As a designer, I am always questioning the fine line between arts and crafts, and critiquing whether a designed object should be categorized under art, or under craft. That discussion is for another day, but art made my weekend, and craft did not. I spent much of my weekend under the influence of arts and crafts; thanks to my good friend Chris from architecture school who came down from New Haven for the weekend.
On Saturday we hung out in the U Street/14th Street neighborhood of DC. After a hearty lunch of halfsmokes and chili cheese fries at the DC hotspot Ben’s Chili Bowl, I sent Chris off with his brother to visit my former boss’s art gallery while my friend Jamie and I shopped the small boutiques on 14th Street. We were vastly disappointed, having found that all the clothing, shoes, and jewelry, although unique, were too crafty (this is my new shitword) or too branded for our tastes. Except for one store Muleh, where the clothing could be classifed under ‘art’, but was beautifully unaffordable. In fact, so unaffordable I found a Rozae Nichols shirt selling for $200 that I had bought from Coop Barney’s at their winter sale just a few weeks ago for 10% of the price! After shopping, we put the H in Hipster and the G in Gentrification and had coffee with Chris at the new 14U coffee shop. We got to talking a lot about architecture and art, so after Jamie left, we headed down 14th Street to check out an exhibit I found intriguing last month. Unfortunately, the exhibit had ended already, but fortunately our visit coincided with various art show openings. As a disclaimer, I am no authority on art, but I can say there was some art, some borderline art, and some craft; but along with the free wine, Graham Caldwell’s exhibit made the visit worthwhile–elegant glass-blown sculptures, some colored, some clear, some mirrored, all anthropomorphically protruding from the gallery’s walls.
Later that evening, we had more conversations on architecture when we had dinner with another friend from architecture school, but this was more gossip and reminiscing than anything else. After dinner we went to Cafe Saint Ex, which I recently learned was designed by two guys I know, one from my former firm and one from my current. And since I now know the guys who designed it, I couldn’t help but critique the space, and I have to say, that railing that separates the bar space from the dining space is a dumb idea because it sits on a step that is three inches above the rest of the restaurant, creating an ideal place to trip. The place is way too small and crowded, so we finished the evening off with drinks at Black Cat. Nothing too crazy, but it was nice catching up with old friends and reminiscing about our five years in hell.
On four hours of sleep, Chris and I spent Sunday doing more art/architecture stuff. First we drove over to my two favorite buildings in DC–the Finnish Embassy and the Swedish House. Unfortunately the Finnish embassy was closed, and we couldn’t find parking at the Swedish House, so we went to the Hirshhorn Museum to see their light exhibit. Pretty cool stuff. My favorite piece was the light room by James Turrell called “Milk Run”. I would really like James Turrell to design my future bedroom; everytime I experience one of his spaces, I leave thinking- ‘Wow, sex in here would be pretty hot.’
So after this weekend, I am thinking about going back to school again to get me working creatively again. Work is not doing it for me, and it’s so hard to find the discipline to be creative outside of work, especially when things like friends and drinking and sleeping are so great. I am dreaming about fashion school, maybe in New York, maybe in Europe….
