anarchitxt

GuildWorks: Architecture of the Air 2017 from GuildWorks on Vimeo.

 A high school senior just hit me up via my form submission page on metaevol.com

This amounts to my first official interview, and I was happy to oblige. I have deleted his/her name for said person's privacy, but otherwise have copied the interview in its entirety, sans editing.  

My favorite advice answer: Don't be a prick.  

For your enjoyment: 

 Subject: Hi,My name is --------------,Im a Senior at -------- High I was just wondering if i can get these questions answered for my senior paper

 Message: 1. Would you please spell your name for me? My name is Jonathan Isbell

2. What is your career, and how would you describe your daily duties and responsibilities? I am an Architectural Designer/Builder and Artist. My daily duties range from 3D and 2D design to metal fabrication to carpentry to running a business and networking to learning everything I can about everything. My interests and inspirations include Philosophy, Physics, Cosmology, Metallurgy, Graphic Design, Photography, Architectural and Geopolitical History, Theory and Practice, Robotics, and Emerging Technology.

3. How long have you worked in this job field, and what work experience did you have before?

 In many ways, my entire life's experience informs my work, career, and aspirations. I have worked in many fields. Look at my CV on my website. metaevol.com/cv 4. How or why did you choose this as your career?

My family history inspired me to be a builder. I come from a long line of Civil Engineers. Isbell Construction Company built many highways and roads in the western United States, as well as many mining operations. Although it is unfortunately damaging to the environment, my great grandfather was instrumental in the invention of strip mining. I have a natural gift for understanding how things fit together, and how raw materials can be shaped to create the built environment. 5. What training have you had to prepare you for your career? Where/how did you receive it?

Look at my CV. 6. What advice might you give to someone wanting to enter this career field?

Study everything that interests you, no matter how relevant it seems. Follow your dreams. Don't be a prick. Don't let anyone dissuade you from achieving your goals. 7. If you were to start all over, would you choose this career again? Why/why not?

Yes, but I would add more education. 8. What are the strong points that you love about your career? The drawbacks?

I get to choose my own destiny. Drawbacks? More like challenges: it can sometimes be very difficult to forge your own path in life. You will find people that will fight you just because you are making your own way. That scares some people. 9. Can you speak a little about salary expectations for newly hired _____? Experienced workers?

Salary depends upon your skills, location, your ability and willingness to negotiate your wages, and your ability to think fast and act faster, to get the job done right the first time.

   Thanks for reaching out to me, --------, good luck on your paper! Sincerely, Jonathan Isbell METÆVOL TECHNOLOGY, LLC

Got a Call from my buddy Eddy Bullock a few days ago. Said he wanted me to look at a trailer. When I got to his shop, I met my next patient, a 30' trailer Frankensteined together from too-thin wall rectangular tube on top of what once was, to my eyes, a 10 foot 3K# shade tree trailer. With visible cracks, and salt-rot, this thing was barely holding itself together.  

 Taking the road less traveled. It's been a good 15 years since I've driven cross country through the southwest. This is why you call an immersive sensory deprivation/overload and cultural indoctrination experiment. Art or Philosophy?

 10 years ago I had a plan to travel the country in my two tone '72 VW bus, the original tiny house, back when "tiny house" was a vernacular architecture based on urban and economic necessity. My 1600cc VW with dual two barrel carbs was outfitted for survival and creative endeavors. My hammock fit perfectly, leaving plenty of room for art supplies, books, and pillows to read and write the book I planned to publish on the journey. The city of LA literally stole my bus and some other events quickly put an end to those plans. But the dream has never left me. Now, a decade later, I am following in the footsteps of several of my past lifetimes that have become bookends throughout my 34 years on this spinning speeding molten rock. This time I'm wiser, more skilled, better prepared.

 An old mentor related the necessity of being lost back then. It resonated with me then as much as it does now; indeed it has been a theme throughout. I'd rather find myself, through getting lost in the wilderness, while forging ahead chasing my fears, than wake up an old man finding I've always been lost, defined by misguided fears.

 Fear is the mind killer.

I will let my fear pass over me,

And through me.

And when it has passed,

I will turn and follow the path

That it has wrought.

And I will find that

Only I remain.

 Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost, 1916