Oh, Bee Hive!

Spring is a-busting out all over with blossoms and blooms! The birds are belting out ballads building to a crescendo, and speaking of birds, I think of the bees.  I do hope that the bees are a-buzzing, what with the strange depletion lately of their pollinating population.

How did bees get the pre-programmed idea that the hexagon would be the perfect solution for their hives? Ah, that we could come up with such an elegant solution for our homes! These exceedingly strong structures are masterpieces in engineering that make the most efficient use of space and labor expended. How amazing, that the mathematically optimal solutions are always found in nature, yet we humans continue to struggle to come up with just the right equation.

As always, we return to geometry in our understanding and discipline in art and design.

wild bee hives 

 Austin Powers had it right when he exclaimed, "Oh behave!"

"BEEHIVE" ceiling lamp A331

Alvar Aalto

1953

The natural beehive form inspired Aalto to create this modernist ceiling lamp from back in the day of "Mad Men" design. 

In relation to this subject, though a human invention, I was inspired to fashion a lamp finial from a honey dipper.  I've seen this form used on cabinet pulls, vases, etc.

www.crossville.com

Everywhere we look, we can find honeycomb/hexagon inspiration.

We see it in numerous shelf designs to stash and store your stuff.

The honeycomb rug pattern adds design interest in its small repetitions of the hexagon shape, providing structure in an open and amorphous interior design.

"Hive"

Janet Lofquist

corten steel

Dedicated September 11, 2009

This sculpture was erected at a Metrolink station nearby my house. Inspired by the idea of community spirit in rebuilding the neighborhood, the artist thought of honeycombs and the bee colony's cooperative efforts in building and maintaining their hives. It is an appropriate symbol for the regeneration of the neighborhood and is very pedestrian friendly.  Frequently children run around it, peer at one another through the cells, and even crawl through the cells.  

Every time I walk or drive by, I think to myself, "Oh, honey!"  I like that the bees have had such a visual impact on our community.  Let us hope that many more hives will prosper in their own livelihood as well!  Buzz on!

Star Struck

Oh, if only my math teacher could have been Donald Duck! Unfortunately, back in the day, I was put in the corner with a dunce hat for all the teaching that didn't crack open my cranium. Nowadays, in schools you'll have courses that blend and overlap as recent teaching strategies have recognized that not everyone learns in exactly the same way. In my previous blog, I wrote about how integral math is to art and design.  How would music be as we know it without mathematics?  Oh, to have had art and music in my math class; that would have been heaven! Don't be square and check out this link and see what Donald Duck has to say about the great adventures that can be had in Math Magic Land.  You won't regret it! Around about the 7 minute mark you will find a nice explanation of the Golden Rectangle, but I recommend that when you have the time to view it in its entirety. 

 http://www.schooltube.com/video/4330a09d98c125dcaa00/Donald%20Duck%20in%20MathMagicLand

Geodesic Terrarium

Glass with bronze finish aluminum

Restoration Hardware

www.restorationhardware.com

As a former art teacher, I was always dismayed by students who claimed that "they couldn't draw a straight line."  What is a geodesic dome but a network of straight lines?  These were generally left brain individuals who at an impressionable age were told they were "no good at art". I always tried to dispel that destructive belief and sow seeds of inspiration that we are all capable of artistic creations on many levels and in many ways.  

Polyhedron

polished stainless steel

Restoration Hardware

www.restorationhardware.com

The polyhedron is a geometric solid in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges.  This shape has fascinated mankind since antiquity, though it fell out of favor in the middle ages. Revived once more in the Renaissance, interest since then has not flagged.  I like throwing these up on a bookcase or tucked in a corner for a little intellectual stimulation and titillation.

Raimond Lamp by Raimond Puts

stainless 'spring steel"

distributed by B & B Italia/Moooi

www.moooi.com

Oh those Dutch!  Always ahead of the design game, definitely in outer space while the rest of us mortals muddle around on the ground. This chandelier is a perfect recipe composed of mathematical ingredients and lit by tiny LED lights.  Puts lives on a houseboat with his painter wife in Amsterdam.  He is a self-taught designer, and at the ripe age of 70 (yes!) presented this light at the 2009 Milan furniture fair.  It was the star of the show.  He says, "My thoughts are in measurements.  Before I start anything I need to produce precise drawings."  That's always been my inclination when starting an interior design project. I like to measure everything and then start adding, multiplying, dividing and subtracting. I no longer believe that I'm "no good at math" - I just didn't have the right teacher!

