James McNeill Whistler's mother

A gentleman's house isn't an exhibition," she told him.

Now, we can't end this story without talking about Whistler's mother

never saw the Peacock Room again.

"Whistler talks about being up on the scaffolding at 6 in the morning and not coming down until 9 at night," says Glazer. " 'I'm blind with sleep and blue peacock feathers,' he says."

The most vivid, even yuck-making example is what Waterston's done to Whistler's two golden peacocks; in this remix, the birds aren't just fighting, they're eviscerating each other. They're "literally disemboweling each other," he describes. "One has the other's entrails being pulled out — talons are out."

these are his reactions to what's happening between art and money these days. "This is what it means to be a living artist in this contemporary art world," Waterston says. "It is so filled with excess and this incredible consumption, this insatiable consumption of the object and of aesthetics."

ooks as if a wrecking ball has been slammed into Whistler's work. The priceless Asian vases in the original are smashed — their shards litter the floor. "The shelves are all broken," Waterston says. "The gold gild is either melting off or puddling on the floor."

Darren Waterston has reproduced and re-interpreted Whistler's dining room in an installation called Filthy Lucre — which means "dirty money." This "Peacock Room Remix"

Fighting, for reasons to be revealed in a bit. It's a dispute about art and money — although Whistler named the room Harmony in Blue and Gold.

It was shipping magnate Frederick Leyland's world. It was created in the Victorian era when self-made men with new fortunes were buying their way into British society through fine houses and important works of art.

Victorian era

Curator Lee Glazer

Curator Lee Glazer agrees that the Peacock Room is a completely immersive experience. "Even though it's a room, it's really a six-sided painting that you literally walk into," she says

Birds of a Feather

But I was put in mind of a painting by Fra Angelico in which saints and angels ascend, dancing, to Heaven. As my gaze moved upward, I rather felt that I was tagging along toward such a destination, too. ♦

But I was put in mind of a painting by Fra Angelico in which saints and angels ascend, dancing, to Heaven. As my gaze moved upward, I rather felt that I was tagging along toward such a destination, too.

I am bothered only by the caricatures in the peacock-ruckus mural. It occupies a wall that was destined for a painting, “The Three Girls,” which Leyland had commissioned but which Whistler never completed. (A tantalizing oil sketch and figure studies for the proposed masterpiece are among the Freer’s many Whistlers, the largest representation of his work anywhere.) The mural is both funny and gorgeous, but its expression of personal pique disrupts the room’s serenity like a street noise in the night.

Whistler missed the express train to modernism when he moved from Paris to London, in the eighteen-sixties, and set up as a bad-boy darling of high society—suing John Ruskin for a negative review, volleying zingers with Oscar Wilde, and, having taxed the Victorians’ scant indulgence of self-promoting upstarts, becoming a frequent laughingstock. But, for a great spell that peaked in the Peacock Room, he achieved a unity of avant-garde spirit and civil decorum which, like other abandoned experiments from the artistic laboratory of the late nineteenth century—now that modernism is defunct—newly excites.

nocturnes

Courbet

sentimentality

The arrangement of the pieces is random, without regard for provenance

The uneven textures and faded iridescence of Freer’s collection yield a modulation of tones that makes up for the wonted éclat of the glossy blues and whites.

He closed the room’s three sets of tall shutters, and painted them and the walls Prussian blue and resonant blue-greens, gilded the shelving, covered the neo-Gothic ribbed ceiling (nearly fourteen feet high) in overlapping petals of Dutch metal (brass oxidizing to green and gold), and filled every incidental surface with freehand abstract patterns and images of peacocks in gold and blue. The whole plainly anticipates Art Nouveau, but without that style’s rote longueurs. It realizes a synesthetic fusion of dazzling spectacle and intimate touch, evoking music and something like a subliminal, ambrosial perfume. Seeing the room as the reinstallation was being completed, with the shutters open, I got to gauge the impact when they were closed. It was like the onset of a deep bass chord out of Wagner. Illuminated by eight pendant ceiling fixtures (which I wish could be gaslights again, as they were in 1877), the room seemed at once to fall asleep and to come fully alert, vividly dreaming.

representing the artist and his patron as warring peacocks. The Leyland bird is pompous and hectoring, with a breast of gold and platinum coins, windmilling wings, and an immense explosion of tail feathers; the Whistler bird poignantly droops, raising one wing in feeble defense. Leyland lived with this burlesque until his death

London dining room of his patron

James McNeill Whistle

Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room,

But we all have to let some things go.

Japanese philosophy/aesthetic, but my takeaway is to enjoy the transience of everything. Perfection should never be a goal, because it’s static — a snapshot in time — and can never be a moving picture.

