153 - Exploring Birmingham's Art and Architecture

Exploring Birmingham's Art and Architecture

In Episode 153 of the podcast, Jamie and Kurt discuss various topics, including their experiences with live streaming and podcasting upgrades. They touch on Jamie's brother's music production and their plans for the AIA National Conference. The duo also reminisce about past events like the Pachacucha presentation at the Texas Society of Architects conference. The episode delves into two of Jamie's sketches from a recent trip to Birmingham, Alabama: one capturing a Rodin sculpture and the other a historic building. They explore the historical and architectural significance of Birmingham and the importance of capturing these stories in sketches. The conversation weaves through topics of architecture, art, and personal anecdotes, leading up to the announcement of a special guest for the next episode.

00:00 Kicking Off with Episode 153: Behind the Scenes and Music Vibes
02:20 Tech Updates and AIA Conference Anticipation
04:12 Coffee Talk: Tasting Notes and Artist Collaborations
08:13 Sketching Out Future Plans and Podcast Dynamics
13:08 Reflecting on Past Conferences and the Joy of Presenting
13:32 The Pachacucha Experience: Big Screens and Bigger Memories
16:02 From Texas-Sized Screens to Michigan Talks: A Contrast in Experiences
16:25 The Allure of Texas-Sized Everything: From Screens to Toast
17:03 Diving into Cuisine: From Texas Toast to Whataburger
18:42 Sketching Through the Lens of Travel and Art
21:15 Exploring Birmingham: Architecture, History, and Rodin Sculptures
27:48 The Significance of Sketching and Urban Exploration
35:12 Concluding Thoughts and Looking Forward to the Next Episode

Transcript

Kurt Neiswender: 0:32

Hey Jamie. How's it going?

Jamie: 0:34

Welcome to episode 153.

Kurt Neiswender: 0:36

Welcome to you.

Jamie: 0:37

I will also say that after our green room experience talking about all the restreamed channels that we you know, the jury's out, but with your brother, the older brother just by a few minutes, I know just a couple of minutes, but but still I'd say that, you know, I still love his intro music for this. It's got, listening to it just there a minute ago, there's kind of a nice little bass wobble. I don't know if that's a thing, but I love it. You know, I just kind of like it, but his new stuff that you were saying, he just performed in a club, you know, here recently yeah, like let's hit him up, it's time, it's time, it's time.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:23

Yeah, I know. He's probably got a whole, well, he's had an album. Yeah, I know. EP action and You know, I, I don't know all the musical jargon, but you know, he's, he's in the game. I mean,

Jamie: 1:37

there was a time where he was almost going to hit me up for some cover art for the album.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:42

You

Jamie: 1:42

know,

Kurt Neiswender: 1:43

well,

Jamie: 1:43

maybe I was just delayed.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:45

There's a little feature. I'm sure there, I don't know any secrets, but you know, there may be there. I'm sure there'll be a future opportunity. I'm sure that there will be for artwork. The yeah, I'm gonna have to ask him it's, it's, it's like you said, I, it never gets old to me, the intro song. I like it. Yeah. You're familiar. 32nd rip, you know?

Jamie: 2:08

So here we are. It's one 53. I know we've got, we've got, we're, you know, folks, if you've, if you stuck with us through the last couple of episodes we did mention that we might've had some audio issues. Yeah. We think, and we

Kurt Neiswender: 2:25

hope we have mentioned, yeah, yeah, we, but I think we're about full transparency, full transparency, but I think we've, we fixed wherever we went off track. No, no pun intended. I think we're back on track. Absolutely. Tech wise

Jamie: 2:42

and might be doing some fun upgrades, like new intro, outro music, you know, courtesy of cold flash fashioned. So, you know, it'd be good.

