make things in this way. You know, it's. It's a thing that I always maybe imagined would be possible for myself. And so it feels familiar with, but it also felt like this thing that felt so far away that I had to reach for, you know, and, and, and kind of arriving in this moment where I feel like I've been given the gift of, you know, the right life at the right time with the right, you know, you know, all the right things. I'm really thinking about what it means to make light in all of the ways. Right. So what is. What is. Where does my compulsion to create an object that provides illumination come from? And then how do I take that seed and actually amplify it? What does it mean to do that in the rest of my life, in my community, in the world at large? And I feel like that's a thing that I. That I feel deeply with you. Right. Is that we're responding to darkness.
- [13:26]
A
Literally. That's right.
- [13:28]
B
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- [14:49]
C
Take us a little bit into this idea of darkness and sort of really creating sort of like something out of nothing in a sense. But like, how do you, how does that idea of darkness kind of come into play, you guys both. As soon as I think, Gabriel, you said it and it kind of sparks, you guys both know, for Dan to
- [15:09]
D
let us take the rails off and.
- [15:11]
C
Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, so why, why, why, why, why when you said that, Lindsay, did you kind of go, oh yeah, of course. Like, what is it to someone like me and to maybe someone listening that has like no clue what you're talking about?
- [15:27]
D
It gets very, I mean, yeah, please
- [15:29]
B
go off the rail.
- [15:30]
D
Yeah, I want to hear.
- [15:30]
A
Maybe I'll start. I feel like we could both jump in. I. Well, one thing that intrigues me is the darkness within us. So thinking about the darkness outside of us, right, it's all a reflection. We need to sort of own up to that. So I think this like endless journey, struggle with internal harmony is a lot of my drivers. And so you're, it's, you know, it's, it's very, I guess, psychological and emotional. But thinking about darkness, one way of approaching it is like if we're all a house and we have 20 rooms inside of us, well, how many of those rooms have you never opened or even found the key? So if there's like a whole wing of the house that is not opened, you could consider that like some kind of internal darkness. Like it needs a little, it needs some attention. It doesn't need like hate or rejection, you know, so this kind of yeah, so that kind of like, opening the doors within you and letting the light in, that can, like, expand the creative process. It can come out in your work once you aren't afraid to go into those, like, rejected corners. There's many ways of talking about it.
- [16:51]
D
Totally. Yeah. That really resonates with me. Like, I've been connecting the idea of making light with just a very, like, basic, primal. Like, personally, I feel it very deeply. Connection with the sun and what it feels like. What you're describing to me is, what does it feel like to open the window and let the sun in on your skin? Like, what is that warmth? That warmth of sort of presence in your body and a connection to source and a feeling of rightness, sort of divine rightness that you feel when you're in the sun. And really trying to connect the ways in which I understand what I do, which is to create these sort of, like, you know, collages that hold light. Like, that's kind of how I think about my approach to fixtures and is that I understand this sort of, like, primal response to the beacon. Like, to the torch, to the fire in the cave. Like, that idea that we're attracted to this sense of warmth and illumination and to use that to actually illuminate an idea or illuminate a group of ideas or to sort of tell a story or to use that warmth to shine on something and in that way project into the darkness a story or an idea that I hope will amplify joy and a higher vibration and an aware awareness. I think it's such. I think light is so much about awareness. You turn the light on to see what's in the room. So there is this, I think, for both of us, this sort of, like, deep spiritual connection to. You know, I've always tried to capture this. And, you know, as an industrial designer, there's something you have that happens when you see the light fixture for the first time and it turns on right. And there's a. You know, it's simple. It's. It's science, but there's. There's like, a. That happens. And I think in that feeling is the possibility to shape emotion and shape consciousness.
- [18:57]
A
Yeah, I would agree. That's beautifully said. Even just how you started with the sun hitting one's skin is so visceral and amazing to think about, like, light having a physical quality to it. And we can. It's. We. We don't know. We wouldn't say, like, oh, here's the moment where it's hitting my skin. It's Kind of like that space in there. And so there's something that's like you're saying very joyous, something to celebrate, but also, you know, you can't hide.
- [19:33]
B
So how do you.
