[September 15th, 2015]
Vital Data
Where there's life there's files: My Afghan kilim has stripes of a yellow color obtained from pomegranate dyes. The Moroccan one was made south of Meknès. It took a cherry tree to make the dining room table. My bed is in the bedroom, with linen of real cotton. On the wall I hang an American Indian Yeti rug next to a small painting by Russell Chatham. In the kitchen a toaster, red and hand-made in England, dominates the scene. Everything is presided over by the mountain.
I'm having a bit of trouble recalling where it was that I first heard about Etel Adnan. But the minute I did I ran to the bookstore to pick up her writings. She is a Lebanese artist and writer in her 90's—and spent her life bouncing from Beirut to Paris to Northern California, and then back again. Though she's been creating her whole life, her work was only celebrated on a large-scale most recently...
The little excerpt above came from her creative memoir In The Heart of The Heart of Another Country.
Despite having returned late from work yesterday, somehow I made dinner in an hour, we ate + cleaned up. I showered. And we were in bed by 10:30. I picked up Etel's book and fell upon this little piece of prose, where she so vividly describes objects in her home. I love her brevity, and the way she describes the nuance of these belongings. I feel that she's connected to them in a unique way — in the details she chooses to focus on: these objects' origins and their colors. It made me think about the way we all choose to describe our stuff—not brand new, but rather, after they've taken on a part of us.
Etel Adnan is also a person that has made and re-made her home in many different places around the world. I wonder if she left her things behind each time she chose to relocate? Food for thought.
On that note, we have 15 days left on Wooster Street... :)
Have a very special Tuesday, everybody!
-P