Lina's Lookbook

Brisbane's Colonial Cottage Architecture

2009-07-19T12:22:00.001-05:00

It's always fun to see how people in warm climates deal with "winter" weather. I was actually impressed by how reasonable the inhabitants of Brisbane, Australia were in July. No ridiculously large scarves or warm coats, like you might see in LA in 50 degree weather. The architecture, however, was a different story. Brisbane has a great collection of Victorian cottages that were clearly built by people who showed up in summer and couldn't imagine it would ever get cold. One of which was the very cute guest house where I stayed:

Some of the porches were clearly glassed in or boarded up for winter.

But others retained their wide open aspect, with nice deep verandas to enjoy the hilltop views.

New Orleans: Arts Warehouse District

2009-04-15T14:20:00.000-05:00

Between the Garden District and the French Quarter lies downtown and an area cunningly named the Arts Warehouse District, with, you guessed it, old warehouses, art galleries, and museums. In general New Orleans feels like a cross between downtown Manhattan and Charleston, South Carolina. I hope some of these bring that across . . .

New Orleans: French Quarter

2009-04-14T14:03:00.001-05:00

The French Quarter really is as amazing as everyone says. Every where you go you see incredible architecture, hear live music, and can get a drink to go from the bar. Remember you can click on the pictures below to get a larger view.

New Orleans: The Garden District

2009-04-13T13:12:00.001-05:00

I recently jumped at the chance to attend a conference in New Orleans over Easter weekend. I began my three day visit in the Garden District and immediately wanted to move there. Some highlights:

A Captain's Desk

2008-11-30T17:04:00.007-05:00

On a recent trip home, my father proudly showed me one of our family's more infamous heirlooms, which had recently come down to him. Known amongst the relatives as the "Captain's Desk," it was built for my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Ebenezer Cooley (really, shouldn't everyone have someone named Ebenezer in their family tree?).

He was born in 1768 in Sunderland Massachusetts, but lived most of his life in Norwich, Connecticut, where he died in 1838. Good ol' Eb really was a captain with a ship of his own that he used to ship goods to and from the West Indies. So he likely imported his own exotic hardwood up to Connecticut and had a local joiner make him a desk.

Of course, what most excited my dad about the desk was its "secret" drawer. As in many desks of the period, the small central door opens onto an arched cavity, but the decorative bit of woodwork at the top of the archway is actually a drawer that can be pulled forward.

What my dad didn't know is that once you take that drawer out, you can also pull out the side walls of the cavity. Each "wall" is actually a thin wooden box with about an inch-wide hollow slot. It was pretty great to see the look on my parents' faces when I revealed this extra layer of secret compartmentation to them. I guess I really am learning something about antiques!

Chipstone House

2008-10-15T16:38:00.000-05:00

Taking a class in another department is always valuable, not only because you get to work on something totally different, but also because it inevitably makes you appreciate your own department all the more. This is being brought home to me again this semester, now that I'm taking a class taught by a folklorist in the Landscape Architecture department on "Cultural Landscape History, Theory, and Preservation." I was sort of hoping for a class about the history of landscape design, featuring the likes of Capability Brown and Frederick Law Olmstead, but mostly what we talk about is the preservation of historic buildings, because for better or worse that's what our preservation programs privilege.

But at least that means I can do a project on architecture, which I get to talk about but rarely. The working title of my final paper is Curating the Cultural Landscape: Chipstone House as Historical Property and it will examine Chipstone House, a 1949 neo-colonial mansion and its surrounding grounds, located in the Milwaukee suburb of Fox Point. The first question I want to raise relates to the discipline of landscape studies, and asks how J.B. Jackson’s definition of landscape as a collection of defined spaces relates landscape to other types of collecting and curatorial practices. J.B. Jackson is a seminal figure for the study of vernacular landscapes, but it feels like his groundbreaking ideas haven't sufficiently carried over to curatorial practice. This is particularly pertinent to Chipstone House since it is now the headquarters of the Chipstone Foundation, which curates the collection of early-American decorative arts begun by the house’s original owners, Stanley and Polly Stone. If we take Jackson's point that the interior and exterior landscapes of Chipstone House are collections, then how have they been curated? And how do these landscape curatorial practices relate to those used to curate what is better known as the “Chipstone Collection” of decorative arts?

My secondary point is about the role historicism played in the cultural landscape of Chipstone House. It was designed by Andrew Hepburn, an architect whose firm had been charged with restoring Colonial Williamsburg, and it's more or less a domestic version of Williamsburg's Governors Palace (above). Chipstone House clearly relates to a wider American interest in an idealized colonial past, but what I want to suggest is that Chipstone’s emulation of the historical properties in Williamsburg constructs history itself as property, as cultural capital or a commodity that can be bought and displayed.

Keramic Art of Japan

2008-09-20T15:50:00.000-05:00

Last year I came across this book Keramic Art of Japan in our art library, and I've been more or less obsessed with it ever since. It was published in England in 1875, and it's basically an illustrated catalog of Japanese ceramics in various public and private collections. But the illustrations! In addition to photographs and photolithographs, it has the most extraordinary chromolithographs I've ever seen in person. They were done by a French firm and each image required a whole series of hand-drawn lithographic stones, one for each color and shade. They are so detailed, so colorful, so three-dimensional and yet so flat: their quality is almost magical.

This semester I'm finally getting to indulge my interest in Keramic Art of Japn by using it as the object of my final project for my class on "Dimensions of Material Culture." This will force me to look at the book as a material object: its size, bindings, printing, typography, etc., everything that isn't its text or its images. As an added bonus, I'm also giving a preliminary presentation on Keramic Art at a research colloquium on "Photography and the Technologies of Empire and Race" that's part of a Visual Culture Center conference here at UW-Madison. So I'll get to talk both about how all the images (even the chromolithographs) make use of photography, and how the book relates to England's imperialist attitudes towards Japan in the late-nineteenth century.

It's these later aspects--how the book uses mimetic technologies like photography and chromolithography, and how the book relates to Japonisme as a colonial discourse--that make me interested in using Keramic Art of Japan as a focus for my MA paper next semester. Specifically I want to compare what's going on in Keramic Art with the ways in which Japanese people were mimetically copied and mimicked by the English in popular illustrations and plays like Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado (as I discussed in my presentation for UCLA's Graduate Symposium on the Remnant). I have a hunch that one of the reasons Japonisme is under theorized in the scholarly literature is that Japonisme is thought to have been about decorative arts rather than figural representations. Even in my own department, with its emphases on material and visual culture, vases and parasols just don't register as having the same political consequences as images of people. Leaving aside that this plays right into nineteenth-century ideas of Japanese art as "merely" decorative, I hope that by looking at representations of Japanese people and objects in tandem I can demonstrate how they were unforunately equated.

Remnant Redux

2008-08-30T12:15:00.004-05:00

Following the basic rule of academia that no conference paper should actually correspond to the abstract you originally submitted for it, I've written my UCLA paper along slightly new lines. I was originally planning on tying in the whole "remnant" idea by talking about how the images medievalize Japanese people, that is, represent them as living in a colorful but outdated feudal society. But the problem with art history is that, contrary to popular belief, you can't just claim that the image looks like whatever you want. You need actual visual evidence, enough to convince a room full of people that they can see in the image what you can see. And the more I looked at these images, the less evidence I saw of medievalizing tendencies.

But what I did see more and more in the images was a certain theatricality. Platforms and stages, curtains, audiences, subjects directly addressing viewers: everything suggesting that Japanese people were seen not just as remnants of an "old" Japan, but also as performing remnants of their ancient civilization for western audiences. What's interesting about this emphasis is that these exhibitions were still seen as authentic, as providing a picture of "real" Japan, even when the exhibitions were frankly discussed as performances. Much like how a "staged" photograph was considered much more realistic in the 19th century than it would be today.

If westerners saw Japanese culture as more or less a performance, than the inevitable outcome is performances like Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado, in which "Japanese" culture can be performed not just for westerners but also by westerners. And in the inevitably unequal power relations of the time, Japanese people were not given the same privilege of being able to perform western culture. In fact, Japan was aggressively westernizing at the time, reforming their government, education system, and military along western lines, wearing western clothes, etc. Some of these policies were praised in the West, but others, particularly wearing western clothing, were openly ridiculed. So we get things like this image, which was an apparently hysterical picture of Japanese men in western dress, when it first appeared in an English periodical in 1877. It's humor lies mostly in how the man on the right is trying to get on his horse on the "wrong" side, and how the men on the left have top hats and clothes that don't fit properly by English standards. Images like this one confirmed the idea that Japanese people belonged in their "ancient" costumes and would never be able to out-westernize the West.

Japonist Remnants

2008-07-08T08:28:00.007-05:00

There's exciting news on the academic front: Lina is presenting at her very first conference. It's just a graduate symposium, but it's being held in the sunny locale of UCLA. I really liked the paper idea that I proposed for the conference, so I'm very excited that is was chosen, but now the problem is that I actually have to write the paper!

The theme of the symposium is "Remnants," which I can only assume was dreamed up during some sort of beach-side drug-induced powwow. It's a typical term for academia in that you thought it referred to something fairly specific, something left over or a surviving remainder, but once you try to define what might be and not be a remnant you realize that the term could encompass literally everything. As the symposium's organizers themselves pointed out, the entire "field of art history can be conceived of as a discourse of the remnant."

So the challenge in submitting an abstract to a symposium about everything is how to make your paper topic sound like it fits the theme without (a) sounding like everyone else's abstract and (b) using the word "remnant" 15 times in one paragraph. I wanted my topic to relate to Japonisme, but I also wanted the opportunity to write about something new, something I hadn't had a chance to discuss yet in my seminar papers. So I returned to some images I had come across last year that depict Japanese women for a western 19th century audience.

Basically, the abstract points out that even though some scholars have argued that Japonisme (the western interest in Japanese arts and society beginning in the mid-19th century) helped objectify Japanese people as having certain essentialist characteristics, visual representations of Japanese people have rarely been analyzed for how they might have contributed to this problem. So my paper argues that images of Japanese people that circulated in the west represented them as remnants, that is, not just as the remains of another far away culture, but also as the remains of a long ago civilization. By constructing Japanese people as remnants of an "old" Japan that was still going on, Japan gets constructed as a place living in the past, as a decidedly non-western, non-modern place.

I'm particularly into this image, which I found more recently, that represents a "Japanese Village" that was set up as a kind of amusement park in London. Newspaper articles from the time suggest that it was incredibly popular, with an average of 3,000 daily visitors, so popular in fact that an eager entrepreneur decided to set up an "Indian Village" along similar lines. Despite the different political relationships England had with India (its preeminent colony) and Japan (merely an economic and military dependent), the cultures of India and Japan were presented to the English public in sometimes similar ways. My favorite example of this is the Great Exhibition in Brussels, in which the English pavilion contained both an Indian village and a Japanese village, the latter graced with a statue of Queen Victoria. You really can't make this stuff up.

Frackelton's Dessert Plates

2008-06-14T17:30:00.000-05:00

The spring semester has come and gone, and although I mentioned them in my last entry, somehow I never got around to actually blogging about Susan Frackelton's Dessert Plates. This set of small (about 6" diameter) porcelain plates hand-painted by Susan Frackelton c. 1890 was the subject of my seminar paper for a methods & theories of material culture class. For those who don't know, "material culture" is a catch-all term for physical objects that aren't really considered art but that academics still like to study, for example, dessert plates.

My department (and art historians generally) maintains an annoying division between material culture and visual culture, as though visual culture doesn't take material form and material culture has no visual component. Everything I want to study (e.g. fashion, furniture) could be considered both material and visual culture, because they are often material objects that people use but are also culturally constructed and circulated through predominantly visual media (like magazines).

But that's a tangent for another time! Once again I seem to be trying to get out of writing about Frackelton's Dessert Plates, much as I was all last semester. For whatever reason I just couldn't get excited about these objects or the paper I wrote on them.

Sure they're prime examples of the nineteenth-century china-painting craze, which makes them exemplary of popular yet marginalized "women's" arts. Sure, they incorporate Japanese and other self-consciously artistic motifs, making them part and parcel of my developing ideas on Japonisme and the Aesthetic Movement. They are even rather pretty, and remind me of a prized set of china currently owned by my mother that at least two out of her three daughters have their eye on. But a twenty-page paper? Really?

Somehow, I managed it, and the professor duly praised it, but I can't help feeling like I was just going through the motions. I figure it was good practice for my future career as a museum curator, when presumably I will have to write many a catalog entry for objects that I find neither beautiful nor interesting. But don't let me influence your own opinion of these pieces of material/visual culture. Just ask yourselves, if you had twenty pages to fill, what would you say?

Goldsworthy Redux

2008-05-12T20:28:00.001-05:00

Two years ago I had the amazing experience of being an intern at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, an experience that was partially documented on my previous blog "The Starbucks Experiment" (so named because my day job, literally my 5 am to noon job, was at Starbucks). As readers of that blog know, my main project at NGA was to conduct research on Andy Goldsworthy, a contemporary British land artist who had recently completed a permanent work in the Gallery. However, Goldsworthy is better known for his "ephemeral" works, which usually involve tramping through the landscape and created a sculpture out of leaves or something that will disintegrate in a matter of time. What's interesting about these supposedly ephemeral works is that Goldsworthy always photographs them, as though to create a permanent record, gives the works a title and sells the photographs to the public in gallery-grade prints and mass-market books.

I've found myself thinking about these photo-works again in my visual culture theory class on "Word & Image," and conveniently enough, for our final project we were asked to revise our thinking on something we had worked on previously. This has given me the perfect opportunity to pour over my Goldsworthy research, which is much more voluminous than I remembered. It's basically my mini Arcades Project, about 50 pages of single-spaced typed notes, most of which are block quotes from various sources, organized under often-amusing headings like "how is Goldsworthy's work post-modern?" Even more amusing are my own comments, which reveal disturbingly simple ideas about words & images like "images are silent, words speak." How could a good art historian write such a thing!

So, for my paper I'm analyzing word-image combinations in Goldsworthy's most recent book,
Enclosure. And although they bring up lots of thorny issues that we've raised in class, I find myself coming back to the one word-image issue our class didn't address: titles. I never realized before how titles constitute Art (with a capital A). Example: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party designates an installation piece that is a work of art, as opposed to say, what you had to celebrate your birthday. But other objects that art historians study for their historical and aesthetic significance do not get italicized titles and, by implication, are not Art. Almost all decorative arts fall into this category, so that a set of works I'm writing on for another class are captioned as "Susan Frackelton, Dessert Plates, hand-painted porcelain, c. 1890" and not as "Susan Frackelton, Dessert Plates." What amazes me is the great lengths that art historians have gone to in order to preserve this "artist's name + italicized title = artwork" equation, routinely making up artist's names and titles like "The Master of the Apocalypse" (yes there really is one) or Still Life with Goblet.

Goldsworthy manipulates these conventions to distinguish between documentary and Art photography. Most of the photos that show the construction of his more permanent works are given simple captions. But when the photo is of an ephemeral work, that is, a work which no longer exists outside the photograph, then the image is designated as Art and captioned with an italicized title. I won't argue with the sheer convenience of italicizing titles of artworks, the way a simple change in typeface lets the reader know that the author means Judy Chicago's installation and not a form of hospitality involving the main meal of the day, but Goldsworthy's titles also show how they can be used to ease anxieties about what is and is not a work of art. Those conventions for separating art from non-art are worth questioning, and I'll argue with them in my own way, by boldly writing a seminar paper in which Susan Frackelton's Dessert Plates are italicized, each and every time.

Catherinettes

2008-05-08T18:04:00.005-05:00

Taking a medieval art class on "Pilgrimage and the Cult of Saints" seemed like a good opportunity to learn about my (sort of) namesake, St Catherine. There are actually two, St Catherine of Sienna having been named after St Catherine of Alexandria. I was more interested in St Catherine of Alexandria, not only for being the "original," but because I knew there was a recent reincarnation of her "cult" in the haute-couture houses of 20th century Paris. This cult was the subject of a Hollywood film staring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward called A New Kind of Love. Joanne Woodward plays Sam, a hard-working, short-haired career girl who gets mistaken for a man by Paul Newman's character, Steve. Sam works at a New York department store and is in Paris to attend the fashion shows, where she gets roped into the St Catherine's day festivities.
St Catherine is a patron saint of unmarried women, so that on her feast day, November 25th, couture houses gave lavish parties for all their unmarried models and salesgirls. Famous singers (in this case Maurice Chevalier in a cameo role) entertained and handed out special hats to the Catherinettes, those women who were at least 25 and still unwed. Not only is my first name Katharine, but this year (today in fact) I'm turning 25, and naturally I'm not married. So basically I've just been working on the history of myself.

