Valentine Guide

Drat! Valentine's in only a couple of days, and little Steven has already got me beat: last week, he gave me my present early (he can't stand to have a present and not give it; they burn a hole in his pocket). And even worse, it was the type of not-at-all-romantic-but-endlessly-perceptive present that blows all conventional gifts out the window. The kind that shows how well you know and care about someone without relying on any of the conventions of the day (Roses? Blech. Chocolates in boxes? Maybe on my deathbed).

No, no! None of these fripperies for me -- Steven gave me a laser measuring tape by Bosch.



Excellent gift. But very particular, to be sure. There are more universal, not-boring Valentine's gifts to be had, though. Let's see, what has Thriller taught us?



Nothing more romantic than mutual fear! How about this, for the cold nights before Spring comes?



I think Steven might have marks from my nails permanently marking his upper arm. Those owls are scary! But it's a perfect thing to watch with someone you feel safe with.

Or for a younger, untested relationship, I think a little light music would be appropriate:



like 69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields. It covers everything from the sweet types of love to obsession and worse. My theme song for years was Chicken with its Head Cut Off:



Or when all else fails, give a gift that actually loves it's new owner, like an Irish Wolfhound!



Yeah! Hear that, Steven?

Sidelong Glances

My love of all things small is well documented, and extends to miniature portraits painted on ivory. After my first trip to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, all else was eclipsed by the miniature portraits, running all the way from Elizabethan courtiers through Georgian nobles. Quite a sight. But nothing caught the imagination more than eye portraits:



They have an interesting story ...



Apparently they developed "... when the Prince of Wales (to become George IV) wanted to exchange a token of love with the Catholic widow (of Edward Weld who died 3 months into the marriage) Maria Fitzherbert. The court denounced the romance as unacceptable, though a court miniaturist developed the idea of painting the eye and the surrounding facial region as a way of keeping anonymity. "



"The pair were married on December 15, 1785, but this was considered invalid by the Royal Marriages Act because it had not been approved by George III, but Fitzherbert’s Catholic persuasion would have tainted any chance of approval. Maria’s eye portrait was worn by George under his lapel in a locket as a memento of her love. This was the catalyst that began the popularity of lover’s eyes."



"From its inception, the very nature of wearing the eye is a personal one and a statement of love by the wearer. Not having marks of identification, the wearer and the piece are intrinsically linked, rather than a jewellery item which can exist without the necessity of the wearer."
Via



And "focusing on only the eye, often represented with eyebrow and lashes. A wisp of hair, the suggestion of sideburn or the bridge of a nose would hint at the owner’s identity but never reveal it."



"A border of clouds frequently encircled the image, further accentuating the mystery surrounding it. Such portraits appeared between the 1790s and 1820s in the courts and affluent households of England, Russia, France and even, quite rarely, America. In all, Weber estimates that fewer than a thousand were produced."
Via



What an expression of love. And you can order your own beautifully made example, here. (Though I would suggest having it fit into an old locket or broach.)

Transient Comforts

You know, I've never really been a camping person. I mean, I love nature, but I also like showers and sheets. However, I think I could handle something along these lines:



alla Peter Beard.

People I've Never Met, But Am Convinced I'd Be Fast Friends With: Agnes Varda

February is the month of love, and I've decided to write a love letter.

Oh, Agnes Varda. Could anyone possibly be cooler? Here you are on the beach, wearing an antique ex voto as a necklace:



How fitting that it is a pair of eyes, as sight and visual storytelling are the causes you have devoted your life to. Also, tenderness and human struggle, compassion and survival, I think. Her films were some of the first foreign pictures that I encountered, and they had a lasting impact on me. These were the first two:



This is a piece of Cléo de 5 à 7; it doesn't have subtitles, but the only important thing to know is that Cléo is awaiting something anxiously, and wanders the streets of Paris aimlessly.



Could the camera work be more fluid? The editing more masterful? Men stare. The song she plays in the cafe is her own: her fame as a singer is ascendant, but she seems to feel none of the pleasure in this. A mysterious figure who appears to be her double leaves the cafe just ahead of Cléo, and she continues on her way.

It is an extraordinarily modest film that manages great depth of perception and meaning. I recommend it highly. Ditto Vagabond, which is nearly perfect.

She seems to live a charmed life, Ms. Varda; she sails on Seine:



Lives and works in this little pink house on a quiet Paris street:



This is a publicity photo, but I love to imagine her working in exactly such a setting. Here she is, dead center:



And she took my favorite portrait of Alexander Calder:



He was a friend. And for pete's sake, she was married to Jacques Demy! It's just too much.

Pangs of Longing

-- brought on by this gouache at Simon Dickinson, by Kees Van Dongen, from 1908:



It's true I want it, but mostly it reminds me so strongly of my Holly: a little florescence and a touch of elegance, and you've got a dead ringer. But she's all the way in Bangalore, designing textiles and toiling away at the mill ... Holly is my Agnes Varda.

