Before starting, I try to immerse myself in the nature of the particular place. My designs begin as impressions of shadows, shapes, walls, and openings. Gradually, step by step, a house, a chapel, school or park takes form. It is very much a case of listening to what the building wants to be and trusting my own feelings.
First, I make a number of small sketches, then a small-scale model, often of clay. Afterwards, I enlarge the scale and become familiar with the inside and outside. In the process an appropriate vocabulary and language for the project is found. When this grammar – the rhythm, light and mass – is established, then the related parts, doors, roof treatment, and details fall into place. Read the rest of this entry »
Show me where the flowers grow
where the garden hides
beneath shrouds of fear.
Show me rainbows in raindrops
music in the sound of flies
tears in the eye of the sentry.
Show me beneath the
soil and dirt of forgotten lives
behind blank eyes
a dream of white snow on mountain tops.
Show me that this sacred garden is mine
that I, too, may plant the seeds
that I may lift the shovel and not weary
that I may let the flowers come.
James T. Hubbell
August, 1998
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The imagined world
The path we walk
The fleeting thought
. . . . . . Blocks to build a life
James T. Hubbell
March 1998
The space between
that silent space,
The pause before
or is it after?
The dawn, the twilight
waiting for the end,
or is it the beginning?
The magic nothing
the goddess of resurrection
of crucifixion
The door within
The door we fear to open,
silent
stillness
expectancy and terror
the place where
God dwells,
The place our soul cries to go
if only an instant, to glimpse
To step within the unknown place
The space between
For which all life became,
The void where life and art begins.
What does it mean…….to make whole?
James Hubbell
December, 1997
From trees, from mountains
with small minutes
with ebbing time,
as the tides watched,
We built our ship
of carved and fitted planks
to march the curves of a dark sea,
the arc of a blue sky.
To stretch its sail in the cool moon,
to sing the ripple of white water
parted by our journey.
We built our ship
for the sea,
but more for our restless heart.
Would there be at the end,
the shadowed smile of a God
to welcome a sail to rest.
From seas, from mountains
washed on shores
dreamed in hearts
long visited by cobalt butterflies,
We built our ship.
Still, feel the sea beneath
this deck that is never quiet.
Strong and gentle, wise and generous,
that is the timber of our ship.
James T. Hubbell
July, 1997
First, I make a number of small sketches, then a small-scale model, often of clay. Afterwards, I enlarge the scale and become familiar with the inside and outside. In the process an appropriate vocabulary and language for the project is found. When this grammar – the rhythm, light and mass – is established, then the related parts, doors, roof treatment, and details fall into place. Read the rest of this entry »