by Karen-Claire Voss
This article was published in Turkish as “Bir şiirsel edim olarak dekorasyon,” in the magazine Arredamento Dekorasyon (April, 1994). This is the original English version.
Decorating a space need not be an ordinary act, like washing dishes. It can be a truly extraordinary one--unique, set apart, and intrinsically transformative. Now the three elements any decorating project requires are a little extra time, space, and money. Given that fact, this article is addressed to those privileged few who have solved the basic problem of daily survival. That is not all. What I have to say here is unfashionable: my underlying premise is that life has meaning, and that our sole raison d'être is to do our utmost both to discover it and to enlarge it by creating our own. Furthermore, what I have to say is heretical: I regard nothing as sacred that is not. Therefore, I am beating a very particular drum, and perhaps addressing a still smaller audience.
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Interior decoration is often viewed as an activity that permits individual expression. Often its utilitarian value is stressed as well: a room, an apartment, a house can function to enhance the activities of the person who lives there. Sometimes empty interior space is seen simply as a challenge: fill it up--fast. All three emphases reflect a lamentably commonplace superficiality, a characteristic that belongs to the territory named 'contemporary culture.' This superficiality is normal, typical, ordinary, but is it inevitable? The answer is a deep, resounding ‘No.’ Let us look briefly at what is lacking in each of these views, and then take a closer look at what decorating a space can be.
On the face of it, the first emphasis, that decorating is a vehicle for expressing the personality of the person who lives in a space, seems to present no problem. Certainly, the art of interior decoration is one that can allow individual expression, but if it remains on a superficial level, we are limited to something that is at best a rather boring exercise of personal ego. Since little if anything in contemporary culture encourages us to probe beneath the surface of things, interior design is usually reduced to being precisely such an exercise. The second emphasis, the utilitarian view that interior space functions to enhance the activities of the person who lives in it, is a mistake, for it implies thinking of space as a mere backdrop for human activities, with no meaning of its own. The third emphasis, the idea of decorating as a response to the challenge of filling up empty space completely misses the fact that empty space is not empty at all, but full.
How is it possible to transform an exercise of ego into something deeper? What alternative can there be to thinking of interior space as mere backdrop? Finally, what on earth could justify saying that apparent emptiness is really full? The first response to all three questions is to say that decorating an interior space can be an opportunity to act intentionally; not only that, but to act poetically. A provocative idea, and an excellent starting place, one that says something about the potential of persons, poetry and space, as well as interior decoration.
Once when I was at an impasse during a very critical period in my life a dear friend wrote to me and said: ''You know, you are a poetical being. The English word 'poetry' comes from the Greek 'poein,' meaning 'to make, to do.' Now you have the power to act...'' I hadn't known the etymology, and as it happened, his words proved to be exactly what was needed. Beyond that, I was sufficiently intrigued to investigate for myself. I discovered that not only was he right, the word also means 'to create, beget.' Like the making of a person, the making of an interior space can be an essentially and profoundly poetical act. At certain points, in fact, the two processes can converge. Allow me to explain.
With respect to the first emphasis, the idea that decorating is a way of allowing an individual to express himself or herself, when faced with the necessity to design an interior, whether a studio or a house, we are soon faced with the question of who we are. Here is the point at which the superficiality to which I alluded can manifest. If the answer is couched in terms of considering whatever happens to be in fashion, or even worse, whatever is 'appropriate'' according to our social or economic status, or the opinions of neighbors, relatives, or business associates, there is no hope of a serious answer, since considerations like these all beg the question of the true self, yet these are precisely the kinds of things which typically fill our minds every waking moment.
Considerations like these are typical, but, as I have already said, not inevitable. There is a choice. If we choose instead to probe more deeply we set in motion a process which can lead us to an image of a potential self, from whence can emerge an interior space which is in harmony with that self. There are two simultaneous and reciprocally connected movements involved: a movement inward, which consists of discovering and exploring that potential self, the true self, and a movement outward, an organic process, a kind of overflowing, which consists of actualizing that self in space and time, in the space where we live. Moreover, the mere fact of deliberately undertaking to actualize that self--by expressing it externally in the decoration of a living space for example--is something that is entirely within our power. It functions to develop, to strengthen, the emergent self. Our true self can be seen even more clearly once we begin to make that self reflected in our living space. There is more than a little to be said for the idea that if we create a beautiful space, a space which is more developed, greater, then we ourselves are at present, it objectifies our ideal self for us; since it is easier to see, we can more easily move towards it. We find we love the beauty we have created; more than this, we find ourselves beginning to identify with that which we love. This identification of our present self with the true self is a subtle, but very important key here. At any rate, when these movements result from a deliberate intention: to become as conscious as possible of the difference between our true self, and that other false self, the process of interior decoration can then become a series of poetical acts. When the process of choosing colors, patterns, and objects takes place in the context of deliberately choosing things which seem to correspond with that true self, a trip to the bazaar, the antique shop, the furniture store becomes a mythic journey. We are no longer embarked on an ordinary shopping trip, but, like Jason, have set out on the quest for the Golden Fleece. We have commenced to act as poetical beings.
Interiors comprised of things resulting from a quest like that may be simple or ornate, modern, traditional, or eclectic, but they are never static, never finished, are always in process, just as we ourselves. Such interiors manifest a richness that can only be calculated in terms of a currency that is never traded in the marketplace.
There was a time when decorations, whether applied to the walls of a house, a piece of furniture, a vessel, or even a garment, were symbols. Rather than being meaningless, conventional patters, decorative motifs were always things that pointed beyond themselves, to something else, something deeper, greater. In other words, every decoration meant something; thus, every act of decorating meant something as well. We have lost that.
