david k warfel
Light can help you live a better life…if you can afford it. Someday my personal journey with light may come to an end, marked by the moment I arrive at the ocean after a transcontinental voyage, dip my toes in the water, and finally relax a bit. Today, it seems like I made it to the mountains,... Continue Reading →
“Midlife crisis” has a negative connotation and some pretty lousy associations, so perhaps it is time that I stop using the term to describe the events that, around midlife, pushed me in a new direction. Let’s call it a “light bulb moment” because the pun is irresistible and, well, it describes the situation. A switch was flipped.... Continue Reading →
Light became an escape from burnout (or worse) as I approached mid-life, but getting out the door of toxic work environments was only the beginning. I wandered in the proverbial desert for a few years, bouncing from project to project, learning a few hard lessons along the way, and reinvigorating my love for and understanding of architectural... Continue Reading →
Thanks for your patience as I have been slower than usual to post in August! An intense week-long training event followed by a family vacation has taken me offline for a large part of the month, and it feels good to be back here again. I get a little uncomfortable around mistakes, especially my own.... Continue Reading →
My journey towards the light was not always easy or straight, and a chaotic turning point grew increasingly likely as I pushed towards my fortieth birthday. I spent the entirety of my 30’s (and change) split between the worlds of university teaching and freelance designing, periodically shifting the balance from one to the other as... Continue Reading →
Light became a tool when I landed my first job in architectural lighting following graduate school, but my journey did not continue on a tidy linear path. I learned quite a bit from my employers and coworkers and enjoyed the excitement of working on high-profile projects in downtown Chicago and beyond. Unfortunately, I was also young and... Continue Reading →
Throughout high school and much of my undergraduate education, light was a toy to me. I loved lighting musicals and concerts and adding to the lighting rig of my DJ business. I thought of lighting as a hobby, merely something I did in my free time, and not as a career. Sometime in my junior... Continue Reading →
It does not take long for someone like me to second-guess a blog series. About two posts, apparently. This, my third post in an auto-biographical series exploring my personal and professional journey in light, comes with the same doubt as each of the previous. Why would anyone want to read about my life? But perhaps... Continue Reading →
My Finding the Gift series is an exploration of my journey towards the literal and figurative light with reflections on both personal and professional experiences. My relationship with light goes back to the very beginning, though at the time I simply existed unaware of the fortune and favor that surrounded me. Now in midlife, I... Continue Reading →
Introducing three new blog series has gone on so long that I feel the year will be over before I get to write much helpful content. We'll see if I have the patience to stick this out, or if I end up reverting to more practical discussions.... As I push within shouting distance of fifty... Continue Reading →
the language of light 