Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Andy Warhol: Creating Atmosphere

Worthwhile or a fail.  For better, for worse.  Better than nothing.  Ok, accepted, it is what it is.
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Patio furniture is sold by patio furniture companies.  They arrange, style, stage, shoot, sell.  All good, and normal.
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How is it, patio furniture is purchased, and arranged in lockstep to the advertising?  Rooms To Go, exterior version.
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Buy me, we've done the thinking for you.  I buy a lot of things for that reason alone.
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Patio furniture much better than when I began my career in the 80's when every price point subdivision had the requisite white plastic table/chairs, Weber grill, and a mop on the patio.
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Comfort & function & aesthetics are sold in unison now, below, if you don't have the time to figure out your personal version.  Andy Warhol has a nice quote about atmosphere in NYC restaurants, and that's why people are happy to pay the prices, to get away from their lives, for a little while.   ("New York restaurants now have a new thing — they don’t sell their food, they sell their atmosphere. They say, “How dare you say we don’t have good food, when we never said we had good food. We have good atmosphere.” They caught on that what people really care about is changing their atmosphere for a couple of hours. That’s why they can get away with just selling their atmosphere with a minimum of actual food. Pretty soon when food prices go really up, they’ll be selling only atmosphere. If people are really all that hungry, they can bring food with them when they go out to dinner, but otherwise, instead of “going out to dinner” they’ll just be “going out to atmosphere.”)


 Now, buy atmosphere, plop it on your patio, voila, get away from your life, without leaving home.
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Want the look, below, but can't afford it?  Field gather, with a critical eye, chairs, tables, sofas, paint them all the same color.            


Garden at Restoration Hardware LA:
Pic, above, here.
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Am field gathering yard furnishings now for our ca. 1900 home.  Its atmosphere a delight to work with, quite controlling.
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Choose the aesthetic you want, keep a sure eye, have fun.  Buy classics, you won't have to buy again.  Once & done.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT

3 comments:

La Contessa said...

YOU would appreciate mY field GATHERINGS!!!!!I just spray painted an old vintage round table YELLOW!XX

Penelope Bianchi said...

The truth is; in your house, in your garden, in restaurants.....life is really about atmosphere for those of us who care about it. Not everyone even notices it!

Boy, I DO! My garden and my house reeks......not for everyone.....but for me and my family. My grandchildren just stop......and gaze when they visit! (they are so grown up now; they aren't over here once or twice a week like the "good old days"!

Atmosphere is everything to me. The chickens clucking away; digging and talking to each other; the roosters crowing.....bunnies jumping....flowers blooming....ducks quacking and arguing.......they get a little territorial about their feeders and houses......

My entire career has been 47 years of "atmosphere".....and I LOVE IT!!!

Merrilyn said...

Timely...I'm wondering what-on-earth to gather for my circa 1823 stone cottage, newly-installed patio, created from ruins of the "big house" on Locust Hill. Squirrely problem: a SQUIRREL is chewing the legs off the wood furniture on the front porch! The original settlers did have a blacksmith on the farm. What would he have created? Whatever I find, it will have to be"smithy black". (My sister-in-law did this w/ a flamingo pink wrought-iron set found roadside for next to nothing - painted black, it all matches.) You are ON it, Tara!!