Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the
Speaker 1: House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. Today
Speaker 1: on the show, we're taking another big step in that direction.
Speaker 1: It's a Design Matters Most Morning here on the program.
Speaker 1: You know, Design Matters Most is kind of that. That
Speaker 1: is the underlying theme of all things that we discuss
Speaker 1: here on the programs. Why we are here, it's to
Speaker 1: help you understand that place of design in the crucial
Speaker 1: role that it plays in putting together a home that
Speaker 1: is truly, truly extraordinary and truly yours. And it's a
Speaker 1: difficult thing. It's a tricky thing for most people. If
Speaker 1: you're not a professional home designer, an architect or an
Speaker 1: architectural designer or a decorator, you may not you may
Speaker 1: really struggle with understanding where to start how to see
Speaker 1: a house. In fact, I know a lot of architects
Speaker 1: and decorators and designers who struggle with how to start
Speaker 1: and where to see a house. Well, I want to
Speaker 1: approach the whole subject with you today in a way
Speaker 1: that I hope helps liberate your thinking and get you
Speaker 1: kind of in the groove on how to see your home.
Speaker 1: And that is that we're going to present a truth
Speaker 1: which I have understood for many a year now and
Speaker 1: has helped to guide me. Guides me through every whisper
Speaker 1: that we do, on every home consult, it guides me
Speaker 1: through every project that we do. It is a fundamental
Speaker 1: truth to architecture and architectural design, and it is very
Speaker 1: simply this, great architecture is theater. Great architecture is theater. Now,
Speaker 1: don't be dismayed. That may make you think at first,
Speaker 1: oh great, Well that's even more complex because I don't
Speaker 1: know understand theater either. Yeah, you do. You understand theater
Speaker 1: far more I would say than you understand home design.
Speaker 1: And because of that, we're going to break these things apart.
Speaker 1: Use that metaphor use that analogy for all that it's
Speaker 1: worth today to help you better understand how to start
Speaker 1: understanding every space in your house. It doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: we're going to turn you into a home designer today.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that we're going to bypass the creativity
Speaker 1: and the gifting of those who are do this professionally.
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not putting myself out of a job here,
Speaker 1: but what I am doing is hoping to center you
Speaker 1: in your understanding of exactly what we're trying to do
Speaker 1: with every space, every room, every approach to your home.
Speaker 1: So today on the program, it is a Design Matters
Speaker 1: most morning, and we are taking on the whole subject
Speaker 1: that great architecture is theater, all right, so go nowhere,
Speaker 1: and of course we're gonna be taking your calls as well.
Speaker 1: The phone lines are open right now, and when it
Speaker 1: comes to calls, you can call me about anything you want.
Speaker 1: So we're talking architecture as theater today. You can call
Speaker 1: me about that leaky toilet or the weird thing that's
Speaker 1: going on with your roof, or anything else construction DIY,
Speaker 1: design concerns, whatever the case may be. When it comes
Speaker 1: to calls, you set the agenda. Here is the number
Speaker 1: to reach me. Eight three three two ask Dean eight
Speaker 1: three three to ask Dean A three three the numeral
Speaker 1: two ask Dean. The phone lines are open now. And
Speaker 1: speaking of that, let me introduce our awesome team. Elmer,
Speaker 1: of course is on the board. Good morning, Elmer, what why?
Speaker 2: Good morning Dean?
Speaker 1: How you doing I'm good, I'm so good. Dean? Are
Speaker 1: you really really you've seen really enthused? What's going right
Speaker 1: for you this morning? Oh water, I guess hydrated. He's draded.
Speaker 1: This is elmert when he's hydrated. It's great, You're awesome, man.
