WEBVTT 00:00:01.019 --> 00:00:04.453 [sounds of birds chirping] NOTE Paragraph 00:00:10.803 --> 00:00:12.836 [laughter] 00:00:13.586 --> 00:00:17.105 [Diana] This is what it feels like in my studio all the time. Super tense. 00:00:18.069 --> 00:00:20.236 Diana Al-Hadid--Artist 00:00:20.236 --> 00:00:21.871 [Diana] "What’s gonna happen?" [laughs] 00:00:21.871 --> 00:00:23.402 Sound FX App-Ryan's iPhone 00:00:23.402 --> 00:00:25.319 [Ryan] "Is she gonna put steps there?" 00:00:25.319 --> 00:00:26.553 "And then..." 00:00:26.553 --> 00:00:28.455 [sounds of record scratching] 00:00:29.279 --> 00:00:30.818 "Al-Hadid studios!" 00:00:30.818 --> 00:00:31.716 [Diana] "Boom!" 00:00:31.716 --> 00:00:33.012 [Diana Al-Hadid's Studio Boom] 00:00:33.058 --> 00:00:34.052 "What up!?" 00:00:35.406 --> 00:00:36.930 [Ryan] "You wanna hear 'sexy'?" 00:00:36.930 --> 00:00:38.001 [Diana, laughing] "I do." 00:00:38.032 --> 00:00:40.948 [sound of saxophone playing] 00:00:44.310 --> 00:00:46.311 [sounds of blowtorch] 00:00:48.728 --> 00:00:54.327 Four years ago this whole floor was just one empty space. 00:00:54.527 --> 00:00:56.393 [sounds of drilling] 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:04.010 There was no plumbing, there was no heaters, there was no electrical. 00:01:04.876 --> 00:01:06.760 "Does it look level to you?" 00:01:06.760 --> 00:01:10.443 Lucky for me, I got it grant and I partitioned some of it out. 00:01:10.760 --> 00:01:13.094 Some of it's rented to other artists. 00:01:14.376 --> 00:01:19.793 And I curved out a space for myself that was way bigger than I ever dreamed. 00:01:20.243 --> 00:01:23.560 I was taking on too much and figuring out how to make it happen. 00:01:23.560 --> 00:01:27.827 "It's real. It works. Sort of." 00:01:29.526 --> 00:01:34.743 When I first moved to New York, my studio was maybe 700 square feet. 00:01:34.791 --> 00:01:36.432 [Actual Size--320 square feet] 00:01:36.432 --> 00:01:41.443 I made sculptures within inches of the walls. It was really difficult, 00:01:41.711 --> 00:01:45.511 Especially for the work that I made. It taught me how to be efficient: 00:01:46.010 --> 00:01:50.110 How to save space, how to save money, and especially how to save time, 00:01:50.110 --> 00:01:55.543 Because no one helped me, and when you don’t have a lot of resources, you get sharp. 00:01:57.345 --> 00:02:01.092 [This is Diana's new sculpture.] 00:02:02.011 --> 00:02:04.302 [She has two months to finish it for a show.] 00:02:04.302 --> 00:02:05.149 Yay! 00:02:09.146 --> 00:02:12.876 This past year I had pretty fast growth. 00:02:14.227 --> 00:02:17.711 It just impossible to do this alone on this scale. 00:02:17.876 --> 00:02:20.426 "Do you have a bucket for me? Yes!" 00:02:21.577 --> 00:02:25.693 So, now I have assistants that help me make these things. 00:02:26.107 --> 00:02:28.593 [Everyone in the studio has a nickname.] 00:02:29.744 --> 00:02:32.477 [Drew Dudak--"Drew A Lot When He Was A Kid"] 00:02:32.810 --> 00:02:35.027 [Yeji Lee--"Yejisaur"] 00:02:35.244 --> 00:02:36.739 [Sarah Faitell--"Fatal"] 00:02:36.739 --> 00:02:38.337 That's also why I have a studio manager... 00:02:38.337 --> 00:02:39.858 [Jonathan de Simone--"Jonny D On The Ones & Twos"] 00:02:39.858 --> 00:02:42.039 ...to allocate different tasks for people, 00:02:42.039 --> 00:02:44.933 And I can focus on something that requires my attention. 