Perhaps, I was destined for design, after all, for when I was in High School, a classmate, Miriam, gave me a bunch of books.
She said her brother -- a student of Architecture -- wanted to give it to me.
There was a thick, black book on design, and classic books on oil painting, anatomy sketching, and sculpture.
I immediately latched on to the design book, and read it with great interest.
I also followed the oil painting book, and after I graduated from Architecture in the mid-80s, I had taught myself how to paint in oil, using my mom's flat knife, as a spatula, and making do with the brushes I could find.
I even created my own canvases, just with the imaginative, raw knowledge I had, even painting scrap plywood white paint, as if mimicking a canvas.
As is always the case in my art, great urgency dictated whatever materials were immediately available will have to do, lest the Muse depart from me.
With art, everything becomes possible, and that black design book really stretched my natural bent and love for simple, comfortable, compassionate design.
George C. Chilton's "Design: Serving the Needs of Man", became my main reference when I got to Architecture school.
From this, all other studies for me were judged, and often found wanting.
The amazing Chilton book showed how the helicopter was fashioned after dragonflies, how submarines were fashioned from squid, and of course, it all made sense to me.
It showed how man's design was fashioned after God's design -- nature.
The original blueprints were God's, all this time!
How very beautiful, and intelligent!
Architecture didn't teach me that.
Chilton's book did.
Originally, I wanted to become an archaeologist, an anthropologist, a sociologist, or even a psychologist, so this new knowledge was riveting.
I know, I know, I wanted to become a journalist, too.
I wanted to be so many things, because many things interested me.
But since I was brought into Architecture, I merely shifted to truly designing for man, and not necessarily, architecturally.
There were so many more aspects of design that begged to be studied, and I was an eager, and voracious student.
Of course, design was but one aspect of life, and life was my best teacher.
When I seemed to pass many tests and hardships from life, my design got better.
And when I found God, and started following Jesus, my thinking radically shifted.
I was no longer obsessed knowing self.
I had become fully-attuned to God alone, and I also found my raw desire and knowledge for design and comfort, perfection and precision, had sound basis, after all.
More than ever, design was meant to serve the God in man.
Updated 24 January 2022