Speaker 1: H also in studio with us today near microphones, which
Speaker 1: is always a treat. Producers Richie and Nicky standing by
Speaker 1: to take your calls. Good morning, y'all. I'm doing great,
Speaker 1: Nicki Nicki's uh that's the Nicky's voice there. That was
Speaker 1: that's born and raised in Bondai Beach. It is. It's
Speaker 1: one of the greatest beaches in the world. Ritchie, where's
Speaker 1: your uh where where's your accent? Uh? You know, cultivated
Speaker 1: San Fernando Valley.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well you know what man, if you're if you're listening
Speaker 1: to us in uh, you know des Moines, Iowa, that
Speaker 1: that can that can sound pretty exotic, like totally. Ritchie
Speaker 1: is totally a valuable uh. And my buddy Eileen Gonzalez
Speaker 1: at the news desk, Good morning, Eileen, Good morning Dean.
Speaker 1: How's it going good? Good? Good? Do we have a
Speaker 1: tea of choice this morning? Loaded up and ready to go.
Speaker 1: It's the finest green tea you can get from the
Speaker 1: KFI break room. Oh, very exotic. Although when uh, when
Speaker 1: Elmer mentioned water, I did grab my water, and I'm
Speaker 1: very bad at doing that. So all right, well see
Speaker 1: soon you work on that water, and by maybe by
Speaker 1: the second break or so, you will be as charged
Speaker 1: up as Elmer is this morning, because you'll before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sitting across the table from me, there she is. You
Speaker 1: know what she said right before we went on the air.
Speaker 1: She's like, so handsome. I did say that, you did.
Speaker 1: I did. That's why. That's why we keep you right there,
Speaker 1: right across the table. That's why we've been married for
Speaker 1: thirty My better half, my design partner, the co founder,
Speaker 1: co owner of House Whisper, and also the person who
Speaker 1: happens to be my best friend in all the world.
Speaker 1: Tina is here there you Yeah, I waited. I paused
Speaker 1: for the elephant. Tina loves elephants, loves them. I just
Speaker 1: watched an elephant on Instagram Save a gazelle. Save a gazelle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was drowning in the water, and it used its
Speaker 1: trunk to pull it out of the water. Oh oh,
Speaker 1: and then it used it to scratch its back. Elephants
Speaker 1: are the best. All right, We've already got calls showing
Speaker 1: up on the callboard. That's great, that's fantastic verying is
Speaker 1: falling into place for us this morning, for you and
Speaker 1: I now to enter into this time of thinking about
Speaker 1: home design. And honestly, I'm excited about today's show because
Speaker 1: I've used this, you know, in presentations, in conversations with
Speaker 1: clients before. I've used this metaphor often. You've heard me
Speaker 1: say it from time to time here on the show,
Speaker 1: that great design is theater. I'm going to break that
Speaker 1: apart for you this morning into real crunchy, practical bits
Speaker 1: so that you understand exactly what I mean by it.
Speaker 1: And if you hold on to that metaphor, you won't
Speaker 1: lose sight. I promise you won't lose sight of how
Speaker 1: to approach what's right, what's wrong, what's missing, what needs
Speaker 1: to change about that troublesome space or spaces in your home.
Speaker 1: I promise you.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI. AM.
Speaker 1: Hey, just a reminder follow us on show so media
Speaker 1: social so social soosha media social media social media. We
Speaker 1: only do the good kind, uplifting, informative, inspiring stuff. We're
Speaker 1: on all the usual suspects Instagram, TikTok, Facebook x, whatever
Speaker 1: else is out there. We're there home with Dean. Same
Speaker 1: handle for them all. And uh, if your home is
Speaker 1: in need of some personal house whisper attention, you can
Speaker 1: always book an in home design consult with me and
Speaker 1: the t I'll be talking about those or referring to
Speaker 1: those throughout the show today, just to as we're discussing
Speaker 1: how we go about moving through a home and helping
Speaker 1: people understand what they need to change or what they
Speaker 1: could change or what they could improve. But if if
Speaker 1: you're looking for that for your project, then you can
Speaker 1: get me and Tea over there. Just go to house
Speaker 1: Whisperer dot design and you'll get more information. Okay. Oh
Speaker 1: and by the way, the number to reach me because
Speaker 1: we will be going to the phones in a bit
Speaker 1: eight three three two ask Dean. It's just that simple
Speaker 1: to ask Dean. Eight three to three the numeral two.