After drinking and dancing at these parties, the Catherinettes marched to St Catherine’s shrine—actually just a statue on a street corner—left a bouquet of flowers, and asked for her to help them find husbands. Even though Sam claims to be uninterested in marriage, she drunkenly climbs the ladder to Catherine’s statue, which is on a building’s second-floor façade, and admits her private yearning for a husband. She then has a vision in which Catherine tells her to (what else?) go to Elizabeth Arden.

I couldn't exactly write my medieval-art seminar paper on a 1963 Hollywood film, but I was interested in how St Catherine, a virgin martyr who never married herself, came to be seen as a good person to turn to when you want to catch a husband. It turns out that unmarried women began visiting St Catherine shrines to ask for husband-hunting help since the 14th century. The explanation seems to be that around that time, Catherine became celebrated for her mystical marriage to Christ. Although this mystical marriage was usually depicted between the saint and a baby Jesus on Mary's lap, it was sometimes shown with Mary officiating at the marriage of St Catherine to a very handsome adult Christ. Historians figure that medieval women considered Christ the ultimate husband (always turns the other cheek, etc.) and since St Catherine was the paragon who got this heavenly spouse, she became the premiere saint of unmarried women.

So, I looked at a series of images of St Catherine and scenes from her life to trace how these changes affected the visual culture. This first one is called a vita icon, a portrait of the saint surrounded with narrative scenes. What interested me was the extent to which the saint was portrayed as a model of masculine behavior. Catherine was famous for being intelligent, eloquent, and highly educated in theology and the classics, and this icon emphasizes her ability to preach, convert pagans, and verbally defend her faith, just like any male apostle or bishop.

This altarpiece made a good transition. It retains this emphasis on Catherine's "masculine" behavior but includes the first known visual representation of her mystical marriage to Christ. This narrative takes place in the first four scenes on the upper-left, and depicts Catherine visiting a hermit to ask whom she should marry. He gives her an icon of the Virgin and Child and tells her to pray to them. They appear to the saint in a vision, and Mary tells Jesus to look on his new bride, but he refuses to do so. Catherine goes back to the hermit to be baptized, and in the next scene Mary weds her to the baby Jesus.

In the kind of awesome meta-move that academics just love, this next panel is a devotional image of St Catherine's mystical marriage to a handsome adult Christ that includes a donor portrait of the Franciscan nun who commissioned it. In other words, the nun (on the lower right) commissioned this panel painting so that she could use it as a devotional image that would aid her prayers for her own mystical marriage to Christ, and the nun's practice is a perfect imitation of what Catherine was depicted doing in the earlier altarpiece. Considering how sexualized the rhetoric around these "mystical" marriages got, it would be fun to see this kind of image as medieval nuns' porn, but do I really want to see my "patron" saint has a tool for sexual fantasy?

Signs

2008-04-05T12:10:00.011-05:00

And courtesy of Matthew Francis Rarey:

Spring Cleaning?

2008-03-31T11:45:00.000-05:00

For the past month, my fellow residents of Madison, WI and I have been wondering if today will be the first day of real spring. March has been less "in like a lion, out like a lamb" and more "in like a piranha, out like a barracuda," but seasonal changes, though subtle, have definitely occurred. Some signs of spring in the land of the long winter:

Proving that there really are only two seasons: winter and construction. State Street is torn up for some sort of pipe extraction installation exercise, reducing pedestrian space by about 90%, but at least we know that winter is on the wane!

Not to mention that the bulldozers look lovely dozing in the fading light.

The lakes are still frozen, but at least the huge banks of accumulated snow and ice have melted away. Like receding glaciers, they've exposed hidden treasures and left rubbish in their wake, so that I keep expecting to see a mammoth tusk on my way to campus.

We may not have any blossoming trees or actual flowers of any kind, but I'll settle for green shoots like these that are finally starting to emerge. And to really seal the deal, these two ducks camped out on my driveway and calmly let me take their picture, as if to say in a pompous tone: "We claim this ground for spring."

My (Finally Finished) Madison Apartment

2008-02-10T15:13:00.002-05:00

My roommate and I decorated our last apartment in just a few weeks, egging each other on the whole time. Living on my own means that there are fewer things I need to do right now, like the dishes and the interior design. So it's taken me a while longer to find the right furniture and frame all the pictures, but I'm happy to say that I'm done decorating my apartment. And I'm even happier to say how happy I am with the results. If you can stand it, view those results below in excruciating detail. You can click on each image to get a larger view and even compare my efforts with those of the previous tenant.

On the left is the view from the front door, giving you the lay of the land. The sofa sections off the "bedroom" from the "living room." On the right is the front door itself, and the little entryway. I added hooks over the closet door and some open shelving, both very useful in Wisconsin winters. In the foreground is my nightstand. Both items of furniture are recent acquisitions from my generous sister.

My Grandma Heidi recovered these bolsters (above and below left), which sort of form my headboard, and made them reversible. When I have green sheets on the bed, the bolsters are blue, and when my pink & red sheets are on, I flip the cushions to their warm side. You'll see that green and pink (or what I like to call raspberry) feature prominently throughout the apartment. The beautiful fabrics were a gift from my other grandmother. Above right is a view of my "bedroom," complete with a walk-in closet on the right. Above the bed is a vintage absinthe poster that got subjected to my DIY framing skills. In this picture you can see how it acts almost like a mirror, reflecting light around the room. Below right is a peak inside my dressing room, which I've recently ornamented with vintage French fashion prints.

Two views of the kitchen, which can be hidden from the rest of the room by those gauzy white curtains. The cabinet next to the fridge was an IKEA purchase, but the other cabinets are original to the apartment, maybe 1920s? It was these prewar details that made me fall in love with the place.

Of course, prewar kitchens don't have much counter space, so all of my appliances are kept high up on shelves. Being 5'9" definitely helps out in this kitchen. Prosaic items share space with art in shades of blue: on the wall is a print of Paris and on the shelf is a framed New Yorker cover from May 2005, a very thoughtful graduation gift from a friend's parents. The fridge is a new addition and too big for the space (it was the landlord's choice, not mine) but I've turned it into my temporary gallery space. Currently on view are some book jackets I rescued from the art library.

Another prewar feature of the kitchen is the super-cute super-small sink, whose hot and cold water taps are reversed. The matching blue sponge, dish soap, and salt are just a happy coincidence. On the right is a spot of green hanging to dry above my cheerful pig cutting board.

Between the kitchen alcove and the bathroom door there was just enough room for this fold-out table and chairs that I found deserted in the hallway of my building. Once again, my Grandma Heidi made the slipcovers for the chairs from leopard-print fleece. On the wall above is a photograph of Central Park, a gift from my parents, and a print by a contemporary Indian artist that my friend Varuni framed for me as another gift. On the right is the latest tablescape, flowers and clementines from the grocery store in a collection of milk glass.

The bathroom is similarly coordinated with green and pink details, even the hand soap scarily fits the color scheme. But I've added a different tone with this Gaugin reproduction, although even it arguably coordinates with the old tea tin on the windowsill.

Just outside the bathroom door is a low bookcase topped with a vignette of cocktail tools and figurines. One is an Oaxaca carving and the other is an action figure of Santa's Little Helper (the Simpsons' dog) who just happens to remind me of my own dog Lizzie, who I had to leave behind in DC. On the right is a butterfly chair (another thoughtful gift) for which my Grandma Heidi made yet another new slipcover. I "borrowed" the pharmacy lamp from my parents' house, and the end table is a collection of hat boxes topped by a glass pie plate.

The view out my huge window is stunning right now, all ice and snow and wide-open space. The windowsill is getting an organic touch from houseplants that were handed down to me by my sister. To the right are a trio of pictures by my desk. For the first time in this apartment I've organized art by the kind of frame it's in, so this grouping is all black. The large piece is a self-portrait that I recently framed in that shadowbox, another DIY near disaster.

Another view of the desk gives you an idea of how lovely it is to see the play of light in the apartment throughout the day. On the right, those beautiful bookcases are from Target and were put together almost singlehandedly by my Dad. The sofa and "coffee table" are both from Ikea. But the chair in the foreground (which you can also see in the very first picture) was found on the streets of Brooklyn for $10, and it was recovered by, you guessed it, Grandma Heidi.

In the spirit of Christmas, I added a garland to my ceiling light. Now it has a lovely kitschy chandelier quality that I have to keep. It sparkles day and night, just like the rest of my pad :)

Grimshaw's Summer

2007-12-09T15:56:00.000-05:00

So, the piece I've really been obsessing over this semester is Summer, a painting by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893). I had never heard of Grimshaw before this semester, and for good reason. He's more or less a provincial painter from Leeds, but in 1875 he did this interesting series of four paintings, including Summer at his house, Knostrop Hall, on the outskirts of Leeds.

Summer

In the Pleasaunce

Spring

Il Penseroso

They all depict a single female figure, they all show the cultivation of nature, and they all include at least one Japanese object as well as some sort of historical detail. I'm actually writing about Summer for two seminars, much to the chagrin on my professors. The first seminar is on Taste and the other is on Art & Empire, and between the two they would seem to cover all the interesting bits about these works. By the time I'm done I'll have written 40 pages on this image and still not have said it all. An art historian's work is never done . . .

Strolling through Meiji Japan

2007-11-05T10:48:00.000-05:00

Somehow or other, all the rest of my papers for this semester are about exchanges between Japan and the West in the late-nineteenth century. For my class on Japanese prints, we had to pick a topic relating to Yoshitoshi, considered the last great master of the ukiyo-e tradition. One of his most popular prints is "Stolling: the appearance of an upper-class wife of the Meiji era," which depicts a woman in (gasp!) western dress. This is particularly surprising coming from the traditionally oriented Yoshitoshi.

But it turns out that when this print was published in 1888, western dress was incredibly popular amongst upper-class women and even amongst geisha. Men adopted western dress first; it was mandated for military uniforms and then for bureaucrats. The empress and her court adopted western dress in 1886 and recommended that other women do the same in a mandate of 1887. There are many prints of the empress from this time that surely helped promote the fashion. Below we see the empress dressed in black in the middle, accompanied by the crown prince and flanked by court ladies sewing western clothing. The inscriptions on top are instructions in these new techniques.

Many of the pictures of the imperial couple wearing western clothing show them at some event that similarly symbolizes the modernization of Japan: the opening of a railroad, instructing school children, riding in a carriage, etc. But other images show them engaged in the rather traditional Japanese activity of viewing blossoms or foliage. "Strolling" similarly references the iris gardens in Tokyo, the Horokiri, which are shown below in a hand-painted photograph from the late nineteenth century.

So I'm interested in this tension between tradition and modernity, as well as the changing role of women that the print might represent. Part of the reason why upper-class Japanese women wore western dress was because they were entertaining westerners at balls and other new social events. Not only was it impossible to do the polka in a kimono, it was also entirely new for wives to interact socially with men at entertainments, since traditionally men were entertained by professional geisha. And as part of the social upheaval happening at this time, some geisha were actually marrying their patrons, themselves becoming wives of highly-placed men in government and hostesses at these international gatherings. Other geisha were wearing western clothing just to retain their usual places at the forefront of fashion. Since western dress eradicated tradition sartorial signs of rank and class, the emergence of this foreign dress may have reinforced the blurring of distinctions between the "upper-class wife" that is specified in "Strolling" and a geisha.

Jeremy Flattau

2007-10-28T10:34:00.000-05:00

Before I left New York, I was lucky enough to get a glimpse of Jeremy Flattau's work in various funky living rooms across Brooklyn. The subject content may be all about street cred but his works also have wonderful formal qualities. The colors are saturated and the paint has a sensual fluidity to it that draws you in. Very Rothko meets Warhol. Enjoy my favorites below and check out more at jeremyflattau.com

A Tondo Frame

2007-10-10T20:15:00.001-05:00

I recently had a conversation with some fellow graduate students on how the process of choosing, researching, and writing a paper resembles dating. First you play the field, meaning that you do some preliminary research try and find a paper topic. We agreed that choosing a topic is rather stressful, much like committing to a significant other. Then comes the really fun part, the sex, when you're doing your research. But eventually you have to actually produce something, which, like having kids, is supposedly rewarding but also involves a lot or work and anxiety. What if it turns out to be ugly or inarticulate?

In my introductory graduate seminar, we had to pick an object to write about throughout the semester. This forced us to commit to something early, but does somewhat relieve the stress of birthing your paper all at once at the end of the semester. My object is a frame. I picked it because it's large and elaborate and threatens to visually overwhelm the work of art it was supposedly designed to enhance.

The piece inside the frame is a marble bas-relief sculpture, in a round format known as a tondo, which dates from the 1490s and depicts Madonna & Child. The frame is definitely twentieth century, it was probably made in 1951 at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, when the tondo was being exhibited there. Yet it turns out that the frame uses a lot of Renaissance framing designs and techniques, so it seems to have been done in a self-consciously neo-Renaissance style.

I've been reading Derrida's essay on the "Parergon" (that which surrounds the work=the frame) which deconstructs the importance of the frame to modern aesthetics (since Kant). Basically the frame is essential in separating the space of Art from the space of everyday life, and this separation is the foundation for many of our assumptions about art. Because the frame belongs at once to both spaces and neither space, it is systematically disavowed and relegated to the status of vulgar sensual ornament, much like the decorative arts in general, it seems to me.

Let me know if you have any thoughts, after all, raising kids takes a village :)

The post-modernism all around us

2007-09-26T09:38:00.000-05:00

I am having a love affair with the Chazen, the building that houses the Chazen Museum of Art, the Kohler Art Library, and the art history department offices and classrooms here on the UW-Madison campus. I love the overstuffed leather chairs in the library, the elegant wood panelling in the seminar rooms, and the convenience of having everything in one place. I also love that one of the stone benches out front inscribed with the name of the museum has taken a turn for the worse. It has broken into two solid pieces and tumbled to the ground, and it now sits rather forlornly and absurdly covered by an orange and white painted barricade.

I love this ruined bench because it seems like a readymade piece of public conceptual art: an allusion to the broken institution of the museum, an examination of the band-aids that bourgeois culture slaps over its wounds, perhaps even a reference to the obstacles to art making. Its twin, still whole and sound, sits proudly across the way. In contrast it appears as a smug symbol of art's snobbery and claims to the completeness of a whole work of art. It is an embodiment of modern aestheticism, whereas my beloved broken bench embodies the post-modernism all around us, a youthful energy so vital it can tear a stone in two.

Amateur Flower Arrangements

2007-09-03T14:12:00.000-05:00

The only thing I bought during my recent experience at the Dane County Farmers' Market were some exquisite and inexpensive gladiolas. They make a perfect arrangement all on their lonesome, because their fluttery petals nicely balance their spiky stalks. Stick them in a trumpet vase and you get an arrangement with some flare.

I've been watching the light from my big picture window play on these gladiolas for a couple of days now, and I just had to take a picture. In fact, I usually take pictures of the flowers I arrange, like I need photographic evidence that I actually created something worth looking at. This arrangement of carnations I remember took me quite awhile. I was trying for a perfect dome of tightly-packed flowers and in the end I wound up with a vaguely circular shape.

I was somewhat more successful with this arrangnement of daffodils. My secret was leaving the rubber bands from the florist on and putting the flowers together as bunches instead of individual stems.

A much more (intentionally) free-form arrangement uses the same fishbowl vase to create a similar domed shape. This one mixes deep purple lilacs with some feathery chartreuse something or other.

I'm always keeping cut flowers out longer than I should. Once the petals start to drop my roommates hesitantly start asking me when I'm going to throw out the dying flowers and I start insisting they still have a few good days left. The arrangement above mixes thistle with virbinum, and while it wasn't my most successful it was long lasting (part of it anyway). I ditched the virbinum and kept the dried thistle around for months. In an even later incarnation I cut off all the dried green outer petals and put the purple cones in a little white teapot.

