The Island of What Can Be:

The vision of Leslie Saul

By Christine Holderness

Collaboration.

Leslie Saul believes that collaboration is not an occasional activity but rather is the central energy that enables creative projects to flow, evolve and succeed.

Leslie's deep and abiding knowledge of color, history, and art informs her sensitivity about what motivates and inspires people. She believes that the spaces that define our individual and shared lives are essentially about people, about community, about collaboration. This belief forms a fluid thread weaving together all her work.

"I want to create environments where everyone is inspired to be a part of the process," explains Saul, who for thirty-years has designed homes, offices, businesses, schools, synagogues & churches, senior living facilities, and innovative public spaces.

"Pavilion," private residence, Sudbury, MA., in progress, 2014

Kitchen design with changing color lights, Rich Testa lighting, Cambridge, MA

"photo by Chuck Choi" Young Israel Synagogue, New Rochelle, N.Y. Holocaust Memorial Painting from Fay Grajower

Holocaust Memorial Painting by Fay Grajower Commissioned for Young Israel Synagogue, New Rochelle, New York

Visioning.

Leslie activates people and collaborations by using techniques and skills she has fine-tuned over many years as an architect, interior designer and artist.

Using these creative tools she seamlessly weaves together many peoples' diverse stories, needs, and desires into a shared, collective vision.

Through this process individuals become a community.

"My goal is to create a oneness with the architecture."

U.Mass Dartmouth Library, Paul Rudolph architect, interior renovation.

The Process

1) Gather together. All people involved in a project--clients, artists, designers, architects, funders, and committee members- come together, physically, in the same room at the beginning of a project with Leslie.

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   2) Give everyone a voice. Verbal people can dominant a conversation. By asking people to write responses rather than merely verbalize them everyone, even the quietest people, are equally "heard." Writing allows people to think about their visions and goals carefully.

3) Listen well. Put aside your own agenda. Often people sit in meetings, waiting so they can pitch their agenda and try to convince others to see things their way. Meanwhile, they listen poorly, if at all, to others. Successful collaborations depend on an open mind and heart and an ability to move beyond preconceived ideas.

4) Focus the conversation to clarify goals. Leslie has participants write down three adjectives or phrases (on sticky notes) that describe, clarify and define over-arching goals for a given project. For example: what initial impression do you want to create when people enter your building?

5) Keep people engaged. People must physically get up and place their adjectives/phrases into categories on a board in the front of the room. Everyone has three votes to narrow the "vision" down to the dominant goals they wish to achieve. Physical movement helps keeps people engaged and focused.

6) Avoid rehashing of past mistakes and obsessing on what is not working. Focus on the end goal. This creates energy and moves people away from stagnation, procrastination and finger pointing.

7) Consensus and Compromise. Realize there will never be a complete alignment of goals within any group. But everyone can eventually relate to one aspect of a building, one object in an art collection, or a corner in an interior design. Leslie strives for consensus by assuring everyone has at least one thing they are inspired by in any given project.

8) Don't be afraid to take risks. When people are listened to and respected they are much more willing to accept ideas that are not their own and to take risks. Compromises are made, decisions are reached, blending into a shared vision.

9) Sometimes one is the star, sometimes one is the ghostwriter. Everyone learns from everyone else. In a strong collaboration there is not a rigid hierarchy nor an ultimate decision maker. Every person, from the head of a company to a receptionist has an equal voice. This acknowledgement of all stakeholders is empowering and builds long-lasting solidarity.

Bloom Witkin Corporation, Boston, Wall assemblage by Margie Hughto

Note: All photos used in this article are courtesy of Leslie Saul & Associates. They may not be reproduced in any way without permission.

Copyright 2014, ArtSpecifier.com