Speaker 1: Ask Dean. Okay, let us begin, shall we? All the
Speaker 1: world is a stage. That's what Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet.
Speaker 1: I would change that to all your home is a stage.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean this in the flippant, artificial, superficial
Speaker 1: kind of facebookie everything in my life is glorious kind
Speaker 1: of way. I mean in a very very real sense
Speaker 1: that our homes have the potential of being stages. That
Speaker 1: they are theater in the best of ways, in that
Speaker 1: they can tell stories that thrill us, that comfort us,
Speaker 1: that wrap themselves around us, and that we can and
Speaker 1: that affect us every day. My family room is a
Speaker 1: lovely stage that Tina and I have designed for us,
Speaker 1: just for us. It fits us well. I was up
Speaker 1: this morning. It's overcast, it was cool, very very misty.
Speaker 1: The house was kind of cool this morning, and the
Speaker 1: sun was not up yet, and it was a great
Speaker 1: time to pour myself a cup of coffee and go
Speaker 1: over to where our fireplace sits in the corner of
Speaker 1: the family room and a little seating area that we've
Speaker 1: created there, a little set, a little stage. There's two
Speaker 1: beautiful leather club chairs that sit there and swivel in
Speaker 1: one of them. My beagle, Samuel, Sammy the beagle sitting
Speaker 1: there sleeping in one club chair. I took the other.
Speaker 1: I lit the fireplace, I sipped my coffee, ate a
Speaker 1: little oatmeal, and had thoughts about the day. And at
Speaker 1: one point, as I was thinking about the show, I
Speaker 1: paused and I thought, yeah, eggs exactly right here, sitting
Speaker 1: next to this beautiful, not awesome, not awe inspiring. Because
Speaker 1: I live in a cottage. I'm not trying to drop
Speaker 1: jaws with what happens in my house. But it's lovely
Speaker 1: and it's beautiful, and it's warm and it's inviting. And
Speaker 1: I was the recipient of all of that this morning.
Speaker 1: I was in the middle of it all. And that's
Speaker 1: the kind of experience that I want you and your
Speaker 1: guests and your family and everybody who moves through your
Speaker 1: home to have when it comes to your home as well.
Speaker 1: And that's what I mean that great architecture is truly theater.
Speaker 1: I'm going to use an example later of a story
Speaker 1: that we all know, and it's not an example of
Speaker 1: a home. It's an example of some greater piece of architecture.
Speaker 1: But instead of trying to find out a house that
Speaker 1: everybody who's listening to me has been through, been to,
Speaker 1: or seen or understand, I'm going to use something a
Speaker 1: little bit more or grand. But the point is we're
Speaker 1: gonna illustrate how powerful a story can be when it
Speaker 1: comes to architecture. Every space is a stage, every angle
Speaker 1: of view is a scene. Every element of a space
Speaker 1: is either a leading actor or a supporting actor or
Speaker 1: some part of the setting behind it all. They're not
Speaker 1: competing for center stage when it's done properly, but they
Speaker 1: are complementing each other, each in its place, working to
Speaker 1: tell the story. The house. Your house is never about
Speaker 1: one scene or one actor. It's always about the story,
Speaker 1: and the presence or the absence of every element is
Speaker 1: all about telling that story. Every scene has a purpose,
Speaker 1: and therefore every scene has a setting. It has a
Speaker 1: focal point, a hierarchy of elements and actors, and a
Speaker 1: sequence of experiences. That's what we're going to try and
Speaker 1: deconstruct this morning. These ideas may seem too lofty for
Speaker 1: your humble place, but I promise you. I promise you
Speaker 1: that if you haven't looked at your house in this way,
Speaker 1: it will revolutionize the way you see it. And if
Speaker 1: you haven't looked at your house in this way and
Speaker 1: run it through this kind of filter, you haven't given
Speaker 1: it the chance to be all that it's capable of being.
Speaker 1: That's all I'm saying. So you hold with me and
Speaker 1: do this exercise with me as we go. Right now.
