The last of our shows for the season has ended, and all the picnic baskets are stowed in their winter homes. My studio is tidy and sparkling clean (as much as a basement room can be, at least), and I am feeling GOOOOOD.
All summer long there have been projects and piles of stuff all over the place awaiting cleaning, repairing, altering, painting, pricing, packing--completely hiding whole rooms in the house from view. But now we have our space back, including our garage, thanks to the hundreds of items we have sold out from under our roof. Thank you, Jesus! These items have been converted into funds to help the struggling moms and children living in the poverty of Haiti, thanks to our heroic friends who run Haiti Foundation Against Poverty. These stunning individuals train women in legitimate professions to provide for their families, administer health care, educate & feed orphaned children, and work with local agencies in the delicate issues of crime and political corruption. Their daily struggles are so much more than mine, living purposely among the poor and desperately needy. May we all strive to be this gracious and self-sacrificial.
Perhaps someday I will go to visit these dear ones in person, but until then I will cherish the newly-empty spaces in my home that represent not only a place where we can resume living and playing, but also lives changed across the globe. And now that my creative space is freed up of clutter, I can look forward to much whimsical upcycling during the "dark months."
Monday, October 13, 2014
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Loveable Imperfection
Why do I love shabby things so?
Scuffed, painted furniture. Tattered, Depression Era quilts. Mix and match vintage china from England. Faded handmade rugs.
It's interesting to me that, literally, nothing in my house is perfect. Even if it was bought new at a store (usually as a gift to me by a friend or family member), it has imperfect, scratchy, chippy, vintage style.
Even my house is imperfect: cracked walls, un-level floors you can roll marbles down, moldings that don't quite meet each other at the ceiling.
Why does this comfort me so? And should anything be done about it?
My best guess today is it's psychological.
I am a radically imperfect person, and therefore I relate to these blatantly imperfect--yet charming--surroundings. Probably underneath this affinity to these old things I am hoping that, like them, my imperfections could be endearing rather than something to dread or hide.
In The Nesting Place, a lovely decorating book by Myquillyn Smith, aka "The Nester," imperfection is both celebrated and encouraged as a sort of welcome mat of hospitality. When someone enters a home with perfectly matched new furnishings, sparkly clean floors and counters, with no children's handprints or visible paper piles, they don't feel they can be their own imperfect selves. They will not relax enough to nestle into the throw pillows with a glass of wine.
Because guess what? We're all imperfect. Shocker, I know.
Are vintage furnishings therefore a metaphor for us all? I wax existential...
Anyhoo, Smith encourages us to go ahead and flaunt our homes as they are, not as we ideally wish them to be, because they are more welcoming to those with which we want to be real.
Let's keep it real in all our chippy, charming and fading glory.
Scuffed, painted furniture. Tattered, Depression Era quilts. Mix and match vintage china from England. Faded handmade rugs.
It's interesting to me that, literally, nothing in my house is perfect. Even if it was bought new at a store (usually as a gift to me by a friend or family member), it has imperfect, scratchy, chippy, vintage style.
Even my house is imperfect: cracked walls, un-level floors you can roll marbles down, moldings that don't quite meet each other at the ceiling.
Why does this comfort me so? And should anything be done about it?
My best guess today is it's psychological.
I am a radically imperfect person, and therefore I relate to these blatantly imperfect--yet charming--surroundings. Probably underneath this affinity to these old things I am hoping that, like them, my imperfections could be endearing rather than something to dread or hide.
In The Nesting Place, a lovely decorating book by Myquillyn Smith, aka "The Nester," imperfection is both celebrated and encouraged as a sort of welcome mat of hospitality. When someone enters a home with perfectly matched new furnishings, sparkly clean floors and counters, with no children's handprints or visible paper piles, they don't feel they can be their own imperfect selves. They will not relax enough to nestle into the throw pillows with a glass of wine.
Because guess what? We're all imperfect. Shocker, I know.
Are vintage furnishings therefore a metaphor for us all? I wax existential...
Anyhoo, Smith encourages us to go ahead and flaunt our homes as they are, not as we ideally wish them to be, because they are more welcoming to those with which we want to be real.
Let's keep it real in all our chippy, charming and fading glory.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)