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  When I was studying French literature, I took a course on literature from the Antilles. One of the literary devices that we were studying was that the people of the Antilles don't always think of time in a linear line, but as a web of causes and effects that blend together. One of the books we read was a detective story where the lead detective would talk to the suspects to trace after the clues. The direction of the dialogue with the suspects was always them sharing their life story with the deceased and how their interactions over time shaped them. It was this idea that actions in the past influence reactions in the future. As well as the idea that a person is not a solitary individual, but a composite of the surrounding society. Walruses of the Arctic Hotel.   Later, when I was studying architecture in graduate school, I liked to think of this concept when designing buildings how the past of the area could inform designs for the present that could direct images of the fut...

"God is in the details." The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. (wikipedia)   This was something that was said by my first art history prof in university. She was using it to explain the high level of detail used in a Christian painting we were looking at. Or perhaps it was that sculpture The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. I had grown up atheist, so I struggled with knowing the art history depictions of stories from the Bible and trying to keep track of saints. But it also meant that I interpreted this phrase differently. In my godless eyes this meant to me that the process of creation through repetition and the application of intricate detail was not dissimilar to meditation where the labor leads to deep self-contemplative thought. When I was in high school, I began to attend a Buddhist center in town once a week for a weekly meditation. Their meditation consisted of listening to a repetitive drumbeat while we focused on clearing our minds. This led me to thinking of...

Hey. C'est moi.  It has been a few years. Since I last discussed into the void here I attended grad school for architecture at the University of Washington, finished the Master's program by the skin of my teeth, graduated into a global pandemic (I would not recommend this), gave away most of my worldly possessions, and am now flâneur-ing around Europe on the slim budget of my life savings. Allow me to reintroduce myself : I am the artist, Gaston. My interests include ; architecture, sustainability, art, vintage fashions, antiques, and flâneries. All while consuming massive quantities of tea. “I know where I'm from, but I don't know where I'm going.” I recently heard this line at a video playing at the Tate Museum in Liverpool, and it rang strong in me. In the film Casablanca, when Rick is questioned on his nationality he responds that his is a “drunkard,” insinuating that he has renounced his American nationality for that of someone who owns and runs a bar. From ...

The Boarding House. My latest stint in alternative housing structures is a communal house run by a rental company.  I have named it "The Boarding House."  The house was built in 1919 in what appears to have been a Craftsman style with four bedrooms and one bath at 2,660 square feet.  When it was purchased by the rental company it then converted into eleven bedrooms with three baths.  (Apparently, it is still on city record as being a one-family four bedroom and one bath house.  I'm not sure if this is a problem.)  It is the on the border between the U-District and Wallingford.  Our back alley is the defining line.  I joke that this is because our communal situation is too trashy for Wallingford to accept us even though we are the first strip of houses west of the Interstate. My room is the southern half of what was once the living room and has French door access to the front porch.  Since the conversion, there is now a distinct lac...

The Reserve at SeaTac job has been keeping me on the past few weeks.  I have lost Don, who just never showed up one day, and then gained and lost a Vaughn.  Now I'm working alone as a TLC laborer at this location. The pool room exposed. For a couple of days, my cleaning was paired with uncovering the pool and hot tub that had been sealed up since the building still lacked a roof.  Rainwater from last winter that was sealed beneath a layer of MDF turned into a black mold.  As it would eat away at sections of the MDF, creating large soft holes, another layer would be tacked on top of it to prevent anyone from falling in.  One of the carpenters told me that it is black mold, but not the deadly black mold.  I wish I had a respirator for this task, but a dust mask is better than nothing.  The other workers use their "not wearing a mask" as a means of stating their strength, or perhaps a sense of masculinity.  I still keep my dust mask on as ...

My latest job that I have been sent on is to work an Exxel job called the Reserve at SeaTac.  I already worked out here once before about a month ago.  I like working Exell jobs for the fact that safety actually seems to matter to them and that I am not going to be asked to do jobs above my pay grade and then still only get paid the minimum. No being asked to climb into an unprotected elevator shaft while concrete demolition is going on overhead dropping large chunks of concrete down the shaft.  I tell the foreman that I am thankful for this and he laughs with a mix of facial expressions partly because he knows that would be an insane thing to ask someone to do and partly because he realizes that I have been asked to do just that at a previous site.  A story for another post. Métro, bulot, dodo. - Tukwila Station. To get to the Reserve at SeaTac it takes an hour from TLC using public transportation.  Only one transfer, so it isn't too bad, plus becaus...

After walking in on my, now ex, girlfriend with someone else I moved back to Seattle. It has been a little over a year since I got back and have been working odd jobs to make ends meet while everything that I seem to apply to I am either over or under qualified to for. This has resulted in me working a lot of day labor construction. My idea of working this job is that it might be able to help me understand the facets of how construction is done so as I apply to graduate school in the coming months for architecture that I will have a more tantalizing résumé and the future ability to work as an architect that has less builders frustrated. First day of construction: hauling cabinets in Redmond. The reality is that I do a lot of cleaning and hauling of miscellaneous on the job site, but I have been able to find discover more about the metropolitan area of Seattle as I get sent to work all over to work a site for maybe a few weeks or maybe just a day. The location of the company...