Wednesday's Word -- Memory

Mnemosyne (1881), by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Memorial Day has me thinking about this old memory, and the word "memory."

"Memory" means the "mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experience."  Why is it that memory tortures us so, when we most want to forget, and then escapes us when we most need to remember?  As Mark Twain lamented about memory and aging:  "When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened."  {I can only hope that the years will leave me with rose-colored memories.}      


But I like that "memory" also means the "capacity of a material, such as plastic or metal [or a human being] to return to a previous shape after deformation."  Yes, we (and plastic) are resilient, if not indestructible.  We snap back.

At its origin, "memory" comes from the Indo-European root *men-, meaning (no, not the male gender, but rather) to "think."  I suppose The Thinker was a man, but (at least according to mythology) the original thinker was a woman:  Mnemosyne (from the same root *men-).  Mnemosyne was the Titan goddess of memory and mother to the nine Muses.  She is said to have invented language and words and represented the rote memorization required, before the introduction of writing, to preserve the stories of history.  (You probably know the word mnemonic (learning technique that aids memory), which comes from her name.)  "[T]hey say that Mnemosyne discovered the uses of the power of reason, and that she gave a designation to every object about us by means of the names which we use to express whatever we would and to hold conversation one with another."  [Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 67. 3]  Thank you, Mnemosyne.  


It is also said that Mnemosyne presided over a pool in Hades called the pool of remembrance.  This pool was next to the pool of forgetting (the river Lethe).  Those entering Hades were encouraged not to drink from Lethe, but rather to drink from Mnemosyne's pool and continue along the journey into the land of the dead with memories intact.   

As for me, I am no Titan, but I do preside over my own pool of remembrance.  Some days I wish I could take a sip from (or dip in, for that matter) the pool of forgetting, but mostly I am grateful for my memories -- for the joys, the sorrows and the lessons contained in the depths.        

Application of Some Happy -- Camera Apps

I don't know about you, but carrying around my digital SLR camera to capture of-the-moment shots isn't really compatible with my life.  Now you're never going to get the same shot quality with your camera phone, but these iPhone apps sure make taking and sharing beautiful photos fun and easy.  Here are my three current favorites.

Instagram  Lots of fun, and free to boot.  Select filters that make your iPhone photos look so much better than iPhone photos.  You can follow your friends' photo updates as they move through their days.  If you're all connected out, you certainly don't have to connect with friends through Instagram.  You can work magic on your photos and then email them or save them.  There's even a cool iPad app called Instagram viewer that lets you view photos, gallery style.  Here's an example.

Morning Sun vs. Clouds

Camera+  This is my current favorite camera app, and I really can't gush enough.  It really takes so so photos and makes them special.  Photo too dark?  No problem, you can fix it with a tap by using the "clarity" or "backlit" effect.  You can also add color effects, retro effect and other cool tricks.  Crop and add borders too.  $1.99, and worth it.  Here's an example.

Tree Serpent

Picfx This one is just for fun.  Take a regular photo and apply textures (like white leak, plastic wood, or galactic), frames and styles to create some unique looks.  $1.99.  Not as wonderful as Camera+, but still fun.  Here's an example.

Desert Flower

Enjoy!

Nifty Items I've Been Eyeing and Would Like to Be Buying

Outdoor furniture from West Elm (and the time to lounge).  (Okay, I'll admit I did actually just buy some outdoor furniture.  And wouldn't you know?  Two days later I get a West Elm email touting 15% OFF ALL OUTDOOR FURNITURE!  Is there some law that discounts are only offered after I've already made a purchase?  Good grief.)

May flowers.  But fake ones, because (alas) my ranunculus are already dead and gone.  Something like these peonies from Neiman Marcus.

This Creative Thursday print, bunny holding a bear holding a bunny (discovered via poppytalk).

Have a great weekend!

Nifty Items I'm Eyeing and Would Like to Be Buying

A couple of nifty things that caught my eye this week:

1.  The botanically-inspired artwork of Dan Bennett (discovered via Diane James' The Buzz Blog).  I honestly can't swoon over these prints and paintings enough. Like this one:

helleborus3, acrylic on canvas

 2.  Something springy like this dress from Anthropologie.  Black and gray are my best friends, but there's just something not quite right about it when the world is blooming. 

Beware the Ides of March

Vincenzo Camuccini,  Mort de César, 1798

Well, given that it's March 15 today, this painting just feels right.  If you're puzzling over the meaning of "ides" it really just means "middle."  And why beware the ides of March and not the ides of May or June or January?  Because this is the day (way back in 44 BC) that Julius Caesar heard the seer's fateful warning ("Beware the Ides of March!"), laughed about it, and then didn't live to tell.  No, he was stabbed (23 times) to death in the Roman Senate by Brutus with the help of about 60 other conspirators.  Not a good day. 

What I love about the story (ala Shakespeare's telling) is that when the seer foretold that harm would come to Caesar not later than the Ides of March, Caesar joked, "Well, the Ides of March have come" (so there!), to which the seer replied:  "Ay, they have come, but they are not gone." 

Some days are like that.  They can't be over fast enough.            

Nifty Items I Was Eyeing and Couldn't Stop Myself from Buying

{Because I lack the restraint to eye and never buy, 

here is my periodic post of items that are making me happy.}  

This faux rust cymbidium from Diane James Home.  I ogled over the arrangements on the Diane James Home website for almost a year before I jumped on the opportunity to buy a couple of items with a generous discount code.  Her flowers and plants are pricey, but shouldn't there be a cost-per-loving-look measure (like price-per-wear for shoes and clothes)?  Just looking at this plant makes me happy, and that's really worth something.  

Prints from the Nebulous Kingdom on etsy -- Girl at Poppies and Princess Mardarine.

Two Good Ideas



Sabbath Manifesto

 1.  National Day of Unplugging (sundown tonight until sundown tomorrow). (discovered via Motherlode)

2.  This online art class from Pineapple Paintbrush.  The class doesn't actually start until Monday, but you could get a head start. Think what you could create with your children (or even on your own) while you're unplugged! (discovered via Bloom)

The Aging of Grief

I'm currently slogging through The Brothers Karamazov.  Yes, I do mean slogging.  It's not an easy read, but it does have moments of brilliance.  This morning, this line made me stop and ponder for some time:

"It's a great mystery of human life, 

that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy."  

I do think that's true.  And miraculous.  Even the sharpest of life's pains dull over time.  Thank goodness for joy, and that sorrow is only a periodic visitor.  But how "old" must the grief be before you can stop nurturing it like a sick child and kick it out of your house?  That's what I want to know.

Speaking of books, aren't these book sculptures (what the artist, Brian Dettmer, calls "altered" books) clever? (discovered via Omnivoracious)

Framing Ideas

Moving to a new house has given me a fresh chance with blank walls to cover at my whim.

Idea #1:  Here's an idea I've had in mind for some time but finally brought to fruition.  Some time ago, I purchased some lovely Japanese postcards of tenugui designs.  For a number of months, I couldn't bring myself to remove the postcards from the booklet they came in because they were too beautiful.  (Seeing what the book is selling for now on Amazon, perhaps I shouldn't have defiled it by removing the postcards??)  But the book is perforated with the intention that the cards be removed and enjoyed (or even mailed), after all.

Removed from the book, the postcards were perfect for framing.  I chose a few different colors of frames in the same style, popped the postcards in and hung them in a tile formation on an entryway wall.  They are currently making me happy.  And when I want to mix things up, I can just change the selection of postcards in the frames.

You could use this idea with any type of postcard.  Or you might try using images from a pattern book (these V&A Pattern books even include the patterns on cd, so you can print them) or even an old wallpaper sample book.  I have some tree bomb Ferm Living wallpaper that I purchased for various crafts, and I even cut an 8x10 piece and framed it to hang on the wall.  Looks great.  Pretty much endless possibilities.

Idea #2:  Here's another extremely easy (and inexpensive idea).  Do your kids produce mass quantities of art work?  Mine do.  I've come across several great ideas for displaying their work, including:

• Buying frames that can hold many pages at once, so you can stack, store and reorder.
• Paint empty frames on the walls of your garage or laundry room, so you can pin up a rotating collection of artwork on walls that might otherwise be blank. (Can't recall where I saw this idea.)
• Paint a wall with magnetic paint and hang art with magnets.  I may just have to give this one a try.

Well, here's my own very lazy but satisfying idea.  Buy yourself some colorful japanese washi tape (I like Happy Tape) and tape their artwork to the wall of a playroom or bedroom.  I don't even worry about being neat about it.  We just tape it up, stand back, and admire.  

Happy Links

A couple of things that made me smile this week.

This clip from Portlandia (discovered via The Man Repeller)



These very creative and funny photos of office wear made of office supplies (discovered via Jane Has a Job and Jeanie Jeanie).  I like this outfit, although I'd need to wear a cami underneath the top :)  The skirt strikes me as completely office appropriate.

Mailing envelope skirt paired with pencil eraser blouse
(creative work of New York photographer Ted Sabarese)

Wednesday's Word -- Color

I happened across this quote from Van Gogh:

"There is no blue without yellow and without orange."  

I like this.  As you can see in many of Van Gogh's paintings, he appreciated that juxtaposing complementary colors (like blue and orange) makes each color pop and seem brighter than it would otherwise.  Blue on its own isn't as blue as it could be if paired with orange or yellow, and vice versa.

Here's what he had to say about the technique:  "To exaggerate the fairness of hair, I  come even to orange tones, chromes and pale yellow . . . . I make a plain background of the richest, most intense blue that I can contrive, and by this simple combination of the bright head against the rich blue background, I get a mysterious effect, like a star in the depths of an azure sky."

He of course used this technique not just when painting hair, but nature too.

Taken as metaphor, "There is no blue without yellow and without orange" means (to me) that diversity is a beautiful thing.  The true potential of one thing (or person) may not reveal itself until put up against its complement.  Is your orange missing its blue?  Maybe you already have the blue background you need for your own personal pop, or maybe you need to find it.   

Ironically, the word "color" comes from an Indo European root (*kel-2) that means "to cover, conceal, save."  In a true sense, color can be a cover.  Paint the barn, paint the walls, paint your face.  Color may hide what lies beneath.

But color may also reveal.  On a technical level, color is the effect produced on the eye and its nerves by light waves of different wavelength or frequency.  Light transmitted from an object to the eye stimulates the different color cones of the retina, thus making it possible to perceive various colors in the object.

Yes, color brings a thing to life.  Makes me think of the original Wizard of Oz movie with the opening Kansas scenes in dreary hues of black and white, followed by colors that seem to burst from the screen once Dorothy reaches the Land of Oz.

Color can have that same effect on a smaller scale -- the food you eat, the clothes you wear, a pop of color in a room of your house.  Color can indeed save.  So go put something orange against an intense blue background and see what you see.  It might just improve your outlook on the day.

Decorating by the Book

From an Andy (husband of Kate) Spade
art exhibition at French boutique Colette

I have a scrap (among many others, some of which I have blogged about) on my bulletin board with this quote attributed to the Roman author Cicero:

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."  

Amen.  

We moved houses recently, and the move has given me the chance to sort through and organize the books I've accumulated over the years, both for myself and for my children.  If you, like me, have children who will never keep the jackets on hardcover books in place and yet you can't bear to get rid of them so you have them stored in some closet, or shoved behind a bookcase or under some bed, you might like this idea as much as I do.  Here are a couple of quick examples I may use in my little boy's room.    

As an aside, I've found myself purchasing far fewer books in recent years, as many of my "reads" are actually listens (audiobooks).  At my law firm, the law library keeps shrinking and shrinking as we rely increasingly on the electronic over the tome.  But I will never stop loving the heft of a book in my hands and the turn of the pages on my fingers.  Nor will I ever get tired of the look of books.  

On a related idea, have you seen the artists who use pages from old books and even dictionaries as the canvas for their art?  

Stare Into the Circles and Take a Deep Breath

I volunteered as the "art helper" in my kindergartener's art class yesterday.  Because I needed to be at the school at 11:10, it didn't make sense to drive all the way downtown to my office.  So I worked from home.  Well, actually, I mostly sat in my home office at my desktop and pondered on the question of what else I could do with my life that would use my skill set and all the years I've invested in my career but allow me to live a more creative life. 

With this on my mind, I walked into the art room and discovered that the class would be learning about a Kandinsky painting.  Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) is actually one of my favorite artists.  I just like the look of his paintings.  (I remember first being drawn to him when I stumbled upon a certain room at the Art Institute of Chicago many, many years ago that was displaying several of his paintings.)  But I also really like him because he was a lawyer in Russia and used painting as a stress reliever.  I am also a lawyer, am of Russian descent, and use art as a stress reliever. 

I couldn't help but take this as something of a sign.   

I'm currently reading/listening to a book that examines (among many other things) the idea of a person's self split into two -- through a traumatic event or other life experiences.  In truth, none of us is just one person.  We each have many faceted aspects that congolmerate to form the whole we call "self."  That is certainly true for me.  (You can't help but know this about me if you read this blog.  Vocation/avocation.  Two roads diverging.  Dare to eat a peach?) 

For now, I get my fix by carving out (a lot of) time (1) to read books that have nothing to do with my profession and (2) to make (a lot of) art with my kids.  Abandoning all reason to take up residence as the permanent "art helper" at the elementary school is tempting on a certain level (I'm not trying to brag or anything, but the art teacher DID say I can come help every day if I want . . . .).  But I somehow don't think that's the solution.  I'll just have to settle for cameo art helper appearances for now.

Nifty Items I'm Eyeing and Would Like to Be Buying

Infinity mirror from CB2.  I have some floor to ceiling bookshelves along a hallway wall, and wouldn't it be doubly fabulous to hang an immense mirror on the other side to give the feel of walking through a corridor of books?  Yes, I think so too.  If I actually do it, I'll post a photo.

Wall art for my little boy's room from Ferm Living (via All Modern).

These Stabilo pens are a great addition to the never-ending arts and crafts efforts around our house.  Super fine and vivid.  Great for adding detail to artwork with my kids.   

Nifty Items I'm Eyeing and Would Like to Be Buying

Ferm Living Pouf Pouf.  Alas, I didn't react quickly enough, and these are all sold out (at least from huset).

Ferm Living Chalkboard Calendar from Fawn and Forest.  (Okay, I've got a thing for Ferm Living and have for some time.)

Pretty much anything designed and created by element clay studio.  Like these wall tiles.

Or these or these?  You know how I love faux succulents, and I'm crazy about the texture of these.

Or these urchin bowls?  Beautiful.

Time Out

Van Gogh's Bedroom

Have you ever wished for illness or injury just serious enough that you could stay in bed for the day?  This is shameful, but I have at times found myself daydreaming of incapacitation.  I'll be walking across the plaza to my office and all of a sudden I imagine myself falling and inflicting some sort of temporary harm that would require strict bed rest for a week or so.

And then I count my blessings and press forward.  

Yesterday, I woke up feeling so sick I honestly couldn't function.  That pretty much never happens to me.  I have to admit that I enjoyed it {at least slightly} despite my misery.  Yes, I was a tad happy.  My children brought their projects into my room and played and made messes all around me, while I did my best to contain my germs.

Do you ever just stay in bed?  Or, like me, do you mostly just dream of the luxury?

Wednesday's Word -- Guilt

Orestes Pursued by the Furies, by John Singer Sargent, 1921.  The erinyes represent the guilt for murdering his mother.  

It took 43 seconds for the elevator doors in my office building to open and let me in this afternoon.  I know, because I count.  It's not so much that I'm impatient (although I am).  I count because I desperately want to dive into the elevator before anyone at work sees me leaving while it's still afternoon.  

You'd think I'd dispense of such emotions given the number of insanely committed years I've devoted, and the significant fact that I've taken a major paycut in exchange for the right to walk out the door.  But that doesn't stop me from feeling guilty about it.  Crazy, but true.  And the sad reality is that I feel guilty about leaving, and I feel guilty about staying.  Either way, I feel like I'm letting people down.  Family or work -- take your pick.    

Guilt

The word guilt comes from the Old English gylt meaning "crime, sin, fault."  Gylt is of unknown origin, but some think it may have a connection with the Old English gieldan meaning "to pay for, debt."  I kind of like that, because that's sure how I feel -- like everyone wants something from me and there's no way to satisfy them.  Perhaps a pound of flesh?  

For now, I'll keep counting at the elevator, trying to outrace the needless guilt that pursues me.

Nifty Items I'm Eyeing and Would Like to Be Buying

1.  Pocket Notebooks by Scout Books.  You can even design the cover with your own artwork.  

2.  Personalized address stamps by Primele.  

And a couple of crafty things I would like to try:  

1.  Decorating ziplock bags with Sharpies like this.

2.  Making fabric tape like this.  

Nifty Items I'm Eyeing and Would Like to Be Buying

I attended a class on budgeting this week, so I shouldn't be eyeing or buying anything, I suppose!  Well, I can look, right?

1.  Ceramic dishes from Le Souk Ceramique in Tunisia (this one available from Cambria Cove).  I'm dreaming of my visit there . . . .

2.  This happy flowers necklace from Stella & Dot makes me happy (it would make me happier if I actually owned it, of course :)

3.  Living Gaudi: The Architect's Complete Vision.  In preparing to visit Barcelona, I've developed something of a fascination for Gaudi.  The account I have read tells that he lived out the last years of his life in the crypt of the Sagrada Familia church he was building (and which is still not completed to this day), only to go out for a walk, get hit by a streetcar unrecognized because he was wearing shabby clothing, and end up dying in a paupers' hospital a few days later.  We'll be in Barcelona for the anniversary of his death.  I'm excited to see what I can learn while we're there.

Have a great weekend!

Take a Rest

I'm feeling completely overwhelmed by the task of getting my work done so (like Cinderella with her chores to complete before she can go to the ball) I can leave on my trip.  I'm up to my eyeballs in lists of "to do," and yet the dream of crossing it all off feels pretty much unreachable.  I'm sleep-deprived and bone tired with no relief in sight until we leave on Tuesday.  Even then, I'm not sure 14 hours of flying with three young children qualifies as "relief."  

Along the lines of my last post, isn't this lovely (despite poor quality because I scanned it from a small ad in a magazine)?  I'll just take a break for a few minutes to imagine resting here, beneath the words of Ovid.

www.wallwords.com