We’re getting curiouser and curiouser about these categories (to quote Alice in Wonderland). Bohemian! Arty! What exactly do these words mean these days? To choose a trivial example, is this object in our studio arty? We thought of it as a really minimalist piece of art or decoration for our ceiling, but recently a visitor at our open house called it both arty and bohemian at different points in the conversation. This happens a lot, even with things we consider restrained and minimalist. You would think these would be the opposite of arty – neither showy nor pretentious. In this case is the object arty because its identity or purpose is unclear? Or because it’s relatively simple, or fragile, or quirky, or handmade, or because it connotes poverty, or because it seems self-conscious? Most design objects, whether practical or decorative, have some artistic impulse in them, so what makes one more arty than another? This is not a rhetorical question!

Click below to read the rest of our questions on this topic, and instructions on how to make a simple Christmas star. 

Arty and Bohemian, cont’d:

Why are we even interested in this question? Maybe because of the apparent stigma attached to the terms “artistic,” “foreign,” “outsider” etc. Also, we’re curious because we tend to like the aesthetics of many, if certainly not all, of the things we hear being dismissed as bohemian. The term “bohemian” was, by the way, founded upon a mistaken belief among Parisians that “gypsies” came from Bohemia in Czechoslovakia. Todd Selby’s blog The Selby (also see here), which showcases his photos of the artistic, unusual, arguably bohemian homes of creative types, gets a truly enormous number of web visitors every day. It would seem, therefore, that people love to look at artistic interiors, but when it comes to their own living arrangements they prefer to enjoy their bohemianism vicariously. Is this out of shyness – yes, maybe it does take some confidence to hang a giant painting of lips above the bed – or out of a simple difference in taste? Is it because artistic interiors make their owner appear, to some, almost morally suspect?  (Note that almost all artist loft dwellers in Hollywood films turn out to be villains in one way or another, which is entirely unfounded in reality.) Do people therefore prefer their interiors a little more conservative in order to keep up appearances, to avoid the taint of moral degeneracy, and out of a fear others will think they have bad taste?

Another question: is the opposite of bohemian or arty the traditional interiors seen in Architectural Digest, or is it the stripped-down, cool, textile-less interiors of, say, early Dwell Magazine?

When we hear the terms arty and bohemian to describe places that seem welcoming or exciting or visually interesting or sensual, we kind of wonder if it’s in any way related to the general North American distrust of art, creativity and anything intellectual that we so clearly witnessed during the recent Canadian and US elections. This fairly puritan distrust does not actually exist in the same way in Europe, South America or most other regions. Whatever the case, we’re reclaiming arty and bohemian as positive terms, because a home doesn’t feel like one without some creative expression.

DIY Christmas Star:

It’s almost self-explanatory how this star is made: Find some thin sticks – anything will do as long as it’s regular. Place the first two pieces in a rough cross or X, and start winding a narrow but relatively strong gardening wire around it. Keep adding pieces and winding wire relatively tightly until you have a ball. Wind around a few more times, and after you decide where the “top” is, wind the wire around a stick at the top edge a couple of times, discreetly, and use the remainder to either hang from the ceiling, or flip it the other way and wind around the top branch of your tree. 

Our star began as part of tongue-and-groove flooring boards we had to pull up in the studio. We cut the tongues off with a saw so that we could use the boards for something else, and threw the thin sticks away into in a kindling pile. An artist friend casually picked them out, tied them up with wire he found in our tool cart, and made this star for our first studio Christmas tree. It took 5 minutes but it looked completely magical – as if it might actually have been the first star on the first Christmas tree. After Christmas we decided to hang the star from the ceiling, rather than put it away. It’s made from the very same original materials the studio was built with, so we thought it looked quite elegant and delicate, and it seemed to belong.

Tags: anti-intellectualism, artiness, artistic, artsy, arty, bohemian, bohemianism, christmas star, curiouser and curiouser, design, hollywood, loft dwellers, lofts, mistrust

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Ouno Design News, design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.