Our discovery of the right object to grace a table or the right picture to hang on a wall results from our listening carefully to what can be thought of as the 'speech' of inanimate objects. Such finds are no longer mere purchases, but treasures. Who among us has not had the experience of unexpectedly coming upon an object which seemed to call out to us, which we felt we had to have, which once installed in its place in our home continued to give us pleasure? Yet how many of us have seriously contemplated this phenomenon? Looking at such an object is a source of deep satisfaction. Moreover, we find that even its care and maintenance serves to enhance that initial satisfaction, enabling us to renew the relationship of intimacy which began when we encountered the thing, and allowing us to deepen it. In Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space, a memorable statement related to the plenitude of space, and the qualitative differences which exist between one space and another, he observes that
'when a poet rubs a piece of furniture ...when he puts a little fragrant wax on his table with the woolen cloth that lends warmth to everything it touches, he creates a new object; he increases the object's human dignity; he registers this object officially as a member of the human household.
Are these insignificant, ordinary actions? Not at all. As Bachelard notes, ''one of the powers of attraction of smallness lies in the fact that large things can issue from small ones." Indeed, once imbued with awareness and intentionality, even small actions can become poetical acts: fecund, intrinsically transformative, infinitely creative; world making acts, the kind which Mircea Eliade described as being an "imitation of the acts of the gods in the beginning."
The poet Charles Baudelaire provides excellent examples of space as more than mere backdrop, although they are not actualized in three-dimensional space, but in the imaginal spaces of his poetry. Baudelaire's imaginal spaces are far from empty--they are full, possessing more "body," more "roundness," more meaning, and hence more reality, than the vacuous, albeit perfectly decorated actual spaces in a contemporary shopping center. Consider, for example, his "Invitation to the Voyage," where he writes of a place where
"there
is nothing else but grace and measure,
Richness,
quietness, and pleasure."
This is a space so full it is overflowing; teeming with a plenitude of qualities. One introduces objects into such a space only with exquisite care, lest one disturb what is already there.
So-called empty space constitutes an opportunity to bring what is potential into the realm of the actual. Consider the phrase "living space." If we think about it in a superficial way, we see it as meaning "a space for living." This is the view of interior space as a mere backdrop. If we think about the same phrase in a deeper way, we see that it means literally ''a living space," i.e., a space that is itself living. Empty space is an illusion. Space is full--of life, of potential. Life is real. Potentiality is real. An ''empty'' space, therefore, is an opportunity to deliberately undertake that dual process 1 spoke of earlier, that of simultaneously moving inward to discover the vastness of the previously unknown and potential true self, and of moving outward to actualize that true self. And if an empty interior space can be said to constitute a challenge, the challenge is not one which can be met by filling it up quickly, with or without the help of a professional decorator, but by approaching it as a hero approaches the vast spaces of previously unexplored territory, or as a mythic divinity approaches the chaos of the beginning to create a world.
The great Romanian historian of religions, Mircea Eliade, made a provocative statement in his last published work, the three-volume History of Religious Ideas. After noting that the mere fact of human verticality means that human beings have transcended ''the condition typical" of primates he writes:
space is organized ...in four horizontal directions radiating from an "up''-"down'' central axis. In other words, space can be organized around the human body as extending forward, backward, to right, to left, upward, and downward. It is from this original and originating experience—feeling oneself “thrown” into the middle of an apparently limitless, unknown, and threatening extension—that the different methods of orientatio are developed . . .
It is undeniably true that all human experience begins as an experience of what. Eliade calls “the center.” He points out that traditional peoples spontaneously “sought to live as near as possible to the Center of the World,” and that they wanted their dwelling spaces to be at the center as well, and to be an “imago mundi,” an image of the world on a microcosmic scale. For this reason, he says, traditional dwellings had openings to the sky. There was a perception that the verticality which human beings experience relative to the horizontal plane of the earth, is replicated ad infinitum on a macrocosmic scale. There was a perceived need (which exists still, although it is inarticulate for the most part) to replicate that dynamic in order to preserve continuity between the “heavens” and the “earth.” In any case, here again, just as was observed in connection with ornamentation and objects, and with respect to the ideal self objectified in a living space, what we encounter in traditional dwellings is a symbolic value pointing beyond itself to something greater. In this case, the value resides in the astonishing power of “home” to function as an existentially orienting center, as a living space which ceaselessly serves to refresh us, to renew us, to shelter us while we dream, to encourage us to imagine the apparently impossible, to give us hope that we can make it possible.
In the fifteenth century, a philosopher named Marsilio Ficino write a small manual for restoring physical and psychological health, which includes various formulas that he hoped would help his readers put themselves in harmony with the cosmos. Most interestingly, Ficino suggests it would be good to have "a little room, one with an arch," appropriately painted and decorated with representations of the planets inside one's house (he says the bedroom would be excellent for this purpose), and he advises us to contemplate the whole of life, rather than its parts whenever we are outside the house by focusing on "the shape and colors of the universe." In advocating the fabrication of such a room, and the contemplation of its decorations, Ficino is providing an imago mundi, an image of the world in miniature. Here again we encounter the intimate connection between the making of a person and the making of an interior space; Ficino wants us to use that image as a support for the development of a true self, a self that is enlarged and deepened. As it turns out, that true self is not bounded by the narrow definition of self derived by considering fashion, social or economic status, or the opinions of others, but rather, is a self which is in harmony with the creative process of the universe itself. Here we encounter the central meaning of a living space that reflects that true self; it is the space of infinite creativity; thus, it is a space in harmony with the universe itself.
To undertake the development of that true self, in the context of decorating a living space in the late 20th century, is to embark on a never-ending odyssey; it is a heroic act, an act that is akin to creating a world. To set out on that quest deliberately, with some awareness of its meaning, is still, just as it has always been, and just as it will always be, a profoundly poetical act.
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March 1994
Istanbul