Time Out

Have you ever seen a terrible twos tantrum?  This design duplication approach may stultify and stupefy your interiors.  Classicism is all about balance, but when is two too many?  When does double dipping doom your domicile?  Sure, it seems to simplify the project in filling the space, but what would you say at the end of a long day?  Are you going to have a temper tantrum?

Classic example of the terrible twos - 

Yes, you are confused and overwhelmed about what to do with the space. But you need checks and balances.  You need to channel your energies in an orderly and civilized direction.  But disciplining the decor only by doubling the digits?  Might cause a total melt-down.  

More twosies in tandem

It is imperative to remain calm and perhaps take something away. A time out might be in order.  Restraint is a key word. Don't do two much! You don't want the Design Police on your doorstep! Perhaps better to foster the inevitable freedom and independence that your budding creation requires.

Atrium at Las Tejas, a house in Santa Barbara, California 

John Saladino

Saladino is a master of asymmetry with classical references.  Do you see here how the negative spaces are equally as important as the positive spaces? Everything is carefully considered in terms of its proportions.  There is a mathematical genius at play here and the result is beautiful.

Apartment in New York

Vicente Wolf

Wolf demonstrates an understanding of how it all adds up by multiplication of a good thing. He's got onesies, twosies, and threesies, etc. going on here. And by varying the subtleties of texture in your multiples, you can power your interior with a knock out punch!

Dining room

Clodagh

How much do you duplicate shapes?  How do you balance the quantity of color?  Is there a ratio rule?  I think that for artists, it is more intuitive than learned.  Clodagh utilizes the ancient principles of feng shui in her designs as a guide to perfect aesthetics.

Kitchen and dining area, 2005

Terry Hunziker

The beauty is in the balance. This design could likely be dissected into never-ending sections of a golden rectangle.

Golden Rectangle
The Parthenon - Temple dedicated to the goddess Athena

Guest house in Dallas, Texas

Andree Putman

This design demonstrates higher mathematics and physics. Putman carves through the space by architect Bill Booziotis fearlessly demonstrating what's what. Although devoid of architectural features of classical antiquity such as columns and capitals, the design emphasis is all about geometry. I think the Greeks and Romans would feel right at home!

Fibonacci spiral

Onesies, twosies, and threesies, etc. in perfect harmony.  No more tantrums!

A World Without Rigoletto

What gets me going in the morning more than a platter of Rigoletto? No, I'm not talking about a plate of pasta. Rigatoni is the tubular, ribbed noodle that comes in varying lengths and diameters and is sometimes curved. Served with a white or red sauce, or simply with butter, herbs and garlic, it is delicious.   

But much as I love Italian pasta, I love Italian opera even more!  And  I was talking about platters as slang for vinyl records.  I have a collection of records that I like to play when I exercise in the morning, and lately it's been the Rigoletto that gets me going. Just when I might come up with some excuse not to engage in weight-lifting and work-outs, I think, well, the time will go by quickly if I get to enjoy some beautiful music.  The recording that I am playing is with Richard Tucker as the Duke, Gianna D'Angelo as Gilda,  and Renato Capecchi as Rigoletto. 

Teatro Mantua

Rigoletto awaits me, and will awaken you, too, from your slumber.  If you have not had the pleasure of making this acquaintance, written by none other than Joe Green, aka as Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901), you are in for a treat.  Last fall, just by sheer chance while channel surfing, I happened upon the BBC  and RAI production filmed on location in Mantua.   A star casting included Zubin Mehta as director,  Placido Domingo as Rigoletto, Vittorio Grigolo as the Duke, Julia Novikova as Gilda, and Ruggero Raimondi-Magdelene as Sparafucile.  

This opera has been a blockbuster since it was first performed in 1851. It had an international stage within five years, being seen in Venice, Rome, Naples, Vienna, Budapest, Brunn, Milan, Graz, Stuttgart, Prague, St. Petersburg, London, Warsaw, Bologna, Madrid, Athens, Lisbon, Constantinople, Tiflis, New York, Buenos Aires, Havana, and Rio de Janeiro.  This was when entertainment was about art and talent. I think that if I had been alive then, I might have been a Verdi groupie. As the playbill shown here for the Syracuse Opera describes: "This grand tragedy has seduction, an assassin, kidnappers and murder.  But the corpse of Rigoletto's daughter, Gilda is about the only thing that's stiff." Based on a play by Victor Hugo, Le roi s'amuse, it was bound to be tragic and heart-rending, as Hugo always tends to be.

A snippet of "Quanto dolor", one of many hit duets in the opera:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=p67TSWEI2Oo

In the BBC production, the duke was played by the not-too-hard-on-the-eyes Vittorio Grigolo.  He is the the quintessentially imperious scoundrel.