Wabi-Sabi

Pinot Grigio

I love aesthetics as much as the next person, but don’t let them crowd out your life — don’t prioritize aesthetic order over spontaneous afternoon delight on a newly upholstered sofa or having your geriatric neighbor cruise over for chocolate fondue. Have fun and appreciate aesthetics equally, along with good food, drink, relationships, mistakes and carelessness. Appreciate repair. In the end, we’re all just stewards of property and we’re aging right along with it.

Grey Gardens way of life, where you let cats piss all over your portraits and raccoons have the run of the parlor. Disrepair can be taken to an extreme.

Maybe it’s the English in me. My parents lived through World War II and their credo was “You make do.” People at every income level were making do during wartime. My father, ‘til the end of his life, took rolls of two-ply loo paper and made them one ply rolls. Generations that went through war and deprivation understand that what’s important is life, and not aesthetics. Patina is a word that people throw around, but it’s real, in that it’s earned and should really be appreciated. One of the reasons I always love rehabilitating “ruined” properties is because I will not obliterate the patina of age — I honor it and respect it as a reminder of what’s truly important: A house is really only a stage for your life and the lives of your loved ones.

Generations that went through war and deprivation understand that what’s important is life, and not aesthetics.

“You make do.”

So it’s a little incongruous that I found myself practicing interior design in LA — Earth’s bastion of hyper-personal grooming and size zeros cruising around with flutes of un-drunk champagne. The décor equivalent of this Angeleno would be a monochromatic white on white living room with blonde on blonde furnishings, everything lined up and relined up, all square, with cadres of cushions and pillows fluffed and dented, coffee table art books perfectly stacked into pyramids and never cracked. And walls mirrored to maximize the impact of perfection through infinity. I never had to unlearn this style because I’ve never been fastidious, thank God. I’ve never let a warped floorboard ruin my life. My aesthetic yardstick is, and always has been, comfort. Who cares if the table tops are not quite true? If the scale of upholstered furniture is slightly off? If some turned table legs are cabriolet and others are claw and ball? Getting everything to match and conform seamlessly to some ideal of perfection was never an option for me. With my triple D rack and a penchant for Pinot Grigio and wearing heels and making wild hand mannerisms, I’ve been the recipient of the icy stare of any number of tightly wound hostesses. The horror in their eyes is real as I bump into a marble-topped commode, shivering a porcelain tchotchke.

(Be careful, because you can’t actually do it and it’s no fun if you can.)

When I finish a job for a client, I advocate beating the fear to the punch with... more fear. Instead of waiting for wear and tear to happen naturally, throw something imperfect into the tableau so the wait’s over. Better yet, “drop” a glass of red wine onto the rug and then grind a little foie gras into the stain immediately, so that you can get it over with and start living. If a room isn’t inviting, what’s the point? Nevertheless, people still chase those perfect rooms. (Be careful, because you can’t actually do it and it’s no fun if you can.)

“Perfect” interior décor can be captivating in photographs, but underlying the flawless arrangement of drapery, wallpaper and furnishings is a palpable fear of anticipation — when will this mirage of a showroom become, you know, “used?”

Visually perfect in every way,but ultimately inhospitable. No oxygen left in the composition for laughter or old people or anyone who doesn’t have perfect balance. No room for kids or dogs. No place to live. But many people insist on turning their houses into some kind of fetish that delivers a voyeuristic thrill — rooms to look at, but that have little capacity for real life. The French call this look coince (accent on the e), which means wedged or jammed or stuck or cornered. You can’t dance in a corner. An over-decorated/accessori

Every now and then, a client will tell me how they want their home to look, and I cringe, because they’re describing a pristine museum-like set piece scenario. You and I both know the house. Visually perfect in every way,but ultimately inhospitable.

“The stylistic changes in 1930s retail were starting to reflect ideas of streamlining and European moderne, based on looking at World’s Fairs and what was happening in industrial design,” Wood says. “In the ’30s, a Federal Housing Administration-backed program gave loans to Main Street businesses in small towns to help them modernize their stores. The government believed the upgrade would bolster the economy during the Depression. So people were talking about what a modern retail space should look like—with large-plate glass display windows, chrome hardware, and modern lighting—and that became central to what a modern department store was. In the  ’40s and the ’50s, these ideas were pushed even further, so they start to incorporate not just materials but also modern conveniences.”

But department stores didn’t really update their format to suit changing customer tastes until the 1930s. Bullock’s in Los Angeles pioneered this movement when it hired young New York interior designer Eleanor LeMaire to modernize its downtown flagship store in 1926. After that, she was charged with coordinating the decorating scheme for the store’s first luxury branch, Bullock’s Wilshire, which opened in 1929. She employed 13 interior designers to work on the breathtaking Art Deco masterpiece, most notably Jock Peters, who designed each department to reflect the emotional tone of the goods it offered. Because the experience of the design was such a priority, clothes and accessories were displayed in flat glass cases on rosewood stands or on live mannequins so that hanging racks wouldn’t interfere with the view.

