Make It / Make Sense Rick Clark

Personal Builds & Creative Fabrication

High school reunion planning and event coordination

I organized my 10-year and 20-year high school reunions as combined events for graduates from both Campbell River high schools. Each event brought together roughly 140 people and was designed to feel inclusive, safe, and welcoming rather than like a loosely organized night out.

The work started with communication. I had to track down former students, reach people across different social circles, recruit volunteers, answer questions, and keep the event clear enough that people felt comfortable showing up. Combining both schools made the event more inclusive, but it also meant the planning had to account for a broader group of people and expectations.

The logistics were practical and detailed. I managed budgeting, ticket sales, food and drinks, supplies, venue setup, and the overall event flow. I also coordinated safety-related pieces, including security, liquor-licence requirements, and a safe-ride-home shuttle so people had a better option at the end of the night.

I wanted the events to feel considered, not generic. That meant booking a photographer and DJ, building a slideshow, and adding activities such as a minute-to-win-it challenge to help people reconnect without the event relying only on small talk. Those details mattered because the goal was not simply to gather people in a room; it was to create a shared experience that felt relaxed, safe, and welcoming.

This project is personal, but it reflects the same kind of coordination I bring to professional work: define what needs to happen, organize the people and details, communicate clearly, reduce friction, and make the experience work for the people using it.

My branding and business card

I designed this business card as a compact expression of how I think and work. It was not just a place to put my name and contact information. It needed to communicate a broader professional identity: engineering, project management, construction, design, communication, systems thinking, and practical follow-through, without making the work feel scattered.

The central challenge was clarity. My work crosses different domains, so the card had to create a thread that tied them together. I wanted it to feel professional and capable, but still human, creative, and specific to me.

The logo combines my initials, R and C, with references to squaring the circle, the golden ratio, and a 3-4-5 triangle. Those references connect the identity to philosophy, mathematics, construction, and design. The geometry is not there as decoration; it reflects the way I tend to approach work: look for structure, understand the constraint, and find a practical path forward.

The sketched line quality was intentional. I did not want the mark to feel overly polished or sterile. The slightly drawn quality suggests thinking, iteration, and problem-solving in progress. It keeps the identity connected to the process of working through an idea, not only the final result.

The colour palette reinforces the same idea. The charcoal grey has a pencil-lead quality, which connects to sketching, drafting, and working something out by hand. The deep construction-gold adds warmth, value, and a practical built-environment association. The two-tone name treatment connects directly back to the logo so the initials and wordmark feel like one system rather than separate graphic elements.

The back of the card centres on the phrase “Make It / Make Sense.” I like the phrase because it carries two meanings at once. It speaks to making, building, and execution, but also to sensemaking, clarity, and communication. Separating the phrase into two lines turns a familiar expression into a simple statement of how I work.

The supporting line, “Design. Solve. Build. Deliver.” turns that philosophy into a process. It reflects the sequence I naturally bring to projects: understand the problem, design a response, solve the constraints, build the result, and deliver something that works.

This project is personal, but it supports the same idea as the rest of the portfolio. The card was a small physical object, but the design problem was the same kind of problem I often work on: make something broad and complicated clear enough that someone else can understand it, use it, and remember it.

Music Made Visible: Partner Dance in Victoria

I help support a small Brazilian Zouk-rooted partner dance community in Victoria by creating spaces where people can practise, ask questions, make mistakes, and keep coming back.

This is not a formal dance business, and I do not present myself as the authority on Brazilian Zouk in Victoria. I am one person helping a community grow by organizing practice opportunities, sharing what I have learned, and helping people feel more connected to the music, their movement, and each other.

A practice space people actually want to return to

The work is practical as much as it is personal. I help organize practice sessions, support community events, share music, explain movement concepts, and help newer dancers feel less intimidated.

A small dance community only works if people feel welcome enough to participate. That means the tone of the space matters. People need room to experiment, get things wrong, laugh, try again, and gradually build confidence.

Translating movement into language

My role is often informal teaching and facilitation. I help break down movement ideas, explain what I am feeling in a lead or follow, and translate embodied concepts into language that people can use.

Partner dance can be technically complex, but the goal is not to overwhelm people with terminology. The goal is to give people enough understanding that the movement starts to make sense in their own body.

Why I call it Zouk-rooted

I describe this as Zouk-rooted partner dance because Brazilian Zouk shaped my foundation, while the music and movement I connect with often reach beyond one strict traditional container.

I try to be careful with that distinction. I am not claiming to represent Brazilian culture or formalize the dance for everyone else. I am sharing the parts I have learned, the music I connect with, and the kind of practice space I think helps people grow.

Music made visible

For me, partner dance is a conversation between the music, my body, and another person. At first, it can look like one person leading and the other following. The more I learned, the more I understood it as both people following the music together. One person may suggest the movement more often, but both people are listening, interpreting, adapting, and expressing in their own way.

