Scene Change: The Eames House

5 encouraging thoughts from visiting the home and studio of Charles & Ray

Welcome to Scene Change: a new site-specific series in The Ecstatic Review in which I share encouraging inspiration and confirmation about self-expression from a well-filling field trip! Because sometimes we need a fresh perspective and some fresh air. And by “we,” I mean me, myself, and I.

So without further ado, let’s take this show on the road to the Eames House!

A view from outside the living room of the Eames House.

Somewhere in my twenties, at the height of my starving artist days, I decided that if I ever had enough money to splurge on something, it was going to be an Eames Lounge Chair. 

I can’t tell you where this choice came from. I’d never sat in an Eames Lounge Chair, and I don’t think I’d even been in the same room as one. I also didn’t know anything about Charles and Ray Eames at the time: I had no idea that they worked at intersections like I couldn’t seem to stop doing, or that they were living examples of following your curiosity—an idea I held onto tightly every time I felt pressured to pick one thing and call it my passion. 

They always say that we don’t know what we don’t know, but maybe we do. I didn’t know the multidisciplinary artists or the story behind that chair, but on some level I must have known that it held the encouragement I was desperately searching for: that it was okay to stay up until 2 a.m. writing about geometry when I had other lines to learn, that the parts of my work and my life that needed to make sense eventually would, that I didn’t have to know where it was all leading in order to keep going. 

Over the years, Charles and Ray have gradually become more of a presence in my life. A few examples:

I’m talking about how my often surprising background in math actually has a lot to do with self-expression and someone says, “Have you seen Mathematica, the Eames exhibit on how math shapes our world?” Me: “That’s a thing?” Of course it is. 

I find myself drawing colored spheres and referencing children’s literature while developing the EV model of voice, and a few days later I bump into the Hang-It-All at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and of course they also made that. 

I’m at the Corita Art Center geeking out about Sister Corita Kent's approach to creativity when I learn that she was such good friends with the Eameses that she called Charles “Sister Charles.” That’s the most delightful tidbit ever, and of course she did. 

I didn’t seek out the Eameses, but somehow they’ve always been there. And so on a foggy morning last Friday, I went to the Eames House to pay them a visit. The trip was well timed: I’ve been in a period of both creating a lot and feeling more contentious than usual—two things that benefit from some outside encouragement to fill the well and reignite the enthusiasm.

The front door.

Here are five encouraging thoughts I had while visiting Charles and Ray:

1. Let life change your hypothesis.  

Charles and Ray’s original plan for Case Study House #8, which they designed in 1945, was for it to extend horizontally into a meadow surrounded by eucalyptus trees. Because of material shortages from the war, it took three years for the parts to be delivered so that they could build their design. While they were waiting, they frequently visited the meadow to have picnics with family and friends.

By the time the steel for the house’s frame arrived in 1948, they had “fallen in love with the meadow” and changed the original design so that the house stood alongside the meadow instead of jutting into it. It ended up being the right move in more ways than one: the meadow has stayed intact, and the eucalyptus trees that surround it provide a natural protective barrier to the house, which is 65% glass, from the coastal winds.

It reminded me of a thought I had a while back about hypotheses and lived experience in the context of the plans we make for ourselves: While plans are useful, they’re ultimately just an educated guess of what we think will be best. It can be easy to cling to that hypothesis, instead of letting it be tested and changed by what we discover as we live.

I found it encouraging that the Eames’s love of the meadow inspired them to change their plans, and that their willingness to do so was rewarded with an extra layer of protection from their surroundings.

A different view of the living room, featuring a protective tree.

2. Embrace the conversation between work and life.

I will be the first to admit that I’m someone who thinks about my work all the time. When I’m working on something, I carry it with me everywhere: on walks with Rosie, while journaling in the morning, or way past midnight while I’m still chasing the synthesis of an idea.

My work flows into my life because I genuinely love it, because I’m incapable of compartmentalization, because I must follow every idea to its fullest expression. And my life flows into my work because the work that I do is all about life and the living conversation we have with the world around us.