00:02:45.183 --> 00:02:47.767 [Jonathan] Working on stuff this large is amazing, it’s so much fun. 00:02:47.767 --> 00:02:50.183 [Diana laughs] 00:02:50.183 --> 00:02:53.700 When I was first working for her, I was her only assistant. 00:02:55.670 --> 00:03:01.087 I spent like six months working really closely with just her and learned a lot about all the different techniques. 00:03:01.088 --> 00:03:03.904 [Diana] "It might just be that one rod." 00:03:04.571 --> 00:03:06.021 [Jonathan] "You are correct." 00:03:06.021 --> 00:03:07.920 [Jonathan] She’a kind of a "go-big-or-go-home" person. 00:03:07.920 --> 00:03:09.821 [Diana] "Yes! I love when I'm right." 00:03:09.988 --> 00:03:12.205 [Jonathan] Everything is like balls to the wall... 00:03:12.205 --> 00:03:13.987 [Diana] "It's so nice, it punctures through." 00:03:13.987 --> 00:03:16.020 [Jonathan] ...giant sculpture. 00:03:16.037 --> 00:03:20.387 And a lot of the processes here are really specific and a little bit weird and unique. 00:03:21.088 --> 00:03:28.688 So, largely what I do is train other people how to do something in the way that Diana wants it done. 00:03:29.070 --> 00:03:34.537 [Diana] All this stuff I do people can learn. It’s really easy. I think. Everything I do is easy. 00:03:34.537 --> 00:03:37.071 [Nick] "Yeah, but it's also like watching the master at work." 00:03:37.071 --> 00:03:38.288 [Diana laughs] 00:03:38.288 --> 00:03:42.670 [Nick] I mean to touch fiber glass like you do, to hold it, you can’t do it yourself. 00:03:42.670 --> 00:03:44.070 [Diana] "I’m much faster." 00:03:44.070 --> 00:03:46.522 [Nick] Yeah, and you make it look more natural. 00:03:50.444 --> 00:03:53.177 [Diana] It was kind of a mess in here for many years. 00:03:53.227 --> 00:03:56.059 Because of Nick, now I look like a professional. 00:03:57.093 --> 00:03:59.132 [Nick] She likes receipts-- 00:03:59.132 --> 00:04:01.010 [Nicholas Joyce--"Snick"] 00:04:01.010 --> 00:04:04.861 Keeping track of everything to the penny. So that’s actually a difficult part. 00:04:04.894 --> 00:04:07.975 Tons of details. [laughs] Exciting details. 00:04:10.622 --> 00:04:13.444 Jon and I have a competition. 00:04:14.044 --> 00:04:18.710 It’s like, I have to get her in the office, and he has to get her on the studio on the same day. 00:04:18.710 --> 00:04:20.764 So we split her. 00:04:20.764 --> 00:04:24.064 [Office] [Studio] 00:04:26.888 --> 00:04:28.799 [Diana] We're going outside. 00:04:31.621 --> 00:04:34.573 [Jonathan] This is like a really great working environment. 00:04:34.573 --> 00:04:37.957 It’s really nice being here. I'm definitely learning a lot 00:04:38.039 --> 00:04:40.772 But on the other hand it is really time consuming. 00:04:40.772 --> 00:04:42.796 [Time on the Job] 00:04:43.035 --> 00:04:48.139 So I think there’ll come a point at which I need to go do my own thing now. 00:04:48.963 --> 00:04:53.929 The hardest part of leaving here will be the fact that we laugh so much at work. 00:04:57.230 --> 00:05:04.696 I mean it’s serious too, we're getting shit done, but the fact that the vibe is really relaxed is so nice. 00:05:04.696 --> 00:05:06.546 [Diana] Going to use a ladder. 00:05:06.546 --> 00:05:09.563 [Diana's been working on this sculpture for over a year.] 00:05:09.563 --> 00:05:12.313 [With one month left the studio goes into overdrive.] 