Kurt Neiswender: 2:50

Yeah. And, and and then. Also, as we're heading into the, the AIA national conference this year, but you know, last year we had some, some experiments in live streaming from the conference. I think this year it won't necessarily be live streamed, but I have. Acquired some equipment that will make sort of real time video podcasting, let's say, because it's not going to be live, live, it will be easy enough to create short edits and get them posted. How about that? And then I'll, I'll just let Jamie decide for him to post these things up.

Jamie: 3:31

I love, I love how Kurt's like, I don't want to over promise in this moment.

Kurt Neiswender: 3:35

You hear that hedging? There was a

Jamie: 3:37

lot of hedging. There was, but I, I, I can sort of hear that sort of, you know, the wheel, like the wheels have been turning in cur in, in Kurt's brain for like a while on this. And, and yes, we've, we've made some strategy decisions about things. Is this the time that you cue your camera B. Do you want to make sure that it's on?

Kurt Neiswender: 3:58

Well, no, I, I think we, we did a little testing, you know, we got camera microphone set up, but we ran a test in the green room, so I don't want it to get, you know, I want the actual episode. Let's keep it, keep it clean. Okay.

Jamie: 4:12

Okay. Just checking, just checking, giving you that chance.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:15

Yeah. Yeah. No, as much as I want to, you know, like, you know, mess with all the. The gadgets, but any who yeah, that's the, that's, that's, that's the, what do you call it? The the news, the latest and greatest. The brain, the brain power that we have going on. We're trying to figure these things out.

Jamie: 4:35

Well, and, and, and, and I think it's safe to say that we're going to have a really cool guest on we decided 154. So so stay tuned for that. But today we're back and what's in your coffee cup.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:51

Oh yeah. Well, I have to have. rootless because I'm in Flint, but I have, you know, these guys are, these guys are nonstop. They've got another yeah, see, you got one that I delivered and then now I got my own. So they're doing these small batches and you have the, Dr. Kongo, I have SureShot. This one's fun not just for the flavor, right, but for the artwork by Gavin Smith right here. He is known for, are you are you trying to? I was

Jamie: 5:33

trying to do a quick screenshot for ourselves, but, you know.

Kurt Neiswender: 5:36

Did I keep moving this target? You're

Jamie: 5:38

moving the thing around. Did

Kurt Neiswender: 5:39

you not get it? I could snip it from you know,

Jamie: 5:44

yeah, but then I have to wait like three weeks before you send it to me. Three months.

Kurt Neiswender: 5:47

Yeah. Well, anyway, no, maybe I'll get a little quicker. So Gavin, the artist of this bag, because you know how they like to collaborate with with different artists. He's known for a variety of different comic book artwork, teenage mutant Ninja Turtles. And a couple other smaller. Well, I, you know, I just don't I don't have the, the. The latest knowledge on all the comic books, but you know, he's got, he's, he's a talented artist. They did better

Jamie: 6:20

than sneezing, right? Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know I'm, I'm waking up all the animals here in the house. So sorry. You know, the

Kurt Neiswender: 6:28

artwork's

Jamie: 6:28

really cool. So let's see.

Kurt Neiswender: 6:31

Yep. He's awake. Cats attacking, trying to check things out. So any who it's a big, they call it a light medium. I actually was, would have. Set a medium dark, but, uh, Tanzan, Tanzanian tropical fruit strawberry. I do get the, the fruit. Notes, and then the brown sugar for sure. So it's a pretty good one. So I have, I have the,

Jamie: 6:57

I have the Dr. Congo. Which I was super excited about when I saw that that might be coming in the care package. So, interestingly, and I have to say it's fabulous you got, you had some too, didn't you? Or no, you didn't? I

Kurt Neiswender: 7:13

did have one brewed at Penny's Cafe, but I didn't get my own bag. And now they have no bags. I know. They're on the next batch.

