I’m late posting this! Yikes. Don’t be angry, Lane! 😉 Luke Preston here on day 2 of my pre-The Right Words blog tour. We are now officially 3 days away till the release of The Right Words. Woohoo! Today I’m touching a little bit on my work as a designer. No snoozing allowed!
Life is a vignette. Yes, I’m an interior designer and I admit I’m prone to making sweeping connections between my work and the world around me but I think I may be on to something. Humor me for a moment. A vignette is a short descriptive literary sketch or scene. In design, it refers to an arrangement or collection of interesting things on display in the home. A well-done vignette is a pleasing ensemble designed to give a room a personal vibe. But no… your husband’s trophy collection he proudly insists must be represented in the family room is not what I’m talking about. Sure, he should have his trophies, but let’s try to convince him to put them elsewhere, right?
In interior design, the key is balance. Well, proportion, rhythm, harmony and unity are important too. Maybe this is where I clarify my life is a vignette metaphor (before you all wonder just how wacky the people in LA really are). It is a series of ill-proportioned, mismatched, funky assed discordant and imbalanced vignettes. The ones that catch your eye and make you think may take on an unexpected rhythm and meld into a strangely perfect fit.
Think about it from a design perspective. You’re decorating a holiday table for company. You unearth your favorite snowman dishes, festive napkins and polished silverware and then… what? The basics are finished but where’s the spice? Where is the interesting “wow” factor? The special feature everyone chats about when your roast beef is overcooked and the potatoes are mush. It could be anything as silly as a few sparkly reindeer or Liberace-esque candelabras. It could be tulips in winter or those cute tiny trees you see at the market but thought had to stay outdoors. Not so, my friend. Check out this fun tabletop at ABC Home in NYC. Fun, right? And a little unexpected.
I know it’s a stretch but consider real life application. Everyone claims to want harmony and balance in their lives but there are no interior designers to help configure difficult spaces of our mind. Well, not after you leave your therapist’s office, that is. You’re on your own! It’s up to each individual to figure out how their crazy meshes with everyone else’s, without compromising the parts of us that make us unique. Special. This quote by Alain de Botton makes complete sense to me. “Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.”
Chaos leads to harmony and vice versa. Perfection is an impossible dream. Don’t aim for it. You’ll only be disappointed. It’s best to concentrate on finding inner balance and peace while learning how to navigate the steady stream of change, because something will always upset the balance in real life, which isn’t always a terrible thing.
Now you’re probably wondering what the hell that tangent had to do with interior design or creating a spectacular vignette. Hell if I know! Actually, I do. I think there’s a tie between the artistry of ordinary things and ordinary lives becoming more than they are simply by how they’re arranged or perceived. I know I’m a better person for having certain people (no name dropping today!) in my life. I’m a nut. I love poetry and literature and nothing sounds better to me than a day with a stack of books taller than me. I don’t match the people in my life (at all 🙂 ), but the ones I love the most, I think I complement well.
Because I can’t resist, I’ll warn you now… tomorrow I’m talking about books! Somehow, I have a feeling you won’t mind, especially if I talk M/M. 🙂
“What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.”
-Henry David Thoreau
See you tomorrow, darlings!
Luke 🙂