00:05:12.313 --> 00:05:13.964 [Diana] There’s huge change that happens at the end. 00:05:13.964 --> 00:05:17.857 Like, once everything got attached and a lot of the big main decisions are made, 00:05:19.119 --> 00:05:24.128 My focus is on these minuscule details. The nuts and the bolts. 00:05:24.920 --> 00:05:26.399 [Paul] There are steel supports, 00:05:26.399 --> 00:05:28.128 [Paul Pino--"Paulapart"] 00:05:28.128 --> 00:05:30.611 [Paul] Like here. There’s a little one inside here, and here. 00:05:30.611 --> 00:05:37.712 And these drips kind of obscure where the supports are, to make it look like you're in this sci-fi kind of world. 00:05:37.712 --> 00:05:40.260 Like the rules of physics are being bent. 00:05:40.512 --> 00:05:45.962 [Diana] Elements come on and come off, and so my job is predicting some of those things. 00:05:46.628 --> 00:05:52.611 We're really geeky about ways to problem-solve large complicated sculptures. 00:05:53.828 --> 00:05:56.953 [Dennis] The sculpture itself is not built in a rational way 00:05:56.953 --> 00:06:00.936 It has more of an aesthetic goal rather than a tectonic one. 00:06:01.444 --> 00:06:03.620 So the thing that I'm working on mostly right now are... 00:06:03.620 --> 00:06:04.770 [Dennis Harvey--"Dennisio (del Toro)"] 00:06:04.770 --> 00:06:09.253 ...construction manuals on how to assemble one of these things. 00:06:09.757 --> 00:06:14.907 I am always running out to the studio, measuring pieces, and coming back to the computer. 00:06:14.907 --> 00:06:17.663 It’s part of each sculpture that you don’t see. 00:06:17.663 --> 00:06:23.647 These instruction manuals will stay with the sculpture for the rest of its life. [laughs] 00:06:24.980 --> 00:06:29.681 [Paul] Sometimes I'll get home after working here and I've had a lot of dreams about cutting and gluing, 00:06:29.681 --> 00:06:33.182 And I'm not sure if I'm dreaming about doing her work or doing my work. 00:06:33.182 --> 00:06:35.681 And in the end, it doesn’t make a big difference to me. 00:06:35.697 --> 00:06:37.048 [It's now 1:30 a.m.] 00:06:37.048 --> 00:06:39.681 [The art movers arrive first thing in the morning.] 00:06:46.201 --> 00:06:52.407 [Diana] What we're doing in the studio together is our own problem for a while. 00:06:52.407 --> 00:06:58.774 And, at some point, it will be the world's problem...forever. [laughs] 00:06:59.807 --> 00:07:02.994 The art world is really temperamental, 00:07:03.078 --> 00:07:07.795 So I could be down to myself next year, who knows? 00:07:08.227 --> 00:07:12.527 But, I'm careful and I try to be prepared for luck. 00:07:13.660 --> 00:07:17.361 Artists are some of the savviest, inventive people. 00:07:17.361 --> 00:07:21.861 They have to manage a really illogical pursuit. 00:07:22.210 --> 00:07:25.928 The rest of the world is a lot more logical. 00:07:27.294 --> 00:07:31.695 Every artist I know is dealing with lot of stress, 00:07:32.786 --> 00:07:37.690 and a lot of desire, and a lot of curiosity. 00:07:40.989 --> 00:07:44.505 They're kind of sneaky undercover people that look like you and me, 00:07:44.505 --> 00:07:47.469 So...be careful. [laughs] 00:07:47.469 --> 00:07:49.848 They're everywhere. [laughs] 00:07:49.848 --> 00:07:52.357 [Music begins playing: "Eisbär" by Grauzone] 00:07:52.357 --> 00:07:54.161 Dance party!