If Only I Could Live in Paintings

I have loved the work of Fairfield Porter for years, what little of it I've been able to see first hand. For whatever reason, he seems not to be considered top drawer -- but I would put him with the likes of Vuillard and Bonnard with his unerring skill in representing figures in interiors.



I feel like I know this room and I know this boy. Porter's depiction of familiarity is unerring, and what remarkable subtlety of color in a picture that is essentially red and green. As I type this I sit at a table similarly arranged, with all essential items around me. The boy in the painting has arranged a room within the room, with borders as tangible as walls.

And I love the raven painting, wallpaper, and almost humorously recognizable objects -- the green shaded library lamp, the ebonized chair. Welcome home.

PS. I checked out the Wikipedia entry on Porter, and the writer also compares his work to Vuillard and Bonnard; I guess I wasn't getting that from nowhere. Well I never.

A Room Made of Porcelain and Filled with Silver: Koldinghus

When I was living in Rome and Steven was searching for the apartment we would live in together here, in Providence, I had three requests: dishwasher, nothing ground floor and no landlord restrictions on painting the walls -- I simply can not live with white walls. They are fine in galleries (though aren't the colored walls in the Met or the Frick a revelation?), Tadao Ando interiors and dressing rooms, but otherwise, why is white the standard? It makes life so dull. The Apple Store interiors are so over (though I think what they're really going for, rather than white, is transparency).

However, I concede that this room is exquisite:



Stanley Kubrick, anyone? It's like heaven by way of Jansen. Loving this room is like saying you enjoyed the public rest room in the British Museum -- the main attraction of Koldinghus is that it is an 11th century Danish royal castle, largely ruined and reworked beautifully in the 80s by Inger og Johannes Exner (post forthcoming). This neoclassical room is admittedly frivolous, a strange and inappropriate thing to find in a Medieval castle, but I couldn't stop myself from loving it.

And now facing the other direction:



It's balance is almost unnerving. But like so many things I love, on closer inspection it has a certain lovely clumsiness that endears it to me even more:



What is going on with that banister? In a country of shipwrights you couldn't find someone who could manage a banister with an evenly curved transition? And the spindles look spindley, don't they? So slight and inarticulate.

How pretty this awkward little table with a porcelain tray top? The blue dentals look pasted on; it is precious and looks like it was made from a few cigar boxes one afternoon:





And the columns, carved from single logs, are going the way of all dried wood -- splitting and showing the most magnificent flaws. I truly love this space.



And we haven't even talked about the floors, which everyone both sides of the Atlantic seems to be after, or the collection of silverwork it holds or the incredible use of natural light. To stand in this space feels like being encased in bisque.

Movie Night, Anyone? Andy Picks "Tale of Tales" by Yuri Norstein

My brother Andy wrote me recently, and I will reproduce his letter here, as I find it charming and introduction enough to Tale of Tales:

"Alla brought Yuri Norstein, the most famous Russian animator ever, to Chicago, and a couple nights ago I went to see a screening of one of his films/Q&A. He was cantankerous and old and absolutely repulsed by the idea of computers being used for anything; whenever someone asked how something was done, he began his reply with, 'Not with a computer!' But he's been working on his latest film for thirty years, and I can't help but feel like a computer could have sped things up a little..."



"(As an aside, the film he's working on is an adaptation of Gogol's story The Overcoat, which I haven't read, but the conversation got heated when some members of the U of C Slavic department disagreed with his interpretation of the main character. It was hilarious: a lot of over-educated people asking questions the chief purpose of which was to demonstrate their own erudition: a lot of frenzied Russian; an old man defending his reading of a story that had been his passion for longer than we've been alive.)"



"Anyway, the film they screened is called Tale of Tales. I found it beautiful, sad, and at times creepy, and you should see it if you haven't already. It's won a million awards and is a favorite film of Miyazaki's.

It's too bad there's not a higher quality video of it, because the detail and technical perfection of the film print are a little sullied by the transition to a fuzzy mess. Still, I thought you might enjoy it. I have a weakness for sad-eyed little wolves."

As do I, Andy, as do I.

A City in Winter

I like winter, I really do. No one ever seems to believe me. I think it's because I grew up in Chicago, where winter requires a heightened state of being, where to dally could mean frostbite or worse. Winter is a time of activity, hurried steps and places of warmth and deepest cold. I miss those winter days, and these photos my father took a few weeks ago really take me back.



My appreciation for austerity was born here, on the leafless, barren planes, interupted by empty parks and endlessly tall buildings that fade into the overcast sky. Even popular places become like ruins in winter:



Even silly buildings look sedate in the cold. To touch the titanium skin of Gehry's bandshell would stick your hand to the spot:



Winter is one of the few things I miss. The people of New England are proud of their winters, and by extension their endurance in surviving them, but winter in New England is but a mild Spring in the Midwest. I miss the real thing.

And I think my dad's pictures are beautiful.

