what's in a vase

Finally, regarding Ryans parting dig at Jonathan's vases, here are a few points I'd make.


First let me parse what it seemed like Ryan was saying about the vase when was so dismissive of it:

The vase is a symbol for the things in life that are trivial, the things that we don't need. We can live without a vase. The vase is decorative. The vase is not art it is craft. The vase is delicate, too easy to smash. it represents this whole endeavor.

That vase matters because crappy design is part of the consumer culture, disposible culture, a culture that doesn't think about where our products come from and who made them and how they were made.



That vase represents a resistance to all of that. It is about thinking about where things are made and who made them. And about having things that we want to keep.

Why should we have things around us that are ugly when it costs the same to design something This is the reason why high-end designers have moved into developing lines for Target and K-Mart.

If we are to think about things we have ather than just accumulate them then we need to consider the importance of the things we have around us. When I have a barbeque I would rather serve my friends on bright polka dot melanine than on paper plates.


I like to decorate the table and put flowers in vases. (I would especially like to put them in a JA vase . . . )

pretty colors.

Is this a trivial act? The answer to this question is actually far from simple.

Virginia Woolf wrote an entire novel about it (and a few other things as well). If you are an interior designer and you have not read Mrs. Dalloway then hie thee to a bookstore and start reading it now and don't stop until you are finished. (The Hours is a wonderful novel but it isn't the same and the movie is supposed to be fine but Virginia Woolf and Clarissa Dalloway are too real to me to see on film and the idea that a nitwit like Nicole Kidman portrayed Virginia Woolf and won an Oscar because she wore a fake nose is scandalous even for the Academy. But I digress ...

The set table is about hospitality and hospitality is about culture. It is about the idea of home. What nourishes us.

yummy. like spumante

Are these statements not radical enough? Not overtly political enough? When the reason we are creating art is to spread one's message or when we must label art with a message or when we decide whether we like art based on our politics we are creating propaganda not art.

The aesthetics of the vase is in itself about so many things -- first of all it is a vessel. It is the shape of a woman's body.


It is the source.

The more I think about someone who calls themself an artist acting this way about an artist's vase the more lightheaded I start to feel.

abacus, beaded
very contemporary, very mod, and
very art nouveau as well with its organic shapes and japonisme

It seems ironic that Ryan's snobbery about being an artist would place him in the art versus craft hierarchy (intentionally or not) looking down at the person who actually gets his hands dirty.


Ryan -- who was all about making political statements his work -- assumed that Jonathan had nothing to say about ecology and design. Of course someone whose art is about working with the earth has probably never thought about that.

igneous in jade
(some of my personal favorites, esp in sand)

As for the idea that they are mainly used for decorative purposes.

vidalia (gasp! to die for),

If that were true, and whatever that does mean, I, for one, do not want to live in a world that only values the utilitarian. That is George Bush's world.

anemone -- has a bit of a zeisel feel to it

That is the world that sees no value in poetry because there is no use in it.

igneous in sand
a harsh beauty

Then there are the people who dismiss a certain work of art a field of art because its purpose is considered trivial or its meaning is not immediately apparent or it doesn't have a high enough status (too feminine?) in the hierarchy of the arts.

chica
(reminds me of stones --
his works on paper),

The idea that something is trivial, small, inconsequential is never a reason not to cherish it. The idea that something has no value in the world is never a reason not to say it isn't essential to one's life.

accentuate the positive

Since I was harshing on Jonathan Adler last week I want to point out that I liked his blog this week (Jonathan Adler's Blog). In fact I actually thought parts of it were very funny. He seems to have toned down the snarkiness and so his comments come across as more fair and less mean-spirited. He sounded less condescending (and didn't do as much of that faux folksy talk either).

Television has a funny way of manipulating images. It has occurred to me that -- given that JA is considered to be a genuinely likable person -- it probably never occurred to him that television audiences would actually find some of the contestants even more appeal ling. Furthermore, his treatment of some of them combined with his own apparent high self regard would then make him one of the more unpopular figures on the show. Of course this is not just about his own manner not hitting the right note but about the way he is being edited. Nonetheless, this must put him in a rather unfamiliar position and I doubt it is what he intended.

