cover photo by Jeff Greenwald

Scott and Ene Constable share a vast and eclectic portfolio. Married since 1989, the artists have suspended a life-sized orca—crafted from local hardwoods—in the lobby of a Washington middle school, and built a plaza of raindrop-shaped swiveling seats for a park in a Santa Rosa, California, neighborhood once ravaged by wildfires. Their Wowhaus design team has installed a cast-bronze crane (an ancient symbol of justice) outside a Denver law center, and created furniture and other structures for Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard Project in Berkeley.

“Sometimes our projects start with an exercise where we pretend we just landed on Earth,” says Scott. “What are the current challenges? What’s happening in terms of culture, and nature? Where do they intersect? What are the cultural or natural forces at play in our sponsoring city, be it Nashville, Chattanooga, or Oakland? It’s almost like we’re creating a site-specific intervention that people will interact with. We want it to feel like it belongs there and is integrated deeply.”

“One of the phrases I use is ‘a catalyst for community.’ It should feel like it was there first,” says Ene, “and everything else grew up around it. Like when you go to a place like Rome, and you come across those pieces of art and architecture in the landscape.”

Though their philosophy is provocative, and their public artworks beautiful and imaginative, I was drawn to the Constables by their ongoing joint project of four decades: What Makes a Good Day?

It’s a good question. And though the answer will be different for everyone, their quest attracted me. Making good days is a craft that I, too, hope to master.

The very question ‘what makes a good day?’ implies that you can make it.”

Scott and Ene met in 1988, when Ene was 23 and Scott 25, on a farm along the Hudson River. They married the following year. The origin story of their quest began in 1990, when they served as Peace Corps Volunteers in Togo. Although they were assigned to work on Guinea worm eradication and to build more efficient cookstoves for the Togolese, there was an unexpected takeaway for them.

In Togo, Scott and Ene were speaking mainly French (the official language). As is common in Africa, even informal greetings between villagers can last as long as half an hour, and often include being invited to somebody’s house.

“So, your plans were always changing,” Scott says, “based on whatever conviviality there was. One of the French greetings villagers would use was, ‘On a trouvé le joie?—Have you found the joy?’ That was the priority. Whatever else was going on, it was a reminder to slow down and find the joy in each day. I think our whole thing of ‘what makes a good day’ started with that.”

What’s so appealing to Ene and Scott is the assumption of agency. “The very question ‘what makes a good day?’ implies that you can make it,” says Scott. “The plan is setting out to make the good day.” Every individual day is limited by its astronomical length and presents a distinct challenge. “We’re using that idea to frame how we collaborate and frame our practice, at the scale of the day.”

For the Constables, the armature for a good day is a series of daily rituals. In their minds, the difference between habit and ritual is intention; a habit pins you down, while a ritual opens things up.

They start every day with fermented pu-erh tea, then a period of stretching and exercise, followed by a deep encounter with nature. “We typically hike to a remote beach, or along a bird sanctuary or a farm road, depending on the weather and tide.” Sometimes they’ll do a more ambitious excursion in kayaks.

“Between nature and lunch, there’s work,” says Ene. “And a little hand-ground coffee.”

“That’s when we do the high-intensity stuff,” Scott says. “Not the dreamy stuff, but the mechanical stuff: writing the proposals, building the models, doing all the communications.”

“Which can be joyful or not,” Ene adds pointedly.

Lunch (like the beautiful salad and pizza Ene served me) is often made with produce from their garden, and followed by a short nap. “The nap has become critical,” Ene says. “I never believe it’s going to happen! But as we get older, it’s a complete reset. That has been our little secret weapon recently.”

“And what happens after the nap?”

“Then we work some more!” Scott says. But for this second spell, the focus is less logistical. Having put to rest the business of the day, their minds are open to more imaginative pursuits. This is when they engage in experimentation, invention, and discussing whatever new ideas may have emerged since their last creative session.

“After this late afternoon brainstorming, we wind down outside or cook. In the winters, we get the fire started in the afternoon and keep going through the night.” During the summer, they often just chill out under the changing light, enjoying the resident population of bird life.

“Do you have a closing ritual for the day,” I ask, “to wrap things up?”

“Not as much,” says Ene. “I have a kind of switch at nine o’clock; it’s over.”

“Let’s say you were doing a workshop,” I ask, “with a diverse audience from all over the world. What would be the central piece of advice you might give the attendees? How do you begin a day with the right mindset?”

“It sounds almost lazy,” Scott says, “but I’d say entering each day with no expectations of outcomes.”

“The creative process is a great teacher,” Ene nods. “You’re seeking, but you’re not necessarily going to find what you thought you’d get. I call it ‘ambiguity tolerance.’ That muscle has been built through our work, particularly during COVID. It’s a willingness to put yourself out there—in places that are challenging, or uncomfortable, or unknown—but with the knowledge that you will find the way through and find all the things you need.”

“And the corollary to the open-endedness of it,” Scott adds, “is ‘be prepared.’ So prepare yourself.”

“We set ourselves up to find the joy,” says Ene. “Sometimes it doesn’t work—but you definitely want to be on the alert for the joy.”

One’s capacity for this practice, of course, depends on one’s resources and constraints. “For a working mother, for example, or someone who’s poor, the window becomes smaller. But still, if you’re open to spontaneity—even if it’s for five minutes—you’ll know what to do when it comes.”

“When I visit my parents, I have to drop into a whole other set of parameters related to what makes a good day for them. We may sit by a fountain and watch the birds come. We don’t know which birds are going to come. We don’t know if they’re going to come. But I have an idea of what’s realistic.”

We find comfort in things that require attention—whether cooking, building, or getting back to the roots of making. Anything that requires care and has a positive outcome.”

At other times, Scott and Ene remind me, finding joy and ‘making a good day’ are as much about what we don’t open up to.

“We’re being blindsided by a firehose of noise and disinformation; confusion that we’re not comfortable entirely shutting out, because it’s kind of worrisome to ignore,” says Scott. “So, we have one eye open, but we’ve been intentionally reducing the amount of exposure we have to the news. Instead, we find comfort in things that require attention—whether cooking, building, or getting back to the roots of making. Anything that requires care and has a positive outcome.”

Ultimately, of course, a “good day” is a synthesis of the magical and the mundane. “People tend to compartmentalize: They’re working or they’re playing,” says Ene; you have to merge these modes. “For me, a good day is a day when I’m able to have that combination. I mean, we love going out to the farmer’s market; but given the arc of our lives, a good day ultimately comes down to a little bit more.”

“It’s a deeper question than is immediately apparent,” Scott says. “For a lot of people, a good day comes down to a soft-serve ice cream and a movie. It’s almost about entertainment. But when you start thinking, ‘Can I have a good day when there’s so much injustice, palpable injustice,’ it becomes equally about having a sense of consequentiality. You want to know that the thing you did today made some little difference.”