OUTSIDERS

My daughter dances to the beat of a different drummer...her husband is the drummer.

Lisa is over six feet tall. I met her in 1984. She was Bill’s date. They arrived to the party in a coach with footmen. They exuded the stench of royalty.

Lisa wore a white pantsuit, one that said “I require my wearer to be super tall, super thin and above all, super confident.” Lisa was all that.  Silver earrings. No other jewelry. Chin length, straight hair, naturally blond. Scandinavian to the core.

Lisa and I became friends. She earned money doing a little photo modeling, but she was actually a talented artist. I talked to Lisa about her height. My granddaughter, a teen, had passed 5’10” with no stopping in sight and instead of being happy that she was tall, she was blitzed. 

Lisa said “I hated myself during those years. You’ve got to remember that kids - teen agers - never want to stand out. More than anything, they want to “fit in.” In every single class picture, I was always in the back row — the tallest kid in class. How can you fit in when you’re a head taller than all your classmates?”

My daughter’s 35th high school reunion was Saturday. When we talk about her high school years, pain oozes from those memories. I listen to her stories — events that are news to me. Sometimes we laugh. Often we are silent. She was physically and socially awkward and she liked art and experimental music — not exactly popular currency for teens. Now they have more value. She needed a “Special Needs” class — one for kids who are super-sensitive to injustice, and morbidly affected by loneliness. 

I took piano lessons 3rd, 4th, 5th grades and played off and on my entire life. I played with a high school jazz band for about two weeks but when we had our chance to perform “Night Train” on a radio station, my career hopes were dashed. I lost my place and played six bars behind everybody else — live and on air — until the music conductor pushed me off the piano bench and tried to salvage the train wreck. It was too late. I was banished.

Now, more than fifty years later, I’m taking jazz piano lessons. A wonderful trio of generous professional musician friends invited me to sit in with them at a party last night. History — like lightning — can strike twice. I muddled through one song but then I must have had a mini-stroke or something! The notes made no sense, the piano keys were all in the wrong spots, my hands turned into baseball bats, something happened to my ears. It all came rushing back and I was right back in 11th grade with Mrs. McWhiney  pushing me off that bench and every other musician giving me the stink eye.

My friends last night did NOT give me the stink eye. They did give me a glass of wine and assured me that it didn’t matter (a big fat lie!) Later I played some solo stuff and revived my bruised ego a little. 

I was one of the popular kids throughout school years. Classes were easy. I made friends everywhere. But scars happen to the best of us. At my age, we can’t remember where we were yesterday but ask us about embarrassing experiences from our teen years! Here they come! 

When do we outgrow that stuff?

COLLECTING: THE DARK SIDE

I am surrounded by beautiful objects collected over a lifetime. I combine texture, color and shape in a way that enhances individual pieces and lends an aura of taste and interest to the complete environment.

When I die, the first stop for these treasures? An estate sale. Nobody in my family wants an entire houseful of “things”— they have houses full already.  Increasingly, museums have no use for even good art unless it comes partnered with a sizable donation to store and care for extraneous objects. 

So for a few bucks, you can own my “eye.” But out of context, my valued objects will lose their punch. Against your cabbage rose wallpaper, my pottery will look like crap and my paintings are far too specific for somebody else’s traditional living room.

After the household sale, the dregs and leftovers will be loaded onto a truck and sent off to Goodwill…or Habitat for Humanity… or some church somewhere. All good. I want to help the less privileged even after I’m dead and what better way to cheer up a refugee family than with a 4’ x 6’ painting of smears of gray and black paint! Or a big beautiful ceramic pot tenuously balanced on its 2 inch foot, so fragile that the slightest breath will send it crashing into oblivion?

After tripping over that donated painting for the millionth time, a Habitat supervisor will say “Enough! Send this to…the dumpster, the trash heap.” Nobody will utter the slightest objection because like all things in this world, orphaned art eventually becomes just more disposable clutter.

The bitter truth is that only a tiny fraction of artful objects will find long lasting value…just as high school phenom basketball players will mostly fail to reach the NBA…and odds are that the super talented singer in your choir will NOT become the next Aretha Franklin.  