- [19:33]
C
So how do you respond to that darkness? Like, in a. More in a. In a design way? Like, what. Do you have a process, Lindsay, that you kind of. I mean, if other people are copying your work, then I'm sure they're copying your process in a sense where they must. In some point or if that's bleeding through. So can you take people, like, perhaps through some of your newer pieces? Like, what. The. Your latest piece that you just showed a few weeks ago here in New York? Can you just take us through that and what. That creator process?
- [20:01]
A
Yeah, sure. I think that there's something. Even the word process. It sounds like such a simple word, but so complex. So people are copying the way I manufacture, but they are cheating themselves of a process because my process has very little to do with how it's fabricated in the end. Right. And I think that's how most creative people feel about their work. It's almost arbitrary, what you choose. In the end. I feel that way it could go. It could be so many things. It could be a video. But it's a light fixture, because that makes more sense. And in the manufacturing. I mean, I design for industry, so it's so people. It's not a secret with how, like, a Y connector is machined. I don't try to make it. Yeah. Like, hard to understand. The new collection, however, will be hard to knock off because it's super challenging to manufacture, which we didn't necessarily plan, but, like, wow, it's. It's not easy. So, yeah, there's cast brass frameworks. There's sort of like, four different frameworks, which are rather like classical and silhouette, I would say. And then the glass that's blown into it becomes super. Yeah. Expressive and oozy and sort of. It looks like. I mean, it's definitely hitting people. Well, it's sort of. You know, it looks like maybe it grew, like, garlic or something, but then it also looks like something pretty fleshy or just like. Maybe if you saw, like, one sort of. Like one part that's sort of oozing out, but then you're seeing, like, five of them on one fixture, and it's. It's almost. There's something familiar and a little, like, unfamiliar or disturbing that I think people are feeling.
- [21:57]
C
It's called overglow.
- [21:58]
A
Yeah.
- [21:59]
C
Just to kind of. Just to drop a name, but it's called Overglow, and it's sort of like, as you mentioned, it's sort of like a. There. It's like a wire frame and then the glass is blown into it and it kind of like oozes out a little bit like butt cheeks in a thong strap. You know, like, it's kind of like. It's so organic and so beautiful and it must be extra. Extremely difficult to make also.
- [22:18]
A
Right.
- [22:19]
C
It lives. There are some videos, I think, on your Instagram of like, showing people how it's made and how it kind of like the gravity kind of makes everything sag a little bit.
- [22:27]
A
Yeah.
- [22:27]
C
Kind of like it looks imperfect, but it's also looks very kind of unique. And you know that it's some. Someone touched this with human hands.
- [22:37]
A
Yeah, yeah, there's. And there's something about developing work, you know, hands on that is so different than. You can kind of tell when works designed on a computer and you can tell when it's not. You can tell when it's come into the world because someone's really considered how their body relates to it in the space. And I adore collaborating with these, like, master craftspeople. So metal workers and glassblowers. I'm a master of no craft. My own two hands. But it's like, it's such a rush to work with people who are so amazing at what they do. Michiko, the glass artist, and I have been working together for 25 years. And yeah, it's just like amazing. Unspoken, like back and forth. And the work you kind of like, then I know what to do. Like, we'll do some tests and then I can kind of see what it wants to be. And I'll often, yeah. Like, shift the original direction to make sense for like, the weirdest, most intriguing stuff that is actually, like, coming out and that I want people to feel in the end.
- [23:50]
C
And let me. Let me ask a kind of a question from the outside, right? Like, are a lot of these concepts unique to light or is it about design? It just happens to be. When you're working with light, it's more intense and more distilled. Right. Because you don't. The user doesn't necessarily touch the light. They have to sit on a sofa, touch, caress a chair, or put things on a shelf. But a light is. Because it's not touched. These concepts that you're talking about are sort of amplified. They're really. They're the most acute when you work in light. And that's why this conversation is so happening here in this world of light. But if I got two people here that work in office seating, that they would not maybe necessarily be like, yes. Oh, my God. It's about the sun. Like, oh, when your tush hits that cushion, it's just, oh, my God.
- [24:50]
D
Dan, you're answering your own question.
- [24:52]
C
I know. Well, welcome to the grand tourist.
- [24:56]
D
Yeah, no, I think.
- [24:57]
C
Is that accurate, you think?
