If you don’t have kids…Halloween can be tough…how to do it, how to acknowledge it. Then there are those who embrace Halloween and Day of the Dead with a festive passion–kids or no kids—that results in wild costume parties, elaborate home décor ,  Mexican celebrations of the deceased and yard art that will rival the Adams Family!!!

We have a neighbor who goes all out. Every year she accumulates more and more yard art of the most ghoulish and ghastly manner that we adults are “wierded out” by the amazing, effectively creepy display.  The kids, for the most part, think she is the “best lady in the neighborhood” (to quote Katarina a few years ago) because, in addition to her incredible presentation unfolding the entire month prior to Halloween night, she opens her garage on Halloween and gives out the most incredible free gifts, toys, dolls, and games to all the kids.

But I digress…my point is that even if you don’t embrace the holiday for all its fantasy and gore you certainly can find an amicable expression of it to adorn your door or entry table and feel that you are participating if not reveling in…

I elected years ago to hang a golf  prize that I won which was a door decor of branches and silk autumnal leaves accented with a real feathered black crow and festooned with a big autumn-inspired bow.  I love crows. But a would-be dead (albeit fake one with real feathers) one on my door was only a default as result of having won it—not having fallen in love with it, buying it and bringing it home. It’s funny though, I cannot remember what I had prior to my crow.

But it bugged me. Not enough to take affirmative action, but it was always lurking in my mind as I extracted it from the closet each year bemoaning to myself the fact that I was too lazy to do anything about it. That is a perfect example of one not taking an active interest in a holiday.

As it happened, one day I found a funky cat thing…here is a photo.  It is not scary and not literal but fun enough to make me smile and Halloweeny enough to do the trick, (no pun intended). He is the obligatory back cat and he sports a welcome sign and is adorned with painted tin accents of orange and black whiskers, eyes, nose and ears…Yes, I could have made him. But I didn’t.

Now as a designer this all sounds pretty lame. If you were looking for a DIY project—look elsewhere—except for the actual fact that I do like making wreaths and have one alongside my cat which moves to the primary door once Halloween is over.

Yes, I do like making wreaths, but I am not going to give you a step-by-step on how to do so…there are plenty of those. But I will say that big bold statements of the season are fun.  Mine is not the biggest nor the boldest—but it works in colorful contrast to my pair of black front doors and I do not have to re-make it every year—that is a choice, (not an obligation)  and this current one will last for a decade or two—unless I am struck by the wild hair of DIY that takes me to the craft store for a new rendition—don’t bet on it anytime too soon. Also I could have made two for the pair of doors—but this exercise coincided with finding the cat and therefore I did the cat on one side and the wreath on the other. A more thorough “designer”  move would have been to make two wreaths and have one held back until the cat retired after Halloween and properly balance both doors with a handsome pair of seasonal wreaths. NOT. This is a designer’s “do as I say and not as I do.”

But much of this might be like the busman’s holiday—I love what I do and I decorate and design for others daily—I know that many of my peers immerse themselves in their own décor and re-decor and re-decor  – did I say re-decor? Always embellishing their personal space, home, apartment, condo, boat…They are endless, tireless examples of embracing trends,  and concepts, color schemes and  astonishing design statements. Which is all fabulous—don’t get me wrong—it’s just that I feel pressed to do  so much and have so little time that this story is about giving yourself a “bye”!  Like they say this time of year during football season when they skip a week—its like a gift to the players anyway.

As another example, a couple of years ago a friend and I went outside and found two large tree branches—limbs with branches–and stuck them in big  pots, strung lights on them and added a handful of ornaments and said “Voila!” We gave ourselves a “bye” from having to do the entire Christmas tree extravaganza–it was a gift.  But please know that we resumed the tradition the following year.

Back to our point, the season for autumnal décor begins prior to Halloween and lasts through Thanksgiving at which time it comes to a screeching halt and moves aside for Christmas and the next holiday season’s adornment and inspirational design elements.

Therefore, to celebrate the entire autumnal season, I love the various colored, textured, shaped and speckled  gourds, and of course pumpkins which now naturally come in white and blue in addition to the favorite orange.  Indian corn and dried wheat, grasses and leaves…natural organic elements are, to me, the best—timeless—evoking the feeling of  the harvest and marvelous fall cooking . This delicious display was at Sanger Farms in Youngstown, New York.

In summary, I say find your happy place with a couple of simple Halloween items and fill-in with the organics—they will take you comfortably through Thanksgiving and after that we will be ready for another story.