That is where the phrase “music made visible” comes from. A good dance is not just a sequence of steps. It expresses through timing, tone, space, weight, softness, contrast, and response. It turns something heard into something seen and felt.

A multi-step process

This project is personal, but it says something real about how I communicate and build community. I like dancing with my wife. I like sharing something meaningful with other people. I like seeing a group become friends as well as dancers.

It also shows a useful capability: taking something complex, embodied, and hard to explain, then making it accessible enough that more people can join in. It is another form of facilitation, translation, and sensemaking.

Bespoke farm wedding venue

For our wedding, my wife and I transformed an overgrown working farm into a full private venue for 240 guests. The site had never been used as a venue of that scale before. It was primarily set up for cows and goats, with rough ground, overgrown vegetation, limited infrastructure, and no ready-made event layout.

Planning began roughly a year and a half before the wedding, with much of the physical site preparation completed on weekends in the months leading up to the event while living several hours away. The goal was to build an unconventional and inspiring wedding venue; something personal, functional, memorable, and resourceful. We wanted a place where people could gather, celebrate, camp, dance, eat, and experience something that felt like us.

My role combined lead planning, site coordination, logistics, layout design, vendor coordination, hands-on building, and day-of problem solving. Many people stepped up to help with site prep, flowers, food, service, setup, teardown, parking, and coordination, but I was responsible for turning the overall idea into a workable plan and making sure the major pieces came together.

Turning a working farm into a venue

The site needed to support a ceremony, reception, camping, parking, washrooms, photo areas, food service, live music, gathering space, and guest flow. I designed the layout around how people would arrive, move through the site, find the main areas, and safely use a space that was not designed as a venue.

Preparing the site meant removing rocks and windfall, filling holes, levelling ground, cutting back vegetation, creating paths, preparing camping areas, and planting and watering grass in levelled areas before the event. The work was practical and physical, but it was also about imagining how the site would feel once hundreds of people were using it.

The 100′ x 40′ tent became the centre of the reception, with space for tables, head table, food service, bar, band, dance floor, lighting, and gathering. I created a site plan that could be shared with guests and volunteers so everyone understood how the event should flow.

Temporary infrastructure

Because the farm didn’t have venue infrastructure, several systems had to be built temporarily. Washrooms, handwashing, water, power, lighting, audio, parking, and camping all had to work for one day without becoming fragile or confusing.

Water was one of the more difficult infrastructure problems. I built temporary sink stations, with water supplied roughly 250 feet using fire hoses connected to domestic water. The hoses also provided an additional fire-readiness measure, which mattered because the wedding was held in mid-August and the surrounding area was dry.

I handled power with two generators and an EV with an inverter. The layout had to support lighting, PA equipment, the band, and other event needs while avoiding overloads and reducing trip hazards. I placed the band on its own generator, so the most critical load was isolated.

I built guest safety into the layout through cord routing, lighting, paths, parking control, and keeping higher-traffic areas away from rougher parts of the farm. Weather and fire risk were also part of the planning, with umbrellas, extra tents, and site-wetting leading up to the event as practical backups.

Building the dance floor

I designed and built a 20′ x 32′ dance floor using pallets and recovered forming plywood. The ground had to be levelled, uneven areas were shimmed with scrap wood, and the surface was sanded and painted.

The floor was intentionally simple, low to the ground, and practical. It had to support a full reception dance floor without feeling temporary or unsafe. It performed well through the night and became one of the main pieces that made the farm feel like a real venue rather than just an outdoor gathering.

Guest experience and personal details

The event also included custom-built photo and hangout areas. One was called “Grandma’s,” built around an old floral farm couch, a rug, wooden accents, an old phone, and a large hanging macrame plant holder made by my grandfather. It was partly a tribute to family and partly a quiet place for guests to step away from the busy party. It became one of the most loved and photographed areas of the wedding.

A second installation was built in an alder grove with hanging mirrors, a vanity, and lights. It created a surreal forest photo area that felt personal, handmade, and unique.

The bouquet was launched from a homemade catapult my friends and I built during the bachelor party, using materials we had on hand. It included a safety release pin and worked perfectly on the day.

Planning and coordination

I set up Trello as our planning hub for tasks, deadlines, rentals, materials, volunteer roles, budget, guest logistics, setup schedule, and day-of details. The board helped turn a large, informal family project into something trackable and executable.

The biggest challenge was the number of interacting pieces: weather, parking, camping, washrooms, power, water, food, rentals, music, guest movement, volunteer coordination, setup, teardown, and the fact that the site was not designed to be a venue.

Got hitched without a hitch

Several guests said it was the best wedding they had ever attended, which was nice to hear, but the more useful proof was that the temporary venue actually worked. People arrived, parked, found their way around, ate, danced, camped, used the washrooms, gathered in the custom spaces, and experienced the farm as if it had been designed for that day.

For me, the project is a good example of how I like to work when the answer does not already exist. I understand the site, imagine the use, build the missing systems, coordinate the people, and leave enough personality in the result that it feels intentionally made.