- [24:58]
D
I think. I think, you know, I said earlier that this found me, you know, I grew up in a very sort of, like, Persian immigrant home. And in that kind of a setting, the icon of the rug on the floor, which was the soft thing that I, you know, got that I literally like skin on wool. And looking up at this piece of jewelry on the ceiling, always. No, I mean, we lived in tiny little homes. There was always a chandelier, and it was always sparkly, and it always had to me the presence in the room that made me feel like it was the center of the energy. And so I. I do think that there is a. Light is just a thing unto itself. I mean, it's literally the first. Think biblically. It's the first thing. Let there be light. Like, it is the. It is literally the thing without which nothing else is
- [25:54]
B
felt.
- [25:56]
D
So I do. I think that there is this sort of, like, fundamental way that we can access these, like, very deep human emotions through light.
- [26:08]
C
And is there any kind of, like, aha, moments maybe either of you have had in your career where, like, it went from designing something using industrial parts and the connector and da da da du, and then kind of went like, oh, no, this is really about. This is where things are clicking. When I'm thinking about the sun and this, the mood and the light and the space and all that stuff. Is there any kind of, like, moment in your career or story you can tell maybe that where this kind of crystallized for you?
- [26:41]
A
I think it started with the woo woo sun stuff. So since I was like, oh, really?
- [26:47]
C
Was that parental thing where your parents,
- [26:49]
A
like, hippies or anything? I kind of. I kind of hid my art making, really, until my 20s ish, you know.
- [26:57]
C
What kind of art did you make?
- [26:59]
A
I did, like, even when I was little, would, like, make costumes. Like, I remember being a bunny and, like, taping the teeth to my teeth. You know what I mean? Like, you just like, I got to get this done, like, things. And then when you're young or you go to, say, trying to take art in high school, you can get very intimidated. Like, the kids can do perfect portraits with a pencil. Like, that was never me. So In a way, I had this like bottled up fantasy of what an artist might be doing or what it might look like in a messy studio. And so really took like first got a degree in English from Kenyon and then worked at the Smithsonian. Like I really sort of like pushed this part way down of what would it be like if I used my hands and my body to make the work that I feel inside of me? It took. Yeah, it took me a while. So that kind of like urge, urgency or like craving was there way before then I started to learn the skills of what, how to make something. So it's almost like it could find a path through these like very rigorous skill sets. Does that make sense to you?
- [28:21]
B
Yeah.
- [28:22]
C
And did your, did your era. When was the first time you showed it like Design Miami and you were showing kind of like your kind of collectible universe, period?
- [28:30]
A
I don't remember. But I remember when I like first showed work at Javits, for example, you know, that was 2006.
- [28:39]
C
But like that, that shift is that was that, you know, did, did that affect how you were being creative or
- [28:46]
A
was it just sort of what you're getting at? I think what you're asking is a little bit of like the beginning, my work looked a certain way. Right? Like was that you're saying like the system, like the branching system looked a certain way?
- [28:56]
B
Well, I'm just thinking like in this
- [28:57]
C
sort of journey of how you've been creative and what your intent has been and just what's in your heart. Like did the, what came. Was it kind of, it's kind of a chicken and chicken or egg question. What came first? You know, did you feel the need to be more emotional and, and that led to doing the collectible stuff or was it you just did the collectible stuff and you're like, oh, this has been happening the whole time?
- [29:21]
A
Yeah. You know how I would describe it is it's sort of like maybe I forced myself to have this like single minded focus when I kicked off my studio, really to make a living. Right. For like practical reasons. And so I forced myself to focus and which is not easy but like the whole time am, you know, maintaining like sketchbooks, books and a ton of journals and ideas and working on things on the side that I really didn't have the option to do everything back then. And then I had my son a couple years after. No, I started my company when he was 2. And so for practical reasons, the more unusual work didn't make it into the world. I really was helping. I'm like getting this thing off the ground kind of thing. And then as time went on, really had that. It's sort of like the leisure, the prev. The privilege to have the time, space, and the resources from that foundation. Yeah. And then you can kind of do ridiculous. Not ridiculous things. But I'm like, yeah, I'll make a music video right now, and we'll practice every week that, you know, dance routine. And then I'm going to just throw everything I have into, like, making the song and the costumes and shooting. And it's sort of like you. You can't. That's just not an option when you're first starting out. So it's a lot of practical reasons that, like, the more unusual, maybe forms or are coming out, like the show at the Future Perfect in May, called the Hardware Diaries. There was a lot of forms in there that were very different than my other work and a lot more expressive and sort of like a clash of elements, because they don't need to serve a different purpose that the systems do.
