Message #249398

[Linda Dahlberg]

In early design phases, I try to give my "inner critic" a hall pass to get lost for a while, and that goes for external critics as well. When ideas are young and vulnerable, criticism can be lethal.

I try to imagine my goal as a reality, and then work backwards to figure out all the steps I need to take to make it so. I look to the examples of people who accomplished unimaginable changes. Sometimes, I try to imagine how Gandhi must have felt as he set off on the Salt March, somehow believing his footsteps could change nations. He was able to hold the final vision in his mind, and understand each step needed to make it reality. We all have the potential to do that, but it's a skill that takes practice.

My dream is to create spaces which foster calm and contemplation, to transform hard-edged cities with billowing softness. How can I create this kind of change with something like sculpture, and how can I do it at the scale needed to hold its own city? This is what pushes me to "engineer a new art".