Posts from the ‘muse’ Category
The fence is several buildings down from a friend’s apartment in West Hollywood. I love the curve which adds a flourish to the street. I am fascinated by the meanings of things. And when I walk by this fence I wonder if the white paint is a reference to some romanticized longing for suburbia. See Forbes on the topic of Green yards.
When in college I worked summers as a gardener in Little Italy, Chicago. I rode my vintage Gold Schwinn Colligiate down Ashland Ave from the Northside and since we didn’t use weed killers I had a steak knife and I would spend about 2 hours twice a week weeding the grounds of the Westgate Terrace condos built in 1968. The satellite view below shows the wonderful canopy which in the early 90’s was not available anywhere else in the area. But the people who lived at Westgate Terrace loved grass. And they would have chopped down the trees if it would have meant getting their 3 x 6 plot in front of their townhouse to grow grass.
What they did have were birds, and shade, and a range of ground covers and shrubs. I’m certain they would have loved, New Grass: “Everybody loves the feel of New Grass…kids, dogs, moms, and dads!”
Ute Lemper was singing: “…it’s all a swindle, so get what you can from your fellow man…Life is good knock on wood–knock knock– I sang along as I drove by a Target in Orange County. And because I like to listen to the same songs over and over again, later, I was singing along with Ute as I drove by an Ikea.
I had just read that the self made founder of Ikea, Ingvar Kamprad and his family are worth 33 billion dollars. Forth on Forbes List of the World’s Billionaires. Ikea created a new market: an experience for consumers wherein their consumerism allows them good feelings. Prosperity, Intelligence and Satisfaction and Acceptablity. Which is alll good stuff, me thinks. However, one wonders how long that experience lasts? Past when you get it home and assemble?
It can be difficult to look past the immediate experience to look at the long view.
Objects can be suitable to their environment depending on where and how you look. Here at Bibelots Design we like to apply the mantra of Lady Mendel: Proportion, Simplicity and Suitability. This was her view of how to judge good taste. I think it’s safe to view Lady Mendel’s mantra of good taste as a view of beauty. Beauty depends on the context and Lady Mendl would look to see if all three principles were there to understand it in situ. One must look from a broader perspective to see if something is suitable.
My Holiday Wish for us all is that when we , “I need a…” The next thought would be, “Do I need it?” Then if the answer is Yes think about where one could find it locally. Eschew the Ikea, (it will always be there) and take the time to find something more thoughtful.
Scanners are superb, but I encourage taking photos of book-pages as if one has a camera the size of a pen, and must appropriate images for a future mission. These photos I took several weeks ago in an antique store. At first I was excited and almost bought the book, but then I frugally sat and looked through it and it was wonderfully presented like an appetizer highly anticipated. 
San Juan Capistrano is a charming stop on the train from San Diego to Los Angeles. There is a antiques place on the main road that a dealer friend of mine would describe as being full of brown antiques .
I did like these Italian tole sconces. As I stood there looking at them, I found them most agreeable. I would quite like to see them electrified with with bright acid yellow silk shades on either side of a mirror in a powder room. It seems that as design goes, most people are too concerned with being careful, trying to make the tasteful choice or doing what they think is right–but style, as they say, takes commitment.
My good friend Isabella got so bothered by the designers she worked with that she started leaving out Christmas ornaments in depression era bowls on sidetables all year round. As if she forgot to put all the decorations away. She left the oddly muted orange painted wall in her living room and her collection of mismatched jars and vases grew as well as her piles of books and book shelves. Her bedroom became her own little haven where she painted the walls mauve and left her bird’s cage sitting on top of a high bookshelf after he had gone as a memento. The last I saw it there was Victorian embroidered dressing screen shoved in the corner barely hiding a file cabinet with a pashmina draped over her desk. Her husband, an avid squash player, collected vintage rackets which were displayed down her meandering hallway on a blueish gray wall.
Designers design but not many create. Isabella’s contrary approach created something quite wonderful which was for her natural and well styled, but of course not for everyone, which is really the point.
Mohair I love, but it is somewhat misspent on these chairs. The carving and the Ram’s head already gives interest which goes a long way. The heavy color and texture of the fabric really isn’t needed. A fabric in a lighter color or just in weight would give this chair a new presence. Encyclopedia Mythica tells us that the Ram is the symbol of the Egyptian god, Amun meaning the hidden one as a driving force of the invisible breeze. The original god of wind and ruler of the air; he is shown as a ram, as a man with a ram’s head or with a beard and a feathered crown. The temples dedicated to him are situated near modern day Luxor which was the inspiration, I suppose, for the Luxor Hotel.
The Egyptians seem to be have fond of the Ram as there are also several ram-gods. Cherti, the Ferryman of the Dead whose name means the lower one who had a head of a ram and a body of a man. Also, Chnum the Ram-God who made the Nile fertile.
Then there is the Greek Pelias who sent Jason to retrieve the Golden Fleece, and when Jason returned with it, he wouldn’t give up his throne, so Medea told Pelias’ daughters that she could make an old ram into a young ram. She cut up an old ram and threw them into a cauldron boiled them up and out jumped a young ram. The daughters then went into their father’s room cut him up in tiny pieces and took the pieces to Medea for boiling, which resulted in a smelly stew and that was the end of that. As my Greek Mythology Professor used to say, “Are they depraved because they are deprived or are they deprived because they are depraved?” See Encyclopedia Mythica for further details.
If for whatever reason, one wouldn’t want to reupholster these chairs, (just do it, for God sakes, they are ugly) I would at the least replace the white gimp with something that would diminish the transition from wood to fabric as the white overpowers the carving detail. Samuel & Sons for passementerie. -Center 44, NYC.
