Archive for the ‘designers’ Tag
I spent the first two hours of my day today in bed drinking coffee and watching a dozen or so TED speeches. If your not familiar with TED I’d recommend it to you whole heartedly. It’s a series of speeches from experts around the world on a diverse collection of topics. The anagram of TED stands for, “Technology, Education, & Design”.
‘It sure isn’t the Sistine Chapel!’’
My main topics for today concerned Creativity and the Arts. Listening to people from Bali who design green homes from bamboo or others from Europe who specialize in the creation of designs and art is exciting. It’s nice to know that Creativity is alive and well on this planet and not getting lost in the technological hustle and bustle of our societies.
I’ve always been a proponent and supporter of anyone or anything that creates something. The best times of my life are those spent where I’m relaxed, alone with my thoughts, and putting paper to pencil. Either writing, drawing, painting, or sculpting, it’s all good. With that in mind I thought I’d share a quick look at my lair. It’s my oasis filled with my things and represents my life in one small room.
For twenty years I saved every little doodad, birthday card, and memento from places I’ve been and people I’ve known. Then I began making a series of collages or “life panels” of those years. It started out as two small panels but grew to more than nine with some of them measuring 4’X4’.
‘This is what I call a workspace.’
I never had a sufficient amount of wall space and I had them in storage for twenty years. I moved them from place to place until I finally settled down here in Maine. I still didn’t have the wall space for them and finally decided to make them the ceiling of my so-called man-cave.
Now I can sit at my desk surrounded by things that make me happy. I can lean back in my chair and look up at the ceiling and see the people, places, and things that I’ve experienced in my life. The photos in this posting are a quick peek into the craziness of that space that I’ve had the pleasure of creating.
EVERYONE NEEDS A HAPPY PLACE
Last week I casually mentioned my fascination with Victorian women and some of the responses I received were interesting to say the least. Still, the more I read the more interested I became in that time period. That resulted in further research to satisfy my strange yet engaging Victorian fixation. I realize that I’m taking a real risk in ruining a life long sexual fantasy but what’s life without a little risk.
As I’ve always been told by friends and family alike, "be careful what you ask for". My research into the Victorian age revealed some of the downsides of the era. The social intercourse of the time had many strict rules for behavior including rules for just visiting someone. Here’s a quote from a Victoria Domestic Manual explaining the rules of "calling on someone".
"Those who mix in society are in the habit of reminding one another of their existence, either by personally calling on each other during certain hours, or by merely leaving their cards at the door."
Those visits were normally made by single women and idle men between the hours of 1-5 pm in the city or between 12-4 pm at the country house. A call was to last no more than fifteen minutes and was made twice a year and on certain special occasions.
1. After the birth of a baby – either in person or by a servant
2. On the marriage of a daughter – usually the day after the wedding
3. After a death – no calls were made until the lady of the house had sent round her cards "to return thanks for the inquiries" made during the time of
mourning.
4. Prior to a long absence from home – ladies then called on their friends
When a lady making a call is married and her husband is too busy to call, she may leave his card for the master of the house.
In leaving cards for a married couple, a lady is to leave one card and the man should leave two.
Formal calls on certain special occasions should be returned within a few days. If not a formal apology is required and expected.
Refreshments are not required in town visits but in the country they should be made available if a caller comes a long distance.
Could you imagine having these sorts of rules in place now. All of our younger generations would be required to drop a card when they visited anyone. I can only imagine what those cards might look like. It would break out into individual groups like everything else seems to do. You would have Hip-Hop cards, Nerd cards, Artist cards, Sports Cards, and Designer Cards for every occasion. The look of the card would become another peer pressure item with competition making their costs skyrocket. Plain old black and white print would no longer be cool but gold embossed print with an accompanying graphic or photo would the next step. It would be the next new old thing for the 21st century. What will come after that? A return to bell bottoms, mullets, or my all time favorite, girdles.
People need to realize that something stupid a hundred years ago is still stupid today. I hope we haven’t just run out of new and original good ideas. It’s too depressing to ponder, so I won’t.
everyuselessthing.com 