Jamie: 7:23

I know. And I've only, I've only, I've only had one pot of this and it's pretty great. So flavor notes dark chocolate, caramel, Concord grape, and dried apricot. They do that apricot thing every once in a while. And, you know, I'm always sort of wondering how that's going to, but it's in this particular case with the dark chocolate and the caramel, I mean, it's definitely just, this might be one of my favorites now, like this, you know,

Kurt Neiswender: 7:53

I had, I had Just one cup of it, I wish I had bought myself a bag. So do you need me to send you

Jamie: 7:59

beans back? Is that what you're saying? Like

Kurt Neiswender: 8:01

a little, a little, a little, a little, little handful. So yeah, look at us both drinking rootless at the same time. Sean, Jono, hope you guys are listening. Good

Jamie: 8:12

stuff. We might need to do another artist collab with them. But yeah, that was fun. And we still have ours. I mean, Well, there's the

Kurt Neiswender: 8:20

Coffee Sketch podcast, Coffee. Yeah. I say that five times. It is I, well, we're out. We sold out. Right? I don't know. I have one bag. I mean, I have one bag left. Do you have any sneaking around?

Jamie: 8:34

I have none sneaking around. I'm done.

Kurt Neiswender: 8:37

Yeah. So we are officially sold out unofficially. Maybe there is a backup somewhere. So we need to run a new

Jamie: 8:48

batch. Yeah, we need to replenish our supply.

Kurt Neiswender: 8:51

And I'll, so I have to then reach out, I

Jamie: 8:54

mean, there are guests to be made, you know, whole by receiving their coffee.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:00

Oh, yeah. So, so what you're saying is it has to happen soon.

Jamie: 9:03

I would recommend.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:04

Actually, do you want to do new artwork for the new batch or

Jamie: 9:08

do you want to keep

Kurt Neiswender: 9:09

it?

Jamie: 9:10

I like, I really love it. It was, but you know, maybe, maybe, you know, all right, so let's maybe, maybe feeling inspired. I know I have to work on like t shirt graphics. I've been, I've been tasked with a few things, folks. So we have to be, we have to be ready for a DC. I'm the taskmaster.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:30

Yeah. I'm delegating. It's a 2024 word, second word, delegation.

Jamie: 9:37

Oh, you're adding words now. Okay.

Kurt Neiswender: 9:39

Yeah. It's, we're almost halfway through the year.

Jamie: 9:42

Was it like your first word, patience?

Kurt Neiswender: 9:44

Yeah. As in have patience with me while I delegate this task back to you. To you. Gotcha. Point taken. It's working. It's working out just fine. Yeah, I'm hitting my vision board. Okay. The fact

Jamie: 10:00

that you have a vision board is another topic for another day.

Kurt Neiswender: 10:04

Yeah. Well, it's, it's digital.

Jamie: 10:08

I know. I know.

Kurt Neiswender: 10:10

Digital. It's not tangible. Well, that's a whole other conversation.

Jamie: 10:17

Well, like for a while there, folks, we talked about Kurt's vision board potentially being one of those, like just off camera, like, like lots of collage and yarn. And pins and big and big sharpies so the fact that it's digital and it's his mind map of all kinds of things is probably more appropriate.

Tinkerbell: 10:42

Yeah, although it's safe

Jamie: 10:44

and safer, safer for everybody involved and

Kurt Neiswender: 10:47

yeah, no, no push pins in right? So you want to, is there any other news from, from around the way that we want to talk about, or do we want to talk about our sketches?

Jamie: 10:58

I just like that, you know, we both were drinking the rootless and they, and these were the two that sort of have that sort of comic book graphic novel flavor to them in, in terms of the artwork. I think it was sort of, you know, you know, poignant.

Kurt Neiswender: 11:14

Yeah, their, their artwork game is, is really, is really, it just keeps going up. And I think it's because of us.

Jamie: 11:23

I, I, I'll, I'll, I'll say, you know, we did that collaboration with them for our coffee and then ever since then they've done like their collab game has just like, you know, agreed

Kurt Neiswender: 11:36

meteoric rise. I just like it. You know, it's, it's a kindred spirit kind of thing that you, you stumble across in life. Well, I don't know. Some people may, maybe never. Have you know, that sort of interaction, but luckily we have.

