Architect(R)ural Reflections' Baptismal Entry

Is it too early in my life to have found a concentration? I've always been a passionate person who obsesses over my interests, praying daily that I don't become bored of them.

An anatomical wonder!

In one of my earliest memories, I remember being enamored (not that I knew that word then) with the collection of zoo animals on my baby blanket. A zebra, a lion, a bird of some type, maybe a turtle, and the one that stood out the most, a giraffe. That giraffe spoke to me. Its height inspired and empowered me. I wanted, so badly, to be a giraffe. "When I grow up, I WILL be a giraffe." I can remember thinking that every time I looked at our clothespin basket too (which had a similar scene). Maybe the most telling tale of my obsession with giraffes was a drawing stretching about 4 feet on a wall in our basement. This green giraffe, with a neck stretching as far as my tippy-toes would take it, decorates the wall upon which my siblings and I would record our growth over the years. Every time I see that green giraffe, I am taken back to an image of my childhood bedroom: pale blue, light gray carpet, a curtain with buttons blowing the warm summer air, and my baby blanket pinned up on the west wall. While I have no recollection of sharing this passion with anyone as a child, it remains a strong force in my memory today.

Thanks to my mom for sending me these pictures

My passions certainly shifted through the years. Most pictures of me before 1996 probably featured me in one of many One Hundred and One Dalmatians shirts (the 1961 cartoon of course). By bedsheets and pillow cases were even themed after the adventurous pups. 1996 brought on an obsession with nationalism due to the Olympics, which my parents made a huge deal about (at least in my memory) by taping up posters in our basement of the Olympic Rings (which I took for a mutated Mickey Mouse and still do today). My mom had to wash this Red, White, and Blue polo shirt for me 2 to 3 times a week just so I could wear it as much as I wanted. The late 90's and early 2000's brought on obsessions with Power Rangers, Pokemon and Digimon (Digimon was always my favorite but the least among my friends). And after cartoons took the best of me, I got to drawing my own.
I was always drawing. I found that it garnered me a delightful amount of attention. As long as I could draw, I didn't necessarily have to worry about being second fiddle to anyone... an important thing for a pre-teen. My drawings were often times of people I made up. My own versions of Greek Gods and Goddesses, Bible Scenes, or what the characters of the books I read would look like. Slowly I began drawing the built environment.

Sketches like this (circa 2003)

didn't take long to develop to this (circa 2005-6)

It began with simple house plans. I used gridded paper for these, so the most primitive plans I have are shamelessly rectangular. Breaking out of the rectangle was the most pivotal moment in my drawing history since I had mastered the profile eye from the frontal (such an astonishing realization could have only been matched by those who followed the Egyptians). For some reason (maybe a minor, or major if you ask my family, obsession with The Sims) house plans absorbed my time. I drew the plans for no site, no family, no program. I just drew. Elevations became the next step in my development. Most of my elevations were a complicated mixture of isometric, perspective, and true elevation, and appeared to be extruded versions of their foot print. It would take some time for me to move on from that. Needless to say, my habit of drawing has turned itself into my field of study, architecture. Taking a look at my sketches from middle school (which is largely the earliest recording of my sketching career) it is fun to see what a budding architecture student did to nurture his interest. I painstakingly look through these pictures knowing now so much more than I knew then, but still aware (as I probably wasn't then) that I have so much to learn.

In a post about... what did I begin this blog post with? Concentration too early? I guess I got carried away telling a different tale. I'm not going to re-do anything. I'm content with this word vomit. I feel like I hardly hardly discussed the things I am/was passionate about. In my next blog post, perhaps I'll talk about concentrating and how that concentration has developed. My other passions will expose themselves I suppose.

Note to self: do not lose focus in next blog post