"From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie."

Katsuhika Hokusai (Thanks to theshipthatflew)

There are moments when I feel my ignorance, my lack of understanding for how the world is pieced together. In design, in architecture, I have yet to fully grasp the feel of space. What, exactly, makes a space feel the way it does. Its shape, its textures, its light, its colors, its sounds. These are aspects that are at once clearly defined, facts that can be noted and recorded, but are also ellusive. Naming its shape is not the same as knowing its shape. 

I love this quote because of how strongly it resonates with my frustrations and impatience towards my limitations as a designer. Yet, at the same time it serves to remind me why I chose the profession that I chose. Architecture is a field of constant personal growth. I eagerly await the day when facts and figures coalesce into something greater, when my understanding of the world is enhanced, even if by just a small amount.

(Source: 23rd-block, via crashinglybeautiful)