Jamie: 11:53

So are you saying like rootless coffee is like your spirit animal?

Kurt Neiswender: 11:58

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Whatever, whatever's in the roaster is my spirit animal at that time. And they're good game. They're good. Fair enough. We should well, we, we need to get some, some feedback from the recipients.

Jamie: 12:13

Like, like shout outs or like, just like

Kurt Neiswender: 12:17

comments on the tasting notes. Oh, okay. Yes. That'd be fun. You know that. Well, okay. So. We will probably bump into a lot of the recipients at the conference, in which case, GoPro comes out and then we're going to get, you know,

Jamie: 12:34

it's like live reactions,

Kurt Neiswender: 12:36

the recorded tasting notes. Hell yeah, exactly. So.

Jamie: 12:40

Coming to a future episode for you all. Tink's like,

Kurt Neiswender: 12:43

get on with it, Dan. Yeah,

Jamie: 12:44

Tink's like, where are the sketches?

Kurt Neiswender: 12:46

Get on.

Jamie: 12:47

Like, I know when the sketches happen and they pop up on the screen, it's almost over.

Kurt Neiswender: 12:52

It's near the, yeah, sometimes we like to just banter. I say sometimes. It might, it might actually be a lot of times. We like to banter, but you know, it's our podcast. So Tinkerbell, if you're, if you're willing, Ellie might be, you know, your co host and you, you dogs can talk about whatever you want to talk about.

Jamie: 13:14

Ellie's just kind of chilling tonight, so that's okay.

Kurt Neiswender: 13:16

Yeah. We did take a, a, a dub as, as, as a dog owner needs to say, you know, you have to, you can't use the word, right. Or else Interest levels increase. So anyway, as the, the segue continues you know, the, the sketch, this is just a brief little throwback. I can't believe it's been six years, five years, 18 or 19. 2018 2019, I think it was.

Jamie: 13:50

It wasn't

Kurt Neiswender: 13:52

I want to I want to say it was only 5 years, but it's probably 6 anyway, Jamie invited me on to speak at the Texas society of architects statewide conference. Pachachacha. Oh! Pachachacha. Pronounce Pachachacha. Oh, I just, I just messed it up. Anyway.

Jamie: 14:13

It's the Pachacucha, folks. It's

Kurt Neiswender: 14:15

Pachacucha.

Jamie: 14:16

Yeah, it's just Pachacucha. Like, we've already been through this. So.

Kurt Neiswender: 14:20

I know we have.

Jamie: 14:21

I know it's not, I know that's not right, but that's just me. So, don't even, don't even add that to the comments.

Kurt Neiswender: 14:28

So I borrowed a sketch from Jamie. Use it in my presentation. He posts this recently as a little bit of a throwback shout out. I'm focused on looking at the sketch on the, on the big, biggest screen I've ever been able to present on, and didn't even realize the ant sized version of me down in the corner of the, of the photo, just because of how big the screen was and then, you know, the drawing then taking up the majority of this frame. So Yeah, that was a lot of fun.

Jamie: 15:02

Yeah, build as the largest screen in Texas. You know, when the Texas Society of Architects says, you know, Hey, you know, would you mind curating Apache Kucha and because, you know, We're not sure which direction to go and I said, sure, you know, with the charge of let's get 10 voices on here that, you know, aren't typically voices at the convention. Yeah, it was, it was a pleasure to do it. Got a lot of, a lot of good people that I was, that I admired become friends and then others who were friends that I admired their work anyways, but yeah, big screen. I mean, I didn't tell them all. That it was going to be on the biggest screen till after they accepted. And then that, that's the key folks is like, give them the pitch, you know, make sure that they know that they're wanted because they were, but then as they're like, Oh, a little skeptical, like, Oh, should I, you know, I've not done this or, Oh, what should I present at that moment? Slip in it's the biggest screen in Texas. And, but you still get. Amazing presentations up and down the board. Kirk was great. And as you can see back from the Instagram photo that he is

Tinkerbell: 16:14

super tiny

Jamie: 16:15

against this gigantic screen with a sketch of mine, which was a surprise and, and, and nice and totally enjoyable for, for myself. Yeah. Nice shout out.

