The Mantle

As I pack, and sort, and plan for our new home, I have been finding myself spending a lot of time sitting still in our home here in Chicago and just looking.  Do you ever do that?  Especially if it is late at night, I wander around and look at the piles that have accumulated here and there, and wonder about how they will look in our new place, or what new shape they will take with other things.   Here is on of my favorite spots......unusually NOT decorated for Christmas this year, but decorated nonetheless.

As an artist, I certainly spend a lot of time arranging.   My finished works are almost never the compositions that they began as.  Pieces of the puzzles are moved around and eliminated all the time.  And the same is true for our home.

I am a nester, and I love to arrange and rearrange.  As a kid I never liked to do puzzles.  I still don't like to do puzzles.  I have never liked that with jigsaw puzzles, there is only one way to put them together.  While it is certainly satisfying to find two matching pieces and assemble them, I have always hated the rigidity of it all.  It's the same reason I don't like sewing clothing.  It's just too systematic for me.

But arranging visual elements in a composition or an apartment?  That I could do all day.  While I think that there are wrong answers (mauve drapes), I do think there are endless possibilities.