One of my favorite arrangements from the past year peppered dark carnations with ranuculus in shades of red and yellow. But of course you don't have to mix flowers to get color variations. What could look better with mauve tulips tinged in white then their own spring-green leaves and stems?

Let me know which arrangement was your favorite . . .

Dane Country Famers' Market

2007-09-01T17:33:00.000-05:00

As regular readers of the blog know, I had visited Madison a total of one time before I moved there a week and a half ago. The visit was brief, but although I was very much occupied with finding an apartment, I did manage to catch a few snippets of what life might be like in the capital of Wisconsin. There appeared to be, as you might expect in a university town of this size, quite a local music scene. There was a co-op in the hippy part of town, lots of sailboats on the lake, and a farmers market. So this morning I eagerly walked over to the capitol building to check out the last of these amenities. I was envisioning a few stalls along one side of the square and hoping for some flowers mixed in with the produce. What I found was an absolute crush of people slowing walking around the entire square, perusing organic vegetables, award-winning cheese, honey being sold next to a bees in a glass hive, potted plants, gladiolas for 60 cents a stem, fresh trout etc., etc. It certainly put the Union Square Market in New York to shame . . .

The market took up all four sides of the square around the state capitol building. People took a time out from the hectic pace of the market to relax on the squares verdant lawns. At the corners of the square, non-profits and political groups set up stands and tables to take advantage of the passing crowds.

Active shoppers battled though touristy crowds to get to the goods. Some of the produce displays rivaled the aesthetics of my beloved New York delis.

Potted plants share stall space with arrangements of dried flowers. Fall is right around the corner.

One clever farmer had even turned dried sunflower heads into these hanging bird feeders, seeds for everyone. The fun continued down State Street, which leads from the capitol to the UW campus. State Street was also lined with stands for the annual "Taste of Madison" fair, which I'm hoping is why the farmers' market was so crowded. Because if it's like this every Saturday, well, I'll just have to go on Wednesdays instead.

My Neighborhood Walking Tour

2007-08-07T13:24:00.000-05:00

Whenever I'm leaving a city that I've lived in, I make a point of wandering around with my camera. This weekend I'm leaving New York for the foreseeable future and entering phase one of my two-part move to Madison, Wisconsin, where I'll be starting a graduate degree in art history. Last weekend I couldn't exactly wander around all five boroughs, but in between sorting and packing I did manage to take one last walk around the neighborhood.

The Upper West Side has two basic streetscapes. On the left is one of the many charming tree lined blocks, still home to brownstones and other townhouses. On the right is one of the broad vista created by wide streets and heavy apartment buildings, each at an identical height, each with an identical doorman. There's no question which I'd rather live on.

I've come to think of my neighborhood as a stretch of Riverside Park bracketed by two memorials: the Soldiers and Sailors Monument at around 90th Street and Grant's Tomb at around 125th. The Soldiers and Sailors Monument, shown above left, is a tholos (a round temple form first used in ancient Greece) with Corinthian columns and an elaborate entablature and base. It is approached from the south through a lovely avenue of trees. Just below it on the Greenway section of the park is this lovely garden (above right), presided over by volunteer gardeners. Grant's tomb, below right, stands next to Riverside Church, below left, and they form an impressive sight peaking up from the trees along the river. At this point Grant's tomb is probably most famous for the question "who's buried at Grant's Tomb?" which only the most unthinking are supposed to answer wrong. I always thought that was because the answer is obviously in the title, Grant is buried is Grant's tomb, but it turns out that no one is. Grant is laid to rest there, but his body is above ground; he is entombed rather than buried.

One of my favorite things about summer is seeing and hearing little kids enjoy the sprinkler fountains around the city. There was one a few blocks away from my house growing up, so seeing them in New York brings back memories. But my favorite stretch of Riverside Park is probably this promenade, above right. It's wide, tree-lined, and dappled. It's also peppered with small overlooks, like the one below left, that offer closer views of the Hudson, below right.

Even when you walk up out of the park and onto Riverside Drive, you're surrounded by visual treats. There are still a surprising number of mansions, like this neo-Gothic one above right, that have been converted to apartments or non-profits. Entrances to the park are usually marked with large monuments, like this one above left at 106th Street.

One of the highlights along Riverside Drive is undoubtedly this Tibetan Church. The main entrance is through the modern building on the left, graced with an over life-sized statue, but the church also takes up the beaux-arts mansion on the right. Quite a combination.

Of course the neighborhood isn't all residential, but even our commercial areas have some gems. This stretch of Amsterdam Avenue, above left, converts from brunch land during the day to bar land at night. On the right is an unusual building at the corner of Broadway and 104th. It was built as an automat in the 1920s, an automat being basically a cafeteria full of vending machines. The automat as a general commercial endeavor was short-lived, but the word did make its way into the famous song "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" ("A kiss may be grand, but it/won't pay the rental/on your humble flat, or help you at the automat"). This building was recently landmarked for its Art Deco exterior and is now home to a Rite Aid and a non-profit.

But one of my favorite buildings in the neighborhood is this bizarre apartment unit at the end of my block, shown in the center of the photo above left. At the top floor of its cream facade, you can just make out what appear to be two peaks that have been filled in, as if the roof used to be two gables before being converted to the flat roof we see today. It makes the building seem like a cottage on steroids, as if some giant hand took hold of a townhouse and stretched it out. You get a great view of the building from Straus Park, which stands in the triangle formed when West End Avenue runs into Broadway at 107th Street. The park is dedicated to Mr. and Mrs. Straus, an elderly couple that died together on the Titanic. The focal point of the park, shown in the photo above right, is a statue of a reclining female figure that personifies Memory.

But the true gem of my neighborhood really is my block, and not only because I live there. It has an impressive collection of beaux-arts townhouses and mansions, lovely trees, and a gentle slope. Every time I walk along it I feel lucky to live there. How can I really leave?

Swedish Style

2007-08-01T10:54:00.000-05:00

My sister Laura gave me this great book on the history of Swedish interior design, The Swedish Room, for my birthday. It has beautiful photography but also contains a lot of historical information, so much so that I now feel prepared to do an entire post on Swedish style. On the left is the cover of the book, which shows off some typical Swedish elements. The clock is derived from rococo styles but is now practically the state-clock of Sweden. The chair is a typical Gustavian design with its multiple slats. But what is really so Swedish about this room is the pale color scheme, painted floorboards, and delicately decorated wall panels.

What strikes me when looking at photo after photo of historical Swedish interiors is how unified the decorating schemes are. On the left is a room from the 18th century that shows French rococo influence. The wall panels are decorated in colorful swags of greenery and flowers. A coordinating upholstery is used on the chairs. The tile stove both dominates the room and blends harmoniously with it, by echoing the same rococo embellishment. This stove is an earlier variety that rests on wooden legs. On the right we can see that not all Swedish rooms are decorated in pale colors. This later tile stove shows neoclassical influence in its motifs of laurel swags and wreaths, fluted columns, and urns. The stove's base resembles a classical altar and extends all the way to the floor.

Neoclassicism had a profound effect on Swedish interior design and reached its peak in the Gustavian style of the late 18th century. On the left we can see that classical influence in the corner pedestal, fluted like a column. The Gustavian period is also known for large windows, large mirrors, large chandeliers, and gilt accents, all to make the most of the northern light. On the right we can see that neoclassical wall decorations could take two major forms. In the front room the panels display extremely delicate garlands inspired by the murals of Pompeii and once again echoed by the upholstery of the chairs. In the room behind it, the panels are bordered with Greek keys and decorated with classical armor and trophies, creating a more geometric masculine look.

Gustavian furniture is still incredibly popular, perhaps because it seems traditional but simple and modern at the same time. Above are two typical sofa designs, both with high arms and turned legs. Below are two typical sideboards. In all these examples, the decoration is an integral part of the piece rather than applied. Above left, visual interest is added by the curved armrests, whereas above right, the series of slender supports between the bench and the upholstered rail have a decorative effect. The paneled doors of the sideboards, below, are carved with delicate fluting that forms rectangles and diamonds. Although the pieces are not made of particularly beautiful woods or precious materials, they do not require elaborate painted decoration. Instead they can be painted in one light-reflective color, such as the typical "Gustavian Grey," below right, to let their integral designs show through.

With its emphasis on simplicity and harmony, it's no wonder that Swedish style is so celebrated today. On the left is a reproduction armchair decked out in typical Swedish white paint and checked fabric. These ginghams were historically used by the wealthy as slipcovers to protect the fine fabrics on their furniture, and by the not so wealthy all of the time. On the right a modern dining room has incorporated some important techniques of Swedish design. A pale unified color scheme has been taken to a monochromatic white extreme. Painted furniture, such as Queen-Anne style chairs and a Gustavian-ish cabinet, has simple but decorative lines. Painted floorboards reflect light, which is maximized by the sheer curtains and translucent roller blinds, which have been used in Sweden for centuries. Who knew our design debt to Sweden so drastically predated Ikea?

Short Cuts

2007-07-24T18:23:00.001-05:00

Great minds think alike, at least when it comes to our hair. Last Friday I ended my two year experiment with long hair by having it all cut off. I was looking forward to a planned Saturday-night reunion with Varuni, who had recently returned from a one-month stay in India. But as surprising as I thought my new short cut would be, it was nothing compared to the shock of hers! Varuni had never once let on that she had her two feet or so of hair chopped while she was away.

Don't believe me about the two feet of hair? Just check out this Cousin It picture, taken earlier this year. Below, Varuni is surrounded by adoring guys, but clearly just wants everyone to stop making a fuss and let her pay her bill.

I can't speak for Varuni, but I would almost grow my hair out long again just to have the fun of cutting it off. As the stylist took away more and more, I felt like my face was being released from captivity, like I was being let out into the open again. When you compare before and after pictures, my face really doesn't look any different, but I don't believe the photos. What I know is that I feel different: lighter, cuter, prettier, and more fashionable. I'm certainly glad to have entered the Short Cuts Club.

The Bridge is Up and the Battery's Down

2007-07-18T12:40:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday, Danielle and I indulged in an all-day bike ride from 97th Street to Battery Park, to and from Governor's Island via ferry, all the way up to the George Washington Bridge, and back home. Sure, I couldn't get out of bed that evening (although Danielle, the biking pro, went to a party! in Queens!), but it was worth it to spend the whole day outside, enjoying the weather and the West Side Greenway, not to mention exploring parts of the City I had never seen.

Somewhere along the west 50s (or 60s?) a few large rusty ruins lie in the water. The shore sports swaths of dune-like grasses and these funky red shelters, a nod, perhaps, to the riverbank's onetime industrial character.

The ferry ride to Governor's Island is a real treat, not the least because it's not even ten minutes long. The ferry departs from a highly decorated pink and green terminal, a detail of which is on the left (above), right next door to the terminal of the Staten Island Ferry, that big orange monster you can see leaving its dock (above right). But of course the real treat that the ferry ride offers is views of downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. I most enjoyed seeing all the sailboats. This lovely schooner (below) graced our voyage both there (left) and back, when it looked especially fetching in front of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges (right).

Governor's Island looks like an Ivy League campus, slowly crumbling to dust. Acres of trees shade large brick buildings with white colonial details (above) and an old fort or two (below right). The Island lies close to downtown Manhattan and just across a channel from Red Hook, the industrial port of Brooklyn. They're hoping to turn Red Hook into a Potomac Mills, complete with an Ikea (!) but for now it just housed the largest cruise ship I've ever seen (below left), which completely dwarfed the sailboat gliding by.

The West Side Greenway really is a fabulous recreational resource. It runs all along the Island from the Battery to Fort Washington (though apparently it becomes a little hazy around Inwood), it's well paved (which is more than you can say for most city streets) and, of course, it offers unparalleled views of the Hudson and the ever picturesque New Jersey. The 79th Street Boat Basin (left) and the George Washington Bridge (right) are particularly lovely.

We stopped to rest under the GWB and felt like we were in another world. Looking north (left) the bridge's pier seemed like the final reach of civilization. Looking south (right), the skyscrapers of Manhattan looked hazy in the distance. Tucked under the bridge, The Little Red Lighthouse (below) had become a shrine that we pilgrims on bikes had struggled to visit. What a jewel!

BBQ

2007-07-14T20:58:00.000-05:00

I recently attended what may well be my last barbecue hosted by the fabulous Rob and Ana "Landjevic." Once again we trekked out to Elmhurst for great company, Serbian sausages, and as a special treat, an intense game of parking-lot soccer. Argenis, a freelance photographer, was among the guests, and Rob, good host that he is, offered up his shiny new camera. Argenis took over 400 photos, here are my favorites:

Rob (above) and Ana (below) know how to host a good BBQ.

Ronny (above) looks particularly bewildered, while Danielle (below) looks particularly radiant.

Headbanging and hot dogs, what could be better?

Hanging out post soccer match, looking like the cool kids after school (above). Cherries (below) finish off the evening and help sweeten that final beer.

Decorating the White House

2007-07-10T15:48:00.000-05:00

Despite my interest in American History and interior decorating, until today I knew basically nothing about how the White House has been decorated. I knew, of course, that Jackie Kennedy spearheaded a redecoration of the White House that focused on quality art and antiques, celebrity decorators and historical accuracy. I more or less supposed that the Kennedy decorating schemes were so famous that they haven't been touched since, but it turns out that every First Family has redecorated to greater or lesser extents. I have even come to the conclusion that the Kennedy decor is not (gasp!) necessarily the best.

Much of my new found knowledge of the White House comes from an online White House Museum, a testament to how one man can gather knowledge and put it on the Internet. Check it out to see floor plans (particularly of the third floor that I never knew was there) and photos of practically every room. Here are some highlights:

The wittily named Yellow Oval Room is on the second, private, floor of the Residence directly above the Blue Room. It is used as a formal living room, to receive foreign dignitaries (for example, before a State Dinner) and other important guests. The room was given its yellow color scheme under Jackie Kennedy, whose decor is shown in the picture on the left from 1964. On the right is a view of the room from 1991 after a few minor changes. A darker rug (which I prefer) has been substituted and a few more red chairs have been added to break up the overwhelming yellow, and more elaborate curtains (which I don't prefer) have been hung outside the window trims. This emphasizes the height of the room but hides the charming Federal-style trim work.

Between the President's bedroom suite and the private kitchen and dining room lies the real Living Room of the place, the West Sitting Room. It used to be a stairwell before the stairs were moved to a more central location. At left is a view of the room in 1963 as decorated by the Kennedys; not much to write home about compared to the view on the right from 1999. The Clintons have gone for more of an English county-house look, with more flowers, throw pillows, and a richer color scheme. Although it's still formal it seems infinitely more comfortable.

Mirroring the West Sitting Hall is the East Sitting Hall, which lies between the Lincoln Bedroom suite and the Queen's Bedroom suite. On the left is a view of the sitting room in 1960, before the Kennedy redecoration and on the right is the room in 1962, just after it. I love the delicate chandelier and window treatment, which makes the most of the fabulous semicircular window, but more color please! The Nixons, of all people, obliged. They redecorated the room in cheerful yellow, as you can see in the picture, below left, from 1975. On the right is a view of the room in 2002, as it was redecorated by the Clintons. The yellow has moved to the walls, to tie the space in with the West Sitting Room and Central Hall that lies in between them. I dislike the overly grand window treatment but love the Federal furniture.

The President's Bedroom suite consists of a sitting room, a larger bedroom, dressing room, and bath. Sometimes the sitting room and bedroom were used as two separate bedrooms, with the First Lady actually getting the larger "President's Bedroom" all to herself. This was the case during the Kennedy administration, and above are two shots of the main bedroom in 1962 as it was decorated for Jackie. Of course, we probably shouldn't read too much into the practice of separate bedrooms. Jackie Kennedy insisted on two twin beds pushed together so that JFK, who had back problems, could sleep on a hard mattress. This is probably my favorite Jackie Kennedy room, but although I love the serene blue and white color scheme in the bedroom, it feels a bit icy in the Dressing Room next door, where the walls are pale blue instead of pale yellow. I prefer the room as it was decorated by Lady Bird Johnson, shown on the right, who used the space more as a study. I like what I can see of the Chinese wallpaper, and I love that sofa.

