Synesthesia- do you have it?

Synesthesia - from the Ancient Greek σύν (syn), "together," and αἴσθησις (aisthēsis), "sensation" — is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway (definition taken from Wikipedia)


(Image from yale.edu)

Studies show that anywhere between 1 on 20 to 1 in 20,000 people have this condition. (They really narrow it down! ;)

(image from national geographic)


During my sophomore year of college, I was sitting in my Public Speaking Class & our professor popped in a video of an example of an informative speech. The speaker in the video began with the question, "What color is the number five?" (I automatically answered "red" in my head.) He asked a series of questions that I instinctively answered. When he was finished with the questions, he said something like, "Now these questions but sound strange to you, but they are perfectly simple questions for a person with synesthesia to answer."


I'm thinking.. "Whaaaaaat?!"


And he goes on to explain the condition known as synethesia in which some people, called synesthetes, have a sensory connection between one or more of their senses. How these people can described certain numbers & colors in pitches and how others see a number & taste something or hear a note and see a color or smell something. I sat there looking around at the class, dumbfounded, because I had thought everyone felt this way about numbers & letters & colors & sounds. I was looking for nodding heads or some sign that others in the class identified with what the speaker was saying. nadda.

When the speach was over, I raised my hand & asked the class if anyone had those thoughts. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy and I was like, "I think I have this."




So I went home to my computer & started doing some research. It was mind-blowing to me becaue I'd always had these feelings and had never thought anything of them because I simply assumed that everyone felt certain colors when they looked at letters or numbers. Or associated personalities with them. Or felt certain pitches when they looked at things.

I went on to read that it if often genetic & can also be caused by LSD or serious head injuries. (And I've never done LSD or had a serious head injury ;)


(image from tblayden.com)


There are a couple of theories out there as to why people have it. One is that there is increased wiring between the senses of the synesthete which communicate with eachother & get blended into one another. The other is that everyone has this wiring but that in the normal brain, there's a balance that keeps these areas from talking.


There are over 20 different types of synesthesia & here are the ones I have:

"In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme → color synesthesia letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored, while in ordinal linguistic personification, numbers, days of the week and months of the year evoke personalities." (wikipedia) I also associate a certain pitch with colors & letters & objects (it sort of goes hand in hand with the personalities) and there seems to be a sort of innate vibration in everything. (So a faster vibration, like in the color yellow, is higher pitched than say a gray-blue which is slow & lower.) Maybe this is why I like white so much?? No vibration, no pitch... it's just the baseline for all the others.

A high-pitched room from domino mag:

"Very little is known about the overall cognitive traits associated with synesthesia ... However, synesthetes may be more likely to participate in creative activities,[16] and some studies have suggested a correlation between synesthesia and creativity." (wikipedia)

(image from artsandindustrycouncil.org)

Anyway, my whole life I've always loved art: drawing, painting, singing, music. The problem was: I was not any good at any of them. Hahaha and I'm not just saying this. I could always color between the lines & make nice crafts, but I really couldn't create or make anything beautiful. Seriously, sometimes I would have this crazy urge (ok, like last year) to paint & when I try, it's just not good! :)

So anyway, I sort of view rooms as my canvas... My way of getting that creativity out. It wasn't until I found interior design that I truly felt like I had an outlet for my urges that actually looked good when I was finished.

(room by sarah tuttle for domino)

And rooms & interiors are also (like the rest of life) places where I feel vibrations & pitches & use color. So, I sort of wanted to explain this thing about me so you get where I'm coming from in certain posts. (This whole post started because I realized I was writing a post on the vibration and motion in a room & then realized it might not make sense without explaining the whole synesthesia thing.) Below, a very low-pitched room from House Beautiful:

For more info, here's a video on You Tube- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvwTSEwVBfc

Now, my question is, does this make sense to any of you? (Because I've asked so many people I know & have had at least 2 friends who identified with it.) Do you think you have it?? What color is 5 to you???

"Real" vs. "Kitsch"

As you know, I'm constantly trying to define my style, hone my skills & figure out what works & what doesn't work in spaces. Well, a concept I often think about is real or authentic design, art & accessories. vs. what make something kitsch or scripted or forced or "decorated."

I used to be THE culprit of kitsch when I started out. I wanted my college apartment bedroom to feel like a conservatory, so up went a huge painting of a conservatory & palms & a whole dollar store's worth of fake flowers along with it. eesh (I've mentioned this room before & still haven't found a picture of it- my albums are in storage!)