Kurt Neiswender: 16:26

Little yeah. I forget the, I was thinking of another term, but you put any, anyway, I'll, we'll just move on. But the actually the screen size is what was getting me thinking. I recently spoke at a conference here in Michigan about housing and development, and they did not have the screen, the size of this iMac. So it was a lot less nerve wracking. Well,

Jamie: 16:58

and, and, you know, it is often a term or a phraseology that you will often hear here in the state of Texas it's Texas sized. So there's, there's small, medium, large, and then Texas sized. And so this is Texas sized,

Kurt Neiswender: 17:14

like, like toast, Texas toast.

Jamie: 17:16

Yeah, no, but, but that's a different thing. Texas toast is bigger than normal toast. That's not why they call it Texas toast, but that's okay. We're going to just, we're going to move past that.

Kurt Neiswender: 17:29

Really? Is it, is it just a brand name? Ah, Kurt.

Jamie: 17:35

Let's just go to the sketch.

Kurt Neiswender: 17:36

Oh, I just, I really want to talk about Texas toast. Can we start a whole new podcast about Texas toast?

Jamie: 17:42

We can do a cuisine. So we have the subreddit of baseball and teams that no longer exist or that we're super fans of. And then we have the subreddit of the football slash soccer. And now we can have the subreddit of like the cuisine podcast, which sometimes enters our conversations anyways.

Kurt Neiswender: 18:06

Like there's like the little toasts like that, and then there's the Texas toast charcuterie board, Texas style. Okay. I'm getting way off topic. Yeah,

Jamie: 18:15

you are

Kurt Neiswender: 18:15

the fun. It's the fun part.

Jamie: 18:17

I don't know where you got charcuterie board, like in Texas toast. Those don't, Those don't seem to

Kurt Neiswender: 18:24

yeah, but what if you had a charcuterie board with Texas toast,

Jamie: 18:30

then you'd be at Whataburger and they would be like, and they would be like off the rails. Yeah. Have you ever had Whataburger?

Kurt Neiswender: 18:38

Yes.

Jamie: 18:39

Okay.

Kurt Neiswender: 18:40

Yeah, I, I, I dated a A Houstonian. Is that what you call

Jamie: 18:45

them? And that was your first date?

Kurt Neiswender: 18:47

No. No, no, no. It was a visit, you know, from USC days. We went to Texas.

Jamie: 18:54

And she's like, let me take you out to dinner. Well. Or you, you were driving between places. Right. And like, okay, okay,

Kurt Neiswender: 19:04

okay,

Jamie: 19:04

yeah. And also,

Kurt Neiswender: 19:05

you know, like, what, kolaches, right? Yes. We're had many, many, many of those.

Jamie: 19:11

Oh, that's good. That's good.

Kurt Neiswender: 19:13

Texas. Yeah.

Jamie: 19:14

Yeah. We are totally in the cuisine portion of the episode. Folks. Your freeways

Kurt Neiswender: 19:18

are bigger too.

Jamie: 19:19

Well, I mean, so, but you, you

Kurt Neiswender: 19:22

sketch in very tiny sketchbooks,

Jamie: 19:26

but you, you all wait. Like episode 154 there might be discussions of highways there might be discussions of texas barbeque there might be discussions about my going to the mill you know with our special guest. I'm almost made the podcast when we did our first live episode. I'm going to

Kurt Neiswender: 19:47

experiment one

Jamie: 19:49

that was experiment one many many moons ago but they will be joining us again. Officially, officially for episode 1 54, so onto the sketch.