Speaker 1: When it comes to theater, there are advantages that theater
Speaker 1: directors and movie directors have over architects and designers, and
Speaker 1: the advantage is they have more control over your attention,
Speaker 1: over your direction. Right, a director can choose to center
Speaker 1: the subject in the frame and simply not move the camera,
Speaker 1: and if you're going to watch the film, you are
Speaker 1: there and you don't have the choice of looking left
Speaker 1: or right or all around.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: In recent years, the discussion has come, especially now with
Speaker 1: the rise and or the massive popularity of first person perspective,
Speaker 1: first person player video games, you know, immersive worlds that well,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be cool one day when you could sit
Speaker 1: in the theater and you're experiencing it all in three
Speaker 1: sixty And I'll tell you a lot of storytellers and
Speaker 1: a lot of directors are excited by that, and a
Speaker 1: lot of them are not, because then they are going
Speaker 1: to have to tell stories like architects and not like
Speaker 1: movie directors, because they will not have complete control over
Speaker 1: your attention by simply being able to limit your focus
Speaker 1: to what it is that they want you to see.
Speaker 1: They are going to have to compete with the entire
Speaker 1: variety of the environment and the fact that you can
Speaker 1: turn your head and look away from the story that
Speaker 1: they're trying to tell. But right now, as it stands,
Speaker 1: directors of stage and screen, they have more control. They
Speaker 1: can center the subject in the frame, they can hold
Speaker 1: you there. You know, A very popular move and technique
Speaker 1: in filmmaking is what we call focus pulling. You understand
Speaker 1: what that is. It's when we're using a very short
Speaker 1: depth of field in I say we as if I'm
Speaker 1: a director of a film. I'm not. It's when they
Speaker 1: use a very short depth of field of focus, meaning
Speaker 1: only one thing can be in focus and the background
Speaker 1: is not in focus. Right, and so maybe there's a
Speaker 1: character in the background having a conversation with our lead character.
Speaker 1: Our lead character is in focus and they're a little
Speaker 1: bit fuzzy, and then when they comment, the director pulls
Speaker 1: the focus from the front back to the back character
Speaker 1: and now they're in clear perspective and our other character
Speaker 1: is out of focus. That's pulling focus. That is a
Speaker 1: way of simply moving and forcing you to move your
Speaker 1: attention from one thing to the other. These are all
Speaker 1: control mechanisms that great directors use. On stage, we use spotlights, right.
Speaker 1: A spotlight isn't just to bring a lot of light
Speaker 1: onto somebody. It's really The purpose of a spotlight is
Speaker 1: to de emphasize everything else around it. Okay, it's just
Speaker 1: the opposite of what you would think. You would think. Ah,
Speaker 1: spotlight is to bring all is to light me up
Speaker 1: brighter than you know. Regular stage lighting light's an actor
Speaker 1: up just fine, But a spotlight darkens everybody else around
Speaker 1: so that your attention is where you want it to be.
Speaker 1: And then, of course there's editing in the process, especially
Speaker 1: editing when it comes to film, ruthless editing. All of
Speaker 1: these ideas have a corollary in our textual design, and
Speaker 1: all of them are the kinds of things that you
Speaker 1: can apply when it comes to looking at your space.
Speaker 1: And so that's where we're gonna begin. We're gonna take
Speaker 1: all of these ideas that I've just described to you,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna begin by walking into a space. So
Speaker 1: here's what I want you to do. I want you
Speaker 1: to think of the space in your home, any space
Speaker 1: at all, especially if one is troubling you. Okay, I
Speaker 1: want you to think of that space. And what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do right after the news is we're going to
Speaker 1: take one step into that space from its primary position
Speaker 1: of entry. Okay. The way that you enter that space,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna stop right there and we're gonna ask
Speaker 1: some theatrical questions about what it is that we see.
Speaker 1: All right, you hang tight, think of that space. Hang tight.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 2: KFI AM six.