Anyway, since kitsch is often one of the easiest & cheapest things to do and one of the most readily available, we see it a lot in real life. Picture the person who wants their house to feel like a farmhouse so they buy farmhouse dinnerware:

When instead they could do something more authentic, like this home from Country Living, below:

Using materials & details that would possibly be used in a true farmhouse make this space authentic. The cow print is a fun playful addition to the room & it's not trying to be anything more than it is. The white ironstone is appropriate & beautiful.

Or picture the person who wants a Tuscan-feeling kitchen & fills it with an unusable amount of bottles of oil in the kitchen,

or dishcloths with winebottles on them, wine bottle artwork and throw in a mass-produced Tuscan scene or two. Now I do not mean to judge here, merely to get us thinking. I have been the culprit of this many a time. I think it's a really easy way of designing to get into for the inexperienced & I've SO been there. (how do you think I can describe this room so perectly?! ;)

But the interesting thing is how to figure out how we can evolve out of it, to figure out ways to create the spaces we desire without being inauthentic. To really evolve & become better. I like this styled buffet from Pottery Barn, below. It gives the Tuscan feeling without being as obvious:

Why show a picture of a bottle of wine with no intrinsic artistic value when you can simply have a wine rack? (This isn't to say that I think art with wine in it can't be beautiful, because I've actually very recently seen some amazing art with wine bottles in it) And, why have a picture of a potted palm when you can just head to Home Depot & grab a real one? (yeah, I know, you have to keep it alive ;) And I'm not talking about botanical prints of palms (which I love & I do think of as authentic), I'm talking about the early 90s looking artwork:

If you have stuff like this home, don't feel bad. Just maybe take a minute to reevaluate it. Ask yourself if you actually love the piece or if you just picked it up because it was inexpensive & came in 4' by 3' & fit the "theme" and in the blank space above the sofa. If those are your reasons, I'd say ditch it. If you actually look at it & do love it, then work with it. Thomas Kinkade (below) is one of America's top-selling painters & his name is also one of the first that pops up when you google "kitsch art." A lot of people love his work & the happy feeling it gives them. I say that if you really love something even if it is considered inauthentic, then keep it. If you love it, it's authentic to you.

I also do think it's possible to be ok with certain aspects of kitsch. For example, check out this space in decorator Kirsten Hollister's kitchen (below image from turquoisechic.com) where she uses a bunch of kitschy little paintings of flowers & groups them together casually, irreverently & has fun with them. She's using them for the pops of color & fun they add to the room and it's not displayed as precious art:

And I totally have a thing for really cheap old paintings of landscapes, boats, people & the water. I get them for around $5- $30 & I absolutely love them. I know they're not great art and are considered kitsch, but something about them makes me happy. I think the key is to just display them casually or en masse. The way you display art says a lot about it. (Is it lit up & in a $400 frame? Then that baby better be art in your eyes!) Image below from interiordec.about.com:

Here's a $5 cheapie I love (below) that I have on my mom's mantle right now. It's just causually leaning there & it's not a permanent fixture. It doesn't speak to me in any profound way, it simply added the color & feeling I was on the mood for in the room. It's more to create atmosphere than to be gazed upon as a work of art.

On this road also comes the fabric question. There are those who say that flowers belong in vases & not on fabrics. I really do see the logic & realness to this idea, but I'm still not there yet. I still love a pretty floral on a pillow or blanket. (I'll write more on this later)

One thing I am learning through all of this is that I don't believe in absolutes when it comes to design. Make your rules, but if something comes along & doesn't jive with your rules & you're okay with that, break 'em! I just think it's important to be aware of why you're making certain decisions & to be aware of why you're breaking the rules.

("They're more like guidelines anyway." ;)

The Washington Post Santa!!

I wanted to thank Terri Sapienza so much for putting Pure Style Home on Blogwatch today in the Washington Post!! (For the recent post on my client's dressing room, 2 posts down.)

I was just sitting down for breakfast & opened up the Home Section to Blogwatch & was so shocked to see it on there!!! I started yelling because I was so excited & totally freaked my husband out because he thought something had happened with the baby. oops!

Anyway, it's like Christmas morning for design bloggers & Terri, thank you so much for being Santa! (Do you know how exciting this is for us?!!) I really appreciate it & can't tell you how great it was to call my grandparents & have them open up the paper to H2. ;)

ps- my dad read this post & was like, "I think you should tone down your excitement." Come on dad, do you know me?!!

