We’ve all heard the expression “A picture speaks a thousand words.” And today, as I set forth to use it, I investigated its origin…seems the original quote might have been “A picture is worth ten thousand words” as stated by Fred R. Barnard in the 1920s. Either way, it conveys the same – seeing is believing and seeing is more literal in most people’s eyes. Words can describe and attempt to convey an intent or, in my world, a design concept. But to sketch it – well that’s the best way to show the intended idea. There were other unsubstantiated references to an old Japanese phrases, but suffice it to say – it is such a truism that it is referenced often.
Here is an illustration of a courtyard that we have proposed. Our custom designed hand crafted iron gate inserted into the existing low wall, water feature, flagstone and plantings are all new proposals. Can you picture it? If I had arm-waived with a verbal description would it have been as helpful? It’s a small space, so it would have been easier to convey than other more complicated design concepts, but for the sake of an example, this works. I’m thinking that your answer would be – “Yes, I get it! The illustration sets the stage and really helps me visualize the intended finished product!” It is exciting and more stimulating than a rigid CAD drawing and evokes more emotion in most, if not all, clients.
I realize as I write this that it directly reflects the observations in Federico Leon de la Vega’s comments about the value and actually critical importance of handwriting as he expressed in his TED TALKS last year.
Therefore, I prefer the artist’s rendering – to support and promote the talents thereof and also for the much better rendition of the concept! So as technology advances in the realm of illustration, I intend to continue to support the skills of the artists that so effectively express our designs.
Let’s get together and plan your next design project, find solutions and create the images that will springboard the work and ultimately represent your new reality!!!
As is true in our world of fast-paced technology, ultimately more expeditious and modern machinery aided the artist in guiding the needles and now computer-generated digital methods of quilting and patchwork stitch at amazing rates of speed and detail.
So the take-away from this week’s musings are if you have not tried a rug on your wall – get out there and find a cool piece and get it up there!!! You will be surprised at the effective texture and interest it adds to your eclectic interior!!!
It truly is a wonderment for all ages. This architecturally magnificent building designed in 1859 by James Renwick, in the then chic Parisian Second Empire Style, is the elegant backdrop for a most progressive and creative collection of present day modern artists’ works. Diverse examples, of spectacular displays using simple materials, brought to life in forms unexpected – of grand proportion and thrilling magnitude. Although my learned and previewer cousin had introduced me to the exhibit in advance, it captivated and engaged beyond my expectations.
The glitz and bling make such a striking, formal, contemporary statement in this expansive volume that it startles with joyful contrast. The artist, Leo Villareal of whom I had heard in advance, was originally from Albuquerque – where we now call home. A remote desert origination transplanted into the fast pace of the urban centers of the east coast resulting in this shiny experimentation with light, form and wonderfully reflective surfaces. Villareal melds basic high-tech coding to use his own algorithm of the binary system 1s and 0s communicating to the lights when to turn off and turn on – yet sequences that are never exactly repeated .
It’s not just your linear code of characters that is read on a screen – here it is an artistic experience shared by all who look up in this gallery’s exciting exhibit.
Large scaffolding at the end of the room suggests the manual installation that was required to suspend this wondrous drape catching light and glowing with golden aura. 
We were at once drawn into these cozy nurturing cubbies of what appeared to be nature – not forms created by man. Nature. Organic and raw, elegant and graceful winding toward the far reaches of the very high ceilings. Like a sculptor who says that the stone dictates what it wants to be and how he carves it – Dougherty knows that the long willow branches have a true will and bend their own way challenging him to work with them toward that goal of partnership with nature. The beauty is in the end result. People of all ages wandered in and out, peeking through window-like openings pretending to be exploring an enchanted forest of wonder.
Have you ever experienced Tent Rocks? 
Have you ever looked upward and around and through the magnificent forms created by nature eroding the earth’s strata revealing layers of color and creating spires of rocky towers? It is a magic land just south of Cochiti in a very unexpected pocket of nature’s magnificence in our Land of Enchantment. And the spires that artist Tara Donovan created with stacks of index cards – an overwhelming accumulation of millions of index cards suggest grey spires replicating nature’s wonders in the canyons among the spires of the Tent Rocks. 
It’s as though a photographer captured this natural formation in black and white. Donovan’s interpretations are tones of grey as a result of the stacked white index cards with slivers of shadow sucking away light in between each of them. Clustered and staggering in height, the “Untitled” towers are inviting to walk amidst and pass between, winding around them like a tourist or explorer or perhaps inhabitant in ages past and present as they have stood for ages.
How could a human working only by hand – without computer generated machines digitally fabricating such perfection create this finished piece that we are studying with such wonder? How can this fine tedious seemingly impossible count of thousands of threads be executed with such grandeur and grace by one mere mortal? 
The artist Gabriel Dawe transcends our ability to comprehend the exactness of his beautiful accomplishment with extraordinary patience, precision and creative foresight to imagine the end result and bring it to fruition. It is a wondrous, luminous sculpture of rainbow colored threads inspired by the skies of his native Mexico and current home in East Texas. The fine weavings also inspired by his Mexican heritage are interpreted, stretched and exaggerated here reflecting the light and spectrum of color from its base to ceiling. 
Her lips, his costume, the children’s masks, a sunspot on a bus, the fighting ring ropes, structural elements in the arena are all so subliminal yet so vivid. Consistent and repeated use of the contrast with the bold red color in combination with turquoise is also a key element in this film.