Of course, this comes with all kinds of challenges (and I’m working on them), but I was encouraged by the reminder that the Eameses also saw their work as being in continual conversation with life. They built their house and studio in tandem so they could go back and forth easily. Conversations at dinner parties they hosted for friends like Isamu Noguchi and Charlie Chaplin (no big deal) inspired new ideas, and they tried out some of those new ideas at future dinner parties. Movies they made included images of flowers in their garden and dishes in their sink.

They put their life in their work, and as a result, their work had a lot of life in it. And while I’m sure that also came with all kinds of challenges (and made long walks in that meadow all the more essential), it clearly came with a lot of fullness, too.

A few postcards from my visit.

3. Celebrate practicality.

One of the things I was struck by while walking the grounds of the Eames House is how much they did with honest materials and practical tools. Their whole house was made with off-the-shelf parts: steel I-beams, plywood, chicken-wire glass; the paint colors they used were ones that were already mixed; plants sat in simple terra cotta pots.

A favorite detail was a small table in one of the outdoor seating areas. Apparently they needed an extra table one day when friends were over, so Charles stuck the leg of an Eames Lounge Chair into a wooden top and it’s still in great shape years later.

The makeshift table that has stood the test of time.

I often describe the EV approach to voice as a blend of discovery and strategy, and the aim is equal parts illuminating and practical. I find practicality not only incredibly refreshing in a world of complicated solutions, but an essential balance to the big ideas of sharing your voice with the world. I know I’m not alone in that, because one of the things I hear a lot from clients after working together is that they have all of these new insights and they know what to do with them.

I love that the genius of the Eameses didn’t lie in their ability to pick out fancy materials, but to work with honest ones in a creative, inspired, and playful way.

4. Who says it’s too much?

One of the primary assumptions I make in the work of voice, right up there with my wholehearted belief that there is nothing wrong with you, is that you are not too much.

The very common feeling of too-muchness that so many of us creative types experience (I talked about it in the Prologue and will talk about it more as we go) is a strong engine behind the work here at Ecstatic Voice, including my overall mission of supporting you in expressing all that you are. 

I thought about this a lot as I visited Charles and Ray: learning about the endless index cards of ideas they kept, seeing all of the little collectibles lined up from their travels, hearing about how Ray donated 1.5 million (million!) objects to the Library of Congress near the end of her life and wrote an entire encyclopedia of their work.

I imagined sitting in the courtyard with Ray, who used to welcome visitors like me with open arms, and talking with her about my own experience of being too much: so many things to say, wildly enthusiastic, more ideas than I will ever be able to bring to life.

And then I heard her say back, without missing a beat: “Too much? Says who?”

A swing in the meadow.

5. Soak in your own bathtub. 

My favorite detail of the Eames House might have been the bathrooms. Although the house was built to hold just the essentials, Charles and Ray built two bathrooms side by side: one for each of them. Charles had a shower, and Ray had a bathtub.

I’ll let that encourage or inspire you however it will, but I took Ray’s choice to give herself her own bathtub as yet another sign of her genius.

Big thanks to the Eameses for providing all kinds of insightful encouragement on Friday, and to

Ali LaBelle

for inspiring me to visit!

P.S. What do you think of this new series? I’d love to know, so please tap the heart if you're into it and/or leave a comment below!

P.P.S. One more question for you while I’m at it:

Thank you so much for your feedback, and for joining me! As always, if you know someone who would enjoy The Ecstatic Review, please pass it along: All are welcome, and every voice makes this show that much fuller.

Speaking of fullness, September was a full one at The Ecstatic Review! Let’s recap:

• I asked: “What shape do you make?” and shared my sincere yet unsuccessful attempts to fit into the limiting logic of made-up things.

• We talked about connecting the dots, bridging the gaps, and discovering the one whole you in the process—and I shared a practice to start flexing your dot-connecting muscles right away.

• Last but certainly not least, we jumped! I introduced the idea of a trampoline as an alternative to the ever-popular framework, and invited you to think about what you need to hold you, catch you, and help you fly.