But it's the Reagan administration that wins the great wallpaper contest, hands down. On the left is a view of the same Dressing Room as decorated for Nancy Reagan. I love that cantaloupe color and the cane daybed. On the right is a view of the President's Bedroom (used by both Reagans) in 1981. They chose an absolutely beautiful antique Chinese wallpaper of flocks of birds, and for some reason the Clintons replaced it!

Across from the President's Bedroom is the Private Dining Room, with a small (i.e. normal) Family Kitchen next door. On the left is the room in 1963 as redecorated under Jackie Kennedy. Antique panorama wallpaper depicting imagined scenes from the Indian American War and federal furnishings, including an excellent example of a convex mirror, create a harmonious whole. Later First Families, however, found the murals too dark and depressing. The Fords, shown on the right with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Albert of England in 1976, covered the murals with a bright yellow wallpaper, but the murals were quickly uncovered by the Carters, shown entertaining guests in 1978, below left. Then the historical look was too much for the Clintons, who had the walls covered (very carefully this time) by panels hung with a lovely cream silk. The cream silk remains today, but those panoramic scenes are just waiting to be uncovered yet again. They were the inspiration for the Mural Room, which lies across from the Oval Office in the television show The West Wing.

On the other side of the Yellow Oval Room is a space known as the Treaty Room. Jackie Kennedy chose the moniker and gave the room a Victorian decor, as shown in the photo, above left, from 1963. At the center of the room is the table used to sign the peace treaty ending the Spanish American War. A painting that memorializes the signing was also placed there. The painting and table have been in the room ever since, although it is now used as the President's private study. Above right is a view of the room in 2000 as it was decorated for Bill Clinton. I love all those reds! George W. Bush kept the rug but repainted the walls a dull cream, as you can see in the picture, below left, from 2002. You can also see the aforementioned painting "Singing of the Peace Protocol Between Spain and the United States" hanging above the table, now used as a desk, that the painting depicts.

The Treaty Room was originally used as the President's official office. Although the West Wing was built as a temporary structure by Teddy Roosevelt to relieve the overcrowding caused by his large family, it was FDR who first set up permanent offices there. FDR's New Deal programs and fighting WWII required more office space that was close at hand to the President's. Below right is a picture from 1935 of FDR in the modern Oval Office. I love those curtains, which have an eagle on each valance.

The Oval Office has probably gone through more changes than any other room in the White House. Above left is a picture of Ronald Reagan in his Oval Office, decorated in a warm color scheme of pumpkin and cream. Although I love the colors, the absence of red, white, and blue seems downright unpatriotic. Men, above right, look out of place in George H.W. Bush's Oval Office, which sports a horrendous powder-blue carpet and sofas in white damask. The need for stronger color was soon met. Below left is a view of the Oval Office as it appeared during the Clinton administration as well as on the television show The West Wing. Now that's a patriotic color scheme! In this photo, below right, from 2005, I'm not sure who looks more out of place. Bono stands in George W. Bush's Oval Office, which has been redecorated in taupe and beige with the occasional colonial blue. The sunburst rug is based on the one used by Ronald Reagan.

An overhead view of the current oval office, below left, shows off its beautiful flooring around the edges. The photo, below right, shows the entire floor just after it was refurbished in 2005. The design consists of alternating boards of oak and walnut in a chevron pattern.

I'll close with a couple of my favorite views of the White House. Although there are small kitchens on the second and third floors of the residence, the main kitchen is an industrial powerhouse on the ground floor. Below left is a view of the kitchen in 1948 during the Truman administration, just before it was remodeled. Check out those diner counter stools and the retro industrial cabinets! Today the kitchen looks just like any other restaurant. On the right is a view of the Central Hall on the second floor of the Residence as it was decorated in 1997 for the Clintons. Now that's my kind of White House, modern art at last!

Antique Maps

2007-07-05T09:18:00.000-05:00

One of the highlights of my room is a framed print of a map of DC dating from 1792. The image, shown below, was engraved by Thackara and Vallance and depicts the official plan of the nation's capital as developed by L'Enfant and Ellicott. It does not show the City of Washington as it actually looked at the time, and some of the features shown on the map were never actually built. But despite that it is a remarkably accurate view of the town, and even includes information that was requested by Jefferson such as plantings on the mall and soundings in the rivers.

There is something intensely satisfying about looking at maps; even maps of very familiar areas inevitably reveal something new. I think I am particularly receptive to maps, as I am to floor plans. I can never really understand a space until I see the overhead schematic drawing, and I wish I could explain why. All I can articulate is that maps seem so direct that they can turn vision most immediately into knowledge, and by extension, power. To see a map is to know it and to map that area yourself, in your mind.

But of course the huge variety of maps indicates that they are not as objective as they appear. And it is that very subjectivity--the manipulation of scale, the careful selection of detail--which makes maps so beautiful. We've already seen my favorite map of DC, but here are some others of the other cities in which I've lived. (You can click on any image to see an enlarged view.)

This map of New York or "Nouvelle York" was made by a cartographer named Bellin in 1763. It was the first map of Manhattan obtainable in France, and was printed in Paris after a 1693 manuscript plan by Franquelin, made at a time when France and England were at war. The map may well have been prepared for a contemplated French invasion of the city. The wall on the north side of the town is where Wall Street now stands. The fort on the lower left gave Battery Park its name.

The Library of Congress has some great maps online that you can view close up in high resolution. This one was printed in London in 1776, drawn by the sculptor Bernard Ratzer, and inscribed to Sir Henry Moore, then the Governor of New York. You can click here to see the map in more detail.

Made in the same year, this map shows Upper, rather than Lower, Manhattan. Specifically it depicts Fort Washington, which the English renamed Fort Kniphausen when they took it during the Revolutionary War. In fact, this map was drawn by C. J. Sauthier on November 16 under the orders of the Earl of Percy, to commemorate the victory that he led there on the same day.

Here's a nice map of Manhattan in its entirety. It was published in New York in 1836 and shows the extent of settlement in Lower Manhattan as well as topographical details. Click here to see the map in more detail, its worth it!

And to round out our Manhattan maps, I just couldn't resist this beautifully drawn birds-eye view of the city, which dates from the very early twentieth century.

This is a truly fabulous map of Vienna, where I lived for four months. It was published in 1858 in the eighth edition of A Handbook for Travellers in Southern Germany by John Murray (this was before German unification when "Germany" had a much broader definition). You can clearly see the Danube snaking along the top and the distinctive urban plan. At the center, the old city is surrounded by walls and a swath of land shown in white. The walls were not torn down until the late nineteenth century when the Ring Strasse, a series of boulevards, was built in their place. The outer edge of the town shown here became "the Belt," another series of bustling, more commercial, boulevards. You can click here to zoom in on the map and see everything labeled in English.

After Vienna I spent another four months in Paris, shown in this map by Nicolas de Fer that dates from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century--before Hausmannization! Again, you can see the map in more detail here. A little treat for my francophile friends!

Wedding Proposal

2007-06-28T13:17:00.000-05:00

So, now that we've studied individual components of a wedding's look in some detail, the question is, how do we put it all together? For each hypothetical wedding I plan, I usually pick some sort of unifying theme that ties in with the season and color scheme. So, as I think I've already mentioned, one of my favorite ideas for an inexpensive winter wedding is to do a citrus theme. That takes care of the color and menu choices! Centerpieces would be bowls of clementines, favors could be chocolate oranges, etc.

My hypothetical weddings started out incredibly grand and formal, and while I still wouldn't mind having a wedding like that, I've realized that weddings should really be only slight embellishments of how you and your family usually entertain. This led me to conclude that I should have my wedding at the Potomac Boat Club in Washington, DC. My dad has been a member since before I was born, and still keeps his single racing shell there. My mom is now also a member and she and my dad go out on the river together. We also held a big 45th birthday party for Mom there, not to mention my own Sweet Sixteen, which was an incredibly fun party that Eva and I had together. So what follows is my proposal for a PBC wedding.

The Boat Club is tucked under the Whitehurst Freeway in Georgetown, so it's not the most glamorous of river properties. Downstairs is the big storage room that houses all the boats and leads to the dock. Upstairs is the "ballroom" which is usually full of ergs, and the bathrooms. There is also a balcony above, just perfect for throwing the bridal bouquet. The ballroom is panelled with dark wood, lined with built in benches and old photographs, and has french doors leading out to a veranda with a view of the river, Key Bridge, and Rosalyn, VA. To the left of the veranda is a smallish roof terrace. The whole space is probably not big enough for a sit-down dinner, but part of the charm of this wedding is that it's a more casual cocktail-y stand-up reception. Plenty of dancing, food, and drinks, but no awkward tables of conversationally-challenged people.

I struggled at first to come up with an organizing decorative theme for the wedding. "Boating" or "rowing" or other nautical themes made me cringe at the thought of crossed oars or signal flags or similar all over my wedding invitations. Beach themes were also (more unfortunately) out. Then I got it, sea glass! Sea glass would provide a wonderful color palette of blues and greens and relate to the water, while still making sense at a boat club.

Guests would get their first glimpse of these colors in the "Ocean" stationery from MountainCow, which I would use to print out the invitations at home. Or, if I was feeling ambitious, I would hand write them.

The "ceremony" will probably last ten minutes and take place on the dock. Yes, guests will have to make their way through the racks of rowing shells to get to the dock. Yes, some poor guy will probably be trying to use the dock to hose down his boat after a sweaty row. But this still seems easier than making everyone get to both a church and the reception. Plus, I don't know which church I would use since the one I went to growing up seems too far from the Boat Club. So the ceremony will probably be on the dock. If I can't find a reasonably priced and fabulous used or vintage wedding dress I'll probably get a white bridesmaid's dress or something from J.Crew. My bridesmaids would wear their own dresses in blues or greens, and the groomsmen can wear their own outfits too. But I might breakdown and dress the ring bearer and flower girl (probably my niece Lily and nephew Jackson) in matching seersucker.

The bridesmaids and I would carry big bouquets of baby's breath, which happen to symbolize everlasting love. I also might torture everyone by hiring a bagpiper to play, which is a family tradition at weddings. But I'll make up for it by getting a great live band for the reception.

As soon as the ceremony's over, guests will be offered a choice of cocktails, wine and beer. I'd want to serve Pim's Cup, another family tradition, and some sort of champagne cocktail, to remind us it's a wedding. We'll set up a bar or two inside and put all the beer in big containers of ice out on the veranda. Then we can tent the roof terrace and use it to serve all the food. We'll set up small tables and chairs inside and out so about half the guests can sit at any one time. But all the food will require fingers only, or at most a fork, so sitting down to eat won't be necessary for the young and nimble. Right now I'm thinking there will be a mix of Mediterranean things: tapas, antipasti, middle eastern stuff, and maybe a grilling station.

The cocktail tables will have blue or green tablecloths and centerpieces of glass cylinder vases (which you can rent or buy wholesale on eBay) filled with sea glass, pillar and votive candles, and maybe our baby's breath bouquets. To help fill out the lighting provided by the candles, we'll suspend white, blue, and green paper lanterns from the ceilings of the tent and ballroom.

In fact, paper goods might be another theme of the wedding, if ForYourParty.com has anything to say about it. I would want to get custom printed cocktail napkins in the design at left, with white flowers on a light green background, which reminds me of my favorite baby's breath (FYI ordering custom napkins can be cheaper than buying them in the store because you order in bulk). I would also get custom matchbooks to hand out as favors (and add to my own matchbook collection). I like the format and typeface of the example below but would use light blue script.

After some toasts and plenty of dancing it will be time for dessert. Since all the food is meant to be eaten easily with the fingers, I think the perfect wedding cake would be a tower of cupcakes instead. I would skip the fussy lace trim and fondant hearts you see here and decorate them with blue and green sugar crystals to tie in with the sea glass. Since my grandma is a one-person cookie factory, the cupcakes might well be the centerpiece of a dessert buffet of homemade sweets. All in all, I expect this wedding to cost about $6,000 for about 100 people, not bad for a wedding! Of course, prices might go up. Then again, if my wedding-planning trend continues my requirements might also continue to go down.

Wedding Stationery

2007-06-19T11:47:00.000-05:00

Weddings can involve a lot of paper. Guests can be sent save the date cards complete with maps, lists of area hotels and attractions, and (god forbid) registry information. Invitations can include separate reception and reply cards (the former are perfectly correct, the latter a nouveau riche travesty). The ceremony can feature custom made programs, while the reception can be home to seating cards, place cards, menu cards, and the guest book. Despite the possibilities, or perhaps because of them, wedding stationery is best kept to a minimum. Here are some ways to have fun with your paper without felling too many trees.

The paper wedding invitation is absolutely mandatory for even the most casual weddings, and chances are any reception is going to involve some cards as well. On the right, for example, cards are laid out for guests to write good wishes to the bride and groom. These can then be pasted in a book in lieu of the traditional guest book that everyone hates to sign. On the left we see a formal invitation with a subtle fern motif, separate reception card, and a reply card with envelopes. These reply cards have become de rigeur, but I continue to protest against them. They are designed to make replying so convenient for guests that they will actually RSVP, but every wedding magazine still features a question from a bride asking how she can get a proper head count for the caterer since no one has sent in the little cards. If guests are sent formal wedding invitations, they should reply in writing on their own stationery. If the invitations are less formal, guests can phone or email whomever they know whose involved in the wedding, whether that is the bride, groom, or his or her parents. If the guests don't know any of those people's phone numbers or email addresses, they shouldn't be invited to the wedding.

Wedding papers offer a great opportunity to present a decorative theme. On the left a stationery suite in light blue and cream uses long thin formats and justified type to present a modern spin on a traditional color scheme. The suite includes (clockwise from top left) a seating card, handwritten menu card, ceremony program, reply card, reception card, place card, and invitation. Although tables at wedding receptions are most often denoted with numbers, you could also give them each the name of something to do with your theme. On the right seating cards direct guests to tables named after different kinds of shells. Each table could be identified by a sign with the name of that shell or a centerpiece displaying the appropriate shells in a bowl or on a tray. Shells could also decorate the invitations. Or tables could be named after different flowers, with the Tulip Table featuring a centerpiece of, you guessed it, tulips, and the bride and bridesmaids carrying bouquets that mixed all the flowers together.

The invitations can match the reception decorations in more subtle ways. The stationery at left in letter pressed on paper that resembles wood veneer, which would go wonderfully with the veneer covered vases shown in the previous post. For those of you with too much time on your hands, make envelope liners for your invitations using vintage or contemporary photographs, then decorate tables at the reception with photos of the bridal couple and the weddings of their parents, friends, and relatives.

After looking around a bit, it seems so hard to find reasonably priced invitations you really like that you might as well make your own. On the left colored stationery, napkins, and matchbooks are personalized with a custom-made embosser, which creates a colorless raised image and is traditionally used for monograms. On the right plain stationery gets printed up into invitations at home and embellished at the corners with a craft punch. I love the lacy look this gives, especially when combined with those brown paper lunch-bag-esque envelopes.

As an event planner, I've learned that seating card displays look beautiful for about two seconds after the guests start to show up. But by creating little accordion holders, like those shown on the right, cards will always keep in line. On the left sheer ribbon is used to hold down seating cards that might fly away at an outdoor reception. These techniques also give you yet another opportunity to use whichever colors you've picked for your wedding decorations.

Of course you don't have to use seating cards at all! These non-cards still direct guests to their tables and continue wedding themes. Little bunches of lavender double as favors for the guests and could echo flowers used in bouquets, centerpieces, or as a decorative motif on invitations. On the right tiny paper parasols fit right in with a beachy or Caribbean-themed wedding. The only downside of these cuties is that it's harder for guests to find their names.

Wedding Decorations

2007-06-14T11:35:00.000-05:00

And now we come to the really fun bit. Almost everything at a wedding has the potential to be decorated, from the groom's lapel to the cocktail coaster. But the decorations that make the biggest impact are the table centerpieces.

You really can't go wrong with a lush arrangement of flowers. Table centerpieces are ideally low and wide to make a big impression without blocking views and conversation. I prefer arrangements with a narrow color range and textural unity. On the left, rannuculus in cream, orange and yellow are highlighted with a bit of greenery. On the right, parrot tulips and peonies range from creams and oranges to pinks and mauves.