Kurt Neiswender: 20:02

I think I actually stumbled across that video, but anyway, I will, I should have left that out and then it would've surprised you better. But yeah, so, so we got two sketches and, and I, yeah, it's, it's all, all on me for deviating a little bit before getting the sketches, but we have two sketches that are very different in that one is a building and one is. Is like a sculpture of a human form. I'm told they are from the same general location, but not necessarily related. And, and so, you know, I'll, I'll let you describe in a second, the places and the, and the sort of context of it. But the cool part is the one is a little more pencil and one is a little more ink and And it's, and the building itself, I think you were recently at a conference of your own, where you're traveling and capturing some historic architecture. Tinkerbell, I'm getting to it. Please bear with me. And, and then the other one is, you know, sort of a more, a nicely rendered pencil sketch the human form sculpture, which, you know, what I'll say, since you do sketch statues or sculptures of human forms a lot but not necessarily something like this, that's like sort of in a standing position. I mean, it's not, you don't get to tape with a statue, but you know, a lot of times, you know, we kind of refer back to like Rodin pieces of art, things like that. So anyway, tell me more about, I guess, the building and then the sculpture.

Jamie: 21:47

Well, I'm going to do them in reverse order because that was like the perfect lead in is in fact, this is a Rodin sculpture in Birmingham, Alabama. So the, you know, drawn in situ. And yeah, and, and quickly done with pencil because museums really get nervous when you have a pen in your hand. So so, yeah, so, you know, always carry both folks. And so, yeah, it was a, it was a pencil opportunity and. You know, it was, it was a really nice museum very interesting collection and did a quick visit on the lunch hour, you know, during a conference. So it was museum was conveniently located really near where the conference site was. So I kept passing by it and I was like, okay, one of these days I am totally break it out and doing that for lunch instead of networking the folks and went over. Enjoyed the, enjoyed the permanent exhibit the visiting exhibit which was Disney costume design which was really cool. And then they had a, an outdoor sculpture garden, a very small, it, it, I think that was the only disappointment for me was that I think that the, the outdoor sculpture space that they had felt like a bit of a leftover space And I think that their collection sort of, you know, you know, could have been, you know, potentially could have been more especially given their permanent collection, which had a lot of European artwork. And so I had this sort of weird expectation, you know, of what the sculpture garden was going to be, but the Rodin sculpture certainly spoke to me and and yeah, tried to render relatively quickly with pencil out in the garden was the only one there. You know, everyone else, I don't even know if folks even knew that there was a sculpture garden, you know, kind of a weird, kind of a weird building that way. But yeah, it was, it was I really enjoyed Birmingham. And I'm glad that I took a, took a lunchtime off to go to the museum.

Kurt Neiswender: 23:50

Well, that's cool. And it's funny how it is a Rodin. So I'm excited. Well, what do you remember the name? Or the, the theme or title,

Jamie: 24:02

no, I don't know. It's like it's like some individual and I, and I don't recall there was a bust of John the Baptist inside the museum Which in the permanent collection, but it was, it was just sort of, you know, it was interior. And this was, this was out in the garden and not, and not one that I recall seeing in person before. So that was also kind of, kind of nice. Sometimes you get a surprise like that.

Kurt Neiswender: 24:28

Yeah. You know, the Rodin's do they, do they make multiple copies?

Jamie: 24:33

Oh yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the, you know, there's a Rodin Museum that, that holds the, the permanent collection in France, in, in Paris, and part of the estate, you know you know, kind of allows for portions of the collection to be recast. From time to time. And so this is, this is one, I believe that was recast, you know, as, as part of that. And, but yeah, it's, what's interesting too, is that it's, it's a figure that you know, I mean, I'm five, six, you know, and so this statues like felt like it was about six, three. And so I think it, yeah. It has sort of an imposing stature and then the pose itself also has that. And so I tried to find the right angle to kind of capture it. I mean, it's not that I was fighting crowds or anything like that, you know, to get the right angle for the sketch. It was just more of, you know, which is the one that's going to capture this sort of imposing. You know, figure with almost like flexing, you know, and and, and I think that that was the thing was I was trying to, to capture it in the sketchbook for myself, because those are the impressions that I was given in real life, seeing the artwork.

