Talking Shop With Francesco Stumpo
I virtually met up with my friend Francesco Stumpo, a thoughtful, empathetic, and talented artist and designer this week.
After taking the leap to building my own practice this week, I found a lot in common with Francesco’s search for meaningful work and the application of his skills. We also shared the desire to grow as we market ourselves and put our work out into the universe. While I’ve let a traditional architectural career path go for now – the both of us understand our skills will always be relevant to the field and have a passion that will keep us involved at various scales and on various projects throughout our career.
While the contemporary architectural practice has not captured Francesco’s artistic and human-centered design practices wholeheartedly, without a doubt his background in architecture helps to fuel his ability to synthesize information and bring people together.
I got advice from Francesco that I want to share with anyone who might need it:
Keep going!
Finding meaningful ways to widen your range of services.
Remote work and the digital space have new opportunities, seek them out, ask questions.
Continue reaching out to people, whether you know them personally or not. Strangers can surprise you.
Don't be too hard on yourself!
To be disciplined about my workshops – to consider their application to design or service
Be in the room with people that know more than you
Images courtesy of the artist
Francesco had two virtual events at the end of February, where he was able to connect with as many people and perspectives as possible to provide a space for reflection in the last 365 days of this past remote year.
“(The MoreLess Project) is a participatory public art initiative that puts forward a blank space to invite users to reflect upon their values and desires; and consider the things they hold important in their lives and surroundings, and the effect that these choices have in their lives.”
Make sure to check the hashtag #MoreLessProject on Instagram to learn more and see the community’s input and examples. I think the #MoreLessProject is a combination of 2D art, and community engagement, like Candy Chang’s Before I Die project. Francesco prints out stickers and cards that ask people to answer fill in the blanks: More ____, Less ____. It automatically elicits extremes or opposites, often exposing the burning questions at the front of all our minds. His prompt aims to break down barriers between people as well as within ourselves.
I asked what Francesco has been learning from this. He said that the responses started to reframe how he’s thought about the prompt: How can I do less of _______ so I can do more of _________?
How can I do less of _______ so I can do more of _________?
In other words, how can I do less of what holds me back, so I can do more of what I love?