April 2016 Newsletter: Student Interview with Frank GehryTerresa McCovey, a talented student journalist and eighth grade student at Hoopa Valley Elementary School in Hoopa, California, recently interviewed Turnaround Artist and architect Frank Gehry about inspiration.
Terresa McCovey: Hey, Mr. Gehry. 
Frank Gehry: How are you? I miss seeing you guys!
TM: Thank you so much for giving me the chance of a lifetime interviewing you. Alright. Question: Mr. Gehry, what age did you realize you wanted to be an architect?
FG: I was in my twenties. I was 21 or 22. I was a truck driver, and I was working days and I went to night school, and then I took a class in ceramics, quite by accident, and I didn’t do good in the class, but the teacher was building a house with a well-known architect, and he got it in his head that I would be interested. It was all on a hunch, by chance, you know. He took me to the house to watch the construction, and then when we came back he put me into an architecture class at night school. We were poor so I think he must have paid the tuition, I don’t remember how that happened. It was all a blur to me, it was kind of a miracle actually. I did really well in the architecture class, and the university at the end of the year offered to skip me into second year architecture.
TM: That’s amazing.
FG: It was amazing, yeah. And then the crazy thing happened. At the end of the first semester in architecture school, the teacher of the class called me in, and he said, “Frank, I don’t think architecture is for you, I think you should do something else.” Can you believe that?
TM: Did you give up after that or did you keep going?
FG: Oh, I was hooked already, I didn’t care what he said, I told him that. And then that [teacher] used to be the architect…of the [Los Angeles] airport, and so I used to see him all the time. I got more and more well-known and stuff, and I used to see him and he would say, “Okay okay, I know I know, I made a mistake!”
TM: Architects when they’re little are expected to have tinkering toys, so I was wondering – what toys did you play with?
FG: So this is a great story. My grandma was from Poland, and when she was in Poland, she ran a steel foundry – can you imagine a woman running a steel foundry in Poland? That’s what she did. When I met her, she was kind of religious…Jewish…she went to synagogue and all that stuff. They had coal stoves, they didn’t have electric stoves and stuff yet. Around the corner from her house, there was a wood shop, and she would go and buy sacks of the wood cuttings. They were in all shapes. I don’t know what got in her, but she opened the thing, poured it on the floor, sat down with me, and made a city. She did it a few times, and you know, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but when adults do something like that – give you a sort of a license to play – it’s the beginnings of learning about work, and learning about the world, because you start to think about how these things make up a city and it’s visual and how they join together. So to have a grandma willing to play with me on the floor like that was spectacular. I’ll never forget it, it was an inspiration for the rest of my life.
TM: Speaking of inspiration, who are you inspired by?
FG: Well, I’m inspired by a lot of stuff. I always was interested in sculpture and painting and music and literature and all those things. There’s no one thing. I read. I used to read more when I was a kid than I do now. It was all sort of fuel for the fire to teach you how to think and how to make things and it informed the architecture that I was doing. It’s better coming in with that history and that kind of knowledge and depth of understanding of humanity that is very important for building buildings – for understanding people and how they should live and how you could make your lives better and stuff like that.
TM: Did you know that you’re changing kids lives in a little town called Hoopa?
FG: I hope I can be helpful, I love Hoopa, I love you guys! I’m honored to be part of it, I really feel that way.
TM: We’re thankful to Turnaround Arts for giving us the opportunity to get adopted by you.
FG: Well, I hope it’s helping and I hope things are working there.
TM: It is, there’s a lot of art, and everyone’s having a fun experience.
FG: Good. I’ve found that people start doing art, and it brings you to other things, and you get curious about other things because of it.
TM: Yeah, a lot of people found their inner self, like some are enjoying photography, and drawing, and sculpture. Speaking of our little activity that we did in Hoopa, how was your first trip to Hoopa?
FG: Oh it was amazing. I mean, I didn’t know what to expect – it’s different than going to a public school. It’s a different culture, you’re on a reservation with a lot of family and a lot of friends that you all grow up with, and it’s insular, it’s not as open as the regular school system. But I’ve always been optimistic about kids – once you give them something to play with or make or do that creates some self-respect or some interest, that they open up, and it always happens. That’s what we want to do, and we want to be consistent – we don’t want to just be hit and run, we don’t want to come for a day and then leave you, we’re trying to keep it going, that’s why we took some of [the students] to Loyola.
TM: I have one more thing for you, and I was going to see if you could figure it out. It’s a quote. “You can look anywhere and find inspiration.” Do you know who that’s by?
FG: I think I said it.
TM: Yeah, you did.
FG: [Laughter] You got me! The way you interviewed me was very professional. You know I get interviewed a lot, I’m not kidding, I do, and they’re not really very direct and professional like you’ve been. That was great, really great. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
TM: Thank you for this. Now I wonder how the class is going to feel about you coming up…I’ll tell them you’re coming soon!
FG: Ok, I will, I promise. I won’t abandon you. I’m coming!
TM: Okay. Thank you so much for this. Have a nice day.
FG: Thank you, bye bye.