You doubt me? Then you haven’t gone to estate sales lately. Or visited nursing homes. Or been called to help dispose of abandoned artwork left in a storage facility.

I was bereft after one such incident. My friend Nancy wrote: “You’ve come face to face with the dark side of collecting. And as with everything else, it’s as if a mirror is being held up asking ‘what about you?’”

Yikes! Has my life — my entire career — been misspent? Is collecting merely a nicer word for hoarding? Does the old adage “one man’s treasure is another man’s trash” apply to EVERYTHING, even art? 

Well, yes, but along with all the warts, collecting brings along unexpected positives. 

1) Collecting anything automatically opens doors into history.

2) Chasing down and finding that perfect thing gives structure to free time. 
3) Collecting introduces the collector to people with similar interests. 

4) The search leads to unique vacation locals and out-of-the-way shops, galleries, museums and studios. 

5) Collecting nearly always results in wider hands-on experience and in depth information about the physical characteristics of objects — the method and materials used in manufacturing. 

6) Makers imbue their work always with their individual tales; it’s impossible to own such personal information without broadening your own curiosity about and tolerance for fellow humans. 

And there it is — ultimately, collecting is a case for belonging — community. When we collect objects, we collect the stories too. We weave the thread of our being into the continuing thread of makers and the history of the things they make.  It doesn’t matter what happens to these objects after we’re gone. If they find another home, good! If not, they haven’t been made — nor owned, nor loved — in vain.  They served for awhile. The makers and their objects — the collectors who bought them —continued the evolutionary experience we share. That’s the best any of us can hope for.

LOFTS

Typical loft - 1990, 2000, 2010

Everything about Beth is way cool.

She looks sexy standing still, fully dressed in jeans with a tucked in white t-shirt. She has a way of gathering up her shoulder length dark curly hair and twisting it at the back of her head to stay off her face and neck that says “now I’m ready.” Without trying, she defines “sultry.” 

Beth is artistic. She makes things that are also way cool — so cool in fact, that they get sold at Barney’s in New York City, maybe the only cool department store left in the world. It’s where the glamour people go to pick up a $500 pair of jeans.  I bought a plate there once. I don’t know why. It didn’t match anything. When I got it home, I wondered where the cool went.

Beth lives in an urban loft with polished cement floors and exposed brick walls. Windows are the size of billboards. Exposed pipes and ducts form veins on the high ceiling. Several columns interrupt the more than two thousand square feet of coolness. Placed throughout the space is the required collection of furniture — modular couch, long harvest dining table with mid-century chairs, a few shabby chic antiques, and of course, great art work. The kitchen is an afterthought and the bathrooms are clinically austere. Even these “negatives” turn out to be cool when you think about it in the context of the space.

People my age connect industrial lofts with a life-style we read about and lusted for during our prime years — the 1980s and 90s. That environment triggers for us images of style and culture, chic-everything! We want to return to those years when we could wear those clothes, go to those parties, be on everybody’s “A list”(even if none of those things existed for us in real life.) We want to not worry about schedules for hip replacements and cataract surgery. We’re sick of chasing down the lawn care man. Don’t get us started about Spectrum!

Beth is moving. Her loft is available. Dreams can come true! 

But just one sec. This dream comes without garage. No extra storage space - anywhere. Water pipes and drains come down from the two floors above through the bare ceiling announcing the neighbor’s baths and toilet habits. Those huge windows? No view of spectacular city rooftops or a nighttime light show. The view is one of paved parking lots and adjacent building windows — when the shades are open. Most of the day, they are closed to keep out heat and bleaching sun. Electrical outlets are few and lighting that works requires a miracle worker. Ikea can only do so much!

The bitter truth: the ideal loft has become a cliche. They come from an era that has passed. They may be perfect for the first-timers and single professional but we have aged out of LOFTS. 

So the question: what is the perfect environment for those of us who no longer want nor need a single 3-4 bedroom house? It isn’t that we can’t deal with the lawn guy and Spectrum — we just don’t want to! Yet, we aren’t ready to turn over our lives to a management company. 

We want a unique and creative living environment but one with full benefits.  

Typical loft, version #2
(Friends, never fear. I am NOT ready to move. So far, the universal ranch style house that Chip and I built 6 years ago still works for us.)