All three acts were filmed in Mantua, at the actual times of the day and night. The splendor of the Palazzo Ducale brings the opera to life in the most realistic and sumptuous way possible.  Costuming was equally opulent, as it always is in opera.

I had no fault with Placido Domingo advancing from his years as a tenor and singing the duke's  baritone role of Rigoletto. He is a great stage actor and has admitted that Rigoletto is such a powerfully complex and emotional piece that it still brings him to tears with its beauty. That the camera can zoom in from different angles provides a very intense and personal experience that  is bound to result in frequent reaching for the tissues. 

Act III.  The depressing mood is set with this outside-of-town tower.  It is a tragedy waiting to happen amidst misfortune, miscommunication, and mayhem. 

EVERYONE has to be familiar with this aria sung by the lecherous duke.  It became a big hit when first heard and was the most popular song of the season.

Rigoletto - put it on your bucket list, or it will be be a tragedy indeed that you have not truly lived before you die!  A world without Rigoletto - I can't imagine!

Hang Up Hang Over

There is a disturbing trend that I have noticed in the last couple of years.  If I were writing a book about the virus, I might entitle it The Contagious Caper of the Hung Up and Hung Over. Specifically, I refer to the hanging up of art or mirrors over shelves of books. This fad has become increasingly pervasive and practiced by designers more times than I care to see every time I open a book, magazine, or catalogue. 

So what are we saying here? That we don't really look at our books? That we would rather look at an art piece or mirror?  Well, make up your mind!  It all seem stupid to me, and I call it dumb decorating.

Oh, how sophisticated, intellectual and cultivated is this!  A Recamier chaise longue, an architectural maquette, mastaba print, pricey antiques, and a heady assortment of cultural tomes. But was this a designer who bought arty books by the foot or were they a treasured client's collection? Why would a book lover agree to having to hide their books behind an art piece?  Not only would you have to remove it to get a book that you forgot was back there, but wouldn't it make dusting more difficult?  I don't think it's practical, and I regard it as an insult to both the books and the art.  Both are treated as so much decorative fluff.

It gets worse!  Really, what do we want?  Books, art, or floral display? Why not just design a frame composed of book spines? 

I would not be so presumptuous to insist that art supersedes literature.

Throughout my life, I have enjoyed a certain voyeurism in regards to book collections. You could gain all sorts of insights as to a person's interests and personality based on the titles.  But here, I would want to peek behind the painting. Maybe the shelves are empty?  Trashy books the homeowner might not wish to display; i.e.  self-help books, diet books, gothic novels, etc.?

Egads! Maybe the mirror and pictures just haven't been hung yet. Maybe the owls are varying their perches. I think this is supposed to be a statement about the wisdom of books and owls. Note the books put in backwards.  But that's for a whole other blog. Stay tuned.

Three Totos and a Tutu

It's Toto time!  The first Toto that comes to mind, from my earliest recollection, is the dog Toto in The Wizard of Oz.  I always liked that movie.  Toto played a starring role that exhibited both dog smarts and affection. 

Toto the dog

When I pulled up this image of Toto, I was surprised to see the similarity in appearance to my dog Alice, who I adopted in 2010. Maybe that's why I chose her!  Alice sometimes gets called Toto, too. I guess I like the way the two syllables sound coming out of my mouth.  

Alice 

The next Toto of recent apparition came last summer while working on the Garden Apartment project.  An end table and table lamp were needed for the right side of the living room sofa.  Something simple, neutral and inexpensive...How about combining all of what was needed into one neat package?  Plus adding additional seating if necessary?

                                        

The Toto was the perfect solution.

Toto Cube Lamp

Offered by Design Within Reach dwr.com  at $250.75, their advertising description is very interesting:

"An unusual lamp with an unusual story, the Toto Cube Lamp is made by a wine tank manufacturer in France.  Toto is only made during the factory's slow season, when they stop producing enormous wine storage tanks.  A scaled-down version on these tanks, Toto can be used as a lamp, table, or seat.  Place it bedside for a soft glow, or employ it in a retail setting to add a dramatic backdrop to the objects on display. From being made in the mold of a wine tank, to becoming a surface on which to place your wine glass (or coffee mug or carafe of water), Toto has successfully turned three products into one."

This is pure Zen. Sorry  I can't credit the designer; this photo is part of the advertising for Toto.

