People You Should Know

Isabelle and Nick of Piano Nobile Studio
If you want to know where I'll be Saturday, June 14 (after 10 hours of a class intensive) its Piano Nobile's Open Studio Celebration, part of the Ballard Artwalk. You should probably be there too. Check out their sight for details.

Why you need to know Nick and Isabelle:
Because they're your peers, only better, because they live in a converted garage/studio in Ballard's wharehouse haven on the east side of 15th Ave. And by converted studio, I mean the kind of achingly gorgeous space that only two Cooper Union grads could create, repelete with sky high bookshelves (with books organized by color of course), handmade furniture (that they made and designed) not to mention enough floor space to almost meet Cornhole regulations for indoor games, and wall space galore for DVD projection film enjoyment time. Also, beside being two of the most creative and innovative people you could ever hope to run into, they are the kindest, funniest, most delightfully surprsiing and hospitable geniuses you could ever imagine. And they are one handsome couple.

Why I know Nick and Isabelle:
This is one of those lucky things about life- you do your thing, have your friends and jobs, and somehow a network forms where people you don't know much at all, become pretty tightly linked to your own chain, even though sometimes it takes a long time for the two chains to actually connect. Meaning, that I knew Isabelle from NY, when she and Kim both worked at Purl in Soho, and I would spend my free afternoons knitting at the big wooden table that took up the six feet of floor space in the store. So I logged in a lot of hours in Isabelle's presence, could easily see that she was not only awesome, but someone you'd want to latch onto for life, and got to socialize with her a little, but more or less, our mutual networks spread out as we went on to do whatever it was we were doing. But then she moved to Seattle, and with Kim coming to visit last month, the network chains finally linked, and I was bowled over at how lucky I am to know Nick and Isabelle, and to have them be a ten minute bus ride away. They're the kind of people you expect to read about in Architecture Today (and we probably will, if it hasn't happened already) but find yourself instead, barbaqueing on a $30 Smoky Joe in their front "lawn" (cement driveway and well tended potted herb garden). Add to that an adorable dog named Bauhaus, and you've found yourself some quality people to befriend while being fans of.

Check them out some time. You can't help but be inspired and want to move into a storage bin in front of their house.

*photos borrowed from Kim Hamlin and Isabelle Grizzard Robertson*