Anyway, there are two parts of his blog this week that I really like:

1. He has a very funny paranoid riff on hantavirus in garages (here, and here).

2. His take on Ryan is not only spot-on but totally hilarious.

I’ll start with the positives. He is a …… He is a …….. (thinking…..) He is a person who considers himself an artist. (Read the full ryan section here.)

Every time I read that line it makes me laugh.

bravo's blog bile

or what ails top design and what might help clear its system

A couple symptoms of the problems with Bravo's Top Design can be found in two of its blogs: Jonathan Adler's and The Assistant's who both seem to have discovered how to pleasure themselves with the critic's stick (all puns intended). They've realized that it is easy to get a reaction by just waving it around at people (if not bludgeoning them with it). This saves them from having to use any thought let alone subtlety.

* * * *

jonathan

I really want to like this guy but he's sapping my strength.

One reason for the discordances in the show is that, for obvious reasons, it ends with the judging. The imperiousness of Margaret Russell, the snarkiness of Jonathan Adler, and the looniness of Kelly Wearstler can be amusing but they can also hit some rather off notes.

The latest posting from Jonathan Adler describes his views towards Michael as being "charitable" versus "less charitable." It strikes me as being a difference between "uncharitable" versus "mean-spirited."

What goes around comes around.

If I'm feeling charitable, I imagine that Michael wanted some decorative motif for his room and, under time pressure and suffering from exhaustion he just chose those birds and moved on.

The less charitable me has hypothesized that he's insane. In any event, it was a bad idea, second only to them colors. I suppose he could have thought that the birds were a kitsch gesture and that it would be cute.

Re: kitsch, I've often been accused of being a kitsch-enthusiast, which is totally untrue -- I actually hate kitsch. Pink flamingoes on the front lawn? No, merci. But, in the hands of some creative mavericks, traditional kitsch iconography transcends its kitschiness and becomes fantastic.

For instance, I have a giant poodle lamp in my bedroom that's so big and well-crafted that I couldn't say no. I have series of clown pictures that are intricately crafted in wood marquetry and they are so brilliantly designed and made that you really can't argue with them.

Sometimes it's the things in questionable taste -- inappropriate, vulgar, or a little kooky -- that make a room memorable. Diana Vreeland once said, "A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika. No taste is what I'm against."

Anyway, whatever. That still doesn't make them birds okay.

I don't need to demonstrate how this is self-contradictory and hypocritical -- and others have already drawn attention to these problems (pink navy, top design blogger). The internal logic of this passage is utterly non-existant. Thus when we get to the alleged conclusion: "Anyway, whatever. That still doesn't make them birds okay" -- asserted as if he has proven some point -- we can only respond with a resounding WFT?

By the way, I'm officially sick and tired of his faux folksiness, e.g., the use of them phrases that use them down-home dialect constructions. I might be able to enjoy this cutesy verbal decorative kitch as endearing if his manner were not so utterly condesdencing. There is something in his manner that belies such a sense of superiority towards (if not also a complete ignorance of) people who actually speak this way.

* * * *

NOTE: -- please read my reality television recommended reading as a reminder of the way that I am discussing the personalities on the show (especially "for the record.") I think of the judges as personas -- characters invented and performed for a television show. There is a difference between Jonathan Adler, the Top Design judge, which is a role played by the actual person Jonathan Adler. How much the two have in common I do not know. However there are two things that are proven to be strongly personality-altering--both consciously and unconsciously: being on television and having power over other people, such as being a judge.

* * * *

the toad

If Jonathan's blog shows an off note, this blog moves us from sour into foul.

I want to know why Bravo is paying this guy to write a blog? He isn't like the judges who are talented people whose opinions count for something. He's not funny. He's not likable. He's just obnoxious.

