Michael James Plautz (1944-2012)had a career spanning forty-plus years in art, design, and education. A childhood in Wisconsin, professional education as an architect at the University of Illinois, extensive international travel and teaching and his primary role as founding principal of RSP Architects have shaped the work illustrated here. While the pursuit of architecture has been the “Mother Ship,” his greatest joy was chasing light and capturing an image. Whether it be a gestural sketch, a layered watercolor, a photograph, a three-dimensional orchestration of space and volumes in architecture, a programmatic brief, a city plan, a poem, a new light fixture, Michael had the good fortune and cultivated the practice of making no distinction between work and play; of rendering no acknowledgment between the traditional professional boundaries between art, engineering, and design. Michael and his wife Gloria split their time between Minneapolis and their home and studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They had a wonderful family in their daughter Andrea, her husband Scott Folland, and two lovely granddaughters, Zoe and Stella.