Kurt Neiswender: 25:48

Yeah, well, that's actually that level of detail is pretty helpful, the sort of proportion scale heights, things like that, because of the position of this thing. It's, it's a nude, which is like, you know, Rodin. Often sculpted the male form, you know, fairly nude and, and not necessarily anatomically accurate as far as like, you know, it wasn't like a one to one, you know, there's some abstraction. But yeah, the, the sort of musculature and stuff in this statue, and it's sort of not really dynamic position. It's a fairly static position, but has like this interesting arm, arm position. Doesn't necessarily either mean like it's moving or not, but it, like you said, sort of creates this sort of presence

Jamie: 26:39

to it. Well, and I think what you're sort of alluding to is it's like, you know, a lot of figure drawing that that folks will do with a live model or something like that. There's, I mean, unless it's a long pose, you know, so, you know, in, in figure drawing, you have sort of short poses, medium poses, long poses, and it's really about the model being able to be comfortable, frankly you know, in the pose, and so a short pose might be something that they can hold for, you know, a minute, two minutes, three minutes at most, and at that point, it is more gestural. You know, it's, it's about sort of capturing the movement and the energy of the body in motion. This one, certainly a static pose but one that's like you said, it's sort of, it's kind of weird because you're like, what's the scale of this figure? What's the scale of the sculpture? And what's this odd sort of flex move doing, you know, with their arms? Cause it's like, you know, who stands with the, both of their arms out in front of them? But not really kind of in a, in a full pose per se, it's like, it's almost like you're capturing them mid movement.

Tinkerbell: 27:46

Yeah.

Jamie: 27:47

And, and it, it, it sort of struck me the sort of the same way when I was sketching it, I was like, Oh, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to sort of capture it slightly at an angle, slightly at the side to at least give it a little bit more, you know, of a, a dynamic frame to the, to the environment that it was because again, You're, you're in a sculpture garden. So there's a mix of kind of hard surfaces and like organic textures. There's plants and trees and whatnot. So, yeah, this was, this was my, my attempt at, at sort of Pulling the memories onto the page.

Kurt Neiswender: 28:20

Yeah. So then in that regard, since we got two sketches to, you know, side by side in the book what is the significance of the building on the left relative to this, this trip to Birmingham?

Jamie: 28:36

So, yeah day before was doing some walking tours architectural walking tours with colleagues from other states who have similar. Jobs to mine and so when we, when we go visit these cities, it's this opportunity to kind of be that urban explorer and kind of, you know, both understand a place and maybe a history of a place that you're not as familiar with. Both from the story perspective and the development perspective, but also sort of the built architecture perspective. And in this particular case this, this portion of downtown had a lot of buildings that had been rehabilitated. And. You know, go dig back to the the founding of the city. So the Birmingham is a reconstruction city. So it's 1871 founding. And so this is a city that, you know, has a, has a very, very different history than other cities of the South. And, you know, Again, very, very complicated. Especially you know, as the timeline moves forward, but its architectural founding is sort of unique. You know, and a lot of the architectural styles, materials, laborers, craftsmen, architects who moved to the city and did work in the city definitely left like this indelible mark throughout the grid. And so at one point, Birmingham was actually bigger than Atlanta. Bigger than Atlanta almost to the 1950s. With the, with the international airport going into Atlanta versus versus Birmingham, that really sort of shifted that dynamic. And so then you start to see Atlanta on the rise and Birmingham on, on, not necessarily the decline, but sort of plateauing, so to speak in terms of population and growth. But the raw materials in Birmingham really afforded it this really amazing opportunity to grow from a built perspective. They call it the magic city because it had the raw materials basically for the, the, the steel industry. And so you have, you know, a lot of like mid rise American skyscrapers when skyscrapers are being like, you know, built in Chicago and New York city and on the East coast, you also have a lot of that happening in Birmingham, which is kind of unique for, for its, its location geographically, but also the clay. In the city of allowed it to have amazing architectural terracotta. And so you have this really kind of ornate, interesting details on these buildings. A lot of good masonry buildings and whatnot as well. But in this particular case, this was 1 that sort of stood out to me as sort of an Italian 8 kind of Romanesque almost kind of quality to it. And. And it has been rebuilt, rehabilitated as well. So like the bottom level, you almost feel like there's some Scarpa esque kind of moments. With some, some metal and sort of, sort of those Italian details. We get these really, really rigid kind of 1940s, 1950s, 1960s kind of metal details in the storefront that clearly are of a different age than the building itself but done really, really delicately. And so it stood out to me, it was, it was a neat building, a prominent corner in downtown. And so definitely took a moment to try and capture it as quickly as I could. And then. And then finish the sketch later at a coffee shop.

