James Meraz joined the faculty of ArtCenter's Environmental Design department in September of 2001, shortly before 9/11. In the wake of that tragedy he wavered about how to proceed with his planned curriculum. How would it all be relevant? In the end, he resolved to lean into the uncertainty of that "cataclysmic moment," realizing that the only way out of the pain, chaos and confusion was to go through it.

Above all he discovered the value in staying present and connecting with others when things fall apart. Of course, he had no way of knowing how much he'd come to rely on those same skills when another catastrophe struck much closer to home.

In June of 2019, James' twenty year-old son, Luke, died. James and his wife were immediately thrust into every parent's worst nightmare. But as they were pummeled with wave after wave of agonizing grief, James eventually felt called to move toward the pain in order to understand the lessons that might benefit him and others – all of which we cover in our Change Lab interview that cycled through tears to moments of transcendence.

James' journey has been an arduous one. The pain of loss remains an ever-present burden he's dubbed "the backpack." But by bringing his creativity to bear on an unbearable situation, James has discovered opportunities for reinvention and even a kind of rebirth in the projects he's undertaken to support young artists and vulnerable communities in Luke's honor.

Like the skilled designer he is, James has continued to ask himself the hard questions and has found renewed meaning in the simple act of showing up, even when part of him wants to give up.

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The next season of Change Lab debuts on March 23. We're calling it Forged in Fire: Make to Heal and we're looking at the ways in which adversity can be a conduit for creativity and, more importantly, how creativity can offer solace during the hardest of times.

You're not going to want to miss a single episode of a season that explores the connection between heartbreak and hope on the path toward resilience and reinvention.

Please join us for a raw and revelatory season of Change Lab created in response to these extraordinary times to nourish, heal and inspire.

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As Google's vice president of hardware design, Ivy Ross is breaking new ground in the physical world for a trillion-dollar company synonymous with building tools for navigating the virtual one. Since assuming the role in 2014, she's been tasked with translating a corporate identity consisting of a primary colored logo and blinking cursor into three-dimensional products and environments that are inviting, accessible and add value to people's lives in ways big and small.

Ivy oversees the team responsible for Google's entire eye-catching suite of curvy, pastel-hued devices including the Pixel phone and Nest home safety system. And she's also the creative visionary behind Google's first retail store which debuted this past summer in New York City. It takes a special kind of moxie to forge ahead with a plan to open up to the public during a time when many stores were still shuttered. But Ivy is a true iconoclast who understands the value in bringing unconventional thinking to bear on high stakes challenges.

Lorne had the great pleasure of getting to know Ivy through her role as an ArtCenter Trustee. During their time together, they quickly discovered a kinship around a shared interest in the role the imagination plays as a catalyst for change, particularly when combined with the physical act of making and doing.

Transcendent might be the word to best describe the expansive conversation they have in this episode. The two explore the opportunities the pandemic has presented to improve our connection to each other and to the planet. They also explore their shared interest in the work of Carl Jung and how creativity can be a portal to accessing the life we're meant to be living even when it's not the one society has laid out for us.

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In the two decades since she graduated from ArtCenter with a degree in Transportation Design, Tisha Johnson has blazed trails for female design leaders in industries dominated by men. Her success has been propelled by her genuine passion for each phase of the design process, from research to experimenting with materials to aligning aesthetic beauty with human need.

The results of her efforts are written into her ever-evolving career, which includes transformative stints heading up design teams at Volvo and Herman Miller en route to her current role as head of global design at Whirlpool. Tisha's growing list of achievements has done little to dampen her palpable excitement for the fundamentals of a job she views, in its simplest terms, as making things that make people's lives better. In order to do that well, she's committed herself to a lifelong learning process as a designer and leader, both in the studio and out. In fact, she's even been known to use her twin passions for surfing and motorcycling as laboratories for design thinking and doing.

For Tisha, good design is a feeling. And that feeling, in a word, is freedom. It's part of the purity of spirit and infectious enthusiasm she brings to everything she does. Even now, from her perch atop the upper rungs of corporate America, she speaks of her new role strategizing future generations of home appliances with the reverence and excitement of someone who has just landed her first job.

I was particularly taken by Tisha's description of the design process as a dialogue between materials and maker, which echoed themes in my book about the discoveries that happen through physical engagement. Over the course of a conversation that felt at times like a masterclass on design strategy, we also covered her thoughts on how research and careful listening guides the teams she leads, the role of empathy in design and how her work at Whirlpool in connection to what she calls "the hearth of the home" can move her to tears.

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For novelist Aimee Bender, magic is not a limited resource. Nor is it something to be feared, coveted, mistrusted or monetized. In her view, rather, magic is an everyday occurrence woven into the fabric of our lives captured in fleeting moments of transcendence all too often overlooked.

No wonderment, however small, seems to escape Aimee's notice. And as her readers can attest, her comfort with uncanny occurrences can be found throughout her celebrated novels and essays. Whether she's writing about a child's ability to taste a parent's depression in her bestselling novel, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake or a young woman confounded by inanimate objects that spring to life in The Butterfly Lampshade—Amy's work gives voice and validity to the things we know and feel but can't explain.

Aimee and Lorne share an interest in exploring the unknown and making sense of it in their writing. For me it's best summed up by the subtitle of my book: from spaces of uncertainty to creative discovery. Whereas Aimee describes her connection to this terra incognita as a way of acknowledging "the presence of ghosts" and making room for a "different kind of thinking."

Aimee is the rare artist whose warmth and gregariousness match her vast talents. And as you'll soon hear, this conversation was no exception. As she sought to illuminate the mysterious and sometimes tortured nature of the writing process, she regularly invoked her students with deep affection. So it should come as no surprise that her creative writing classes at USC are among the most popular in the program.

