Making It Pretty

I wanted to make myself look pretty. I'd take my sidewalk chalk; get a pop bottle cap; drizzle a few drops of water from the sink, and grind the chalk to a paste. I'd dip my five-year old finger in the paste, and make up my eyes in blue, green, purple or pink. I couldn't understand why my mother laughed...

I wanted to make the world look prettier. One afternoon in April, I looked out the dining room window during Sunday dinner and the thought ran through my six-year-old head: "Those yellow tulips would look better with red stripes." I had to finish my peas, but as soon as that was done, real quiet, I found my way to the garage, where I knew my dad had a can of red spray paint. I shook it and - careful,wasn't easy - did red stripes, one, two, three, on each fat yellow tulip. My dad said, "You think you know better than mother nature?" I looked sad, but inside I told myself, "Maybe I do..."

I wanted to give presents to my mom, dad, my brother Frankie, my first grade teacher. My dad had terra cotta ( I didn't know those words) pots. They'd make great cookie jars if I could make a lid. There were saucers. My dad and I went to the hardware and bought knobs for dresser drawers and he helped me glue knobs on saucers to make lids. He had a can of yellow and I did the pots yellow and made a few Mexican and painted tulips on the rest. It was a first attempt to repurpose something, though that computer world word didn't exist. But it was transformation. I didn't know that word either but eventually it became a big idea for me.

 That's some of how I began tinkering to make what I saw look better. It was a long road: years of typing; selling fabric; sewing; transforming and selling sweatshirts; designing and sewing window treatments, duvets, pillows; art and design classes; and then -slowly - putting together whole rooms and - gradually - parts of houses and whole houses. It was learning to look at a room as a composition, but not just as an aesthetic object, also a functional one for which durability, cost and comfort are considerations; a composition where color, line, texture work together for harmony, usefulness and - you hope - surprise and delight.

That tricky quality of harmony/balance (synonyms in design)is about relationship: this texture and that color, this heavy table and the delicate light next to it... all the color, furniture, art, lighting, plants - the forms, lines, hues, textures in a particular space. It isn't rocket science, but it's tricky and takes an eye, and while there are many gifts not mine, I have an eye. It can drive me, my daughter or husband crazy, but if they're wearing a garment that is slightly too high contrast, uh uh; or if there's a hair on a shirt, I'll get it at 50 paces. That's a mixed blessing, but it equips me for design work.

Which, in the final analysis is mostly about relationships and harmony. I took a walk in the park with said husband and daughter dog Diva yesterday and husband asked me if the creek in November exemplified design principles. I'll spare you the details, but the short version is: totally; the color, light, look of the icy water over stone, the brown leaves fallen or about to fall constitute an exquisite harmony, perfect for that place.

The light of Florida would be too bright; a tiny dose of the Southwest's vegetation would jar. But that shale, and the brown of the bank and the thousand subtly different foliage browns, the fewer yellows and roseates and the straggling greens slipping more slowly into the dormant season - all of that was in wonderful balance and harmonious relationship. And so much of what we try to do in design is translate the perfection we see in nature into living spaces. When I went through feng shui training, I found deeper understanding of that truth.

The other way relationship is central to a positive client design experience is that the designer-client connection requires care and humility on the designer's part, the only part I can control. It's not a matter of my taste; it should be the clients. I might lobby passionately for this color and that fabric, for my best vision, but it has to come down to what will be most pleasing to him or her. You put your personality and preferences aside and achieve the best possible vision of the client. I will address this complicated issue in future word bouquets to the blogosphere. For now, suffice to say interior design isn't about the designer; it's about relationships in a variety of senses; and it's an activity where you create balance, usefulness, comfort, beauty.

I'm still trying to make it all prettier, and transform it when transformation is called for. I've also learned that the way it looks is only part of the story. There are other issues like integrity, human connection, a service ethic and a process allowing fun. I will always want to make it pretty, but I'm now accepting, as I didn't when I was six, that nature was right about the tulips and everything else, and that it is advisable to pay attention to what is already there; to listen to what people (clients) say they want; and to try your best to make it happen for them.