Class cylinders are the ultimate centerpiece component. They come in a variety of sizes, can be used for flowers or candles, and can be customized to go with any look. The usual method is to affix colored fabric or patterned paper to the exterior. Here the cylinders have been covered in faux wood veneer, very Scandinavian modern.

Large receptions usually feature round tables that each seat about eight guests, but lately long rectangular tables have been making a comeback, perhaps because they lend themselves to more interesting centerpieces. On the left, flowering branches stand in a row of pale blue vases, which are placed in between seats to aid conversation. On the right similar stone vases are filled with a variety of white and yellow flowers, highlighted by a yellow runner underneath.

Sometimes it's the container that makes the centerpiece. Apples make a lovely focal point when mounded up in picturesque Nantucket baskets. Individual baskets of cherries double as favors. On the right a collection of unusual tea tins lends some unity to a diverse assortment of flowers. I love the arrangement's strong colors and kitschy charm.

Wheat is a favorite non-floral element of mine for weddings. It symbolizes prosperity and fertility (both appropriate for nuptials) and has a sort of minimalist sophistication, making it both modern and timeless. An abundant spray of wheat and grasses gets dressed up by a grey silk ribbon on the left. The theme could be continued through wheat wreaths like the one on the right (in a horseshoe shape for good luck) that could hang in the ceremony or reception space.

I also like almost any arrangement with lemons, though I can't explain why. I've even planned an entire citrus-themed wedding in case I ever have to get married in the winter (which would be a big money saver). The elegant arrangement on the left could be placed on either side of the altar, and gets its graceful lines from boughs of a lemon tree. They are used again in the centerpiece on the right, with adds some bold reds to the lemony yellows. The arrangement below left pairs white, yellow and hints of green with black containers for a graphic look. But the simplest citrus arrangement of all is to put a bunch of fruit in a bowl and call it a day. The arrangement below right adds drama with some ribbons, but I would rather see an unadorned collection of small oranges in various shades and shapes, including my favorite clementines. Then they could double as a fruit course for the guests.

Wedding Cakes

2007-06-11T13:33:00.000-05:00

Weddings month continues here at Lina's Lookbook with a glance at quite possible the ultimate symbol of the wedding, the cake. Nothing else evokes the sweetness of love and hospitality towards your guests quite like it. In fact, for much of the twentieth century wedding receptions consisted of cake and not much else. Cake and champagne, or champagne punch for the budget-conscious, was the standard fare. Even the over-the-top wedding portrayed in the original Father of the Bride movie (with Elizabeth Taylor and Spencer Tracey) was expensive because of the flowers, trousseau, and (in a memorable scene) the cake. But the reception was still a stand-up cake and champagne affair with dancing, not a sit-down dinner. So why not take a page from their book and have a wedding that centers around one of these?

The traditional wedding cake is white inside and out. Apparently when my aunt cut the first slice of cake at her wedding there was a collective gasp from the guests, because although the icing was bridal white she had asked for a cake in her favorite flavor, chocolate. No matter what flavors you chose inside, there is something lovely about an all-white cake. These keep the monochromatic scheme interesting with some clever decoration. The cake at left uses tiers in a variety of shapes, and softens their edges with a little stylized floral icing. The cake at right is covered by edible sugar flowers in the shape of dogwood blossoms, giving it an interesting texture and romantic feel.

The combination of traditional white with rich chocolate offers a wealth of graphic possibilities. I love the cake on the left, whose elaborate decoration in chocolate icing is inspired by nineteenth-century transferware (like the platter on the wall behind it). On the right some more restrained decoration consists of tiny dots of icing. I also love the petal-shaped tiers used in both cakes.

Martha Stewart Weddings (from which all these pictures are taken) is always doing stories on using ribbons, and while I don't usually go for them myself, on these cakes they strike the right note. On the left white icing forms swags and bows on a pretty blue background. At right the brown moire ribbons pick up on the marbling effect used on the fondant icing, that in turn hints at the chocolate marble cake inside.

How simple can a wedding cake be? At right a basic pale yellow cake gets a little more embellishment at home with a bit of store-bought mini-ivy garland, affixed with extra icing. This would be perfect for a winter wedding with an ivy theme. Ivy has long been considered romantic, especially when paired with the masculine oak, because it clings to the tree the way a wife should cling to her spouse. On the right a far more modern (and more feminist) cake eschews exterior trappings and reveals the clean simple lines of its many layers. Talk about the beauty of materials! The lovely colors keep the minimalism from being boring.

Here are two of my favorite cakes that use the traditional rose in unexpected ways. On the left rose petals have been strung together into a floppy garland that encircles a tier, while a single perfect rose blossom crowns the top. On the right a far less labor-intensive decorating scheme consists of a simple scattering of rose petals. The scale of the cake, far more horizontally grounded than the average, adds to its drama.

Dessert buffets have become more and more popular on the pages of MS Weddings, and perhaps in real life. The buffet at left consists entirely of chocolate treats, while the one at right has a more balanced selection of chocolates and fruity candies. The display on the right also centers around a traditional French wedding cake.

Another popular alternative to the traditional wedding cake is to serve tiny individual cakes to each person. This may derive from the tradition of the groom's cake, which was sliced up and boxed to be taken home as favors. According to legend if an unmarried woman slept with the box of groom's cake under her pillow she would dream of her future husband. On the left little white cakes are topped with sugar flowers. On the right brownies have been cut into circles of various sizes, stacked into wedding-cake like tiers and sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Another alternative to the traditional cake is to have small cakes at each table. Rather than the tiny individual cakes shown above, each one would serve the whole table (e.g. eight people). If suitable decorated, such cakes can stand in for the traditional floral centerpiece. The cakes at left, for example, combine simple square forms with lush toppings of parrot tulips (which are non-toxic). Or serve what we all secretly prefer, cupcakes! This idea has also been catching on lately, and is especially popular when the cupcakes are displayed on tiered cake platters in imitation of a traditional wedding cake. But of course, MS Weddings has taken it to the next level by trimming the cake stands with lace and topping each cupcake with a heart of fondant stamped with a monogram. Sheesh.

Wedding Bouquets

2007-06-08T15:48:00.000-05:00

Wedding bouquets are almost as problematic as wedding dresses. On the one hand I consider flowers to be absolutely essential to a wedding. Nothing says "two people are about to try to spend the rest of their lives together" like a peony. Well, maybe not. But flowers are beautiful and natural and romantic and (often) colorful, all qualities we want to emphasize at a wedding. And yet I rarely see a wedding bouquet I really like. Usually they are too fussy or too unoriginal, but here are some that fall in the golden category between:

I often find myself favoring all-white bouquets for a wedding and monochromatic flower arrangements more generally. This bouquet has a casual sweetness to it, and feels more like a simple gathering of flowers than a bouquet. The white flowers are interspersed with hints of yellow and green, and the bouquet is dressed with a yellow and white ribbon (a favorite Martha Stewart Weddings trick). The cheerfulness of yellow and white makes it one of my favorite color schemes for a wedding.

Another color scheme I'm often drawn to for weddings is light green with pale pink, although I'm not sure any wedding needs to become more feminine by decking itself out in pink. More generally these bouquets are agreeable because their simple forms are enlivened by subtle variations in color and texture. This shot also shows how flowers for the bride, bridesmaids, mothers, and groomsmen can relate without being too matchy-matchy (notice that the boutonniere for the groomsmen is not pink!).

I'm not sure if hot pink is better or worse for a wedding, but I can't help loving the lush exuberance of this bouquet. A general agreement of color and texture creates an overwhelming impression. This shot reminds me that often my favorite wedding "bouquets" are just a few well-chosen extra-large flowers such as magnolias or peonies

My sister Jessica was married on the winter solstice near Anchorage, Alaska. Our mother brought armloads of herbs from her backyard and made beautiful bouquets that were heavy on the rosemary (often a symbol of remembrance--think Shakespeare's rue). But I also like this idea for a winter bouquet, a few flowers interspersed with glittery pine cones. I wound like it even more if they had cut out the mauve roses and stuck with the delicate paper whites. How ethereal!

Flowers can almost always benefit from being paired with non-flowers in a bouquet. This one combines various succulents with orchids, rannuculus, and deep purple tulips. It calls to mind a desert at dusk or the sophisticated drama of Georgia O'Keeffe.

Here the non-floral elements take over in a bouquet that celebrates the beauty of foliage. I often feel that so called "fillers" really make the best arrangements, and I love all-green bouquets. This one combines green with our old color favorites yellow and white.

But my favorite bouquet of all time is this one of roses and Chinese paper lanterns. The entire bouquet echoes the form of the ornamental seed pod, which further anchor the arrangement by providing its darkest accent color of burnt orange. Lighter orange and white roses make it a truly bridal cascade. This bouquet would coincidentally look fantastic with my fantasy wedding dress from the Sound of Music, and of course both would be perfect for a fall wedding. Who says bridesmaids can't wear orange?

Wedding Dresses

2007-06-06T19:11:00.001-05:00

June is weddings month here at Lina's Lookbook as well as for most of the rest of the country. I've been planning hypothetical weddings for myself and loved ones since I was twelve, so this is a subject close to my heart. But despite my love of wedding planning and fashion in general, the wedding dress remains ever problematic for me. Perhaps it's because I've developed such high expectations for fashion and weddings that I've never found a wedding dress I really loved. Here are some (hypothetical!) candidates:

I'm generally a fan of all-over lace dresses, especially when the traditional fabric is paired with a modern silhouette. It's hard to tell exactly since the model is lying down, but I would say this dress is a curve-hugging sheath with the skirt flaring out into a train. The only thing I don't love is that the dress is strapless (how many brides have I watched constantly tugging up their strapless bodices during a wedding!), but if it had little lace cap sleeves, it could be perfect for practically any wedding.

Other wedding dresses are far more specific. This one, for example, would only work for an evening wedding, preferably one with a glamorous cocktails theme and more mature bride. Despite its limitations, I'm always a fan of the sexy-goddess look. But to make this dress bridal the wedding itself would have to feel very modern, sophisticated, and casual. Think Caroline Bisset Kennedy, who with one picture made this type of wedding dress so famous.

The one problem with wedding dresses that are essentially white evening gowns is that I always feel that in a perfect world I would have the opportunity to wear them somewhere else, whereas your wedding seems like the one chance to wear something you could never ever get away with wearing to any other event. (This is a recent, twentieth-century idea. Nineteenth-century brides, even the wealthiest, were expected to wear their wedding dresses periodically during the first year of marriage.) This gown has that all-out quality, as well as two features I generally favor in wedding dresses: tulle (and lots of it!) and long sleeves. Long sleeves were de rigeur for formal daytime and evening weddings until the late-twentieth century. But the simplicity of this dress, particularly its lack of surface ornament, makes the traditional long-sleeved ball-gown silhouette and tulle fabric look modern and fresh.

In the mid-twentieth century short wedding dresses became very popular for less formal daytime weddings, and it's partly because I associate them with Grace Kelly (in High Society) and Audrey Hepburn (in Funny Face as well as her own wedding) that I love them so much. This one combines two of my aforementioned favorite elements, lace and tulle, with a very trendy ribbon around the waist.

My real problem when it comes to wedding dresses is that nothing I've seen in real life compares to the dress that Julie Andrews' character wore in the Sound of Music. Those long sleeves, the high neck, the sexy fitted bodice, the beautiful satin fabric, the endless tulle veil, the little wreath of greenery! She looks like a sprite and a queen rolled into one. Even if I could find a dress like this, I probably wouldn't be able to get married with a crowd of nuns behind me and with a captain and a couple of bishops up front. But just in case Prince William or Harry proposes, at least I know what I'll wear.

Park Slope Pad

2007-05-29T21:42:00.000-05:00

Three of my friends from high school all conveniently live in the same apartment. Unfortunately that apartment is inconveniently located in Park Slope, three subway trains and an hour's ride away from my own. Although I don't get over there much, I'm always glad I made the trip.

Beyond those red doors, the apartment is a typical New York conversion, in which extra bedrooms have been carved out of the interior space. But the front room enjoys lots of light and a funky mix of curbside finds. My favorite pieces in the room are the antique mirror over the white sofa (found on the street) and the dark green settee opposite it. Large framed photographs (two of the apartments residents are dating photographers) add some sophistication. The turquoise tables under the windows are a DIY project with mosaic tops.

The girls repainted the entire apartment when they moved in. The grey color in the living room is an unusual choice that really makes the architectural moldings pop. The fireplace is highlighted with a lavender background. The mirror above seems to have a kind of tropical plantation design, reinforced by the potted plants on either side and the chairs nearby: a bamboo folding chair, a brightly painted yellow chair upholstered with tropical fabric, and a plantation lounger in the corner. Opposite the windows, french doors with beautiful glass panels lead to Samantha's room. I love how the blanket stuffed above the doors (to fill in the space left by an absent transom window) matches the paint colors.

Samantha painted her room a bright yellow to make up for the lack of natural light. The cheerfulness continues in the brightly colored floral comforter cover and especially in the artwork, most of which is by Sam's sister. The combination of the Windsor desk chair, paper floor lamp, and fairy lights is quintessential Samantha.

At the back of the apartment, Pamela painted her room a cool mint green. More large photographs are framed by the room's white moldings. Across the room, the fireplace displays some DC pride. Yes, that's the design of the DC flag, based on the family crest of George Washington. I love the wood dresser to the left of the fireplace with that subtle X design in the veneer.

It's the little details in this apartment that really make me smile. The door to the bathroom is denoted by a "W is for Women" sign, just to remind the fourth male roommate who's boss. Inside, a rubber-ducky shower curtain picks out the yellow accents in a painted-metal mirror frame.

Also in the back of the apartment is the luxurious eat-in kitchen, painted a brilliant turquoise. Utilitarian pots and pans take on a bohemian character when hung on the wall with dried flowers. Although its hard to tell in this photo, the table is topped with a bright-yellow floral table cloth, very 60s kitsch. A built-in shelf above holds the radio, toaster, etc. while a string of globe lights continues the turquoise color scheme.

But on my latest visit we moved those rad white plastic chairs (which are super comfortable) to the living room to enjoy a beautiful brunch. Samantha presides over her feast of Challah french toast, organic sausages, yogurt, and strawberries (not to mention Leah's perfect lattes) then snaps a photo of us digging in. Bon Appetite!

A Modern Carriage House

2007-05-24T12:08:00.000-05:00

The best house on the Park Slope House Tour was this former carriage house that has been turned into a modern light-filled home by its owners (an architect conveniently married to a contractor). Let's take a tour:

This first shot on the left is a view of the main living room from the back of the house. Under the stairs in the distance you can just see the open front door. From that front door you enter a hallway that leads to the beautiful wood kitchen, followed by an open dining/living area. Next comes a courtyard enclosed by floor to ceiling windows and glass doors, which serves as a giant atrium flooding the main floor with light. You can see the courtyard in the second shot (taken from the kitchen). To the side of this atrium another hallway, which serves as a gallery, leads to a powder room in the corner and a study with more floor to ceiling windows along the back of the courtyard.

The gallery that runs along the side of the courtyard is filled with a collection of paintings and musical instruments (on the floor). The house was full of art, mostly paintings by the same artist that used a tropical palette. I can't remember seeing a better example of wall art enhancing a domestic space. The paintings linked various rooms in the house, gave the home a very personal air, and really built on the idea of a light-filled box. The second shot shows the skylight over the staircase leading to the second floor.

Upstairs were three bedrooms (one used as a study/guest room) and two baths. The bedrooms and hallway featured these very modern built-in bookshelves. Check out that incredibly well-organized closet! From the stairwell you get a wonderful view of the entire open living space and courtyard. As you can see the furniture is very Danish modern.

I'll end with a view of the beautiful kitchen. I love the use of warm wood and the open shelving above the island that helps divide the kitchen from the dining area without blocking light. Another light sharing device was this back splash of glass blocks behind the sink that gives you a view of, yes they really have one, the garage! I suppose another benefit of is that you can see when your sweetie comes home. Who wouldn't want to come back to a home like this?

