Category: Creativity

My granddaughter lost her first tooth the other day. a tooth is a part of our body that we lose that won’t decay,

I wanted to do a ceremony for her. The ceremony would consist of going to the bridge where her parents got engaged  and then throwing  the tooth into the pond under the bridge and saying a prayer that I found in a Jewish ritual book.

If you can imagine there is a special prayer for when you lose your first tooth.

That got me thinking about how important is where you are born  and lose your first tooth. the Place..

The place we are planted. Our jumping off spot. How important is that??

I wanted to do the ceremony to remind her that there is where her baby teeth are. Planted in the pond in the town she was born under the bridge her parents first became betrothed . When she is older she can tell her children ” that is  where my baby teeth are!”

that is where I began.

I think our roots are hand picked by God and we should respect that place where we started our lives out. Where we started out the journey of life. Our starting point.

Why is one house charming and another house not charming. What is the thing that you feel when you respond viscerally to  one look and not to another. I think that the reason we respond to well thought out design is it is  that it corresponds to our longing for beauty and relationship.

I had a friend that owned the most charming house I had ever set foot into. It was a small house in a beautiful neighborhood  in a well to do area in Seattle. The house was filled with leaded glass windows looking out to a garden .

It had curvy path to the front door. It had gardens you could wander through to ease yourself around the house. Even the bath looked at the garden

Every window was multilane leaded glass so it had the feel of being in a storybook.

Once upon a time house

How would living in a house growing in a house breathing in a house like that affect your life.

It is my contention that it would give you an innate sensibility to relate to and respond to beauty in every level of your life. You would develop a keen sense of refinement that would affect every aspect of your life.

Thats all. You learn refinement from your environment and great timeless design is one way to absorb it,

We are sponges and absorb everything that we look at and hear.

Maybe if jails were charming cottages that had classical music played only and had tea at four , the prisoners would develop a taste for beauty and want to go out and pursue things of a higher nature . Maybe it would get in their bones and they would call each other  Sport instead of some crass term that does not build anyone up.

 

 

People ask me all the time for ideas to decorate their house. I sort of have to ask them a lot of questions about what they like and don’t like and then just do what I like. every decorator in the universe does that. that is all they can do.

Listen and then try and incorporate some of the listening to what they like. that is what I do. I will never pick out things I hate.

But really people should be able to do it themselves. There are no rules. People say there are rules but they are broken all the time. Like what is art. that definition is broken all the time. Because it is not a massively important thing. A building won’t fall down and people won’t die if you pick out a certain color or style.

For that reason you should be able to do it yourself.

You just need to know what you like and most people don’t have a clue. It is a visceral response that you need to yes yes to one thing and no to another. But you have to have the gut feeling or nothing will make sense to you and you will be at the whim of someone else’s gut feeling.

Your own guts are important/ You should be in touch with them.

This is an exercise I do for my creativity class that you can do to build that gut feeling up.

close you eyes and imagine a space that can have anything in it at all. this place is your room and nobody else will ever see it . Only you. You have infinite money to spend on what ever you can think up.

You might think this is easy but it really tests your ability to decide what you like. It is a hard exercise but it is revealing and most people are surprised by what they come up with.

Here is the facts on decorating. If you are reflected in your house like a mirror you will be successful/ It should feel like you/ It should smell like you and be an extension of your spirit.

There is no right or wrong thing in deciding what you want in your house. If you want a fluffy green rug with purple trim then you must be a super fun person who is willing to take risks.

People respond to innermost being  and nobody thinks any better of you if you are stylish and whatever hip means.

I have a friend that has a Scooby Doo doormat . If you took one of her classes you might be intimidated by her skill but then you go to her house and see the doormat and that says she is accessible. She just is quirky too which is fun and wonderful.

I often wonder what people are thinking when they write obituaries. Are they trying to list what the deceased accomplished  in the way of a job. Or is it how many kids and grandkids they had or what their favorite sport was.

An obituary is a notice that someone has died and it is the last time you can speak to this world. Such a monumental  event maybe could  be a clearing house for finishing unfinished business. I mean wouldn’t you want to say I am sorry to everyone you  hurt or I am so proud of you, or leave a thing or two about what you learned that is important form living for how ever many years you had.

Instead there is a list of what high school you went to and who your second cousin is.

When I die I am going to write a long obituary not about what I did or did not accomplish or who I married or how my kid turned out.

I am going to write about what is most important for anyone to know about me, Yes I was a painter but that is not important. I have people but they also are not important. What I can share as I am leaving this world, that is important. I would love to read anyones last thoughts . You don’t know what you would say until you are there but I imagine they would be worthwhile.

Lived and died yes but what was significant in between those dates in what matters.