He reminds me of those boys in junior high school who didn't really do anything -- they weren't smart or popular, they didn't do sports, they weren't dorky nice guys; they were just a little band of brats who went around tormenting people: spreading gossip, insulting people for their weakness (making fun of the fat kid, the kid with bad acne or thick glasses). They were toadies for popular kids and bullies who had no respect for them.

His latest blog gives us gossip that could end up getting one of the cameramen fired. He tells us about the people on the show he dislikes. He informs us about the designs he dislikes. He wrote an ignorant description of Elizabeth when she was kicked off that was totally inappropriate. (Who died and make him the king of what was cool? Of what was hip and who was out of date? Does the world want to know that a little shit like him thinks women over the age of forty are old fogies?) He is even snide about the judges.

The contestants, he tells us, "can annoy like nails on a chalkboard." Well cry me a river. It's your job to deal with them.

It is really rather bizarre.

What is the point? To undermine the show and the cast? To make himself seem important? Even though he has no apparent talent or knowledge of design he can make himself sound like he's as big as the judges and the cast because he can cut them down as an official voice on the Bravo TV web site?

He isn't a blogger like those of us out here doing this for fun -- and for free. We don't actually know these people--we aren't saying anything that is personal--we are talking about this as a television show--as a type of fiction. Plus, and this is the important part: we are doing this not because we are employees but because we are fans.

* * * *

rucker

Which just reminds me, by way of contrast, of Rucker. I suppose because reading his blog you got the sense that the show was fun (and a lot of work and a pain in the ass and kind of insane). He was also incredibly funny. He wasn't mean-spirited and nasty about the show and the people on it. The worst he ever did was shrug his shoulders at the camera when Vincent had his fluff and fold tantrum. That moment, that gesture, says everything about reality television. That may go down as the most hilarious moment in reality television. Ever.

* * * *

What can be done?

mr todd

On Project Runway Tim Gunn's voice plays an important role setting the tone. The problem is that there isn't enough of Todd's voice in the show. That is a big mistake. The other personalities just are not likeable enough to carry the show.

Todd had a successful show on House of Style. He has a quirky manner but it really grows on you after a while. We need to see more of him. Maybe it isn't too late for the last half of the season to be edited in order to bring out more of Todd's voice, which is funny, genuine, and smart. It may not be as histrionic, pompous and over-the-top as reality television likes, but it is what Top Design needs to keep it from sinking in the mire of its own bile.

University of Virginia Health Sciences Library

* * * *

Finally, am I being mean-spirited myself? Perhaps. (Do I contradict myself?)

Nonetheless, I prefer a scalpel to carrying a stick.

bon mots

This week all three of the judges had some good zingers.


Jonathan hilariously described his response to Goil/Carisa/Ryan's design as: "I'm in St. Tropez, I'm in St. Tropez, I'm in St. Tr -- Wait! I'm in Buffalo."

Team Tahiti's roofless design evoked a couple of the best quips, like Kelly's suggestion that they "include a bucket of zinc oxide." Margaret channelled some of Kelly's southern style and declared, "You're gonna get fried."

In this week's Observation, Margaret's literary stylings reached a new zenith this week. She moved away from the statement form and her language became more associative. I think it was the southern French connection: she became possessed by the the spirit of the troubadours.

The previous weeks observations had an Asian, zen-like style with her use of terse statements that appear simple but upon reflection they plumb profound depths. The first week's was a light koan spoken in a more off-hand modern language. The second week she became more poetic: her repetition reinforced her characteristic irony as well as her use of the haiku form.

This week Margaret celebrated the southern French landscape in poem that is both modern and traditional. Her simple questions -- romantic but almost child-like -- evoke the popular ballad form. The poem appears to be an aubade that celebrates the morning light.The aubade was popular with both the troubadors and as well as modernist poets such as Ezra Pound who greatly admired the troubadors. The second stanza's classic imagist style is very reminiscent of H.D. Indeed, her intense compaction and ironic undercurrent perfectly captures the spirit of the Americans in France a century ago. Can we read this as Margaret's preference for high modernism over the decor of French country?

• Week 1 : Observations
• Week 2 : Observations
• Week 3: Observations