Park Slope House Tour

2007-05-23T22:23:00.000-05:00

Although for the past nine months I have had three good friends living in Park Slope, I had never been there in the daytime until last Sunday, when I trekked out for the Park Slope House Tour. House tours, for those of you who are unfamiliar, are usually set up by neighborhood non-profits (in this case the Park Slope Civic Counsel), who browbeat area residents into opening up their homes to hordes of strangers. Participants buy a ticket, get a list of which houses are open, and wander around the neighborhood looking at them inside and out. In the picture above they are impatiently waiting to enter one of the houses while a volunteer checks their tickets and asks them to take their shoes off. At least the delay gave me the chance to check out that exterior glass vestibule. More volunteers stand around inside the houses making sure that you don't steal, touch, or photograph anything. Since I wanted to go on the tour for the express purpose of taking pictures for this post, I found that last injunction rather annoying. And although a couple of the houses we saw were absolutely lovely, most of them were pretentiously decorated in heavy fabrics and dark woods. As you can see from the pictures below the real treat was the neighborhood itself.

At left you can see an example of the over-the-top decorating that made me cringe. This house was entirely done up in a Persian/central Asian theme, with thick carpets, incredibly strong paint colors, traditional Asian furniture and more bourgeois knick knacks everywhere. On the left the owner (whose face is blocked by a couple of viewers asking questions) enjoys his lavish daybed. Unfortunately, the decor came off as more Victorian robber baron than Eastern hip. But the house did have some interesting touches like this antique telephone. Other houses we saw still had their bell systems for calling servants.

The first house we saw seemed overdone at first but turned out to be one of the best. All the original wood trim and wrought-iron fixtures (radiators, chandeliers, even a pie-rack built over the kitchen radiator) had been preserved, and the decor combined rich wall colors (mustard yellow, Pompeii green and red) with craftsman furniture. On the right is a slice of what was hands down my favorite room on the tour. Big art nouveau style windows let in lots of light, which is maximized by the yellow walls, white trim, and cream furniture. I love this cream and gold color scheme and the glamorous 1940s furniture. A modern glass chandelier and framed prints complete the shimmering look.

Although the Upper East and West sides have a pretty eclectic mix of townhouses, they've got nothing on Park Slope for architectural diversity. Beaux Arts houses (above left) share street space with neo-Tudor (above right), Spanish Revival (below left) and even some neo-Romanesqe/Craftsman style houses that tried their best (pretty unsuccessfully) to translate the strong horizontals of Midwestern architecture to the vertical city scape of New York. Of course, Brooklyn is far less vertically oriented than Manhattan. Buildings are lower and sidewalks like the one pictured below are wider, allowing more light to pour into the streets and onto all those trees.

In most townhouses light and outdoor space are at a premium, so it was interesting to see how homeowners maximized both. In this modern kitchen addition (above left) a frameless corner window blurs the boundary between indoors and out, especially since the bamboo plant indoors provides a link to a screen of bamboo plants in the backyard. The kitchen also features a long skylight, which is also in the foreground of the picture below (left), taken from the house's second story window to capture a neighbor's two-tier deck. Another neighbor (below right) has a gorgeous big bay window, almost a little conservatory (maybe that's why it seems so English to me). Most of the houses we saw had truly tiny yards, but this more spacious garden (above right) uses a round patio to make room for a dining table and chairs set in the shade.

On the day of the house tour there was also a massive street market going on all along Brooklyn's Fifth Avenue (why oh why are all the street names the same?). Along with the usual food stands and accessories vendors were moon bounces and an absolute crush of people. All along the side streets neighbors were taking advantage of the extra traffic to have yard sales, or they just left their unwanted books out on their stoops for people to take. And within this friendly, peaceful, vibrant neighborhood, one house on the tour took our breath away . . .

Danielle Does It Up Right

2007-05-21T13:01:00.000-05:00

When Danielle moved into her studio apartment on the Upper West Side, she faced some tricky design decisions. The challenge was to turn a long narrow room with imposingly high ceilings and dark wood trim into a cozy comfortable flat. As you can see, she's certainly made the most of her space.

Danielle's block is brownstone central. Her apartment in on the parlor floor, with the tallest ceilings and most architectural detail. And here's Dani herself, whipping up a dinner party for six in her very own kitchen. Notice how the mixing bowls match the dish drain! And that apron could have been the starting point for the entire color scheme of the apartment.

Here we see the front and back halves of the studio. The apartment has incredibly tall windows to go with the tall ceilings, and they still have their built-in shutters. No curtains necessary! A love seat cozies up to the fireplace and separates the sleeping area from the rest of the studio. The separation is furthered through the use of color; the bed is dressed in cool aqua linens that contrast with the warm reds in the other half of the room.

Along with color, Danielle has used art to decorate and delineate her space. Above her bed this series of Andrew Wyeth prints is subtly framed in black and gold. Their meticulous placement almost uses the prints as found objects to create a new composition. The frames also remind me of Japanese screens. A much bolder set of frames hangs over the dining table. This set of photographs is entirely DIY: Danielle took and developed the photos herself, then used a frame kit to surround them with deep color. Once again, the placement of the individual pictures in a unifying composition creates an entirely new work.

Another focal point of the apartment is, of course, the fireplace. The firebox may be non-functioning but the mantel serves as a much-needed surface for the iHome, photos, etc. Above it, a fabulous view of Paris complements the grand scale of the room, while on the sofa below a petite pillow echoes the Parisian theme. It's that combination of big gestures and small details that really makes this place a home.

The Small Cool Contest

2007-05-18T13:52:00.000-05:00

The highlight of ApartmentTherapy.com is their annual Smallest Coolest Apartments Contest. I intended to enter mine and Karin's apartment this year, but then forgot all about it and discovered a couple of days ago that the deadline had long since passed (it's really a shame because our place is a lot better than some of the things that got posted). I meticulously looked at each entry, trying to gather ideas for my new apartment. Now I have plenty of ideas and the frustration of having to wait three months before trying any of them out! Although I seem to remember that last year's entries were on the whole better than this years, I still found a number of stellar abodes:

The two entries that really had wow factor for me were Ron's Hotel "Sweet" and
Magnaverde's (Imperfect) Perfect Vintage Studio. Although I'm not sure I could ever live in either one of these apartments, I love imagining what my life might be like if I did. I also particularly liked their "pitches." Whenever I'm in a nice hotel room I try to imagine it translated into an apartment, and Magnaverde's call for imperfection was such a welcome change from the generally minimalist, mid-century modern aesthetic of Apartment Therapy.

But the entries which better reflected my own personal style were
Melissa's Pocket Magic and Becky & Chris's Nice to Come Home to, Melissa's being a fantasy of urbane single-woman-dom, and Becky & Chris's being a fantasy of cute living-with-your significant-other-ness. I particularly love Melissa's mix of modern and more traditional furniture (I would love to have those reproduction Louis XIV chairs for my new studio), and Becky & Chris's stellar use of a curtain to separate off their "bedroom," as well as their fantastic use of art.

One of the nicer things about the contest is seeing how other people solve their storage problems (although most contestants agree that the best part of living small is that it forces you to just have less stuff). Joseph's Cozy Brooklyn DIY turns storage into a work of art. His front room of wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and cabinets made me salivate. And although it seems that entertaining is not his strong suit (there's no couch, only a little table for two), that lack of furniture gives the apartment an incredibly serene vibe, as though it were a monk's cell. Erin & Lauren's Reborn Bungalow is another good example of storage made aesthetic, as well as being a generally cool house. From the toilet paper in the bathroom to the utensils in the kitchen, Erin & Lauren have a curatorial approach to storage: like things go together, and everything is "exhibited" out in the open.

One of the more contentious entries was Tim's Overlapping Squares, a Yale dorm room, which some claimed was not a legitimate entry because it's not a "real" apartment. I couldn't disagree more, and found this to be one of the more inspiring entries. Here's a guy who like many renters can't make any changes to his room; he can't paint or install shelves or what not. Most of his furniture is rather nondescript, certainly it doesn't conform to any particular style. Yet he created something very cohesive and pleasant, it seems through his sense of color. The bedding and the knick-knacks on his book shelves match colors in his posters and furnishings. Another kind of student-y place that I loved was Gene's Dynamic Bike Den. Talk about a sense of color! Again, what I appreciated was that this look really worked yet was totally doable. As Gene says, his place has absolutely no architectural interest. I might not be able to live with such strong hues, but they certainly saved this apartment from white-box boredom.

I'll conclude with a couple of design-mag worthy studios. Eric & Ammos Eye-Catching Abode used a strong unifying color scheme, wall murals, and multipurpose furniture to give their place a very sophisticated not-just-a-studio air.
Laura's Fresh Start Santa Monica Studio used a similar strong turquoise color but took a very different tack. Instead of trying to hide the bed (something Eric & Ammos feel they have not yet done successfully), Laura makes it her focal point. This gives her apartment a glamorous romanticism.

I'm still hoping for ideas for my new apartment . . .

My New Apartment

2007-05-15T20:56:00.000-05:00

So after a stressful two-day search involving a mix-up about rent amounts, ugly 70s brown shag carpeting, showers that you could only get to by climbing under stairs, amateur paint jobs, etc., etc. I found and fell in love with this studio apartment. It's in a building on "Mansion Hill," close to campus and downtown, and has a huge window with a view of trees and Lake Mendota. Here is the main room looking from and towards the front door:

On the far side of the room from the front door is the walk-in-closet (which I think is large enough to be a dressing room), kitchen, and bathroom all in a row, with the kitchen in the middle.

The apartment has a definite "pre-war" feel. There are original fixtures in the bathroom, (including a deep soaking tub and shower that you can't see in the photo above) and the kitchen (note especially the built-in cabinets and shallow sink) and original moldings everywhere. Did I mention that in addition to the walk-in extravaganza there are two more closets? Did I mention the building has a lovely communal backyard terrace? Wait, wait, did you see the view?

I'm officially taking suggestions for decorating the place. As you can see, the current occupant has gone for a kind of French black-and-white wrought-iron "terrace" look. I'm hoping for something more comfortable but still very chic that makes the most of the space. Comments welcome!

Madison!

2007-05-15T20:09:00.000-05:00

I was expecting Madison, WI to be different in a Midwest sort of way. You know: friendlier, more flatness and green space, lower buildings, dorkier looking people. I was not expecting it to be so beautiful, so well planned and cared for, or so proud of its local artistic heritage. But from the minute I arrived at the little Madison airport (the smallest one I've been to in the lower 48), I realized I was in for a treat.

Frank Lloyd Wright was everywhere. The glass banisters featured a design taken from his stain glass. Lanterns modeled after his signature lamps accent the glass vestibules at each gate. The gate counters themselves look like they came out of the Chrysler Building, and you half expect the people behind them to be serving cocktails rather than boarding passes. Every column was graced by a sconce that I would love to have, and even the columns themselves exuded Frank Lloyd Wright with their "capitals" made from projecting geometric planes. I don't believe I saw any trash during my visit, perhaps because people can't help using such gorgeously modern trashcans.

On your way out of the airport you even pass an exhibit about Frank Lloyd Wright and Japan, his work on the Tokyo Imperial hotel and his collection of Japanese prints (which found its way to the UW art museum via a circuitous route).

But enough about the airport, on to the campus! My biggest impression was that the campus is big, and in fact I only saw a small portion of it and walked around even less. My next impression was that it was beautiful, with lots of green space and trees. Mom (who came out to help me with the apartment hunt) and I had our bratwurst out of the terrace of the student union and walked along its docks. Everyone was out enjoying the humid-free warmth and lake-shore breeze.

Another surprise was the sumptuous State Capitol building, whose massive dome you can see from practically anywhere. The building itself is in the shape of a Greek cross, which periodically pops up in classical architecture. Of course, it reminds me of the Capitol dome in DC, just as the west side of Madison reminded me of the neighborhoods my friends and I grew up in in Northwest DC. I may feel right at home in Madison after all.

Deli Displays

2007-05-09T14:53:00.000-05:00

The last time my sister Laura visited me we were walking down the streets of New York when she exclaimed over how nice all the fruit and flower stands were. "You mean the delis?" I asked, a bit incredulous. But I soon saw her point: reason #371 to love New York is that you don't have to go anywhere special to get an incredible selection of fresh fruit or flowers. They are available on every corner in almost any deli, and usually arranged in remarkably beautiful displays.

I buy all my cut flowers at either this stand or the one next door to it, shown below. As you can see they offer quite the selection. Lilies, gerber daisies, orchids, tulips, and buckets of lilacs all clamor for a spot in one of my vases. Below you can see some peonies in the foreground getting ready to open. Further down Broadway another deli (which also sells flowers) stacks its fruit in precisely geometric blocks of color. The bottles and even the pineapples line up like soldiers. I pass these delis every day on my way to the subway, and they offer quite the visual treat at the beginning of my morning commute.

Photographing Female Faces

2007-05-04T16:14:00.000-05:00

Whenever I am browsing a collection of pictures, at a museum or in a catalog, I always find myself drawn to portraits of women. My senior thesis tried to draw a parallel between the artistic practice of portraiture and the social practice of fashion, calling attention to how both work to create and aestheticize an identity. While writing that thesis, I was surprised by how little literature there was on portraiture as a distinct genre of art, and while browsing the latest Sotheby’s sale of photographs I was again drawn to female faces, so variously depicted by so many artists, and reminded of how little attention they are generally given by art historians and critics.

On the left is an early and rare Spanish daguerreotype dating from 1845. Walter Benjamin felt that whereas most mechanical reproductions destroyed the aura of a work of art, such early photographic portraits did have an aura derived from the life of their sitters. Benjamin seemed to grant these portraits an aura because they were used to remember the absent, but I have never understood why a reproduction of a Manet does not then have an aura derived from the original painting, which after all the reproduction is used to remember or stand in for. On the right is a portrait of a young woman by Emile Joachim Constant Puyo, c. 1900. I find it surprisingly non-objectifying, which is to say that the woman feels like a real personality rather than merely an object to be looked at (although inescapably she is that too). Like the daguerreotype this image invites the viewer to go beyond external appearance and wonder who this woman is.

On the left is a “Surimpression” from 1931 by Maurice Tabard and on the right is Irving Penn’s portrait of Sophia Loren and her mother from 1962. Both photos juxtapose two faces, though obviously in different ways. By superimposing the faces on the left, Tabard calls into question their gender and even their humanity. The portrait of the Loren women rather juxtaposes two different ideas of femininity—on the left maternal rectitude, on the right playful sexuality. Yet the biological relationship between the mother and daughter, reinforced by their strong resemblance, encourages us to see these two femininities as coexisting rather than mutually exclusive.

The sale includes many portraits of famous women. On the left is a portrait of Greta Garbo done by Clarence Sinclair Bull in the 1930s. On the right is one of three portraits of British actresses done by Philippe Halsman in the 40s and 50s. I’m guessing it is of Wendy Hiller, when she was starring in a version of “Washington Square” in 1947 (no I’m not an expert on British actresses, just looking at the catalog notes). I find the differences between these two portraits extraordinary, and its tempting to presume that they reflect differences in two countries’ acting cultures. The glamour portrait of Garbo markets her face to an eager audience of Hollywood film, using her face as a trademark to identify and sell a product. The portrait on the right is far less focused on the face, which is shown in starkly lit, almost unflattering, profile. Its harshness is softened by the sweep of the woman’s arms and gown. As a result she seems to exude an inner strength that I associate with “more artistic” stage acting.

This photograph by Manuel Álvarez Bravo from 1931 is titled Dreamer, and although the woman is lying down, it is the expression on her face which calls that title to mind. The image reminds me of how women have historically been seen as frivolous and self-absorbed, concerned with artifice and imagination. The male equivalent to this image in art is Rodin’s Le Penseur (The Thinker), of an extremely muscular man, a heroic nude in the classical tradition, in extreme concentration. It is perhaps this sense of focused concentration that the Dreamer lacks, and what separates her from the creative and intellectual genius attributed to men. The original title of Rodin’s sculpture was The Poet, because it was meant to depict Dante contemplating the gates of hell, but women have traditionally been denied such artistic identities.

