Her figure looks flowless while she stands next to me on the steps of the front door. We got here on the very same time. Wide cut pink jeans, light blouse, pianist-like hands, long hair effortlessly embracing face and shoulders. – I think you are here for me – Lindsey Adelman smiles goes inside. Her grace is as magnetic as her famous glass pieces.
How is it exactly that she can design forms that do not lose identity regardless of their surroundings? Spending time at her studio helps me a little to solve that puzzle. Before we get to sit down and have a conversation, she gives me a little tour of the two-level space. First level is more of a showroom. Postindustrial interior is transformed into a series of atmospheres to present Lindsey’s work. There is also an office for her team and an enclosed sphere of her private office. The upstairs space is arranged to be a workshop.
The atelier is located on Lafayette Street in NoHo. This part of Lower Manhattan is an intimate region of fashionable boutiques and chic coffee shops. Lindsey’s eclectic aesthetics fits right in. Her designs are a perfect combination of artistic spirituality and craftsmanship. Such feminine geometry complements lofty interiors of the immediate neighborhood of her atelier as much as European apartments on the other side of the Atlantic.
– In general, I tend to be not so grounded, and I’m not interested in designing things that are too solid. – she tells me while my eyes wonder around the workshop. – I always want to think about things that can wander on their own, spreading points of light around. I’m just so much more curious about that than let’s say dealing with so-called “human factors” as traditional industrial design likes to put it.
Not a Workaholic
Meeting Lindsey is like a time travel. On the one hand I feel like I have known here for years. On the other: I can see in her the version of myself I aspire to. Without putting her on a pedestal, I can’t help but to be inspired by how comfortable she is about her work, about her business, about the way she feels in her own body.
– I came here with the intention that I mostly wanted to talk to you about designing. – I say when we sit down on a couch in her private office. – But now that I saw your atelier, I feel like I want to talk to you about being an entrepreneur. Do you think about yourself as an entrepreneur or more as an artist designer?
– A big part of my job is coming up with the ideas, but the next step is figuring out how to make it sustainable, make designing a business and manage all the different departments. Management and communication are a huge part of what I do. I didn’t get any professional training of how to run a business. I was following a desire to get the creativity out there and to be independent. I worked for other people for about ten years beforehand so perhaps that was like training, learning both what I wanted to do and what I didn’t want to do.
We are at Lindsey’s office which is the brightest part of the studio at this time of the day. Narrow high windows fill white space with light that bounces on white walls and raw material furniture. There are models and Lindsey’s drawings everywhere and yet the space is not cluttered. It looks like a place of a person who works in turns: when she’s at work she’s working, then ending the task and leaving the atelier to get to the other parts of her life.
Another nice thing about Lindsey’s office is that it is pretty quiet and what catches my attention is that she has the tendency to soak into this stillness. She is not afraid of pauses in our conversation which is a nice change of pace from the standard ways of interviewing people where so much is transactional. Lindsey continues after few moments of reflection:
– I was so aggressive when I was starting out. I was firm about not taking too many vacations or resting. My ambitions were dictating a lot. That was the first ten years of running the studio, but now I’m the opposite of a workaholic.
– Well, it really shines off from your face and skin – I respond almost automatically.
She is not afraid of silence, and I am not afraid to admit to myself how blown away am I to have this conversation.
Boundaries season
– I was born in New York City – says Lindsey – therefore I feel confident saying there’s something pretty toxic and pretty addictive about this place. Everybody is trying to take a break or to rest well, and this is a real struggle because we don’t just have it naturally in our upbringing.
Even from the short perspective of two years of my living here, I can perfectly understand this observation.
– So, I guess it is even more impressive that you have managed to create circumstances in which you are able to keep creating and not get burned out. – I point out.
– After a while I understood I need to protect myself if I want to keep being responsible for what I have built. I feel like part of my job that has a lot to do with business in terms of my role is for me to keep going deeper in myself, pushing myself, stretching myself personally and challenging myself on a level that’s like very close to me. And that energy can trickle down to the company because then we have a new collection, and we can stay relevant. Then everybody has professional growth because of the nature of the collection or the new audience or the new clients. And then that must be paired with these very sound operations, business, finance arm that, I trust everybody who does enough not to micromanage it. Every new collection means figuring out different chapters for the business because it is constantly evolving and morphing. It reflects in part my personality. I get to a point where everything is working and then I turn around and mix it up.
As Lindsey points that out, I can see how that part is fun for her, how the thrill of a change keeps her interested in whatever she’s currently doing.
Directed by David Lynch
For a European, living in America means realizing that David Lynch is in fact a documentalist not a surrealist. I make sure to bring that up and to ask Lindsey about her favorite Lynch’s movie because I found somewhere information that she likes him. After all, light and spirituality is a big part of his creative life. Lynch is also a big advocate of meditation and constant work on improving oneself through being an artist. My first ever book I bought in New York was his memoir from 2018 called “A Room to Dream”. Lindsey hasn’t read it so I’m happy to recommend it to her. In exchange she recommends to me Catching the Big Fish where Lynch writes about meditation.
I think daydreaming is a real-life lost art. – she says firmly – My son just started college. He goes to art school. Me and my husband we’ve always taught him that the time of looking at the clouds or letting your thoughts just wonder freely is never lost – it is in fact productive. It is about paying attention and ideas that pop up during those moments of being without any agenda.
That opens an interesting thread to our conversation. Next thing I know, we are talking about inward journeys, and I dare to say how I had this idea of coming to foreign country to get lost.
– In the spring I was in Joshua Tree National Park where we shot a video for our past May’s exhibition here at the atelier. It’s a place in the United States where you can really get lost. If you wander off the path, even just 10 minutes off the trail, all the rocks look the same, you can’t hear anything. It’s dead silence. I wanted the video to I kind of touch upon the delay of getting lost, giving up control to hear yourself more clearly. Only then are you able to come back to yourself. We have so many different sides to oneself, and you get to decide which parts to grow and emphasize. Which parts are ready to be shed, which parts are operating on autopilot.
– So then what is your favorite David Lynch movie? – I ask after a brief pause during which I reflect on how much I agree with what Lindsey just said. Recognizing the autopilot scripts is one of the things I’m examining during my meditations lately.
– That would be Mulholland Drive – she responds.
I am not surprised with her answer but also, I was always more of a Twin Peaks kind of gal.