The Bogalusa Story

I have absolutely no idea how I stumbled across this scanned book, Bogalusa Story by C.W. Goodyear, or why it so fascinates me, but I've been obsessed with this illustrated account of Bogalusa, Louisiana, for months. Maybe it's the epic sweep of the story presented, the melancholy throughout or my dream that Terrence Mallick would take up the trajectory of this town for his latest film.

First, there were trees:



Then modest homes with modest people. This was one of the grandest homes in town, owned by the preacher:



(Note the exemplary picket fence, with long, slender pickets arranged symmetrically. Very simple and handsome. You can also see all the way through the house -- I'm betting this was a shotgun style.)

People from outside the area come prospecting for trees, and see how good they are in Bogalusa, how fine and plentiful:



Logging operations are established, exactly like this one in Pennsylvania, and owned by the same family who cleared Bogalusa, the Goodyears:



Trains, to carry people and lumber:



(Who do you suppose this is? All things seem to revolve around him.)



And along the way, a flowering, a windfall of money that gave rise to a temporary and short-lived gentility. Horse shows at the country club:



It took a while, but in a few decades virtually everything had this appearance, of nakedness and loss. Hillsides denuded of trees:



But elsewhere, on the grounds of the Goodyear Estate, things seem to be going well. The title of this photo is "A Favourite Spot for Madam," and Mrs. Goodyear can be seen seated in the foreground of this terrace:



Who wouldn't love herringbone bricks and a row of doric columns? But my favorite is the table:



What do you supposed it is? The lion resembles column supports found in the cloisters of monasteries in Spain, but it also resembles a classical sarcophagus support. It's probably about as old as the trees that paid for it. At any rate, rest assured it was not born in Bogalusa.

And when they were done, they were nice enough to hang a plaque:



Thirty years.

But where do you think the table from the terrace is now?

Smoke, No Mirrors: the Wonderful Work of Oliver Kosta Thefaine

When I was a child I was wildly into Egyptology, and read accounts of early archeology in Egypt breathlessly, weeping over the atrocities committed by Belzoni and reading a facsimile of his Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia like a fiend.



My indignation at his violent excavation techniques and treasure-hunting ways was fed by jealousy that I couldn't unwrap mummies myself. But one practice that made me livid was the signing of the ceilings of tombs and temple by European tourists with the smoke from torches. In retrospect, it's probably a lot easier to clean soot that deal with a name gouged into stone.



But anyway. A few months ago I saw these on Yatzer:



They're the work of artist Oliver Kosta Thefaine, and I adore them. It never occurred to me that this same torch-writing technique could be used to such stunning effect:





Here he riffs off some exiting Victorian plasterwork:



I would love to have Mr. Kosta Thefaine over for dinner and arm him with some smoky candles to do his thing throughout my house, and he is more than welcome to violate my future tomb whenever he likes.

My Own Folly: the 5 Sense Brand

All this talk of silly things has reminded me of one of my own projects, a proposal for a small luxury shopping mall in Boston, destined to inhabit this rather dull little building across the street from Boston Common:



The studio I was in at the time could not have been more out of step with the times, as much as I loved it; we were tasked with creating a retail space for luxury brands in the Fall of 2008, just as everything was falling through the floor in the luxury market. Each of the 5 floors was to house a different brand relating to one of the senses. I'd been spending much time looking through 19th century French decorating catalogues in the Library of Congress collection (tipped off by Steven's father, a librarian at one of Brown's libraries), and developed a scheme referencing these bizarre tables:



The notion of dragging natural beauty into an interior, pulling-up the park to fill the drawing room, informed my idea of how to better join this lackluster building to the park beyond. I wanted a visceral connection, a sensual experience in the great tradition of garden follies, meant to be smelled, touched and tasted.



To that end, I focused all attention on the park and hid the first floor from the busy streetscape with a system of canted walls that collected light from above, while filling the windows of the upper story with espalier that follows and reinforces the lines of the mullions:



Entering off the main road, the first floor houses Other Music, a NY-based music shop featuring primarily indie music; they have a tradition of in-store performances, and to that end roll away carts hold CDs, while listening and downloading stations fill the niches created by the canted walls:



Now up the stairs, in a natural rust, with walls of mercury glass, topped with a glass-bottomed reservoir. Light filters through the water and bounces off the irregular glass on each floor:



The second floor houses a Boston chapter of C.B. I Hate Perfume, Brooklyn-based purveyor of exquisite scent. Many of the fragrances are based on the memories of the creator, Christian Brosius (quite a character, but a brilliant nose). Something very special was necessary. To that end, I developed hedges that you could reach into to find the various scent bottles, combining the joy of discovery with remembrance of times past through scent (thank you, Proust):



The hedges, visible as diagonal forms in the plans, were formed from macrame writ large, in a pattern I developed:



Other floors received similar treatment, with different patterns of macrame:





But I must admit, my favorite element is the mercury glass and rust stair: