Airings on Design by Area Aesthetics

Happy Holidays

 

Disappearing Designs - USPS Doesn't Get My Stamp of Approval

I've never been a stamp collector, but I've always selected my stamps with a very personal eye. No staid American flags or Liberty Bells for me!. For years, I've been choosing stamps that represent things I love and one of the things I really love is great design.  

So when my cache of wonderful, oversized Eames and Noguchi commemoratives depicting some of their most notable achievements in interior furnishings and design ran out a few days ago, I did what I always do.  I headed to the U.S Postal Service's Web site to purchase some more, fully prepared, with the recent postal rate increase, to find a two-cent issue worthy of standing alongside these great icons of design.  

Alas, with the exception of the 4-cent Chippendale Chair  and the 1-cent Tiffany Lamp, none of the stamps commemorating great interior design are available any longer.  If you look beyond the online store and search the site, you can still find a collector's series first day issue pane of the 16 Eames stamps for sale (premium priced and unusable as they are already cancelled).   However,  it's as if  Noguchi, a sculptor by trade who viewed his furnishings and interior designs as a way to make sculpture useful in everyday life,  never even existed. 

I admit, it seems a little silly to be lamenting the passing of postal stamps, especially since I mail so very few hard copies these days.  But that momentary connection with these two great masters of design while stamping my envelopes always put a bit of joy in the chore.

Mother's Day - 2009

My mother taught me about unconditional love. And peace.  Not in so many words, but by her actions. Actions that I could easily take for granted when directed toward me, but which I could see so much more clearly when directed toward others.  She also taught me about design, again not in so many words, but by the homes she created and the care that went into making each room something special.  And this, I never took for granted.

She loved things that were finely crafted, finds from fleas markets in London and Paris, carpets painstakingly woven in Italian nunneries, antiques speaking to the pride that long ago craftsmen took in their day's labor.   Her rooms were brilliantly arranged and finished, never pedestrian, and never like anyone else's.  And, as expensive as many of the furnishings were,  even as children growing up on Long Island we were encouraged to live in them to the fullest.

In later years, in her homes in the Florida Keys and the Bay Harbor Islands, she showed me her range,  moving from the traditional periods of my childhood homes to  contemporary and Asian sensibilities and, finally,  bringing it all together in  a display of eclecticism that spoke to the entire experience of her life.  In these homes, she honored the local culture and the local artist alongside elements that spoke as clearly as a memoir about the journey of her life and the times, places and people that she loved.

She informs everything I do as a designer, most importantly, that rooms are for lives to be lived in, that a wonderful setting is only a foundation to accommodate and celebrate life as it unfolds long after the designer has left.   I remember her in her last home In New York City,  having just put the finishing touches on the living room and summoning her family into the room.  We stood off to the side, remarking on how great the room looked and taking delight in this detail or that.  But she took no pleasure in our praise, until we piled into the room and began to live in it.

Mother's Day 2009