0:00:01.019,0:00:04.453
[sounds of birds chirping]

0:00:10.803,0:00:12.836
[laughter]

0:00:13.586,0:00:17.105
[Diana] This is what it feels like in my studio all the time. Super tense.

0:00:18.069,0:00:20.236
Diana Al-Hadid--Artist

0:00:20.236,0:00:21.871
[Diana] "What’s gonna happen?" [laughs]

0:00:21.871,0:00:23.402
Sound FX App-Ryan's iPhone

0:00:23.402,0:00:25.319
[Ryan] "Is she gonna put steps there?"

0:00:25.319,0:00:26.553
"And then..."

0:00:26.553,0:00:28.455
[sounds of record scratching]

0:00:29.279,0:00:30.818
"Al-Hadid studios!"

0:00:30.818,0:00:31.716
[Diana] "Boom!"

0:00:31.716,0:00:33.012
[Diana Al-Hadid's Studio Boom]

0:00:33.058,0:00:34.052
"What up!?"

0:00:35.406,0:00:36.930
[Ryan] "You wanna hear 'sexy'?"

0:00:36.930,0:00:38.001
[Diana, laughing] "I do."

0:00:38.032,0:00:40.948
[sound of saxophone playing]

0:00:44.310,0:00:46.311
[sounds of blowtorch]

0:00:48.728,0:00:54.327
Four years ago this whole floor was just one empty space.

0:00:54.527,0:00:56.393
[sounds of drilling]

0:00:58.960,0:01:04.010
There was no plumbing, there was no heaters, there was no electrical.

0:01:04.876,0:01:06.760
"Does it look level to you?"

0:01:06.760,0:01:10.443
Lucky for me, I got it grant and I partitioned some of it out.

0:01:10.760,0:01:13.094
Some of it's rented to other artists.

0:01:14.376,0:01:19.793
And I curved out a space for myself that was way bigger than I ever dreamed.

0:01:20.243,0:01:23.560
I was taking on too much and figuring out how to make it happen.

0:01:23.560,0:01:27.827
"It's real. It works. Sort of."

0:01:29.526,0:01:34.743
When I first moved to New York, my studio was maybe 700 square feet.

0:01:34.791,0:01:36.432
[Actual Size--320 square feet]

0:01:36.432,0:01:41.443
I made sculptures within inches of the walls. It was really difficult,

0:01:41.711,0:01:45.511
Especially for the work that I made. It taught me how to be efficient:

0:01:46.010,0:01:50.110
How to save space, how to save money, and especially how to save time,

0:01:50.110,0:01:55.543
Because no one helped me, and when you don’t have a lot of resources, you get sharp.

0:01:57.345,0:02:01.092
[This is Diana's new sculpture.]

0:02:02.011,0:02:04.302
[She has two months to finish it for a show.]

0:02:04.302,0:02:05.149
Yay!

0:02:09.146,0:02:12.876
This past year I had pretty fast growth.

0:02:14.227,0:02:17.711
It just impossible to do this alone on this scale.

0:02:17.876,0:02:20.426
"Do you have a bucket for me? Yes!"

0:02:21.577,0:02:25.693
So, now I have assistants that help me make these things.

0:02:26.107,0:02:28.593
[Everyone in the studio has a nickname.]

0:02:29.744,0:02:32.477
[Drew Dudak--"Drew A Lot When He Was A Kid"]

0:02:32.810,0:02:35.027
[Yeji Lee--"Yejisaur"]

0:02:35.244,0:02:36.739
[Sarah Faitell--"Fatal"]

0:02:36.739,0:02:38.337
That's also why I have a studio manager...

0:02:38.337,0:02:39.858
[Jonathan de Simone--"Jonny D On The Ones & Twos"]

0:02:39.858,0:02:42.039
...to allocate different tasks for people,

0:02:42.039,0:02:44.933
And I can focus on something that requires my attention.

0:02:45.183,0:02:47.767
[Jonathan] Working on stuff this large is amazing, it’s so much fun.

0:02:47.767,0:02:50.183
[Diana laughs]

0:02:50.183,0:02:53.700
When I was first working for her, I was her only assistant.

0:02:55.670,0:03:01.087
I spent like six months working really closely with just her and learned a lot about all the different techniques.

0:03:01.088,0:03:03.904
[Diana] "It might just be that one rod."

0:03:04.571,0:03:06.021
[Jonathan] "You are correct."

0:03:06.021,0:03:07.920
[Jonathan] She’a kind of a "go-big-or-go-home" person.

0:03:07.920,0:03:09.821
[Diana] "Yes! I love when I'm right."

0:03:09.988,0:03:12.205
[Jonathan] Everything is like balls to the wall...

0:03:12.205,0:03:13.987
[Diana] "It's so nice, it punctures through."

0:03:13.987,0:03:16.020
[Jonathan] ...giant sculpture.

0:03:16.037,0:03:20.387
And a lot of the processes here are really specific and a little bit weird and unique.

0:03:21.088,0:03:28.688
So, largely what I do is train other people how to do something in the way that Diana wants it done.

0:03:29.070,0:03:34.537
[Diana] All this stuff I do people can learn. It’s really easy. I think. Everything I do is easy.

0:03:34.537,0:03:37.071
[Nick] "Yeah, but it's also like watching the master at work."

0:03:37.071,0:03:38.288
[Diana laughs]

0:03:38.288,0:03:42.670
[Nick] I mean to touch fiber glass like you do, to hold it, you can’t do it yourself.

