GROOVY?

                                               

A good friend who happens to make some very nice wine advivumcellars.com/ad_vivum_wine dropped of a stack of used French Oak the other day.  I am grateful to have friends that look after me in that way/participate in my obsession to turn one thing into another.  Pieces like I had not seen before.  They were long square profile block like beads strung on heavy fishing line.  They are used when fermenting wine in stainless tanks to impart some oak flavor.  Immediately I had found the material I had been seeking for a door screen/filter that I had envisioned for the door from our bath onto the front loggia/poolside.  I rounded up some antique african trade beads and some other beads made from recycled cut and sandblasted plate glass and voila the screen was made.  The rubber barrel bungs and steel weights hang at the base, the wood oak blocks still with residue/patina and accumulation due to use in the process of winemaking are interspersed with the random glass chunks.  It filters the light, gives some privacy and adds to the the ceremony of going through a door.

I still remember moving into a house bought by my parents as a child that had a very old set of strung shell curtains hung between a doorway.  I remember the sound and sensation of passing through that opening.  I also come back to memories of living in Provence and passing old farmhouses with the "chenille" hanging in the front doorways.   There it was a way of keeping what flying critters there were out of the doorway while still allowing some light and airflow.  It is a very simple thing but I am reminded that as a person who makes things and designs things I/we have the opportunity to impart simple pleasures that effect the process of our everyday lives and enrich that encounter.  It is clear to me that impression can be meaningful and lasting.

Thanks Chris