Cor Sapiens Quaerit Doctrinam

I made it through my High School reunion last weekend, and honestly, it was pretty enjoyable. The highlight had to have been one of my classmates tracking down and inviting to our reunion the great woman who taught us Sophomore English. During the school year that spanned from 1980 to 1981, I was fortunate to land in the capable hands of Sister Rita. In the 28 years since that year, I have credited Sister Rita with awakening in me a love of literature and a lifelong need to see my name in print. Sister Rita had the rare talent of making a room full of 14-and 15-year-olds pay attention and find English interesting and even enjoyable.

I've been wracking my brain and trying to remember what we read and wrote about that year and I have a vague memory of writing a paper about humor, so we had to have been reading Twain. I remember too, writing the first poetry I'd ever written but I'm not quite sure what I wrote about. Despite the gaps in what I remember, what I can recall as clearly as this morning was Sister Rita's constant encouragement. Her teaching philosophy seemed to be that so long as we threw ourselves into something completely, whatever resulted was perfect. If I read and understood a passage or a short story, any opinion I ventured was valid. It was my first taste of academic freedom and it was the first time I experienced the joy of learning something for no reason other than the reward of knowing. And the 14-year-old version of me who sat in that classroom couldn't get enough of it. 

Thanks to Carol's brilliant detective work, I was finally able to tell the amazing Sister Rita how huge and lasting an impression she made on me. It felt like a circle'd been completed after 28-odd years. 

The title of this entry is the motto of my Alma Mater and it means "A wise heart seeks knowledge," if your Latin's a little rusty. Those words were hollow to me when I was a teenager, but in the years since I've come to appreciate what they really mean. Wisdom; like happiness, confidence, satisfaction, tranquility and any other state of being you can name, come from inside and work outward. Wisdom seeks knowledge, knowledge doesn't cause wisdom. That's hardly news but I'm glad I figured that one out, even if it took a while. So thank you Sister Rita and thank you oh Alma Mater dear. You set me on a path I wouldn't trade for anything.

Appalling "designers" running amok

I watched the show Top Design on Bravo last week and it's taken me until today to recover my strength enough to write about it. I avoid television design shows as a general rule. All they end up doing is making me angry over the product placements and misleading advice. I end up hearing about this stuff second-hand, when my clients invoke the names of their favorite shows. I hear the lingo they pick up too. "We need a pop of color here" is the expression that tells me that somebody watches a lot of HGTV. Ugh.

Anyhow, I'm a big fan of Project Runway on Bravo. Project Runway showcases real talent and provides its contestants with genuine mentors. That show gives me a glimpse into a creative process I know nothing about --fashion design-- and I'm fascinated by it. I figured that since Top Design was a product of the same network, it would work somewhat along the lines of Project Runway. I was wrong. Tragically, tragically wrong. 

Top Design is an interior design competition show where a group of reality TV contestants imitating interior designers are given design assignments that are essentially product placements. Then everyone pretends that what they're doing is legitimate design. The pretend designs are then judged by a group of people whose hype exceeds their talent. And then after a whole lot of sturm und drang, one contestant gets eliminated. Ugh.

The ringleader of the judges is none other than Jonathan Adler.

Jonathan Adler started out making interesting vases but has in recent years taken his clown-like sensibilities into interior design. To wit:

This room is hideous. There, I said it. The emperor has no clothes.

Actually, the emperor's clothes don't fit.

The week I saw, the contestants were given a budget of $20,000 to design a set disguised as a room and have that set/room showcase a modern chandelier. The price of the chandeliers wasn't included in the 20 grand they had to spend.

Here's the room that won. The light fixture is silvery-looking $6000 pear hiding off to the left side of the room. Remember, the task was to highlight the light fixture.

Here's the room that didn't win, though all of the judges fell over one another praising it. The $11,000 "focal point" is on the upper right side of the photo.

It's a bloody nightmare. It's intentionally ugly and mismatched and was clearly a play on the nightmares Jonathan Adler cranks out. Now, I understand being provocative and I love making a loud statement from time to time. But this is absurd. The affected queen who designed it needs to be kicked in the head. 

Utter nonsense and people who don't know better will fall for it. Ugh.

If it isn't already painfully obvious to the non-designers who watch this show, this show has 

nothing to do with real-world design. I feel like my noble profession is being dragged through the mud by this train wreck. But real-life design would make horrible reality television. How do you make hours hunched over a drawing table compelling TV? 

Todd Oldham plays the role of mentor on this program and his presence on it is a bit of a disconnect. 

I have a world of respect for Todd Oldham. The man is a genius --he's a creative machine. He's in fashion, photography, illustration, fabric design, interior design, furniture design, film making, publishing and I'm sure there are plenty more I'm missing. He tries to offer the sociopaths and narcissists his sage advice and he's routinely ignored. I hope the producers are paying him a lot of money. But man, some money's too expensive.

So I did my bit, I sat through an episode of Top Design. And with that one hour, I have had my fill of design-ish TV for the next year or so. I should have known better. You know, I probably could have made it through had at least been entertaining, but alas...

There's more to stone mosaics than the dreaded tumbled marble

Here's some really cool takes on stone mosaic from Walker Zanger and Ann Sacks. More proof that if you find yourself in the tile aisle in a Home Depot, it's a good idea to keep right on walking.

Cool ceramic mosaics

The push toward all things glass mosaic has opened up a space for ceramic tile mosaics to stage a comeback of their own. Check out these beauties from Mod Walls, Ann Sacks and Walker Zanger.

These first seven photos are from Ann Sacks, who in my mind sets the standard for ceramic tile. Man, I am madly, deeply in love with Ann Sacks.

These are from Mod Walls who are taking ceramic tile into some really interesting and welcome directions.

Walker Zanger is great for putting new twists on classic designs.

New glass mosaics

I'm out of town, but through the power of the Internet I'm still able to keep right on posting as though I were still sitting at home. Amazing.

Anyhow, I notice that I get a lot of traffic from people looking for inspirational photos of glass mosaics. When I'm looking for some inspiration along those lines, there are three sources I turn to time and again. They are Mod Walls, Ann Sacks and Walker-Zanger. I think those three have some of the best websites out there for seeing this sort of thing in action. Here are a couple of great rooms I found on Mod walls and all of them feature glass tile mosaics.

As you can tell from how varied these things are, there really aren't any rules except the single overriding caution of life in general; just because you can doesn't mean you should. Got a question about a particular image? Just ask and I'll chew off your ear with an answer.

This is what I meant about the difference between can and should.