Project: Living room

The living room needs some love.

After being in the apartment for over four years, we're ready to rework the main living space in favor of something more functional, sophisticated and, well, grown up.

Right now it's a combination of Ikea (mostly from the As-Is department after the Brooklyn store opened), street finds (the black and white Finnish designer chairs and the quirky, broken metal fan) and hand-me-downs.

We definitely want to keep the following:
-painting (done by a very talented friend of mine, Nicholas Kashian), although it needs to be stretched and framed
-yellow sideboard
-large wardrobe-turned-media storage unit that came from Germany, although it's badly in need of stripping and new paint
-white Geneva speaker/ stereo system

Where to begin??

The known universe

The Known Universe by the American Museum of Natural History

Jahna Vashti

Do you ever leave a window open on your browser for days and weeks at a time, contemplating the content, not ready to close it?

For me, that's been the Etsy shop of Jahna Vashti.

I love her work- the colors, the feel. It's so vibrant and dream-like. Instead of closing the window, to be buried in my memory, I thought I'd post a few of my favorites here.

Her website is www.jahnavashti.com

My Purple Dream © 2010 Jahna Vashti - jahnavashti.com

Forest Festivities © 2011 Jahna Vashti - jahnavashti.com

Heartbeats © 2012 Jahna Vashti - jahnavashti.com

Hopi Maiden ©2011 Jahna Vashti - jahnavashti.com

Love, Luck, and Lollipops ©2012 Jahna Vashti - jahnavashti.com

Wallpaper

It's so easy to be busy.
To keep ourselves running here and there. Errands, groceries. Pick up this. Buy that.

And it's so easy to lose perspective.

 

It's so easy to just dwell on the details, on the mundane, the day to day activities, without taking a step back to see things for what they really are.

 

It's so easy for our perspective to get lost. Lost in the attention to everything else. 

And in the process of always looking out- at everyone and every thing else- we lose ourselves. Our dreams. The person we wanted to be. Or thought we would be.

 

But it's in the process of doing and seeing- of observing, looking and listening- where we find perspective. 

Maybe it's there also where we find ourselves. 

Image: IIT Mies Wallpaper (2004)
By: 2x4, Inc. (est. 1994 by Michael Rock, Susan Sellers, Georgianna Stout)

Today we went to the MOMA. I love that place. I could have stayed there for hours, but we had the little man in tow. He was amazing but doing a museum with a 7-month old isn't a day long experience. Plus I like the shorter trip, and with a membership, we can always go back.

Regardless, it's inspiring.

If nothing else, inspiring to
go and
do and
see
MORE.

The origin of the Perfect Container

This is Bea.

It only makes sense to start here since she is the originator of the concept of "The Perfect Container".

An avid cook, Bea always took an odd pride in her ability for spatial relations, being able to select the perfect sized plastic container to fit the food to be put away. Call it a quirk, but she was good at it. After putting away said food, she was quick to announce to anyone within earshot "Look, the perfect container!".

Bea was my grandmother. She died last year, on June 9, 2012, just a couple weeks before the birth of my first child. We knew it was the end, but I couldn't bring my round self to go and see her. Already a hormonal emotional mess, I was afraid to face her- not because of any sort of guilt or family issue, but because I knew that I would have to say goodbye, much like I did with her husband, my grandfather, seventeen years prior.

But she was already gone, having slipped away for years into the nebulous world of dementia.

I saw her three months earlier when I was just beginning to show the first signs of the real pregnant belly. By that time her world had reduced to just a few inches in front of her. She was barely aware of my presence while we sat and ate ice cream together, my mother feeding her gently. It was all I could do to hold in the tears. I had seen her before, but not like this.

Not like this.

And so I was afraid to see her even farther inside of herself as she slipped away from a blood clot that began in her leg and slowly traveled to her heart. The same way her mother died some sixty years earlier. We were almost relieved when she developed the clot, finally seeing a possible exit for her. Despite the loss of her mind, her body was still exceedingly fit and healthy. She broke her hip a couple years earlier at 90 and was up and moving around just a few short weeks later. Not that she had any idea where she was going.

Bea.

Maybe this is my homage to her. The perfect container. Not just for leftovers, but for all that life can contain. We will see where this road leads.

Welcome.