One theme running through depictions of women is the importance of visual boundaries and physical restrictions. Above and to the left, a photo of Audrey Hepburn, shot by Dennis Stock during the filming of Sabrina in 1954, calls to mind Impressionist paintings of women sitting behind balcony railings, theatre boxes, and other representations of cages. Her resigned look downwards further emphasizes her isolation. Whereas the portrait of a Kirghiz woman (above and to the right), shot by Max Vladimirovitch Albert in the 1940s, shows a woman who seems physically restricted but emotionally open. Despite her elaborate headdress she stares out intensely at the world. Below we see two depictions of veils, both taken by photographers who worked for the fashion press. On the left is Two Guedras by Irving Penn, part of his series of portraits of local inhabitants taken during various travels, supposedly to get away from the superficiality of the fashion world. This one was taken in Morocco in 1974, and is remarkable for how the faces of the women can just be seen peering out from behind their veils. On the right is a very different portrait of Nina de Voe taken by Horst P. Horst in 1951. Here the woman wears only a flimsy net veil, yet her gaze is more averted because her face is in profile. Her face is further framed by the white collar below and the black ribbon to the right. This abstracts the face into a series of geometric forms—triangle, arc, etc—a dehumanization just as profound as that shown in Two Guedras.

Another longstanding theme or rather attribute in images of women is the mirror, a sign of vanity and sometimes specifically of female vanity. In Bruce Weber’s photograph of Madonna, taken in New York in 1986, we see this narcissism fully illustrated. The table full of makeup and the action of the kiss reinforces the depiction of a woman in love with her own image. Yet in this picture of Frida Kahlo, taken by Lola Alvarez Bravo in the 1940s, the mirror takes on a very different role. Kahlo does not look at herself or at the viewer, and the modesty of her gaze turns the mirror into a revelatory tool rather than an indulgence. Indeed, although we see a reflection of her in the mirror, we are denied the indulgence of her eye contact.

These photographs of Marilyn Monroe show the importance of body language in depicting a mood. They were taken by Bert Stern in 1962 as part of a photo shoot for Vogue magazine. Above, Monroe seems remarkably prim and proper. Her face takes on an angelic beauty quite different from her typically lacquered sexpot image. Yet in the next photo, below left, Monroe has departed even farther from it. Instead of a sleek young pin-up she appears haggard, even old. It is only in the last photo, in which she shows off the low back of the dress, turns most of her body from view and looks back alluringly over her shoulder that she takes on a sexy spin. These images remind me of an anecdote about Monroe, that she was walking down the street with an old friend who was surprised that more people didn't recognize such a famous actress. The former Norma Jean said "you want to see Marilyn Monroe?," stuck out her chest and began to swagger down the sidewalk. So many people recognized her and began asking for her autograph that the police had to be called to break up the riot.

This story probably isn't true, but along with these photographs it illustrates how fluid identities are. Perhaps this is why the art of the portrait fascinates me, because the sitter, the artist, and the viewer must all interpret an identity that is so constantly in flux, the line between identification and interpretation itself becomes blurred.

Branches in Bloom

2007-04-30T10:16:00.000-05:00

My favorite part of spring is watching the parade of flowering trees and shrubs bloom in succession, from forsythia and cherry blossoms to dogwoods and azaleas. Since I grew up in the cherry blossom culture of DC, seeing branches in bloom always reminds me of home. Here are some I saw during a recent walk through Central Park.

The formal gardens at 106th Street begin with this large lawn flanked by two alleys of flowering pear trees. White and fluffy on the outside, they remain cool and green underneath.

The dogwood is one of my favorite flowering trees. In DC they come out at the same time as the azaleas and are often planted together. Supposedly they are called dogwoods because it looks like a dog has nipped the center of each petal, giving it that characteristic brown notch.

Pink flowers are particularly cheerful. I'm guessing that the ones on the left are some sort of cherry blossom while the tree on the right is a magnolia. Both look remarkably lush.

I always think flowering branches look terrific in arrangements, but it helps if you're working in a large-scale setting, like the entrance hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is well known for the larger-than-life arrangements it presents in these sculpture niches.

On the left a large lilac frames a Japanese maple and some sort of chartreuse shrub. The tree on the right may be a cape myrtle, or at least it has similar magenta blossoms. Although we see them every year, the electric colors that nature produces continue to surprise. I don't suppose I'll ever tire of watching this parade go by.

Cocktail Culture

2007-04-24T20:36:00.000-05:00

It's hard not to notice that in the past decade cocktail culture has been on the rise. Vintage cocktail shakers seem glamorous and sophisticated, so much so that companies like Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware sell reproductions of shakers and bar tools. Martha Stewart Living even had an article on collecting vintage cocktail glasses, the kind painted with decorative patterns or animals. Bookstores abound with books of cocktail recipes or tips for hosting a cocktail party.

My question is, are we actually drinking more, let alone more cocktails? According to a Gallup poll from last year, we are drinking alcohol more often. The percentage of Americans who say they drink, about 64%, has remained about the same since Gallup first began polling in 1939. But those drinkers are drinking more often then 10 years ago, with 71% of drinkers saying they had a drink in the last week, and the number of drinks per week averaging out at 4.5. But 41% of Americans drink beer most often, compared to 33% for wine and 23% for liquor. Does that 23% really justify all this new (or old, or just old looking) equipment? It seems to me that we prefer looking at cocktail paraphernalia to using it.

I'm as guilty of this as the next person. My cocktail collection began with a vintage set of bar tools, housed in a wooden box topped with a swanky tile that can be used as a cutting board. The tools, a long-handled fork, paring knife, corkscrew, bottle opener, and bar spoon have matching wooden handles. I bought the set at a boutique in the meatpacking district, with every intention of creating a collection of vintage bar equipment.

My collection grew when I acquired this shiny chrome (reproduction) cocktail shaker. I love the tulip shape of its base and the bell curve of its strainer/lid. The top-most lid has ridged and is also, of course, a shot measure. The frog pitcher is a gift from my mother (from none other than Restoration Hardware). It's perfect for mixing up a batch of Pim's Cup or practically any other concoction. But since the number of cocktail parties I've actually hosted in my life comes to a grand total of one, I have found other uses for these shapely vessels. The frog pitcher is currently housing some left over dried thistle, while not long ago the cocktail shaker proved to be the perfect vase for some striped mauve tulips.

Are we all secretly using our drinking paraphernalia as bookends? If we are I suppose it only proves how much aesthetic value these objects of design have always had. Their appeal is no doubt linked to the nostalgia for a cocktail culture that they use to serve, but at the end of the day we don't find ourselves mixing a cocktail to unwind, we just find the cocktail shaker beautiful.

The Frankfurt Kitchen

2007-04-18T14:32:00.000-05:00

When I was at home for Easter, my family and I went to the Corcoran Gallery of Art to see the exhibit on Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939. The exhibit was originally created by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where I recently interviewed for their MA program in the History and Theory of Design (and was accepted, without funding), put according to local critics it was laid out even more impressively at the Corcoran. And it was an excellent exhibit, both aesthetically and educationally, full of architectural models and videos that really showed you what modern design looked like, how it was used, and why it was so revolutionary.

The exhibit had many highlights, but among them the Frankfurt Kitchen, pictured above, stands out yet again. Although it was not the very first fitted kitchen or the earliest modern one, it was the first one to be mass-produced and enjoyed great success and influence. Ten thousand units were installed from 1926 to 1930 as part of an ambitious citywide housing project in Frankfurt, Germany that was initiated by Ernst May, the city architect, to provide low-income housing for some of the two million soldiers returning to Germany after the 1918 Armistice, as well as thousands of war widows. To assist with this Levittown precursor, May brought in the Viennese architect Grete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897-2000). Schütte-Lihotzky was probably the first female student of the school now known as the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, where she studied under the celebrated architect and designer Josef Hoffman as well as the painter Oskar Kokoschka. Gustav Klimt wrote her letter of recommendation for the school. She was one of the first generation of female architects and was active in the Nazi resistance.

The design of the Frankfurt settlements aimed to save time and money through the principles of rational organization and standardized building units. The Frankfurt Kitchen went further in seeking to save time and energy for the woman doing the housework. Schütte-Lihotzky studied catering in airplanes, trains and ocean liners as well as time motion studies to minimize unnecessary movement within the kitchen, provide labor-saving devices and increase physical comfort. Among the kitchen’s many innovative features were integrated sinks, continuous work surfaces, an adjustable ceiling light, a concealed pass-through, and a drop-down ironing board. A worktable for preparing food was set under a large window adjacent to the sink, both set at a lower height so the woman could work while seated at the provided stool. Some worktables included a chute for food waste. Another feature was the series of built-in storage bins that had handles and spouts for pouring dry staples.

Many of the kitchens were painted a colonial blue after research showed the color repealed flies.

The exhibit at the Corcoran included an installation of an actual period Frankfurt Kitchen, very similar to first one pictured above, as well as a promotional video from the 1920s that showed how much more efficient this modern kitchen was. Take a look at the video on the V&A's website. It was amazing to see on film so many things from contemporary life side by side with so much that was unfamiliar.

The Frankfurt Kitchen left a lasting impression on me, so imagine my surprise when it was suddenly staring me in the face from yet another online Sotheby's catalog (this one for Fine 20th Century Design and an Important Collection of Art Deco Figures).

This example was built in 1929-30 as part of the housing for psychiatric professors at the Neiderrad Hospital near Frankfurt. It is estimated to sell for $30,000 to $50,000 and includes an ironing board, sink, side unit, stool, towel rail and sideboard, the latter with three cupboard doors above ten aluminium storage scoops and two frieze drawers, the lower section with two further cupboard doors flanked by open shelves. The storage scoops are marked with various dry staples, including 'Zucker', 'Reiß' and 'Nudeln' or 'sugar,' 'rice' and 'noodles.' However, this Frankfurt Kitchen is unusual in that it is larger than other examples. The management of the hospital was thought to require more comfort in their accommodations and so slightly more space was allowed than in other projects. As a result the main sideboard is larger and can be used as a free standing unit. In this kitchen the cabinets were also installed onto a back panel rather than directly onto the wall, which makes it much easier for Sotheby's to sell it as a discreet unit.

I assume that only a museum, and not an art collector, would be interested in buying this or any other Frankfurt Kitchen. Schütte-Lihotzky's design does embody the modernist aesthetic, with its monochrome scheme, clean lines, and general minimalist air. But the Frankfurt Kitchen is not a discreet work of art, designed to be viewed from afar with rapt attention and awe. It was designed to be worked in and used. The original Frankfurt Kitchen is of great interest as a period room in a museum exhibit, but its greater legacy is to encourage us to look forward rather than back. To use every available resource, material or technology, to improve the way people live their lives is the spirit of modern design that the Frankfurt Kitchen embodies.

Vampire Kits

2007-04-12T15:58:00.000-05:00

I get email updates from Sotheby's informing me when an auction catalog I might be interested in is available online. I recently received one for the sale of Nineteenth-Century Furniture, Sculpture, Ceramics and Works of Art Including Property Formerly from the Palacio Ferreyra, Argentina, and began browsing the catalog without expecting to find anything much of interest. But you never can tell. Right there on the first page an image caught my eye. I thought it was a writing box, complete with old pens and inkwells, but it turned out to be a kit that Buffy the Vampire Slayer's nineteenth-century incarnation would have been proud of.

To be specific it is a French vampire kit, circa 1900, whose description reads "the box in solid mahogany, the hinged lid with a copper cross to the front, opening to a compartmentalized interior comprised of an ivory inlaid crucifix-shaped gun bearing the date 1591, lead bullets, a small glass bottle, a small power keg, a metal bullet mold, and a mahogany stake, with original paper label stating an attribution to Nicolas Plomdeur."

It's estimate of $4,000-$6,000 delineates it as slightly more valuable than the other vampire kit offered in the sale. Estimated to sell at $3,000-$5,000, this second kit is smaller and lacks the make-your-own bullet mold.

I had never heard of a vampire kit, but then my knowledge of vampires came entirely from the aforementioned Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I remedied my general vampire ignorance through Wikipedia, but unfortunately their vampire article doesn't mention slaying kits. A debate about them was sparked on SurvivalArts.com when one man claimed to have created an "antique" vampire kit as a hoax in the 1970s and thus to have invented the entire genre. I once heard someone claim, in all seriousness, that they were the first one to write "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" instead of a religious message on a Christmas card, so I try to never underestimate the power of selective memory. But the Mercer Museum also has a vampire kit it claims was made as a hoax in the 1920s. Were these things ever made as serious safeguards against vampires? Even if the examples from the Sotheby's sale really do date to 1900, were they made at that time for true vampire believers or only as gags? Or were they made by people who didn't believe vampires really existed but who wanted to profit nevertheless from other people's fears?

Ironically these kits' lack of usefulness adds to their appeal and even to their aesthetic power. They seem quaint and nostalgic, a testament to craftsmanship and care. Antique gun sets have a similar charm, but these vampire kits go farther. Their association with the supernatural almost gives them the status of religious icons. I like to think that someone somewhere used these objects to ward off evil. And the power of that protection seems all the more beautiful for being so literally incredible.

Easter Bonnets

2007-04-02T16:47:00.000-05:00

Every year my sister Laura and I wear hats to church on Easter Sunday, and every year we are two of only a handful of women who do so. We've done this ever since we both worked at a hat store called Hats in the Belfry, many many summers ago. The job's only perk was getting to try on the hats, and most of them were not anything I would wear in public. Baseball caps, silly costume hats, and overly decorative horrors crowded out the gems. And doing a bit of an Internet search just now I was overwhelmed by how many truly terrible hats there are out there. No wonder no one wears them anymore. Here are some I actually would wear:

On the left is a sort of modified picture hat that looks good on everyone. It frames the face without hiding it and it's not too big to overwhelm a smaller frame. The hat on the right reminds me of one I have at home (only it has navy trim and fewer flowers) and seems a quintessential Easter bonnet, decorative and floral but not too fanciful.

Nothing is as glamorous as a wide-brim hat. The asymmetrical sweep on the left keeps the face well in view. The quintessential picture hat on the right does so with a pulled-back brim.

The cloche is my favorite hat of all. The navy straw cloche on the left with its petite floral decoration would do very well for Easter. On the right is another classic style, the fedora. Both shapes have a retro charm.

These unusually flat hats are rather fun. On the left is a style that has popped up throughout the twentieth century in fashion plates, but has anyone ever worn won? On the right is its floppy white embroidered cousin, a bridal hat perhaps?

Asymmetrical hats often catch my eye, I suppose I find them interesting without being fussy. On the left a petite bow gives some French school-girl charm. The hat on the right, with its height, embroidery, and dashing feathers, looks like something out of a 1940s Hollywood extravaganza.

I have been secretly rooting for turbans to become fashionable again, even though they haven't been since the 1810s and I'm sure that even then many people found them silly. My desire to have them come back into mainstream circulation stems from how fun it is to put your hair up in a towel when you come out of the shower and, incidentally, by how flattering it looks on round faces like mine. The weight of the towel must pull back your skin a bit, and then all that height detracts from ugly chins. I think to be really flattering they would have to be a rather larger than the kind shown here, so as to take the place of one's normal mass of hair.

Some Chinese Paintings

2007-03-28T21:43:00.000-05:00

To fulfill the "non-western" requirement of my art history major, I took a class on the art of China, Japan, and Korea. Although there were many highlights of the course, I was most fascinated by the various traditions of painting and calligraphy. Such a fine line separates the two practices that we might say they stand at either end of a spectrum of drawing, from the most everyday writing to the most elaborately shaded and precise of landscapes. Browsing the auction catalog of an upcoming sale of Chinese painting at Sotheby's, I was impressed by how these subtle relationships continued to come into play in twentieth-century art.

This painting, Fishing Boats After Rain, was done by Zhao Shao'ang in 1963, with ink and color on paper. I love the atmospheric washes and its composition, the strong horizontals of the boats balanced by the verticals of the calligraphy, reeds, and poles. Its precise drawing and subtle lawyers of color remind me of Japanese prints.

This piece by Yu Fei'an, Green Bird on Maple Tree, combines subtle modeling in the bird and branches with extremely flat, abstracted leaves. The calligraphy in the upper left corner also seems particularly beautiful, balanced yet dashing. The piece consists of ink and color on paper and dates from 1948.

Amusingly titled Why So Stubborn, this painting by Li Keran shows what mere ink can do. With no underdrawing, the artist uses a few deft strokes to define the figure's loose clothing, the tension of the rope, the solid muscularity of the bull, and the agitated expression of the calligraphy.

This painting of Goldfish by Wu Zuoren from 1978 brilliantly captures a view underwater with incredibly descriptive washes of ink. The calligraphy uses a bolder line but seems equally aqueous in style, a perfect marriage of image and text.