- [31:19]
D
Sure. Yeah. I think my version of the answer to that question, Dan, is that it comes at a point where I think you have the time to, as you were saying, open the doors to the rooms inside of you that you hadn't had the resources to illuminate. Right. So you're kind of. You're still. The work comes from the same place, but you have a different awareness of why. And so you get to turn those dials up. You get to understand that, like, oh, if I want to feel more connected to a certain idea, I can actually choose to turn this in a different direction because I have an awareness of where that's coming from. So I think a lot of that for both of us has come from a lot of deep introspection and arriving at a point in your life where you say, okay, I've done this thing. Now what? Like, how do I turn this inward to.
- [32:17]
C
To.
- [32:17]
D
To. To go more outward? You know, it just becomes a point where you. Where you have to do that and
- [32:23]
C
just to kind of raise a kind of a slight parallel, like, you know, apparatus. You've also expanded into furniture outside of lighting and things like that, so. But it hasn't really had that.
- [32:34]
B
Does that changed anything for you?
- [32:36]
D
Well, I mean, I want to. I think it's important for me, and I think you'd feel the same way. I kind of want to separate the idea of expanding my consciousness about how and why I make things to necessarily meaning making more or different things, like the more collectible things are more emotional than the thing. You know, it's really not about trying to sort of like create categories of work that are responsive to different levels of emotion. It's actually having an awareness that, which, which Lindsay, you demonstrate, have, have demonstrated so beautifully, like what it means to be both a merchant and an industrial designer and an artist and, you know, understand that all of these things are expressions of me and that I can bring to each of those problems. What does it mean to make something that's highly producible and we're going to sell, like, donuts? And I can bring the same awareness to that that I do the super bespoke, like 20,000 hours of embroidery piece. Like, they're different expressions, but they come from the same root. So it's less about how that expands what we offer and more about how we invest that energy in an appropriate way into each of these ways that we hope people are going to interact with what we make.
- [33:58]
A
And do you feel like right now that your cravings are more or less about the object and more about creating the world in which people can connect deeply, or do you feel like they're in competition or they feed one another?
- [34:14]
D
I think they're one and the same. I actually think of, I think of what I, the work that I hope to make in my life is to create the containers within which I hope there will be a certain vibration of connection and to expand what that means over the course of my career. So, you know, we are very deeply invested. I'm very deeply invested in every micro millimeter adjustment on every piece of hardware we make. Like, I'm literally reviewing each of those things as though, you know, we're crafting DNA. Like it's, it's that important. And I want to feel when I sit in this room with you that that energy is vibrating over here. I don't really have to pay attention to it, but it's, it's doing its thing. And that now it's like, how does that energy in this room allow us to feel like, what is the vibration of that? So I, I don't see them as being in competition. I see them as all as tools that, that, that create a universe. Yeah.
- [35:19]
C
Lindsay, does that resonate with you?
- [35:21]
A
What did I ask?
- [35:23]
D
Well, you were asking, you were asking me about sort of the competition between the container and the object. And maybe my question for you is, has your connection to the idea of the object changed over the course of your, your career?
- [35:42]
A
I think it has, yeah. I, I, I still see the physical work as the Objects as primarily what I am making. And like my, the, the difference in even the way our studios look. You're walking into your studio here feels like it's an entire immersive mood. I feel like I'm being hosted and kind of led into It's. Yeah. It sort of like changes your whole nervous system coming in here in the best way. Everything is like hushed and I. And my studio is much more about sort of like messy things around to make like that. You can just like grab something that the flavor floors are not nice because I can paint on them and stuff like that. And there's a lot of industrial shelves with parts. There's a ceramic studio and it's all open now. So it's sort of like where clients go. They can get a peek into everything. And so I, I think I'm, I, yeah, I feel like maybe I'm less about creating this like total vision or immersive container that one can be invited into. And, and I like the idea of focusing on these objects that are even like unusual to me many times of like thinking about the bound glass things we've been doing recently. And like I can get so lost in that. And I think I'm more comfortable with that too. Of like thinking about it as these parts that then interior designer uses in their total vision. I see. I think I love that space. I even prefer my work to be shown by other people. I prefer to be shown at a design gallery more than self presenting. It's a better fit for my personality.
