Wild Side

A fire burns in my soul, it colors my imagination with wild dreams and the hope that somehow life’s moments are meant to be savored like a rare steak on a round table and shared with friends and family.

Van Gogh colors with a modern round dining table

Happiness Therapy

Happiness Therapy in 20 seconds

Question: What to do with the stuff that can’t be controlled, with the junk that is gunking you up? How to get from angry and fed up to peace and happiness? 

Answer: Go to a happy place, remember a happy time, smile and peace and happiness will follow.

Serenity Lake, Anywhere, USA

Or, Listen to Paul Mauriat on Youtube

Wasted Time

Do not think it wasted time to submit yourself to any influence that will bring upon you any noble feeling. — John James Ruskin

The Kansas weather this past week has been overcast. Gloomy weather gives one pause. There is time to enjoy the simple pleasures of life -- to realize that walking the paths of nature with my two dogs is not a wasted moment but a noble task.

The red and gold of autumn

John Ruskin (February 8, 1819 – January 20, 1900) was the leading English art critic of Victorian England, also an art patron, painter, writer, philosopher and philanthropist, and finally social thinker.

In 1884, he gave a series of two lectures to the London Institution entitled, The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth-Century, an anecdotal account of the effects of industrialization on weather. In forty years of observation, from 1831 to 1871, Ruskin concluded, storm clouds were gradually gathering and staying over the skies of Europe.

In those old days, when weather was fine, it was luxuriously fine; when it was bad—it was often abominably bad, but it had its fit of temper and was done with it—it didn’t sulk for three months without letting you see the sun,—nor send you one cyclone inside out, every Saturday afternoon, and another outside in, every Monday morning.

In everything that Ruskin did and wrote about, he emphasized the relationship between nature, art, and society. Family remained for him the core unit around which society is developed.

John Ruskin was a contemporary of Scottish-American naturalist and environmentalist, John Muir. Ruskin’s writings and works influenced both William Morris and Gustav Stickley, and the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early twentieth century.

Celebrate Art

“Buy what you love” is a common piece of advice in the art world.

I love Paris even when it rains

One never knows if a budding artist will one day become celebrated - a Van Gogh or Picasso, an Andy Warhol or Jackson Pollock. Are you familiar with artists the likes of Diane Arbus and Ida Applebroog, Nuno de Campos and Dan Christensen. They too are well known in the art circles, but they may not yet be household names. And if you are lucky enough to own an image by one of these artists, someday your children may be rich. But for now, enjoy.

Art takes away to new places

Art is perhaps more of a passion than a desire for perfection. We are passionate about the people we know, the places we have been, and the images that excite our minds. So too, the art that we display should reflect those places and images. They recall to mind pleasant reveries.

By celebrating art, we celebrate life.

Wow!

Good design follows certain rules, but sometimes rules need to be broken. Life should be whimsical, casual, comfortable, and fun.

Imagine Dr. Seuss writing The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. He is comfortable seated on the couch with a quill feather pen and a brandy snifter, laughing outloud at a ridiculous thought. Dr. Seuss got the idea for the story while riding on a New York subway behind a man who was wearing a hat. A bit stuffy and formal, Dr. Seuss thought, what would happen if he would take off his hat and throw it out the subway window.

At Traditions, we too like to have a little fun.

Century curved sofa, Traditions Furniture

Pointillism

Just a random thought. 

a view of Mt. Pilot, North Carolina

Today, I am thinking about Pointillism, a technique of painting in small, distinct dots of pure color, so as to apply a pattern and form a larger image. The technique was developed in 1886 by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, as a new direction from Impressionism. Vincent Van Gogh adopted the technique, then adapted it by using short brush strokes (lines) instead of points. 

On the way to Mt. Pilot, North Carolina

If we think about digital design, there is a correlation. Pointillism relies on the ability of the eye and mind to blend points of color into a complete image; much like the digital camera takes solitary pixels and creates an image. 

self-portrait of Vincent Van Gogh from Wikipedia

Virgo

Virgo by Sid Dickens

Ergo, said Vergil 

Who grows the crops 
Or moves the stars 
Across the starry skies
Oh Maecenas, you need not worry 

He also thought 
To marry the pruned elm tree 
With the wild green vine, 
Thankfully, gave us wine 

He that cares what oxen need 
Insures new seed each year 
And gave us time enough 
To enjoy our simple lives 

Oh Maecenas, worry not
Just pray to God 
While you watch the cattle 
And nod your head in sleep

Under a sturdy oak tree
For, he above tends the bees
So, too He gave us honey
To sweeten our lives a bit

O bright September morning light, 
This thought
Comes to me 
When Virgo rises in the sky 

Ergo, said Vergil
In Autumn 
When His work is done
There's time to have some fun

 Loosely based on Vergil's Georgics, The Introduction. 

Quid faciat laetas segetes,
quo sidere terram vertere,
Maecenas,
ulmisque adiungere vitis conveniat,
quae cura boum,
qui cultus habendo sit pecori,
apibus quanta experientia parcis,
hinc canere incipiam.
Vos, o clarissima mundi lumina,
labentem caelo quae ducitis annum,