House Love: Rice Cottage

I know I say this a lot, but I LOVE this house:


[Please forgive my limited use of vocabulary in this post which consists mainly of: "love," "perfect," and "beautiful."] The living room has almost all of the elements that I love: natural elements, (the linen!!) the color scheme, the something pretty, the sculptural table, it's light & airy & relaxing, comfortable, it's got an amazing mix of fursnighings & styles, the texture = I LOVE IT. :)


It belongs to Diane & Jay Speakman & is located ont he coast of Maine. They recently turned it into a seasonal rental cottage.

The wallpaper is beautiful & timeless. (And how great does the painted white mirror look against it? = So easy to do with a cheap flea market find... I'm considering this for my bathroom.) Below, I'm loving the rough natural stones against the ornate lines of the mirror & candlesticks:

This image below is perfection to me: White, wood, nature, light & airy. And I think drop-leaf tables just add so much interest & age to a space. (And I'm going to pretend they just found those moose horns, ok?)

Here's the lucky lady, Diane, enjoying her kitchen:

Oh wow. (below) You know I can't get over the fern on that table in the gorgeous glass vases. Again, I love everything about this space. All the white stoneware against the wood of the hutch... Then mixed with all the white & against the pale blue of the kitchen!!! = perfection

Here's the eat-in kitchen (below) & while I think it's really pretty, I'm not AS obsessed with it as I am with the main living & dining areas of the house. It's missing some of the rawness & layers that's in the other rooms. It feels more "cute" to me than the other spaces but I'd still take it! (Maybe pull off the table cloth to reveal rough wood & switch out the white shades of the chandelier with burlap ones?? Get some contrasting hardware on the cabinets?? I'm only picking this room apart because of the sheer perfection of the other rooms in my opinion. Normally I'd never do this to such a pretty room! ;)

The bedroom below is the perfect coastal getaway bedroom. The roman shades & striped pillow add just the right amount of color into the space to keep it relaxing & totally vacation-feeling. (a word?? ;) I also love how the silver accents to kick it up a notch:

And here's the kids' bedroom. It has more of that sweetpea feeling that the kitchen table did. It feels so clean & pretty & I'd love to tuck little ones in here at night on my vacation!

On another note, we have a snow day today!!! (My husband's a teacher so it's a big treat!!) We took Christian (our year & a half year old out in the snow for the first time yesterday & it was so great- especially when we showed him he could eat it too!!!)

photos by Keller + Keller

Enjoy your day!!

xoxo,

lauren

Pure Style: Dressing Room

A dressing room: one of the ultimate luxuries. A client of mine came to me with the idea to change a spare room of hers into her very own dressing room and that's what we did.



She loves to shop & attends all kinds of parties & galas and has the most beautiful collection of ball gowns & cocktail dresses!!! Her shoe collection is amazing. The problem was she has nowhere to store her ever-growing collection of clothing. She used to keep her things in the guest bedroom (the guest bedroom I just recently showed pictures of), but that closet wan't big enough & we demo'd it for the bathroom renovation. So, the spare bedroom was the perfect solution.

Here is the room before: an office/ workout room/ catch-all. With her crazy-busy schedule, she was unable to get a handle on the room.

Here is her mother's adorable vintage tufted chair in need of some TLC:

My client requested an organized space that felt traditional & luxurious with some earthy elements. Nothing too feminine, but a space with just a touch of with subtle glamour. And, finally (below) here are some shots of the finished room:

(The colors are a little off in the pics- sorry!) I had the chair reupholstered in a green nubby fabric very similar to the original pink fabric but with a little metallic sheen. We did that walls in a faux-linen finish with a subtle gold sheen again emphasizing that natural-glam feeling. The custom cabinetry houses dresses & hanging items in the cabinets above & shoes in the drawers below.

And, below, you can see again that combination of natural & elegant in the juxtaposition of the natural shades with the silk Greek Key draperies:

And against the rough wooden mirror too:

Below, a celabratory glass of wine for the completion of the project!! (I thought it looked too perfect on the stool with her tiger striped heels!)

A here's a pic of a great little exposed shelf in the corner of the room for purses:

We went with oil rubbed bronze fixtures & hardware & the shots of black really added some needed contrast to the calm tone-on-tone space.

My client found all these great prints on Ebay (below) & Iwe had them framed in a series of gold frames. (I was so proud of the hanging job: we did it as a team & the laser-level is key!!!) The glass bubble lamp from Currey & Co is topped with a linen shade & sits on a cool transitional pedestal table.

Below is a picture of my awesome & very happy client. She's worked so hard for & waited a long time for this dressing room & she totally deserves it!!!

One last picture: (I'm definitely a little envious of how organized & functional the space is!! my closet is jam-packed! ;)

Soon-to-come will be finished pictures of her guest bath, master bed & bath & living room. (Our original project definitely grew!! :)