- [37:47]
D
That's really beautiful. It, it's such a gift in that way. There's so much trust in that. You know, I think that's such a beautiful, beautiful way of letting an idea kind of fly and see where it lands.
- [38:01]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And maybe, maybe I'm more introverted than you are. That could be it. So I like love the, I love the privacy. I love like endless hours just to sort of be in my own process like. Yeah. Without anybody looking. Like I, and I could stay in that space for a long time. I don't feel like compelled to come out and share it.
- [38:27]
D
You know, not dissimilar. I think, you know, I think there I feel like a lot of. So, you know, we're sitting on the fourth floor which is our sort of client facing galleries. But I spend a lot of time on the third floor which is where we actually are messy and where we make and where you know, there are papers everywhere and things to play with. And I, I. There is a part of me that understands that there is my fourth floor Persona, which is the. The host. And I learned that from the women in my family. I learned that from the way that they greeted people in their spaces and what it means to invite someone in and to hope that they feel like they want to stay.
- [39:08]
A
Yeah.
- [39:09]
D
And then there's the part of me that just wants to be by myself. You know, I think both of those things are very present for me. And it sometimes can. One can feel. It feels like you have to choose between the two sometimes. And that can. That can feel challenging.
- [39:25]
A
Yeah. Yeah, it does. And when you're on floor three, is it mostly sketching or do you also work with like one to one, like actual size mock ups? Like how. What is. How do you do that?
- [39:40]
D
So the process from, for me is usually there's a spark that comes from something that I feel like I want to say or something that I'm feeling or something that I'm chasing or something that feels like a memory that I'm trying to conjure from the ether. And it's, you know, usually sketching for me and then it's communicating those sketches to a really wonderful team of people who helped me develop those ideas, you know. Iterating.
- [40:07]
A
Iterating. Iterating, iterating.
- [40:08]
D
We do a lot of 3D modeling, 3D rendering. We do 3D printing. So we're looking at things in physical form. I love to work on paper. I love to see things full size printed. I. I love to mark things up with a Sharpie on the wall. Like, it's a very. It's. It's physical in the way that I, I like to use my body to shape the thing on pa and then, you know, we do all the manufacturing and engineering things and prototypes and, you know, and then our factory in Red Hook is where we get to go play and finish things and put them together and see if they work. So it's a. I really hear and admire the immediacy with which you are connected to the hand and the form and the maker. I think that that feels really critical to me in the way that I imagine that you distill this, like, whisper into something. You know, I think there's, there's, like, there's a directness of. About that that I really love. And I think for me, what I'm often doing is telling a story so that there, there, you know, there's a spark of an idea and then there. The. There's the process to get through. Through what are the layers of information that we're sort of like weaving into this and like does this detail make it feel more or more. And that becomes part of the process is calibrating something so that it, so that the sort of cacophony of information that I think I'm trying to get across falls in a way that feels like elegant.
- [41:47]
A
Yeah. Oh my God. I really get the cacophony also so much. I think that's actually a lot of what maybe we both do. It's like there's too much. There's a lot going on in the head.
- [42:03]
D
Yeah.
- [42:03]
A
And so when you can pick like one thing. I want to design a sconce.
- [42:08]
D
Yeah.
- [42:09]
A
It is calming.
- [42:10]
D
Yeah. Really? Yes. And having parameters and.
- [42:13]
A
Right.
- [42:13]
D
And thinking. I think, you know, your, your, your, your way of working in systems I think is something certainly has been hugely inspiring to me and the industry at large. I mean, you know this, you see it and there's something about distilling the cacophony into a system.
- [42:34]
A
Yes.
- [42:35]
D
That feels like it's this interesting. I don't know, it makes you feel strong because you're like. I just took this like crazy jumble of thoughts and I turned it into seven components.
- [42:46]
B
Look at this.
- [42:47]
A
Totally agree.
- [42:48]
D
Yeah. It's fucking great.