The piece on the left dates from 1927 but its traditional style could place it much earlier (at least to a novice's eye like mine). It is a landscape by Zeng Xi, depicting the familiar mountains shrouded in mist. The artist inscribed the work (with calligraphy) and sealed it (with the red stamps) both when it was first painted and again later on. The painting was also, according to the Chinese tradition, marked with the annotations and seals of later collectors. These additions include the titleslip of a noted calligrapher and collector Deng Erya and an annotation and two seals by Zhang Daqian. On the right is Poem in Xingshu by Qi Baishi, which gives us a closer look at a relatively free-form style of Chinese calligraphy, considered more casual and artistic. (I'm treading on thin memories here. I seem to recall there were three main styles of calligraphy, an official more block like form based on ancient text, a more everyday standardized type, and a more conciously casual and artistic style employed by the "ameteur" painters or literati, and that Japanese calligraphy on the whole is thinner, looser, and more stylized.) Of course the viewer's appreciation of calligraphy would be enhanced if one could read the language, but one can also evaluate a piece of calligraphy on purely visual grounds. Calligraphy should be balanced, both within each character and within each column of script. Each character should be distinct yet relate visually to the characters around it.

On the left we see Crane by Ding Yanyong, ink on a paper hanging scroll from 1977, in which painting is taken to a calligraphic extreme. The crane is defined by one unbroken line indistinguishable in style from the writing on the left. Another hanging scroll on the right is Calligraphy by Shi Lu, showing writing at its painterly extreme, in which the characters are so abstracted, or perhaps I should say so stylized, that they become almost figurative.

This is Bird and Rock by Zhang Daqian, the artist who at one time owned Zeng Xi's landscape shown above. Daqian's painting is done with ink on gold paper and dates from the Lantern Festival of 1969. It seems a good synthesis of some of the qualities I've been exploring. The subtlty of ink wash, the deft use of calligraphic lines to describe a landscape. The complimentary composition between the picture and the calligraphy to the side, and between that line of calligraphy and every character within it. I think what impresses me most about these works, or about Chinese drawing more generally, is its incredible economy, an economy of paint strokes that calls for both rigid control and fluid dexterity. The beauty of depicting an entire world in so few touches of ink on paper that you can count them there on the page (imagine trying to count all the brushstrokes in a painting by Pollock or any other "western" artist) is a beauty that continues to take my breath away.

Strike a Match!

2007-03-24T12:25:00.000-05:00

Smart women do indeed light the way. This box of matches is obviously a gift from my mother, and it forms the centerpiece of my collection of matchbooks and boxes. I grab one from every bar or restaurant that has them printed up and keep them in a fishbowl on my bookshelf. Sorting through them brings memories to mind of nights out with friends and favorite spots in cities near and far. But these matchbooks are charming not only for their associations but also as marvels of design.

Sometimes it is the construction of the box itself that makes you smile. This mini box of Marlboros, filled with matches rather than cigs, was grabbed for me by Danielle, whose zeal often adds gems to my collection. In the center is an extra-small box from The Room, a truly tiny Soho wine bar. On the right an oblong triangular box encourages us to light up.

Any good matchbook brings to mind the spot that it advertises. The book on the left obvioulsy uses a compass to refer to the name of that restaurant, but it also alludes to the restaurant's atmosphere through its color scheme and typeface. Similarly, the box on the right, with its silver art deco lettering on a shiny black background, admirable recalls the vintage chic of Circa Tabac, a smoking lounge in the Village.

Chinoisoire goes to town in these matchbooks. On the left is a spoil from the most recent Restaurant Week, when Ricardo and his mom took us out to dinner at a new place called Chinatown, right around the corner from his loft. The restaurant was like a set out of Shanghai Express, and I kept expecting Marlene Dietrich to come swaning through the door. I must admit I have no idea where the box on the right came from, but isn't it fun?

Figuration rarely makes an appearance on matchbooks, but in these cases it does so with aplomb. I love the rather surrealist femme fatale, reflected by a billard ball, that is used as the mascot for ABC. The book on the right exudes all the latent tension and glamour of film noir, through the figure of a fuzzy man in a fedora.

Here is the best of the rest, and what memories they bring to mind! There's Hideout, our nighborhood bar in Paris, and Old Glory, a monument to preppy slumming in Georgetown. Uptown locals like Henry's and Lime Leaf mix with dowtown haunts (Milady's!). I'll always remember a roadtrip with Laura by this matchbook from the Firefly Cafe in Savannah, while underage evenings dancing along to George's band, the Philadelphia Funk Authority, are immortalized by the matchbook from Le Bar Bat.

I'll close with this lovely red matchbox from Balthazar, which is novel for using both sides to fully illustrate that restaurant's glamorous bistro atmosphere. Do you have an unusual matchbook kicking around somewhere? Stick it in a fishbowl and watch your collection grow.

Luncheon with Tiffany's

2007-03-22T10:22:00.000-05:00

For the first time this year, I'm wearing a dress with no stockings. It's a cream dress with a large scale sort of paisley design in red, orange and pink, with ruffles along the neckline and finishing off the half-length sleeves. It exudes spring. And when I found myself on the Tiffany's website this morning (for work, I swear!), I realized my dress had a certain similarity to certain lines of Tiffany china, which exude spring with equal fervor. The bright white backgrounds, decorated with sprightly animals and spring green foliage, make me think of luncheons on the terrace. I happen to have a terrace, and if I also had a garden table, potted plants, and a kitchen, I would serve a very light, three-course lunch on these beautiful dishes.

We would eat of off my favorite china pattern, Tiffany's Federal. I like that it's colorfully traditional while still relatively understated. If I couldn't find anything to serve in this covered vegetable bowl, I would still put in the middle of the table. It's graceful lines make a great centerpeice.

I would serve actual food on these pieces from the Jardin pattern. On the left is a regular old dinner plate, if you can so describe anything that costs $470, made in the Paris Studio from Limoges porcelain. On the right is a hand-painted piece mysteriously described as a "Mocha Tray."

I myself would wait to serve dessert on this exuberantly decorated Audobon china. We could eat macaroons on the dessert plates at left, with their central design of a pagoda-shaped birdcage. And we could drink hot chocolate from the chocolatier on the right, which Tiffany's calls a "Moka coffee pot." And then, having completed our luncheon on Limoges, we would set out to buy a new crop of spring frocks and peekaboo shoes.

Lower Manhattan Walking Tour

2007-03-15T20:07:00.000-05:00

One of the benefits of my job is that it's located in lower Manhattan, full of architectural gems and pockets of green space. Right around the corner from my office is . . .

The Woolworth Building: Designed by Cass Gilbert (the architect of the New York County Lawyers' Association building that I work in) in the neo-Gothic style, the Woolworth Building was dubbed the Cathedral of Commerce. It was the tallest builidng in the world from the year it was finished, 1913, until 1930, and at 792 feet it is still one of the 20 tallest buildings in New York City and one of the 50 tallest in the world. The tower is flush with the front of the building rather than stepped back, and its vertical piers continue without interrupting hoizontal decoration, all of which emphasizes the building's verticality.

City Hall: Right across from the Woolworth is City Hall Park, which surrounds, you guessed it, City Hall. The building houses the chambers of the New York City Council and the office of the mayor, which makes it the oldest city hall in the US that still houses its original goverment functions. This building is New York's third city hall, completed in 1812, and epitomizes American Federal architecture. It exhibits influences from both French neo-classicism, with its rounded archways and flat roofs, and the English Georgian style, with its elaborate interor moldings. The brownstone at the back of the building was famously left bare, not faced in the white marble used on the front and sides. This cost-cutting strategy relflected the idea that the City of New York would never expand north of the City Hall Building (current day Chambers Street). Unfortunately, this historic brownstone facade was replaced in the repairs of 1954-56 with the limestone we see today. I still find it hard to believe that so recently there were such different views of historic restoration.

Municipal Building: The Manhattan Municipal Building was designed by the firm of McKim Mead & White (who are also responsible for the campus of Columbia University, the old Penn Station, and many other important New York City landmarks) and built from 1909 to 1915. It houses various city agencies, and was designed to accomodate the increased government space needed after the consolidation of the five boroughs in 1898. It is still one of the largest goverment buildings in the world. The building's tower represents the five boroughs with its five cupolas, and with the statue of civic fame at it's zenith, which wears a crown with five points. In this photo you can see how well the towers of the Municipal Building and the Woolworth Building go together.

Evergreen Antiques

2007-03-13T13:12:00.000-05:00

I happened upon the website of Evergreen Antiques sometime during college, and it is still one of my favorites. The firm specializes in Northern European and Scandinavian neoclassical antiques, and I've decorated entire imaginary houses with its findings. Here are some current favorites:

On the left we have a Russian chair from about 1825. I love the 3-circle back and the arm rests raised on curved supports that end in little ebonized finials. The curved backsplats and legs are more typically neoclassical in style. On the right is a Scandinavian corner chair from the mid-eighteenth century, with its typical vase-shaped backsplats and ball-and-claw feet. I just love corner chairs in general, but somehow always imagine them being used as an end table rather than a chair.

Not everything at Evergreen is from the neoclassical period. This screen is Danish and was made in the 1940s. It reminds me of one designed by Charles and Ray Eames. On the right is a turned mahogany canterbury. It was made in England in the 1870s or 1880s. I'm not sure what a canterbury is, but this would make a great magazine rack.

Some things just look so Swedish. Here we have a late Gustavian (circa 1800) daybed with X-form supports resting on friezes decorated with sphinx. All the supports are made from turned wood, and the whole is painted that distinctive Gustavian grey. The step-back bookcase cabinet, circa 1830, shows the gothic influence typical of that period in its fairly elaborate pediment (are those corner overhangs evocative of gargoyles?) over glass doors decorated with pointed arches.

These chairs remind me of my mother, because the fret carved backsplats resemble owls, which she adores. Otherwise these are fairly typical painted side chairs from Norway, circa 1770. Those curved tapered legs are called cabriole legs and support an equally curvy frieze. This set of servewear is called a cruet set and its use of curvilinear floral decoration reminds me of the art nouveau style. However, it was made as early as 1812 in Copenhagen from silver, porcelain, and blue glass.

The Costume Institute

2007-03-09T14:31:00.000-05:00

The Costume Institute is the collection of historical and contemporary dress at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For a long time working there was my dream job, but while I would still love the chance to work with the Institute's chief curator Harold Koda, an absolute genius at exhibition design, I'm not sure the Institute itself, rather ghettoized away from the rest of the Met and relying on Condé Nast for its financial support, offers the most academically rigorous of museum opportunities. It does however, have a beautiful collection of clothes.

Capes and Corsets: This short cape looks like an incredibly modern interpretation of traditional Chinese dress, but in fact it dates from the the second half of the sixteenth century and has an entirely European form. The fabric, however, is a Ming Dynasty velvet, also from the sixteenth century. The gold piping, consisting of gilded paper around an orange silk core, is also typical of Chinese style. Jumping centuries a bit, we come to this corset from 1891, showing the hourglass shape that was so central to most nineteenth-century fashions. Both garments are French.

Nineteenth-Century Silhouettes: The dress on the left illustrates the high "empire" waist style we know so well from Jane Austen movies. This particular dress probably dates from 1804 and its cotton fabric probably came already embroidered from India. The dress on the right shows my other favorite silhouette from the nineteenth century, the modified bustle of the 1870s. This was a kind of golden decade between the huge bustled and bell-shaped skirts of the late '60s (the cow look) and the exaggerated almost shelf-like bustles, combined with straight front skirts, of the 1880s (the horse look).

Flappers: These haute couture dresses show the sophisticated side of the flapper aesthetic. On the left is a dress by Edward Molyneaux from 1926-7, in which the vertical strips of sequins are overlaid with loose shimmering filaments of georgette. On the right is a dress by Louiseboulanger from 1928. Its "feathers" are painstakingly knotted together from individual strands of ostrich plumes, each one died a different tone to create the cascade effect.

New Looks: Madeleine Vionnet is one of my all-time favorite designers, most well known for innovating with bias cuts to create daringly simple body-skimming dresses. The dress at left is no exception. Its fringe isn't applied braid but consists of individual strands of silk thread embroidered through the fabric, each thread forming two drops. The "Bar Suit" at right from 1947 epitomizes Christian Dior's post-war "New Look." It rejected the slim silhouettes of the first half of the twentieth century in favor of wasp waists accentuated by padded hips.

Mid-century Modern: At left is a suit from 1951 by Charles James, combining the complimentary colors of navy cashmere with orange-rust silk satin. At right is a dress by Cristobal Balenciaga, dating from 1960-64, which shows his singular genius as a tailor and his love for structuring the garment slightly apart from the body. Both these ensembles evoke the architectural geometry of mid-century modernism.

Contemporary Ball Gowns: Both these gowns make me think "Whoosh!" At left, John Galliano's Maria-Luise (dite Coré) Ensemble features a skirt nine feet wide and embellished with flounces and trim typical of the ancien régime. It was shown in the Christian Dior Haute Couture collection of spring/summer 1998. At right, Alexander McQueen's Oyster Dress from 2003 literally deconstructs the image of Aphrodite rising from the sea, giving us the gritty exterior of the oyster rather than the pearl within.

London!

2007-03-07T17:27:00.000-05:00

I spent the past few days in London, visiting my aunt and uncle and checking out graduate schools. I flew cheaply on Air India, which meant the aging 747 was delayed from Bombay both there and back. In fact, I began my journey spending 9 hours, count 'em, 9 hours (from 4:30pm to 1:30am) in an unstimulating terminal of JFK. Luckily I had two Patrick O'Brian novels to keep me company.

I was pretty incoherent my first day in London, but by day two I was ready to check out the Courtauld Institute, one of the many grad schools to which I've applied. It's housed in Somerset House, which used to be a royal palace until it was extensively rebuilt in the Georgian period and turned into a more public building. The north wing, the current home of the Courtauld, was originally designed for the "learned societies:" the Royal Academy, Royal Society, and the Society of Antiquarians. Another wing housed the Navy Offices, including the Navy Pay Office, Sick and Hurt Office, and my personal favorite, the Victualling Office. Not long after I visited Somerset house I read that the fictional Captain Jack Aubrey had passed his lieutenant's examination there. Aside from these pleasant associations, it seems like a lovely place to go to school. It's built around a large courtyard that features a fountain and, in winter, an ice-skating rink. I didn't take this picture, it wasn't nearly this sunny when I was there, but I don't see how you can beat the combination of a campus with a Georgian palace.

Afterwards I wandered up the Strand to (you guessed it Ricardo) Trafalgar Square. I'm illustrating it with another picture I didn't take. That huge column supports a statue of Lord Nelson, who, has one American tourist I overheard put it, "must of been some war hero." The steeple in the center sits on top of the church of St. Marks-in-the-Fields. On the left is London's National Gallery (the reason I always have to say I interned at the National Gallery, Washington), where I whiled away the rest of the afternoon. You've got to hand it to the English though, that in the midst of all this overwhelming traditionalism they set up a modern sculpture by Marc Quinn, depicting the disabled artist Alison Lapper eight months pregnant.

The next day I had my interview for the MA in the History and Theory of Design program taught jointly by the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal College of Art. The V&A is something of a Victorian monstrosity that houses an unparalleled collection of international art and design. Despite the overbearing religious muscularity of the museum's exterior architecture, they have really nice modern spaces set aside for the students and researchers. And academically the program seems very rigorous and everything I could wish.

After my interview I wandered over to the ritzy neighborhood of Belgravia, centered around Belgrave Square which is home to a score of embassies. This is one of the reasons I love London, it's every bit as bustling as New York but has some lovely touches of Washington DC. Trees for example, embassies for another, and a general prevalence of government buildings and free museums for a third. Just north of Belgrave Square I came across this charming crescent of terrace houses, looking straight out of Jane Austen's England, with this gated park in the center. As anyone who's seen the movie Notting Hill knows, London is full of these private yet communal gardens, after which Grammercy Park is modelled.

I found my way back over to Chelsea where quite another, equally English, architecture reigns. Like the neo-Romanesque style of the V&A the neo-Tudor style of the High Street also uses red brick and historicism to evoke a long lost Merry ol' England. It seems particularly fitting that Burberry should occupy such a space. If I find such a street corner charming, and I have to admit I do, I must be a rank anglophile.