Referencing the fabulous continuing education course of a couple of weeks ago, my story continues with a bit more regarding the content of the course and also the context of having it held in Santa Fe.  You might remember that the focus was on natural and engineered construction and design materials including leather, concrete, natural stone, and engineered and natural woods, cork, terrazzo, recycled rubber, glass and paper.

To have had this class in an architecturally unique environment such as Santa Fe in a beautiful, soulful, old historic structure like the La Fonda Hotel, in a meeting room with hand-carved wood beams and architectural details, antique art pieces and an intimacy that one can’t get in a new facility, it made the subject matter much more relevant and compelling.

While we have been awakened to, if not shamed into realizing the responsibility toward sustainability, it is also fascinating to see the back-tracking and re-thinking that have occurred. For example

the bamboo bandwagon was so HOT and then, like a hot potato dropped from the design narrative when studies showed that in most cases, a high content of formaldehyde used in processing of it as a flooring material negated the healthful virtues of this otherwise natural, renewable resource.  Tanning leather…the actual chemical ingredients (chromium) used to process leather in many places, Morocco as an example, was so toxic and penetrated the soil into the water table causing untold deadly health issues. Newer technology has almost eliminated such practices – but for years it went unchecked and a bazillion products were sold under the guise of leather being “green.”

We are often so knee-jerk and willing to follow a movement about which we don’t get all the facts. While sustainability is a seeming moral obligation and only makes sense for the good of the planet and our custodial responsibility, the manner in which we go about it to allow things that are not completely vetted and then the restrictions we impose and the  guidelines that we set forth are often misguided and impractical.

I sat in a conference room once that was in a suite of  a highly regarded LEED building – that suite’s designers and those of the entire building were regaled with honors for their efforts and accomplishments, yet the room was asphyxiating to me as the off-gas of the linoleum conference table was too much to bear. I thought – how can they meet encapsulated in this room for extended periods of time when I was only there on a passing tour? Phew! Not practical for me! Oh, but it comes from linseed oil and a complex recipe of other wonderfully sustainable ingredients – it’s natural!

We now hear so much about BUY LOCAL and it is both to support our local communities but also to reduce the fuel costs to transport things from afar. Why eat a blueberry in the fall in Vermont when the season is clearly past and the berry comes from – who knows where – but not close by. We can get bananas and mangoes all year round in Alaska and are spoiled by the incredible supply of endless exotic produce – but it is not an inexpensive supply chain. Let those who shout the loudest do without a pineapple when the desire arises.

When Toyota’s Prius cars came out there was a commentary that compared the cost to drive an inefficient fuel-eating gas-guzzler against the fuel cost to build a new hybrid Prius. One was actually better off, for the good of the planet, driving their old car until it died rather than spend the amazing amount of energy to build a new car. Now, I have not fact checked this, but the analogy is interesting.

I was raised to respect things. I collected aluminum cans in every trash can on the beach growing up as it was regarded as a recyclable resource even back in the day…but we were also encouraged to pick up trash when we passed it and to care for everything with which we came in contact. That concept of respect is what this sustainable movement is all about. Respect and care, thoughtfulness and smart decision-making to that respectful end.

We watched a HUGE thunderhead form dwarfing our magnificent Sandia mountain at noon yesterday on the 4th of July. It was a spectacular example of nature’s beauty and power of design – and a sure sign that we were going to get the rain that had been forecast foiling late afternoon plans and fireworks festivities.The magnificent cloud grew and grew. It erupted over the crest of the mountain growing from this perfect anvil shape in glowing white against the brilliant blue to a menacing grey morphing into a massive area of sky without definition colliding with another  wall of weather that was moving in from the north. We watched it with resignation that our backyard BBQ party would be forced inside…however, as the afternoon progressed…not a drop of rain nor a wisp of wind. The wanna be storm came and went passing quietly with subtle rumbles of thunder as though frustrated that it couldn’t perform to ruin the day. The evening was perfect for gathering outside with a soft, white, high cloud-cover that kept the temperature just right and the air soft and comfortable. It was a perfect evening for a summer party and at dusk the bottle rockets started zinging through the air too early to see and continued into the darkness when they blazed bright and hot through the night.  Several neighbors had magnificent illegals that shot up with loud mortar booms spraying the blackness with brilliant explosions of chrysanthemum bouquet sparkles dispersing and falling in sprinkles of starry lights. It was a most satisfactory Independence Day after all.