My Kind of Town

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Right. Painting, packing, primping to get ready for DbD on Friday (really Thursday as Thursday is set up.) Oh! And. And I’m going to Chicago Friday morning. Chicago really came first. That is, the plan to go to Chicago came first, then I decided to do the table and turn my entire family’s week upside down. My friend who looks like a young Carolina Herrera said, “Yeah. Sometimes you have to do stuff like that.”

I’ve never had a bad time in Chicago and with my saying that you should know that I once was involved in an U Haul accident that took out a cash machine there on New Year’s Eve. This trip had a similar evolution. I had told Thomas O’Brien that I would come up and hear him speak when he was in Chicago, then my on-line friend Magnaverde emailed to say, “O’Brien is coming on the 30th,” and all of a sudden the entire design universe seemed to align.

Really, seeing O’Brien, meeting Magna, I couldn’t quite imagine anything better and then Rick Ege emailed to say that he would be exhibiting at the International Antique Fair (also in the Merchandise Mart) and I almost fell out of my chair. Ege’s shop is in St. Louis and I keep up on it on Rick’s blog. He’s friends with Christopher Filley just so you know we are all peas in a pod.

But wait, it gets better. As fortune would have it, I will also have the opportunity to meet Marija, who writes the blog Holding Court. If you haven’t checked it out, you should; Marija’s got a good thing going over there.

I’d say come out to hear O’Brien, but I fear his talk and book signing are full. Still, the Antique Fair should be great. I can’t wait. I just hope there aren’t police. With the cash machine thing there were police.
Images from top, Rick Ege’s wares at the Chicago Botanic Garden Antiques Fair last week. Don’t fall in love with those Saarinen chairs as they sold, but the terrific botanicals in the silver leaf frames could be yours. Marija’s stylish tablescape via Holding Court and Thomas O’Brien.
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Floored

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“Could you help me carry a few things in from the garage?”

“What is this?”
“Well. Well, I thought the Dining by Design table needed a rug. You know, to define the space a little better.”
“Uh huh. Where did you get these things?”
“Lowe’s. Jimenez told me about it.”
“How did you get them in your car?”
“Oh, there was the nicest man there; he loaded them up for me.”
“And they fit?”
“Well, not exactly. They had to go up over my headrest.”
“So, they were basically on your head for the ride home. And you couldn’t see out the back.”
“Basically.”
“And why are we taking them into the living room?”
“I just can’t quite figure out what I’m going to paint on them and I can’t get a sense of the scale until they are all together.”
“You’re going to paint them.”
“Right.”
“But not in the living room? In the garage. Or how about the basement?”
“Huh.”
But he knew from the start that I was going to paint them in the living room, just as the nice man at Lowe’s knew that I was not going to come back with a bigger car, but was going to figure out how to take these three four-by-eight pieces of laminate home right then.
I hate math, it’s such an inconvenience, but I measured a little then got out the yardstick. I was off, of course, and things had to be reconnoitered. I hate that. So I ignored the incorrectly measured part and went ahead and painted the border. I wanted to paint; I did not want to measure. When I finished the border, I stood back admiring my work, grateful for creative friends and low-priced home goods stores. Painting the floor in the living room was fine, bother Mr. Blandings and his concern.
Then I felt a nudge. Not of conscience or of sense. A nose nudge. About mid-thigh. It’s a common experience as it is Rosie’s usual way of letting me know I have forgotten her walk or her food or fetch. As I looked down into her amber eyes I realized that I had not quite accounted for keeping the dog off of the “rug.” She does not follow verbal instructions as well as the boys, which frankly is not all that well either.
So for a week Mr. Blandings and the boys have said nothing as half of the downstairs is blocked off with chairs and tables as they all work around me.
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Hindsight

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I’ve wanted glasses since my first eye test at school in third grade. Glasses held such an allure. I talk with my hands and I could imagine, even then, taking them off, chewing on the end of the arm while considering Bomb Pop or Push Up. I could imagine wildly gesturing with them as I made my case for one more episode of Scooby Doo. I could imagine them as the unspoken explanation of why I was reading Nancy Drew instead of playing kick ball. Alas, it was not to be. Worse, 20/10.

On Saturday, after a little running around in the morning, I came home to read in bed. I had about an hour before the next soccer game and I banned the boys from the room so I could sit and relax. I lay in the quiet and cool and read the just-arrived issue of Vogue. When it was time to go I put the magazine down on the bed and placed my glasses on top. With that gesture I realized that I have finally become the age that I have felt that I was since I was nine years old.
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Results Oriented

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I know that many of you click on that little “comments” link at the bottom of the posts, but many more do not. As there were a lot of interesting responses to Friday’s post, I thought I’d sum them up here. Readers overwhelmingly declared that one of the most significant developments in the last twenty years was expansion of the the availability of good design at all price points. Retailers like Target, IKEA and Pottery Barn and designers like Martha Stewart and Thomas O’Brien have provided stylish products at affordable prices; beyond providing the stuff, they have been an interesting influence on design awareness.


Design television. Love it or hate it (or both), television programming has given the average viewer the sense that they can, in fact, do it themselves. Sometimes in a day and under $200. While this can often complicate the expectations between client and designer, I would imagine it has liberated a few folks to give it a go. That’s not altogether a bad thing.

I am lumping these major influencers together. Apple and the internet. Many people cited the iMac, iPhone and iPad as significant forces in design. The internet has basically blown the thing wide open. The “democratization of design” has allowed anyone in a developed country to search for inspiration, product and pricing on everything from towels and toothbrushes to Titian and T. H. Robsjohn Gibbings. And, like it or not, that genie is not going back in the bottle. Designers, antique dealers and shop owners have to adjust.

Philippe Starck’s Ghost Chair was mentioned more than any other single thing. The marriage of traditional design with a modern composition set it apart as an icon of the turn of the century. (In this little poll, anyway.) This mix of high and low, old and new, was also noted as a significant movement of the last twenty years.

Oh, Tom. You were on my list, of course, but as it turns out there were a few others who could feel your, um, impact. Ford’s influence at Gucci as well as Calvin Klein’s 90’s minimalism and Alexander McQueen’s maximalism have made us see all design differently in the last twenty years.

Takashi Murakami and his low-culture/high-art Superflat style came up again and again.

And many of us have gone green. Sustainability in product, architecture, landscaping and design is everywhere so environmental responsibility does not mean you are limited to a 1970’s crunchy granola aesthetic.

Readers extolled the work of Frank Gehry, I.M. Pei, Richard Meier and Zaha Hadid in architecture.


And, since this is a Kansas City-based blog, the Bloch Building at the Nelson-Atkins came up as well. Thanks to all of you who took the time to comment or email; I had a blast reading your responses.
Images via Target, HGTV, everymac.com, DWR, the Fashionisto, the Gothamist, the Guggenheim and the Nelson.
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Reader Poll

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I’m working on a little something for Dining by Design. What do you think are some of the most significant design moments of the last twenty years? Not just interior design. Architecture, fashion or graphic design. Movement, product or influencer.

You don’t have to over-think it. You don’t have to impress. Just tell me what you think.
Image of Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilboa from here.
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