(gentle dramatic piano music) - [Norman] I don't feel like I'm working in these places alone.

Even in this, I feel like I'm not making all those decisions on my own.

And I like it.

I like knowing that I'm not alone.

There's a higher being that guides my hand and guides my life.

These beautiful things happening, and I'll chuckle or laugh knowing that I had very little to do with the outcome.

And it's nice to let go sometimes and let that higher spirit take over.

(gentle dramatic jazz music) What's up fellas?

- Hey, man, how you doing?

- Hey, how y'all doing?

That's Bonita.

- Right.

- So the cushion will sit out to here and this cushion will sit out, okay.

- Bueno.

- No, this feels good.

I like it just like this.

Gracias.

I'm a young at heart Black man from the south side of Chicago, born and raised, loves his culture, loves designing.

I'm a visual artist that work in a very intuitive way around found objects and found materials.

I've always seen the work of design as a form of improving our own life and the things around us.

(playful upbeat jazz music) As far as design goes, I feel like I'm teaching at a community level.

So I'm building a pavilion in a neighborhood that lacks pavilions.

And I think as a designer, there is a part of me that really loves to just contribute my part.

And then there's a part of me that says there are no Black people contributing parts.

I have to be that contributor.

I am constantly looking at the Black man in America, his position as a family man, his position as a soldier, his position as an artist, and his daily position in the world.

Currently preparing for this show called A Love Supreme.

It's a combination of a solo show and reimagining an iconic house designed by me Mies van der Rohe.

And I'm inviting about upwards of 35 to 40 artists to be a part of the show and sort of reappropriating the space so that we can view it through a Black lens.

We are putting together a number of new projects, new items, new objects, completely inspired by John Coltrane's "Love Supreme" song.

The show meant that I got to think deeply about an amazing artist who took jazz to another level, but also in that he told these amazing stories.

I feel the relevance and the sort of alignment that our lives had, 'cause my career, my life I've spent trying to be a designer in a world of white designers, in a educational institution of white faculty and majority white students.

Damn it, I need a room to play.

(playful upbeat jazz music) ♪ Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ♪ This one's gorgeous.

I don't know what A Love Supreme show is gonna give off as far as energy.

I just know that I've taken a really good recipe of really great artists who love what they do and are very good at what they do and are passionate, and they're Chicago.

But I think there's a fruitfulness that comes with the agency of putting all of these people together just to see, you know, what that looks like together, what that looks like in a me Vanderbilt house.

A house that had, you know, no thought as to, you know, what Black culture meant to it.

However, it was these undertones of influence from Black folks.

But I think there's a new celebration today.

I think there's a new way in which we're looking at design and there's a certain level of inclusion which we are forced to make happen.

This is just one way we can have fun with it, and hopefully it's just one way.

Like this is just a touch of what else there is to come, so.

Looking good D, looking good.

- [Daniel] Thank you, thank you.

- Yeah, that's gonna finish up real nice.

- I'm excited about it, yeah.

Working for Norman is really rewarding and fulfilling because I know that we're telling stories that enrich a culture and illuminate a side of our culture that can only be experienced visually.

That you have to feel.

And Norman's mission to designers and to empower Black designers has already worked with me because I wouldn't have had the motivation or understood the means to pursue my career path had I not met him.

You know, I'm eternally grateful for his motivation and especially, you know, in the context of a career that is typically less Black for now.

- I love this.

Yeah, these are my jazz chairs.

I literally get to play with like chunks of random shapes and take them and make them into a thing that fits this typology of a chair, almost thrown like.

There's this sustainable side where I'm taking otherwise unwanted components, cutting them up into random pieces until I wanna stop.

I was gonna say till they make sense, but they kind of still don't necessarily make sense, but they feel really jazzy to me.

I am gonna paint it.

I'm gonna paint it.

I think I just decided I'm just gonna paint them.

(dramatic rhythmic jazz music) I identified strongly with John Coltrane's life story.

I saw a Black male artist who struggled with the life that America offers.

I was a young man growing up in the crack epidemic.

You know, it's hard to come home and tell your mom, "I think I'm hooked on drugs."

But you know, she did what she does.

She prayed.

There's just no way that I should have made it.

A lot of my friends didn't make it.

When I think back to my block, a lot of those brothers and sisters didn't make it.

It was by the grace of God that I just got right in a lot of ways and being engulfed in design was a big part of saving me from a lot of the mess that I went through.

(laughs) Woo!

Oh my God.

Oh, oh my god, wow!

- Wow.

- Wow.

- Beautiful?

Te gusta?

- Yeah, te gusta (beep).

Wow, it's hot damn.

So this is the first coat?

It's an orchestra.

You're just trying to like get everything.

Yes, that's right.

Yes, move that over there.

That's perfect.

(quirky jazz music) I am constantly touched when there's a call to action.

It did feel like a protest.

This reimagined protest of being seen, being recorded, being documented.

(gentle jazz music) If there's anything that this feels like to me, it is like the supreme love of all that I have for community, family, you know, friends, the art world, the design world, all of that sort of culminated in A Love Supreme.

(gentle jazz music) (gentle upbeat jazz music) Thinking about legacy and what that means for the people that might need a legacy to uplift them.

(distant chattering) - [Audience] We're gonna get some remarks in the... (distant chattering) - Couldn't have done this without you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

Good city.

A lot of great people I've worked with, I've admired.

Design is much better when you're not doing it alone.

I try and make what feels like home.

What feels like this is community and you are safe here.

Mic check, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, real quick.

- There we go.

- I just want to say thank you to all of the artists that are a part of this show.

(gentle upbeat jazz music) The success won't stop.

The storytelling won't stop.

If we build it, they will come, yeah.

(gentle upbeat jazz music)