Aimee and I also discussed the way creativity provides a "lab" for experimenting with uncertainty and how, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, writing, on a good day, can feel like dipping a cup into the river of ideas and delighting at the surprises discovered within it.

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To experience one of Ann Hamilton's installations is to be transported into a world of invention unlike any other. Recognized for her large-scale public projects and performance collaborations, Ann uses space as her canvas and fills it with a sense of mystery and drama that is as inviting as it is provocative.

Though much of her work is, by nature, transitory, its impact and ideas endure. To get a sense of the experiential texture of her work, look no further than her extraordinary 2012 installation, the event of a thread, at New York's Park Avenue Armory. The hauntingly beautiful piece filled the large space with billowing white fabric panels and an array of swings inviting participants to experience a joy and weightlessness too often relegated to childhood.

In this timely and incisive Change Lab interview, conducted the day before the 20th anniversary of 911, Hamilton explored the ideas animating CHORUS, her public art installation at the World Trade Center Cortland subway station. The piece, visible from the platform and passing trains, consists of a field of marble mosaic weaving the texts of the Declaration of Independence and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights onto a wall beneath the spot where the towers once stood.

Change Lab listeners will recognize her ideas connecting making and exploration as core to the themes explored throughout this show. It's hard to imagine how anyone could more artfully illuminate the creative power and exhilaration that comes from braving uncertainty and lingering in the mysterious "I-don't-know."

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To call Mike Shinoda a rock star would be technically accurate and yet incomplete. He is the lead singer and driving force behind Linkin Park (one of the best selling bands of the 21st century), Fort Minor (his hip hop project) and a thriving career as a solo artist. But that list of headlining achievements doesn't even begin to capture the scope of his creative versatility.

He's always been a creative omnivore since his days as an ArtCenter Illustration student when he divided his time between the painting studio and band practice. Even as Linkin Park soared to stratospheric success, he continued to multitask creatively. He continued to pursue solo endeavors (including a Grammy-winning collaboration with Jay-Z) while cultivating a diverse visual arts practice designing album covers and merchandise and assembling a series of paintings that have exhibited in major museums and galleries.

But for all his myriad achievements, what stands out most about Mike is the unique quality of attention and intention that he brings to everything he does. We were only a few minutes deep into our conversation when it became clear that I was in the presence of a rare breed of artist who is uniquely curious about the mysterious forces at play in his own creative process. He gamely expanded upon his challenges and breakthroughs as a songwriter (with a vital assist from producing legend, Rick Rubin), his use of doodling to access certain parts of his creative brain and the twitch channel he's created to make things from scratch, in real time, often in collaboration with his audience.

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For Diana Thater making art is like oxygen. It sustains and nourishes her. And when her access to it is suddenly limited -- as it was in the spring of 2020-- she figures out a way to create her art. By any means necessary.

Her latest exhibition, Yes, There Will Be Singing, is the captivating result of one such extraordinary pandemic pivot. She conceived the idea for the sound-based installation when her in-person show was cancelled. But what's most ingenious about this immersive work is not its format but rather its remarkable subject --Whale 52, who is deaf and yet sings into a world of complete darkness and silence.

It's hard to imagine a more perfect metaphor for resilience in the face of the isolation we've all just experienced than Whale 52 and, more specifically, the sensitivity with which Thater represents his plight in her work.

That kind of empathy is the lifeblood running through everything Thater creates. Best known for creating large-scale installation art exploring the tensions between the animal kingdom and mankind, Thater's studio practice has sent her around the globe to film species in peril in their natural habitats. Her work has been widely exhibited at major institutions worldwide, including MOMA, LACMA and the Guggenheim Bilbao.

In this lively and fathoms-deep Change Lab episode, Thater explores the forces animating her creative practice, the role of improvisation in her filming process and her enduring commitment to risking life and limb to transport us there alongside her.

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Pop quiz: Do artists and designers create to express what you know? Or do we make things to get to know ourselves and the world we inhabit?

Those are a few of the questions we'll be grappling with throughout the next season of Change Lab, launching on September 29th, with Lorne's revelatory interview with Mike Shinoda, artist, musician, ArtCenter alum, and rockstar in all senses of the word.

This season coincides with the release of Lorne's book, Make to Know, investigating the relationship between inspiration and improvisation, artist and artwork, maker and finished product -- themes that will resonate with anyone familiar with this podcast. The book was inspired at least in part by insights derived from Change Lab interviews revealing the many insights into the hows and whys we humans are driven to create.

This new season will take a deep dive into those ideas with a phenomenal lineup of interviews with creative luminaries designed to complement Make to Know and function as a complete guide to accessing and implementing the creative power that lives within us all.

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Erika Endrijonas isn't just an advocate for the pivotal role community colleges play in providing equal access to the American Dream. She is also an alum of Cal State Northridge and direct beneficiary of California's longstanding commitment to affordable higher education for all. As such, she has an intrinsic understanding of the system's value to society. And in her current position as the Superintendent and President of Pasadena City College, which is consistently ranked among the best in the state, she is fiercely determined to make sure the system remains a vital engine driving social mobility for generations to come.

Her guiding principle in leading a large public institution is to ensure that PCC levels the playing field for students from all walks of life. In her view, Pasadena City College and others like it are providing singular opportunities to transcend barriers—financial, cultural and social— that might be standing between them and a college degree.

Erika's combination of passion, tenacity and acuity has fueled her remarkable self-made success story. She cleared a set of financial obstacles only to go on and earn a PhD in history culminating in a fascinating dissertation on the ways in which mid-century cookbooks prescribed gender roles to a limited set of separate but unequal stereotypes. Though the segue to college leader isn't an obvious one, the throughline connecting those dots is Erika's unmistakable commitment to creating a more egalitarian world and her pragmatic approach to getting there.

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