0:03:42.670,0:03:44.070
[Diana] "I’m much faster."

0:03:44.070,0:03:46.522
[Nick] Yeah, and you make it look more natural.

0:03:50.444,0:03:53.177
[Diana] It was kind of a mess in here for many years.

0:03:53.227,0:03:56.059
Because of Nick, now I look like a professional.

0:03:57.093,0:03:59.132
[Nick] She likes receipts--

0:03:59.132,0:04:01.010
[Nicholas Joyce--"Snick"]

0:04:01.010,0:04:04.861
Keeping track of everything to the penny. So that’s actually a difficult part.

0:04:04.894,0:04:07.975
Tons of details. [laughs] Exciting details.

0:04:10.622,0:04:13.444
Jon and I have a competition.

0:04:14.044,0:04:18.710
It’s like, I have to get her in the office, and he has to get her on the studio on the same day.

0:04:18.710,0:04:20.764
So we split her.

0:04:20.764,0:04:24.064
[Office] [Studio]

0:04:26.888,0:04:28.799
[Diana] We're going outside.

0:04:31.621,0:04:34.573
[Jonathan] This is like a really great working environment.

0:04:34.573,0:04:37.957
It’s really nice being here. I'm definitely learning a lot

0:04:38.039,0:04:40.772
But on the other hand it is really time consuming.

0:04:40.772,0:04:42.796
[Time on the Job]

0:04:43.035,0:04:48.139
So I think there’ll come a point at which I need to go do my own thing now.

0:04:48.963,0:04:53.929
The hardest part of leaving here will be the fact that we laugh so much at work.

0:04:57.230,0:05:04.696
I mean it’s serious too, we're getting shit done, but the fact that the vibe is really relaxed is so nice.

0:05:04.696,0:05:06.546
[Diana] Going to use a ladder.

0:05:06.546,0:05:09.563
[Diana's been working on this sculpture for over a year.]

0:05:09.563,0:05:12.313
[With one month left the studio goes into overdrive.]

0:05:12.313,0:05:13.964
[Diana] There’s huge change that happens at the end.

0:05:13.964,0:05:17.857
Like, once everything got attached and a lot of the big main decisions are made,

0:05:19.119,0:05:24.128
My focus is on these minuscule details. The nuts and the bolts.

0:05:24.920,0:05:26.399
[Paul] There are steel supports,

0:05:26.399,0:05:28.128
[Paul Pino--"Paulapart"]

0:05:28.128,0:05:30.611
[Paul] Like here. There’s a little one inside here, and here.

0:05:30.611,0:05:37.712
And these drips kind of obscure where the supports are, to make it look like you're in this sci-fi kind of world.

0:05:37.712,0:05:40.260
Like the rules of physics are being bent.

0:05:40.512,0:05:45.962
[Diana] Elements come on and come off, and so my job is predicting some of those things.

0:05:46.628,0:05:52.611
We're really geeky about ways to problem-solve large complicated sculptures.

0:05:53.828,0:05:56.953
[Dennis] The sculpture itself is not built in a rational way

0:05:56.953,0:06:00.936
It has more of an aesthetic goal rather than a tectonic one.

0:06:01.444,0:06:03.620
So the thing that I'm working on mostly right now are...

0:06:03.620,0:06:04.770
[Dennis Harvey--"Dennisio (del Toro)"]

0:06:04.770,0:06:09.253
...construction manuals on how to assemble one of these things.

0:06:09.757,0:06:14.907
I am always running out to the studio, measuring pieces, and coming back to the computer.

0:06:14.907,0:06:17.663
It’s part of each sculpture that you don’t see.

0:06:17.663,0:06:23.647
These instruction manuals will stay with the sculpture for the rest of its life. [laughs]

0:06:24.980,0:06:29.681
[Paul] Sometimes I'll get home after working here and I've had a lot of dreams about cutting and gluing,

0:06:29.681,0:06:33.182
And I'm not sure if I'm dreaming about doing her work or doing my work.

0:06:33.182,0:06:35.681
And in the end, it doesn’t make a big difference to me.

0:06:35.697,0:06:37.048
[It's now 1:30 a.m.]

0:06:37.048,0:06:39.681
[The art movers arrive first thing in the morning.]

0:06:46.201,0:06:52.407
[Diana] What we're doing in the studio together is our own problem for a while.

0:06:52.407,0:06:58.774
And, at some point, it will be the world's problem...forever. [laughs]

0:06:59.807,0:07:02.994
The art world is really temperamental,

0:07:03.078,0:07:07.795
So I could be down to myself next year, who knows?

0:07:08.227,0:07:12.527
But, I'm careful and I try to be prepared for luck.

0:07:13.660,0:07:17.361
Artists are some of the savviest, inventive people.

0:07:17.361,0:07:21.861
They have to manage a really illogical pursuit.

0:07:22.210,0:07:25.928
The rest of the world is a lot more logical.

0:07:27.294,0:07:31.695
Every artist I know is dealing with lot of stress,

0:07:32.786,0:07:37.690
and a lot of desire, and a lot of curiosity.

0:07:40.989,0:07:44.505
They're kind of sneaky undercover people that look like you and me,

0:07:44.505,0:07:47.469
So...be careful. [laughs]

0:07:47.469,0:07:49.848
They're everywhere. [laughs]

0:07:49.848,0:07:52.357
[Music begins playing: "Eisbär" by Grauzone]

0:07:52.357,0:07:54.161
Dance party!