patchwork life...

recently i was telling someone that one of the most apt ways i can think of to describe my life is "joyfully messy." i don't neatly compartmentalize my thoughts & feelings, my relationship is completely irreverent and unusual, i suck at drawing personal boundaries with any consistency, and yet everything is spilling over with love and laughter. you must know by now how much i cherish my home, and how important it is for me to have that personal space, and at the same time i am never happier than when our house is full of friends, which it is on a regular basis. we've had friends who, needing a break from the rest of the world, have found a sanctuary in our home for weeks at a time. we also have two giant fluffy untamed dogs- they are nothing if not a shedding, muddy, messy love fest.

how does this translate into design? i'm not sure it does, with any precision, but i'm slowly realizing how much i love patchwork and collage, both of which are intentionally messy, in a coloring-outside-the-lines sort of way. i'll focus on patchwork for now: to me, the whole concept behind it is that you adore so many fabrics and patterns that you can't choose just one. then the art is in arranging them and connecting them into a whole. when i was in india several years ago, the only thing that kept me from snatching up every patchwork tapestry i saw was the fact that everything i bought i would have to carry in my backpack for months to come. even so i came home with about five of them, and a very strong back.

when i was in college, i took a giant piece of canvas, tacked it up so that it covered most of one wall of my dorm room, and invited all of my friends over to paint a mural on it. we drank wine and painted like mad. the end result (which i still have) has, on the whole, no artistic integrity- there are waves, flowers, a rendering of picasso's don quixote, and some... shall we say, abstract bits... i remember that not everyone who came to the party particularly liked each other- if they had, i imagine there might have been a little more cohesion and working together on a single theme. instead, it's a giant colorful mess and such a happy thing- i treasure it in a way that's hard to describe.

anyway, in this ongoing effort to really listen to my inner voice and figure out what i really like, as opposed to what i think might impress, i'm finding myself so drawn to patchwork pieces. i'm in love with this purse- fossil has a whole jumble of beautiful patchwork pieces right now. i recently bought these pillows; i don't even like pillows (in my opinion they just take up valuable butt space), but i found these so pretty i couldn't resist.

a part of me keeps resisting, saying "don't you want to be streamlined & sexy & elegant? patchwork is so not elegant..." but let's be honest- neither am i. i'm messy & covered with golden retriever hair & oh so happy...