Speaker 1: Dean Sharp, the house Whisperer here for you this morning,
Speaker 1: as I am every Sunday morning from nine to noon,
Speaker 1: here to take that place where you live and turn
Speaker 1: it into something extraordinary. It doesn't matter whether you're in
Speaker 1: a cottage, castle, a condo. It matters not. And one
Speaker 1: of the points of today's program is the fact that
Speaker 1: architectural design great design. It doesn't have to do with
Speaker 1: the big house behind the big gates. Only it often
Speaker 1: appears there, but it doesn't always have to be there.
Speaker 1: It applies to everything across the board, be it ever
Speaker 1: so humble. There is no place like home, and there's
Speaker 1: no place like a home, even a humble home, that
Speaker 1: has been designed in such a way that it tells
Speaker 1: the beautiful story of your beautiful life in the most
Speaker 1: effective way possible. And that's what we're about here, talking
Speaker 1: about home as theater today. That great design is theater.
Speaker 1: So before the break. I said, here's the thing. Imagine
Speaker 1: that one place in your home. Maybe you're standing there.
Speaker 1: Maybe you just listen to me on the stream, or
Speaker 1: you've got the speaker playing in the bad maybe you're
Speaker 1: there right now, standing there. Here is the space that
Speaker 1: you've had trouble with. Here's the space that has not
Speaker 1: impressed you. Here's the space you wish you could do
Speaker 1: more with. And I want you to step up in
Speaker 1: your mind or in reality right now either way, step
Speaker 1: into it, just or maybe not even into it yet.
Speaker 1: Stand at the threshold of that space. From the direction
Speaker 1: or the way that you enter that space. So if
Speaker 1: it's the room like a bedroom or something like that,
Speaker 1: stand in the doorway. If it's a family room or
Speaker 1: a dining room or a kitchen, wherever it is. However,
Speaker 1: it is the primary way that you move into that space.
Speaker 1: And I understand, I fully underst there may be more
Speaker 1: than one way to move into that space. And we're
Speaker 1: going to do this. I'm going to tell you to
Speaker 1: apply these principles from every single angle of view that
Speaker 1: you approach a space from. Okay, that's what makes it
Speaker 1: tricky at times. But let's just talk about the primary
Speaker 1: way you enter a space. Okay, you're standing there and
Speaker 1: you've decided, Okay, this is how we enter a space.
Speaker 1: From where here we are, Now, now what do we see?
Speaker 1: What do we see? And this is asking you to
Speaker 1: have eyes beyond where your brain usually goes, because the
Speaker 1: problem that most of us have about our homes is
Speaker 1: that we're house blind to our homes. We've lived in
Speaker 1: our homes for so long we've moved through that it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be years and years. It could just
Speaker 1: be weeks and months. Okay. The human brain is very
Speaker 1: plastic and it adapts very quickly. We move through a space,
Speaker 1: and when we move through a space time after time,
Speaker 1: day after day, hour after hour, then our brain starts
Speaker 1: to put our experience of that space, push it down
Speaker 1: into our subconscious. That's actually what we call mastery. You've
Speaker 1: started to master the space as far as movement and
Speaker 1: working with it, but you've very likely lost mastery over
Speaker 1: its actual appearance. For that, we need fresh eyes, new eyes. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we're standing there in the entry to the space
Speaker 1: and we're asking ourselves what do we see? Now Here
Speaker 1: is where we apply the rules of theater. Is there
Speaker 1: a focal point like I was talking about earlier, where
Speaker 1: a film director centers the subject in the middle of
Speaker 1: the screen, so you can't you look away, or there's
Speaker 1: some things in focus and everything else is blurred out,
Speaker 1: or something is there's some technique for bringing your attention
Speaker 1: to a particular place, you know, And again in the movies,
Speaker 1: there's a million ways to do this. Maybe the entire
Speaker 1: scene is black and white except for the little girl
Speaker 1: in the little red coat, like Stephen Spielberg did in
Speaker 1: Shindler's List, and it doesn't matter where she is on
Speaker 1: the frame. It is simply the only dot of color
Speaker 1: in the entire view, and therefore your eyes are just
Speaker 1: drawn to it. So we don't have that level of
Speaker 1: control in that simplistic way. Not to diss on movie directors,
Speaker 1: it's just harder with architecture. But the question remains, when
Speaker 1: you stand in this space, is there a focal point?
