At this turning point it is appropriate to take a moment and look at what happened to get here as this started over thirty years ago. I started Jessica Hall Associates, having little or no idea that this profession would enthrall me for the better part of my lifetime. It was and continues to be a adventure both visually, intellectually and spiritually. I can’t really think of any other way of life that could so keep me in the present so completely as architectural and interior design has been able to do. The job circles around abstract imagination and the confines of rules regulations or ones clients boundaries. A balancing act between form and function, passion and equilibrium, fun and caution, needs and the sublime, and I could go on and on because creating environments, whether it is from the ground up or from the floor up requires tons of level headedness without losing the spark of adventure. So that is what my business has been about from the inside out for these many years. Yes, I went to school, Lynchburg College and then UC Berkeley and then by sheer coincidence met three or four people that recognized some potential in me and moved me on my way to having a life long career in design. Beverely Thom, Joyce Yokomizo, Patrick McGrew, Marsha Karr all people, experts in their fields who fostered the creative sprit in me.

Yes, I had kids to support, three, I had to survive, I had to learn to “do business” in a professional way that a successful business entails: contracts, presentations, billing, purchasing, delivery and installations, tools to work in the world, that fascinating world of “taste”.  

It is all so subjective this taste idea. I see it like creating and discovering harmonies, akin to music, but with things and spaces. I really believe that to duplicate what one has seen before often works for many people in this field. Not easy, not to infer that duplication is easy, it is safe, and can guarantee the designer a spot in the scheme of things  But what if one goes outside of that box and makes combinations which aren’t always a frequently traveled path? The downs might be: a test to ones inner peace and confidence, the big unknown, Will it work? Am I crazy? Is it ok? The ups: excitement, the thrill and unexpected pleasure of encompassing a feeling visually that isn’t so known, a much more exotic or obtuse hypothesis that in fact becomes the norm. That is an interesting experience to see that ones less common vision can become the norm and with that the imagination keeps looking for the next synthesis which will then become a new norm. Mysticism talks to all ideas being available to all, it is just a matter of knowing how to tune in to that field of unlimited vision.  

So now at this juncture in my career, my office with multiple employees is completed, the constant awareness of creating new work is not at the forefront and I am embracing this freedom of ideas and the otherworld of my particular fantasies.