Of course, markets and bazaars featuring different vendors selling a variety of goods existed long before the department store. The big difference was at a department store, all the individual shops belonged to the same business, so they had consistent policies. (To small-time shopkeepers, these new department stores threatened their livelihood the way Amazon upsets brick-and-mortar retail today.)

The earliest department stores appeared in England during the Industrial Revolution, when the middle class first emerged. Harding, Howell & Co., for example, opened in London in 1796 with four separate rooms: One for furs and coats, another for women’s clothing, another for men’s clothing, and a fourth for jewelry, accessories, and toiletries. One of the longest-lasting department stores in England is Bennetts, which opened in Derby in 1734 as a store specializing in ironware and now offers a wide range of home décor and housewares.

, like the same purse in five colors. There was a new desire to let shoppers see and touch all the merchandise. Before this change, department stores would have everything behind the glass case, with just one sample out. You’d have to ask the salesgirl, ‘Hey, do you have any other colors?,’ and she would search the stockroom for you. The new stores would have had everything out so shoppers could walk around, see it all, and then choose something on their own and take it to the sales counter.”

” Wood says. “Fixtures go from being very heavy pieces of furniture to being these ‘invisible’ pieces that really highlight the merchandise

Loewy debuted his vision at the Gimbels in downtown New York with a pastel color scheme and “invisible” fixtures in 1948, it caused a stir.

“The stores were designed to create an expansive view so you could come off of the escalator, look around, and see all of the well-labeled departments, instead of having the departments walled off,” Wood says. “It was all about paring down the interior. The stores were beautiful spaces that looked and felt modern to people and were simple to walk around. And Loewy’s plan wasn’t just about how shoppers experienced the space, but how the stores could more efficiently sell their merchandise.”

At his namesake firm Raymond Loewy

In the mid-century, there’s still a bit of an aspirational ideal in department stores, but it’s much more toned down. With the booming middle class and the introduction of credit cards, the shopping experience is much more about what you can have.”

As the young couples were drawn into these stores to start their new lives, Loewy and other designers were gently ushering them into the Modern Age of Design. Ultimately, Loewy didn’t just alter American style or tastes, he changed the way Americans consume.

Alessandra Wood,

Alessandra Wood,

prosperity meant returning vets and their wives could ditch the turmoil of overcrowded cities, the frugal values of the Depression, and the frilly heirlooms of the Victorian Era.

Often, the mall’s anchors, the big chain department stores, are the first to go. It seems that the 2008 recession and dominance of the Internet—where you can buy anything and everything with a few clicks—have taken their toll on brick-and-mortar behemoths like JCPenney, Sears, and even Macy’s. As the Computer Age thrusts us into the future, would-be mall rats are spending all their time on Facebook, and the breath-taking range of products, once so meticulously displayed for our delight, is being crammed into our PCs, tablets, and smartphones.

“Today, we shop as if we know about everything that we’re shopping for, but in the mid-century, you trusted your department store.”

“dead malls,”

From Retail Palace to Zombie Mall: How Efficiency Killed the Department Store

WoGD

http://womenofgraphicdesign.org/

http://womenofgraphicdesign.org/

WoGD forms a virtual community of women designers

WoGD forms a virtual community of women designers who are working internationally; a platform for bringing designers together in knowledge exchange.”

“Right now, my classroom is probably filled with 80% women. And yet when I go out into the world, or when you hear from business owners or from creative directors, it’s not the same percentage. What is that, why is that? We can only guess.”

So talking about issues for women in design is not only important for students, but the educators that advise them.

He believes that revealing only part of our history fails to fully inform our designers. “It’s important that these women get the recognition, because they were and are part of the history that’s shaping graphic design. Everyone needs to learn about them and their work, especially young designers. If not, then there’s just this big gap that doesn’t tell the entire story of graphic design.”

Jacqueline S. Casey

In the US, some 70% of design students are female, yet their education is scattered with gaps. Teal Triggs and Sian Cook, of the Women’s Design + Research Unit in the UK,

Hitchcock adds, “Why does design history still teach about male designers 80% more than women designers? Why do we have 80 % women in the student body (in our [RISD] department) and 80% men in the faculty?”

There is a line of forgotten women in our history. I argue that sexism is somewhat less obvious in our workplace today, far subtler than it might have been in the 1950s and 60s, but perhaps we still accept some mores of old

Forty or fifty years ago, the workforce was overwhelmingly a man’s world. In the design field, many women may have been assistants or “office girls” and so few held the top titles, such as art director or creative director. In a basic sense, women’s careers have rarely followed the same path of men’s, since there has historically been immense pressure placed on women to be solely homemakers and nurture families (see: Beyond The Glass Ceiling: an open discussion, Astrid Stavro, Elephant #6) with more sinister pressures of socially-accepted sexism and segregation discouraging, or even disqualifying, the career ambitions of capable women

That was only 6% of the overall canon. Surely this was a mistake.

issues facing women in the past, and regrettably, in our industry today