Speaker 1: In other words, you may have a lot of actors
Speaker 1: on this stage. There may be a lot of things
Speaker 1: that we're looking at, but you know when it comes
Speaker 1: to theater that there's a hierarchy of things happening on
Speaker 1: a stage. Right. Not every actor is a leading actor,
Speaker 1: Not every body on state. There are leading actors, and
Speaker 1: they've got the most lines. They are the ones who
Speaker 1: are carrying the story the most. There are supporting actors
Speaker 1: who come and go and help support the story. There
Speaker 1: are extras, which are just bodies in the background. They're
Speaker 1: not actually you know, they're murmuring or eating dinner or blah.
Speaker 1: They are not driving the story forward, but they're supporting
Speaker 1: the general ambiance of the scene. And then there's the
Speaker 1: setting itself. Okay, there are layers, aren't there? And the
Speaker 1: question is this space that you're staring at right now,
Speaker 1: are those kinds of layers there or is everything kind
Speaker 1: of set up in one flat plane where everything and
Speaker 1: anything could be drawing your attention and there's no focal point. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that every room has to have a show stopper,
Speaker 1: or that every room has to have some super fancy,
Speaker 1: artsy expensive thing. It's just a question of what is
Speaker 1: the focal point. We were just at a home on Friday.
Speaker 1: On Friday, I promised them that this show was not
Speaker 1: about them because I wrote it before them, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to mention them. We're in this home and beautiful folks,
Speaker 1: and as you walk down this hallway, you have no
Speaker 1: choice but to enter the living room through one portal,
Speaker 1: and when you stand on the threshold of that portal,
Speaker 1: there is no question that the far wall of the
Speaker 1: living room slash family room is a symmetrical image. There
Speaker 1: is a window on the left and a window on
Speaker 1: the right. And guess what's in the middle. It's a
Speaker 1: big vaulted room with a tall, tall ceiling, and smack
Speaker 1: dab in the middle is the fireplace. There is no
Speaker 1: way to deny that in that room, the fireplace is
Speaker 1: and should be the focal point. That only means that
Speaker 1: it's your leading actor. It only means that when you
Speaker 1: walk into this room, that's your best shot to put
Speaker 1: words in that actor's mouth. That is your best shot
Speaker 1: of beginning to tell the story of what this room
Speaker 1: is all about. You're vibeing with me. You're starting to
Speaker 1: understand what I'm saying. All right.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 2: KFI Am six forty.
Speaker 1: Here we are talking about your home specifically. Did you
Speaker 1: know that. I'm sorry somebody should have called you to
Speaker 1: let you know we were talking about your home today.
Speaker 1: But we are talking about your home. We're talking about
Speaker 1: how great architecture and great design is truly theater. And
Speaker 1: I'm using this metaphor this analogy as a way of
Speaker 1: helping to illustrate to you what it is exactly that
Speaker 1: we're looking for when we start wrestling with that space,
Speaker 1: that troublesome space in your home. And it could be anywhere,
Speaker 1: could be everything, could be each room that's been neglected
Speaker 1: in these terms. It could be the front of the house,
Speaker 1: the back of that. It doesn't matter. These rules apply
Speaker 1: every time that we give somebody a view of any
Speaker 1: part of your house, honestly, and I don't want you
Speaker 1: to be overwhelmed by that. I just want you to
Speaker 1: know because we're breaking it apart room for room, space
Speaker 1: for space as we go. But the rules apply, the
Speaker 1: rules of really good theater apply. So I've had you
Speaker 1: imagine whatever that troubling space is or the place that
Speaker 1: you wish you could do more with. And we've been
Speaker 1: talking about the fact that a focal point is your
Speaker 1: first hit. It's your first hit as you enter that
Speaker 1: room or even when you stand at the threshold of
Speaker 1: that room, asking the question is there a focal point? Now,
Speaker 1: in architectural terms, we call this hierarchy of elements, and
Speaker 1: that sounds all very you know, academic. I just want
Speaker 1: it to be clear to you that we're talking about
Speaker 1: a focal point. We're talking about what is it that
Speaker 1: directs you, as somebody experiencing the room, to look where
Speaker 1: the room wants you to look first. And it should
Speaker 1: be said, just like on a stage, just like on
Speaker 1: the screen, that all the actors, all the elements, they
Speaker 1: all can't be talking at the same time. They all
Speaker 1: can't be crowding for the front of the stage. They
Speaker 1: all can't be taking center stage. That's why there are
Speaker 1: lead actors and supporting actors and extras and scenes and
Speaker 1: sets and all of these things. And they are all
Speaker 1: in layers, and they are all very intentionally ordered. And
Speaker 1: by the way, the same holds true for all art.
