Feng Shui and Architectural Digest (My Love-Hate Relationship)

The pile is slowly being whittled down…

The rich get richer and the rest of us (hopefully) get by. I’m still reeling from looking through so many Architectural Digests at one time, and then I came across this refreshing article in The New York Times which puts the current over-consumption of the super-rich in the perspective of the past. The article speaks for itself quite eloquently, but one sentence really shines “There was a sense that too much was distasteful.” Ain’t it the truth!

Back to Architectural Digest—the homes are always those of super rich people—unlike Dwell which often features homes of just plain folks (who like super modern design). Before Trump announced his candidacy, Architectural Digest had a half-page notice touting Trump’s new line of furniture. After that, I don’t recall ever seeing his name mentioned again in the magazine. He has quite a reputation for bad taste—one article I saw in The Times said it was a “thing” with autocrats—to have bad taste in their surroundings. “Bad taste” here is referring to a Vegas-like excess which is all show with no substance.

Architectural Digest—it’s a magazine I love to hate, and hate to love—but I do—I love it. But it’s never a lasting love—I don’t think I’ll ever forgive them for printing a picture of someone’s dining room and the art on the wall was a super-giant photo of the head of a handsome man with his head tilted back and his throat slit. I wish to God I’d never seen that! Yuck! And in a dining room! It’s a perfect example of my phrase people with more dollars than sense. One of the future books that I’m planning is Feng Shui for Collectors, and in it I will suggest that there are certain things that it’s simply best not to collect—and gruesome things are at the top of the list. They are bad for your spirit.

Lovely work by Rachel Dein. Her Instagram account has stunning photos of her artwork and process.

I have a pile of Architectural Digests next to me right now with pages to mention. It’s too much for this one article, so I’ll probably have yet another article (or two) on them. For the rest of this article, I’ll try to be positive. For instance, I’m looking at a fabulous solution for people who like the beauty of dried flowers but don’t want their home to say “dead—stuck in the past” which is what dried flowers say. (I mention this on page 125 of Feng Shui for Hawaii. The solution that I’m seeing is the work of the London-based artist Rachel Dein. Her work uses fresh flowers (usually wildflowers) to make plaster molds—and that’s the artwork—in white, or white and grey, and occasionally a bit of soft color. It’s lovely and peaceful, and because the plaster was never alive—it’s good feng shui. Cake & eat it too—my favorite!

And to end on another positive note—here is a quote from jewelry designer Solange Azagury-Partridge, “I find the color green to be visually restorative and spiritually calming…To me, green is beauty, and beauty is hope.” A feng shui master could not have worded it better.