A New Pot on the Front Burner

 Distilled Harmony, as I have often mentioned, rests on four primary tenets: Foster Harmony, Enable Beauty, Distill Complexity, and Oppose Harm. I would often further contend that the tenets formed something of a hierarchy with Foster Harmony forming the base from which the remaining three ascend. However I am learning that this nice tight little model is sometimes impacted by a little thing called life.

The first cracks in this tautology came apparent on March 16th, 2023 when after a sudden precipitous decline in his health we had to have our beloved black lab, Vito Muso put to sleep. His longtime owner Smitty, in his mid-90s, who had often told Vito, “We’re going to go out together buddy,” made good on his prediction in mid-June.

Smitty’s passing triggered our long-planned move from the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina to the western suburbs of Chicago. It was a move that has stretched over months, and in the process battered the tenet of Foster Harmony, and our own psyches, into tattered remnants of their former selves. Discord stalked every virtually every stage of the transition. Death, broken bones, and it seemed as if every person of importance in our relocation was literally speaking a foreign tongue.

Point was Foster Harmony needed a break. So I pulled it off the front burner and let it simmer quietly on one of the back burners for awhile - not abandoned, just resting.

It soon became obvious which tenet had to take one for the team and slide onto the front burner. Foster Harmony had always held first place in part because it fed smoothly into my favorite tenet; Enable Beauty, which gave free rein to messing around in my studio drawing and writing my Wallish drivel.

But it is only over the last few days that I have come to realize how important being in the presence of art is to my psychic well being. I have posted pictures from my Raleigh studio here before, but I can’t recall having shared the rest of our art with you.

We are, I now realize, “Art dependent.” We have friends who actually prefer minimalist wall treatments - maybe a picture or two, but nothing excessive. We, on the other hand, upon spying a spot of exposed wall, wonder “How did that happen?” To give you an idea of what that realization results in, we finally had the picture hanging folks in yesterday. They were incredibly, able to actualize, and even improve on, our designs. I’m going to share a few images with you:

 

And we really aren’t done. These are the major pieces - still a bunch of smaller works, among which are a few faves, yet to be hung. But here is what struck me as we got these pieces installed: we have been separated from these images for more than seven months!!.  That is like being without air, like having to eat at fast food restaurants, like watching TV without cable, for seven months! 

Is it any wonder that I was suffering what the religious would call a crisis of faith? I read recently that it made perfect sense to attain a state of grace in the pursuit of beauty. So come on in Enable Beauty, take this seat right down front. Make yourself comfortable, and in the process, do the same for us! Please.