- [42:49]
A
Yeah. I never really thought about it this way before, to be honest.
- [42:53]
D
Yeah.
- [42:53]
A
Yeah, it's. And also you can feel like you can accomplish something in a day rather than just being feeling so I could feel so unfocused or like just very self judgmental. But I love this like. Oh, there's like evidence of.
- [43:08]
C
Yes.
- [43:09]
A
Like my brain was like, you know, hot with like thinking all day. But like when you don't have anything to show for it. It can, it could not. It's not easy. It's like. Yeah.
- [43:19]
D
Evidence is. I think evidence is a really interesting word because I, I think a lot about how a thing. When we finished it. What I hope is that it's evidence of the brains and the hearts and the hands that it took to express that idea. And there's something about understanding the power of the object to hold the frequency of all of those.
- [43:47]
A
Yes.
- [43:48]
D
That is kind of actually the thing that keeps me, keeps me going.
- [43:52]
A
Yeah. Yeah. It comes through like your work does have a frequency.
- [43:57]
D
Thank you.
- [43:58]
A
And you can it all. It all works together very beautifully. But also each one has such a distinct voice.
- [44:08]
D
Thank you.
- [44:08]
A
Yeah. And yeah, it's definitely like transcends the object. There's something about your work because it is so. It's symmetrical and it's very different than what I do. There's something that's very centering about it, grounding about it. But then there's this part that's sort of like you can't really touch it. It's very ephemeral, very ethereal. Yeah.
- [44:33]
D
Thank you.
- [44:33]
A
Yeah. I really. I feel that so strongly. Yeah.
- [44:38]
D
Thank you. That means. That means. That means so much. I actually. I remember the moment, maybe it was like, two or three years ago where I think for the first time we had this connection. And maybe it was at one of the. I don't remember where it was. It was in a moment where we weren't, you know, having to talk about being lighting.
- [44:57]
A
Yeah. Designers.
- [44:58]
C
And I.
- [44:59]
D
And I. And I remember for getting to communicate with you in a way that made. I wanted you to see how clearly I see you and what you do. And I felt that. That in return, the moment that it was like, oh, yeah, we get each other. Yeah, I get you.
- [45:15]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.
- [45:18]
C
Well, if we're getting this point where I think both of your work is different, but also you're also kind of touching on the same skill sets as it's been described. Like finding a frequency, like distilling the noise, you know, or finding the message through the noise. Right. For someone out there listening to this, maybe they're a painter, maybe they're a writer. Maybe they make something else. Maybe make ceramics. Like, what would you say is your. As both of you guys have a lot of experience, like, what would be your advice to people to be like, this is how you say, tune in to the frequency or find the frequency. It is a big question. I only ask big questions here, apparently.
- [46:05]
A
I. Yeah. There's so many ways to do it. It's so individual.
- [46:10]
C
Or is it really just about a mindset? Right. Rather not a technique, but kind of like.
- [46:15]
A
But it's very. They're very connected.
- [46:17]
C
Very. They're all connected.
- [46:19]
D
I think it is. Yeah. I think it's so individual, and I think it has to be. So. I think it's maybe what I think both of us have done. I think maybe that's what it is in finding a way to turn the cacophony, your personal brand of your personal frequency of cacophony into the system. I think that's where you find those tools, and I think they're different for everyone.
- [46:47]
A
Yeah. And you. Yeah, you find the tools when it really, like, hurts so much, too. Like, you are forced to find your way. I mean, I. I feel like I found meditation the first year that I started my studio, basically because it was so uncomfortable trying to be me and I felt like I would. There was like a leash like I had a collar and I was just like going to whatever was getting pull where I was getting pulled by external circumstances, people needs, etc. And to a point that I was like this has to end. And it because it the pain was so bad really. And then finding that which was sort of like a survival mechanism of transcendental meditation. That is the reason I have a company or a studio. There's no way that the two things are separate.
- [47:44]
B
Thank you to my guests Gabriel and Lindsay, and to everyone at both studios for making this episode happen. The editor of the Grand Tourist is Stan Hall. To keep this going, don't forget to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter the Grand Tourist curator@thegrandtourist.net and follow me on Instagram danrubenstein and follow the Grand Tourist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to listen. And leave us a rating or comment. Every little bit helps. Till next time.