Speaker 1: All art, whether it's music, you know, there is that
Speaker 1: one driving melody or rhythm that's running through the whole thing.
Speaker 1: There's one voice, or there's voices in sync with each other,
Speaker 1: you know, in music, or even in fine art. Now
Speaker 1: let's talk about fine art for a second. Okay, as
Speaker 1: an example, let's talk about something that everybody has seen, right,
Speaker 1: maybe not in person, most of us not in person,
Speaker 1: but the Mona Lisa. Right arguably the most famous painting
Speaker 1: in the world. The Mona Lisa is set up for
Speaker 1: you to look at certain things in a certain order.
Speaker 1: And if you have never realized that, it's just simply
Speaker 1: a subconscious thing. And no, it's not her face that
Speaker 1: you actually go to first. It is actually literally when
Speaker 1: you look at the Mona Lisa, it is her upper chest. Okay,
Speaker 1: not her breasts that those are all covered up and
Speaker 1: you know, dark, but right here, like where a necklace
Speaker 1: would be or should be, like right where her collarbones are. Okay,
Speaker 1: right there it is then, And by the way, there's
Speaker 1: nothing there. There's nothing there. It's just there's no jewelry,
Speaker 1: there's no anything there. Right, But it is the brightest
Speaker 1: spot in the painting, literally the brightest area the painting,
Speaker 1: A large bright spot in the painting. You can go
Speaker 1: check this out. You'll know that I'm telling you the truth.
Speaker 1: It's a large bright spot in the painting. And there's
Speaker 1: not much going on there, okay, but it's large and
Speaker 1: it's literally centered in the entire frame of the artwork.
Speaker 1: When you look at the Mona Lisa, your eyes go
Speaker 1: there first, because it's a bright spot in the center
Speaker 1: of a relatively dark painting. And then since there's nothing there,
Speaker 1: where do you go next? Well, you go to the
Speaker 1: next most interesting place, which is her face, and your
Speaker 1: eyes trail up. See they trail up. So here's the trick. Right,
Speaker 1: when this painting gets painted, the brilliant genius who did this.
Speaker 1: What he wants you to focus on is her mouth first,
Speaker 1: not her eyes, right, not her nose. So how does
Speaker 1: he get you to her mouth? Well, he comes from underneath,
Speaker 1: comes from her collarbones, which is where he zips your
Speaker 1: eyes first, and then you trail up to the next
Speaker 1: most interesting thing, and you hit her mouth before you
Speaker 1: hit her nose and her eyes. And therefore the intrigue
Speaker 1: of the Mona Lisa, famously historically is that smile. Is
Speaker 1: she smirking? Is she smiling? All of the emotion of
Speaker 1: her face is piled into this tiny, subtle, strange, questioning expression,
Speaker 1: the way she's holding her lips. This is the star
Speaker 1: of the show. Here is the leading actor in the view, right,
Speaker 1: And everybody talks about the Mona Lisa smile. Right. There
Speaker 1: is a lot going on in the Mona Lisa, by
Speaker 1: the way, a lot, right. Not only do you see
Speaker 1: the rest of her face, but you can look down
Speaker 1: at her hands. And in the background there are trees,
Speaker 1: there's a river, there's a bridge. Yeah, all of these things.