Kurt Neiswender: 32:06

Well, the sense of the scale, even though, you know, you kind of have the fun part is, you know the page is not big enough to sort of capture the entire facade of the building. So, you purposely sort of let it trail off toward the edge, but you can, you've got enough of the idea of the building that you can see the scale from, say, floor to floor. You know, vertically. As well as this, the rhythm or the dimension of the, the column columns on the facade and arches and things like that. So it's really nice. It's just a nice sketch because it has a lot of just enough detail to sort of get a sense of it. And then all your description of, you know, those historical aspects of the city help. You know, add that detail into the, I can, as you're describing that, I'm kind of reading into the, or reading this drawing as almost like a a capture of a job site visit during construction as they're building up frame of the building, the cladding of the building, you know, developing, you know, using the materials, using what they're good for, or good at, or known for, and it's kind of fun. That's I've actually not often. Sort of visualized your sketches in that manner, and it's actually a really interesting explanation. And I'll only add, you know, similar in the sense of historic experiences this week. I I actually passed by in in Flint in historic carriage town neighborhood. There's a marker at a house that is the first permanent building in the city of Flint, which is the house of Jacob Smith, who's known for founding the city of Flint and the sort of like the sort of nondescript nature, it's, it's a Queen Anne style house, but anyway, my point is, you know, these, these things exist around us and you just kind of, you turn a corner, you don't know, you know, you never know what you'll kind of encounter. So anyway.

Jamie: 34:14

Well, it's, it's funny because you say that is that, you know, I kept, I kept finding myself, you know, we did this tour and then later on, you know, going to dinner with other colleagues, you know, we found ourselves at the same intersection and hearing other folks, you know, kind of see a building that I'd seen. Maybe a day and a half before their sort of aha moment, you know, sort of, like you said, it's they kind of are, there's, there's that beautiful, ah, you know, surprise and, and wonder at seeing something that they're, they're appreciating the city regardless. But then they kind of make that turn and they see this corner and they're like. And it's lit at night and it's, it feels like something out of Florence you know, with sort of the robustness of the base and then sort of all the other details kind of, you know, it, it, it tells a different story. And like what you described, you know, in Flint, this built heritage, these stories evoke memories and they evoke a little bit of wonder and. And I think that that's, that's the beauty of exploring a lot of these places that we, that we always are trying to get at. And sometimes the, the sketchbook really helps us tell that story.

Kurt Neiswender: 35:29

Yeah. I mean, this is why, well, a, a, why we do, well, one of the things, one of the reasons why we do this podcast and then the, the, the. All the, all the context that you sort of provided, but yeah, thanks. Thanks, Jamie. It's really fun. It's a fun couple of sketches. You know, when, when, when I don't know what you're drawing, you know, as far as the subject matter, it always, it always winds up being an interesting conversation, so we'll I'll let, I'll, I'll, I'll say good night and then we will prepare ourselves for our special guest on the next one.

Jamie: 36:05

Absolutely. Thanks Kurt.