Use The Past

Phillip Lim, interviewed in today's Times Magazine: "I pass this framed piece every morning on my way out of my bedroom. It says, "Never Look Back." That's a big motto for me." When asked about his worst design, he says "I don't regret. I move on."

So simple and profound a motto. I am always drawing on the past. I think it informs what I do now and what I will do in the future. I have an affinity for late 40's and 50's kitchenware, tablecloths and dishcloths, cookbooks, music. When I find an object from this era in a thrift shop I feel a kinship with it. The learning here is to use or acknowledge that which is the past, figuring out how it can positively accessorize what is to come. Regret is a very strong word. If regret stops you from moving on, it can be quite a roadblock, a procrastinator, ultimately a paralysis.

It is a wonderful attitude and mood lifter to develop or morph the "look backs' into today's needs. In my case, they never really go away. They come to me in the middle of the night, and play over again like scratchy broken records suspended in time. To me, these clips of memories are very real. I think security was taken for granted until I could really understand the meaning of words. Words can be so powerful, despite 'sticks and stones can break your bones but words will never harm you'. Spoken words consciously or unconsciously often motivate negative or positive behavior.

Yet, being impressionable or sensitive defines an artist, who can look at things while they are happening and after they happen, and use these reflections as motivation to create. Objectivity comes in the ability to stand back a bit, as an observer. When it gels, that's the aha moment!