Toto 550 Neorest 

Now for the third toto of this trilogy: I am about to start a new bathroom project in which the client specifically requested a Toto 550 Neorest. This is not your run-of-the-mill-go-cart clunker nor your basic hole in the ground.  How do you compare a Lamborghini to a horse and carriage? This ride will take you places never imagined!  The only thing not included is a seat belt or even a horse whip. Toto's official specifications read thus:

• Programmable Nightlight
• New Easy-to-Read Remote Control Design
• More Compact Design
• Automatic Open and Close Lid
• Washlet Cleansing with Three Modes
• Hands-Free Automatic Flush
• Integrated Warm Air Dryer
• Built-In Air Purifying System
• Energy Saver Timer
• Cyclone Flushing System

A few years back, I had my first encounter with a Toto.  In Chicago for the national  ASID (American Society of Interior Designers) conference, I was there as President Elect for our Missouri Chapter, along with seven new board members.  The Toto showroom was having a reception, and thinking it might be a good baptizing and bonding opportunity, I suggested that we all visit the chamber of porcelain (but not all at once; we each took turns). I have been a convert and believer ever since!

Whereas the average rattletrap Model T toilet might put a hole in your wallet for $100-200, the Neorest retails at $5460-6280, depending on all the bells and whistles.  Do I think that it's worth it?  Absolutely!  Could I live without an electric toothbrush?  No, I could never go back to manual!  Just like that, Toto is the toilet you want to come home to.  Wish I had one, too, in addition to my electric toothbrush! 

Tutu

The finale of these three t's is my tutu from BCBG.  I think I was a disadvantaged kid in that I never had a tutu growing up.  Never got over the longing, so last year I finally got one!  It can be dressed up with heels and pearls, or dressed down, as shown here with khaki and army boots.  Definitely has many uses!  So now when you think Toto or tutu, think multiple applications! 

Mahler with Marimba

I have been transfixed by the recent event at the Avery Fisher Hall. This was the story that came out last Friday about conductor Alan Gilbert stopping the New York Philharmonic dead in its tracks at the mercy of an intrusive and never-ending marimba ring tone.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/nyregion/ringing-finally-stopped-but-concertgoers-alarm-persists.html?

The marimba in its modern form came to America at about the same time that Mahler was writing his 9th symphony - in 1910. Although the instrument has been used in later classical pieces by other composers, it is not believed that Mahler had any knowledge or interest in the instrument popular in Central America and on Caribbean cruise ships.

That the ring tone erupted for a few moments was bad enough, but from varying reports, it lasted an agonizingly long 5 - 10 minutes.  It seemed insidiously programmed not to misbehave during a loud section, but at the moment when the music is fading almost into silence.  

As you can see from from this score of the 4th movement, there aren't many notes.  The sound disintegrates and you could hear a pin drop if not for the equivalent of Daffy Duck making his entrance.  We all know the ditty - Da, da, da, da, da!  Da, da, da, da, da! Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da!

                                             

This was hijacking of the highest order - interruption of art. Just imagine some 2,700 people and musicians transfixed by the ethereal and sublime music of Mahler's 9th Symphony. Along comes the insistent, obnoxious, and uninvited instrument. Captain Gilbert endured the massacre as long as he could stand it, then stopped the engines and everyone waited.  And waited while the marimba made merry. That so many were held hostage by this banality is true theatre of the absurd.  These gentle appearing patrons soon had murderous thoughts, but apart from angry shouts and rhythmic clapping, why didn't anybody DO anything? Music is an experience when we voluntarily suspend our belief for a period of time with a start and a finish. The magical moment was destroyed. 

No, this is not a mallet for striking a marimba, but Mahler's baton.  He had a very successful conducting career before dying at the age of 50. And yes, the curse of dying after composing 9 symphonies held true. Good thing he didn't have to hear this altered performance.

On January 10, 2012, civilization as we know it was brought to its knees by the power of technology. 

Thus sprak Malus Domestica - a tone poem

Enter the iPhone, disguised here as the monolith in 2001 Space Odyssey.  Little did we know that we would become helpless victims to the Hal that played annoying ring tones.  This is the one glaring mistake that Steve Jobs didn't address in his obsessive quest to design the best.

I object to the inanity of most of the ring tones offered on Blackberry and iPhone. Please do everyone a favor and be sure that yours is one that isn't irritating.  And learn how to turn off the damn thing.  You may have to customize it and pay a few bucks plus be sure to ask your friends if the ring tone you choose is offensive.  Otherwise, listen up cell phones designers, don't insult us with your meager, mediocre menus to select from when we've just shelled out a lot of loot.

  

So, the psychological repercussions of all this percussion will echo for some time...will Patron X ever be able to use an iPhone again without experiencing trauma?  Or ever listen to Mahler again?  Will he be expelled forever from Avery Fisher Hall?  Will he have to keep this a deep, dark secret forever from friends and family?  Patron X, and we, unfortunately, will never be able to forget.  I think it would be in the best interests of iPhone to delete that tone entirely and let there be silence!