Speaker 1: There's a lot happening in that painting. But the very
Speaker 1: first thing that your eyes go to is exactly where
Speaker 1: he wanted you to go to, which is this bright
Speaker 1: spot where nothing's happening. And then you trail up and
Speaker 1: you start pondering what is with her and that mouth? Okay,
Speaker 1: So the point is this, Yes, that's the end of
Speaker 1: your fine art lesson for the day. The point is
Speaker 1: very simply this, A really good artist, a really good
Speaker 1: designer has exercises control over where its audience looks. Okay,
Speaker 1: And the same is true with your room that you're
Speaker 1: wrestling with, but the space that you're wrestling with. So
Speaker 1: the question comes again, I will ask you where is
Speaker 1: the focal point? So when I say that, I mean
Speaker 1: it in two different ways. Number One, what in the
Speaker 1: room is actually grabbing your attention? Is anything in the
Speaker 1: room grabbing your attention? Maybe the answer is yes or no, okay,
Speaker 1: And I mean it in the second way, which is
Speaker 1: naturally speaking, by the shape and the contour and the
Speaker 1: elements of the room. What should be grabbing your attention naturally,
Speaker 1: like I said, in the home that we walked into
Speaker 1: on Friday, the family room, there is no question that
Speaker 1: between these two symmetrical windows there is this. The largest
Speaker 1: single element in the room was the fireplace. And by
Speaker 1: the way, not our homeowners who had beautiful sense of taste,
Speaker 1: but the builders the original bills of this home, they
Speaker 1: totally botched the fireplace, watched it. It is the central
Speaker 1: element of the view. There's no way to enter this
Speaker 1: room without the fireplace being the central element of the room.
Speaker 1: Now you may say to me, well, that's the truth
Speaker 1: with my house too, but I don't really do fireplaces.
Speaker 1: Well it's time to do fireplaces. I don't mean that
Speaker 1: you have to build a fire in the fireplace. What
Speaker 1: I mean is that you need to recognize the lead actor.
Speaker 1: You may not like the lead actor, you may want
Speaker 1: to defer to somebody else, But the fact of the
Speaker 1: matter is, if that's the central organizing principle of this
Speaker 1: space visually, then you got to deal with it. You
Speaker 1: got to deal with it and make the most of it.
Speaker 1: You see, all the world is a stage, so is
Speaker 1: your home. Great architecture is theater. And if we start
Speaker 1: to understand that and parse that into its bits, then
Speaker 1: you can understand that not everything in a room can
Speaker 1: be the beginning of the story. Tina and I were
Speaker 1: talking about this too. Caustina comes from the world of
Speaker 1: graphic design and how quite often in the print of
Speaker 1: a page, especially in an older work, or the beginning
Speaker 1: of a chapter of an older book, we used to
Speaker 1: use drop caps. You know what to drop cap is.
Speaker 1: It's when that first letter of the first word of
Speaker 1: the first paragraph on a page is like three lines tall, right,
Speaker 1: like that extra big D or an extra big T
Speaker 1: or whatever it is that starts that phrase. That's a
Speaker 1: drop cap. And what does it do. It draws your
Speaker 1: attention to this moment and it says to you something
Speaker 1: new is a beginning here, This is a beginning. See
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, ways of drawing attention the focal point?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: When we return to this conversation, and oh yes we will,
Speaker 1: then we're going to talk about two other elements that
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about in this room. One is
Speaker 1: there a path? And two how do we do editing
Speaker 1: if we need to? Ruthless editing if necessary? Which is
Speaker 1: something that a lot of folks struggle with editing the
Speaker 1: story in the room, so we'll we'll hit it all.
Speaker 1: But guess what, it's top of the hour. So when
Speaker 1: we return from the news break, we are going to
Speaker 1: the phones. Your home Dean Sharp, the House Whisper on KFI.
Speaker 1: This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Speaker 1: Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty
Speaker 1: every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time and
Speaker 1: every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
Speaker 1: anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.