Inspiring work in Pittsburgh

I just came back from Pennsylvania where I was asked to provide live artwork for a pretty unique business session. Two companies that design and build churches, Cogun and Aspen, came together for a day long discussion about where culture is moving and specifically what it means to their work. They brought in about 100 of their people, two authors who've written books on the subject, and me.

This was a pretty inspiring event. Right from the beginning they kicked off with a video montage (just something they threw together to add inspiration to the morning) that was perhaps the best multi media piece I've ever seen used in this context. U2 playing Vertigo and interviews with everyday folks and beautiful footage of church architecture. Then to set us firmly in the moment, a list with images from of the current #1 tv show in America, the #1 books, movies, and singles. It was a snapshot of right now.

For me, as I was sitting there watching it at 8am in the morning (keep in mind, I'm scheduled to do art live art all the way until 5pm) it was like, "okay. here we go. I thought this was a regular season game, but obviously we're in the playoffs. I better bring it today."


I think I did. Throughout the day, the content they gave me to work with was excellent. I really think the level of discussion was outstanding and the tone of the day was open minded and progressive- not in-spite of it being Christian, but specifically because it was.

For instance, author Joe Myers spoke of how he was asked to start a church in a very rough, crime-ridden area (somewhere outside Chicago, I believe). He agreed to do it, but only if it was clearly understood that he had no desire to just displace the local crime element to another part of the city. Therefore, those people (the dealers, the prostitutes, the criminals, etc.) had to be engaged as humans. You have to talk to them if you have any hope of doing anything better than just forcing them commit crimes somewhere else. Today, he literally has drug dealers who help with his services, open doors whatever, who go back to the streets to sell after church. Now is that blasphemy or Christianity? Did Jesus heal the well, or the sick?


It asks the question- who in your world are you acting as if God does not reside in? One interesting side note- an area of crime that they have seen dramatic change in there is the selling of drugs to minors. Joe encourages the dealers to respect kids, talk to them a bit, give a shit about them. While drugs are still sold in the neighborhood, an unspoken law has permeated the culture. You do not sell to minors here. Joe says the dealers know how to - and do - police their own on this issue. 'Nuff said.

That was just one instance of the kind of conversation that went down. The day was filled with great thought, as you can see if you read some of the scribing. Much of it centering around what the function of good buildings are and how do you build to a culture that's largely moving toward more and more digital methods and virtual environments.

I used illustration board to draw the art on, rather than dry erase - and this technique is really becoming more and more comfortable to me. 'Illo' board allows for all kinds of things that dry erase does not, like shading and gradations. Plus, instead of just using Expo markers, I get to use things like crayon and colored pencil, or even paint if I wanted (I didn't use paint though because I'm not terribly fast with it- see David Rodriguez)

Working with these tools and techniques is a bit slower than traditional scribing anyway, and therefore I'm usually minutes behind the speaker, rather than seconds. In some contexts (like this session) that was definitely worth it. In other enviroments, LIVE is the thing and it's better for me to move as fast as possible. But here, they were thrilled with how it was working early on and urged me to not change a thing in how I was doing it.


Good stuff. Sessions like these make me kick my game up to the next level. I'd enjoy working with these clients again. At one point the facilitator asked me to comment to the audience on what my thoughts were about how the discussion was going. My comment came down to the fact that they were dealing with big things, big ideas, and big questions - and the great thing was that they weren't answering with arrogance. New systems, young people, the digital culture- you just can't control it like the old. But control is not a necessary element of success, and I suggested as architects, they could still build to something that had less control. They just had to be open minded about how to do it, and build for users who make up their own rules.

This was good work. The kind that makes the world a bit better.