A Temporary Home
I’ve recently been fascinated by the idea of space. I’ve noticed a strong correlation between my moods and my surrounding physical space. I’m sure you have too — perhaps novel interiors of a bar or restaurant entice you to visit, or maybe the cold, plain interiors of institutions fill you with dread. My sensitivity to space has manifested itself in an obsession with doing up my home. Moving after college, while still coping from the seismic move from India to America, was harder than I predicted. As a result, I’m constantly seeking refuge in a place I can call my home. The mundane, impersonal elements of modern apartments along with the lonely streets of American suburbia serve as a constant reminder of my displaced presence. So do the generic stores selling trendy art and furniture, which reduce a personal home to a whimsical fad. Something about doing up my place makes me feel at peace, as if I am exploring my identity and making statements about which things I’m growing certain of. I was inspired by the documentary, the Human Scale, which deals with the loneliness and social fragmentation caused by urbanization. It seeks to re-imagine automobile focused, high-rise cities by designing communal spaces. While I don’t have the means to re-plan a city (yet!), I can now acknowledge the negative psychological effects of my generic surroundings, and focus heavily on personalizing the banal interiors of my modern apartment.
I took a queue from Ilse Crawford, a famous British designer who worked at Elle Decor for 10 years before starting her own firm, StudioIlse, which is currently trying to transform Ikea. Crawford likes to construct interiors to nurture and compliment the human spirit: she likes to bring out the most natural, comfortable state of a person by permeating all their senses and evoking feelings through design. In my living room, a place of community and comfort, I’ve tried to create a very earthy, warm and cocoon like experience. The interplay of the warm, feminine tones of the painting, the dull gold of the lamp along with the dim yellow lighting in such an intimate area creates a cozy and inviting setting. Warm tones are known to create feelings of happiness and festivity. Framing this intimate space with a self-made painting is meant to allow a guest to feel closer to me — as if I am comfortable sharing my work and personal thoughts with them. Further, the painting features marigolds, which are flowers of Indian festivities and a sign of respect and happiness. Their dominance in the painting is an extension of the communal spirit of festivals and warmth in the room. The presence of color and personal, quirky decor adds my unique personality to contrast the drab banality of modern apartments.
While the living room is dominated by warm colors, my bedroom features cooler and moodier tones. One of my favorite contemporary design philosophies, which Ilse Crawford advances, is that a room is a canvas for self actualization and expression rather than an empty container for functional use. While the living room is an area of community and inclusion, my bedroom is more personal, and free from the constraints of roommates or the tastes of my family. Since most of my creative pursuits since childhood have been heavily dominated by rules, I wanted my room this time to be an unrefined and unconstrained explosion of personality. In the composition above my desk, I tried incorporating this by breaking the golden rule of using a consistent style. The subjects of the pieces are all very different: there is a vintage Vogue print, an impressionistic painting I made at work, abstract art and a creative representation of interiors. They reference different time periods and have completely different styles, yet they work because of similar colors and a uniform composition. Even the media are all different: there are original artworks, prints and a shelf with cacti. While this would have intimidated me in the past, I now see that it’s something that adds visual dimension and can work. Breaking the rules of style and using different mediums while creating something I like, reminds me that I need to more critically consider other rules and accepted notions.
However, more than just questioning artistic rules, it is learning to combine paintings that carry so much varying meaning that is so close to my heart. For instance, the painting of the cat in the jungle reminds me of the romantic Indian monsoons that I miss so much. It is like the view from my room into the mini jungle behind my house, which I stare into while sipping tea my mom made with love. Or the painting with the living room scene reminds me how much beauty there is in seemingly mundane details, and of how my boyfriend’s aesthetic has taught me that detail and patterns don’t have to be overwhelming, in stark contrast to my parent’s sober, contemporary tastes. But my different experiences in different countries, and contrasting aesthetics have never felt like they could come together. Finding harmony in this composition makes me realize that my identity has room to retain my past experiences and different tastes; change doesn’t have to completely deconstruct who I’ve been all along.
As a 20-something struggling with changes and moving, I’m constantly going through an identity struggle. With more spending power and in a new place away from the judgment of people close to me, I have a lot more freedom and I end up exploring that a lot creatively. Realizing that artistic rules I’ve always lived by don’t have to be followed is a subtle reminder that things I have believed aren’t black and white. With so much diversity in people’s experiences, rules and ways of life today are defined by individuals for themselves. And as much as I don’t want to accept it, change exposes one to diversity and different values, and accelerates the process of finding an authentic self.
