Time to De-Clutter

 I am hitting up the Spring cleaning a little late this year, but better late than never!  At the beginning of the year we started to change our diet into a more Mediterranean style diet with a lot less processed foods and more lean meats/fish, olive oil, tons of fruits and veggies, and nuts.  Nuts.  I try to buy things in bulk and then all the little bags get stacked up and I think I am out of one nut and buy more and the other day my husband was going through the cupboard and asked, 'Why do you have 3 packages of pecans?  And not any almonds?'  It was time to take action.  Hopefully these jars will do the trick.   

While I was at it, I realized we needed to clean up the sloppy front entrance to our house.  We always wanted a nice entry way and now we have been in this house a year and a half and have a nice entry way that looks completely slovenly.  I kept thinking we would get some sort of wardrobe to put there but it never happened.   

This is a step in the right direction but I just need to keep control of the shoe situation.  

Finally, the opposite side of the entry was getting pretty cluttered too.  The fireplace screen is there to block the dog from getting to the cat's food.  But I think it just looked cluttered.   

Enter red leather bench!  This solved a whole bunch of problems.  I put all the hats and gloves that were cluttered around the shoes into the bench for easy access.  The bench has the extra bonuses that we can move it into the living room for extra seating at parties and use it to take our shoes on and off in the entry instead of tromping dirt all over the house.  We are still going to feed the cat here but I just move the screen blocking the dog in the kitchen to in front of the food when the dog is loose.  

And the cat has a new place to perch too.  Now I only have about 10 other spaces to tackle!

40 X 40: Visit Object Focus: The Bowl Exhibit

Visiting this exhibit as the Portland Museum of Contemporary Craft was a great way to start out my 40 X 40 list and get my creative juices mobilized.  This exhibit, Object Focus: The Bowl is really about trying to create a dialogue within the arts community.  They encourage you to write, draw, respond to what you see at the museum and make you reflect upon the humble bowl and how little it has changed over thousands of years.The second part of the exhibit, starting May 16th, is going to be more interactive with a bowl library and events with local chefs and the like.  I guess I will have to go back and see the exhibit again! 

 The day I went to the museum it was free to go in because they are in the middle of installing the second part of the bowl exhibit.  I bought a membership anyways because I have been wanting to support this museum for a long time.   I was the only visitor wandering around among the bowls and the docent was very enthusiastic about talking about my favorite bowl or answering any questions.

Above is a bowl made of plastic knives.  Below is a carved stone Native American mortar. 

I love all the variety of bowls but felt like they shied on the side of too few bowls and the 50's and 60's were entirely over-represented for my taste.  I would have preferred a few more made in the last year as well as some more that were over 100 years old.

The one below is a hand painted wooden bowl.  Little tiny dots.  Lovely.  The plexiglass case made it hard to get a good photo.

Scale, texture, color; when you stop to look at them abstractly, they are little tiny sculptural works of art.

Even though I like to go to this museum every year, I actually heard about the exhibit on the New York Times in a great article about the impetus to put together this show and a link to the tumblr page where you are encouraged to upload a photo of a bowl and explain why it is interesting/important to you.  You can spend a couple of hours just reading the stories and looking at all the beautiful bowls attached by readers. 

These little bowls caught my eye.

Finally, when pressed by the docent on what my favorite bowl was, I had to admit it was this little brushed silver bowl.  This surprised me a little as I came in thinking I would be drawn to an organic, hand sculpted one.  Probably made on a metal lathe, but also possibly hand forged, it is absolutely delicate and strong at the same time.  And so, so soft with that finish.  I wanted to hold it and run my hands along the inside of it.  

If you are anywhere near Portland, get thyself to the Museum of Contemporary Craft!  (But after May 16th so you can catch all the added interactive goodies!)