Wednesday, December 26, 2012

it's about the weather

Gaetano Pesce's America table at Design Miami
New year's resolution: post more.

I have curly hair. Here in Santa Fe, curly hair is not very common. For one thing, it's so dry that it's hard to keep the curls. On the other hand, if you labor to keep your hair straight, the southwest is the place to be. I mention this because last night a friend with curly hair was complaining about it. Much better to live back east where the humidity keeps curly hair just this side of frizz if you use the right product. She said, you really should choose where you live based on how your hair behaves.

Speaking of humidity and frizz, I went to Miami at the beginning of December for Art Basel Miami Beach and all the satellite fairs (that link takes you to a video tour.) So much has been written about them that I don't have much to add, but to say it was a mob scene, gridlock everywhere. Best to park not so close and walk. Friends who tried to get to some of the larger parties told me it was like trying to get into a rock concert, and not fun. But I'm sure if you were a collector or an important curator, or a blue chip gallerist, there was plenty of champagne and hobnobbing. The weather was beautiful, perfect Miami winter days of 75 degrees and soft breezes.

Since I've been writing for adobeairstream, a website dedicated to the arts in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas and Arizona, my editor asked me to write about the design fair, Design Miami. Here is the link to that piece:



Wishing everyone happy holidays! And a new year of peace and hope.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

it's all such a big unknown

Today is the birthday of Rainer Maria Rilke. So I wanted to post my favorite quote from his Letters to a Young Poet, the result of a ten year correspondance with a young man seeking his advice on his poetry. Here is an excerpt:
"You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

How hard it is to "live the questions!" It reminds me that even in dark moments, it's important to remember that the darkness will pass. But so will the good times! And that trying to force an answer is guaranteed to create anger and frustration. Maybe by the time you get to my age you start to recognize that everything goes in cycles and we have very little control over the outcome. Serenity prayer, anyone? 
For me it's comforting to think that staying in the moment, eventually the answers will come.