For example: I love emerald green. Always have. Not so much in the sense that I want it everywhere in my house, but it's a striking, lovely color.
Lookit dem ruffles.
And look at this pretty scene.
But the minute some corporate snobs deem that emerald (or any other color) is the "color of the year" I immediately want to go through my house and eradicate all signs of emerald.
Here's another example. Recently I've been noticing this one gorgeous houseplant in a lot of pictures on Pinterest.
It's so lovely and sculptural and BIG. So when my friend Jen told me it was called a Fiddle Leaf Fig, I was excited to try to find one. I read they were pricey, so imagine my excitement when I found one for $12.99 at Ikea today. I came home, super duper giddy, and when I looked up how to care for them--wow. The amount of snobbish commentary on the owning of these plants is incredible. Apparently if you like these you are overly trendy, a hipster, pretentious, only buy plants because the cool people do...it's ridiculous. I have quite a few houseplants, and every one of them I bought because I liked how it looked. Period.
I reserve the right to like what I like. Sometimes I like things but don't want to live with them--like the whole neon trend. It looks cute on Pinterest, but not in my house. Sometimes I like hipster stuff. Sometimes I like hippie stuff. I neither want to be defined by how fashionable (or not) I am, nor by what somebody up the design food chain deems I should like. I want to be free to get into emerald on an "off year," or to keep liking the midcentury furniture I've dreamed of owning since my first trip to Tomorrowland as a kid.
The moral of this rant is simple: be who you are. Like what you like, whether or not the cool kids do. The end.
3 comments:
Amen to that! I like what I like and care not what others do or think or say. And, amazingly, my kid seems to be heading the same way! At least as far as her clothes and hobbies go. Now, budge over on that soapbox and we can black power salute together.
I think it's kind of sad that we have to have a "color of the year," and that an ink company gets to pick it. I don't even think their version of emerald is very emerald-y - too blue for my taste. I felt the same way about tangerine last year (although it was a much more true-to-name color), but I still felt myself adding more oranges to my stash. Not because I let Pantone dictate the color, but because so many other quilters do, and I felt like I needed more oranges if I was going to continue to swap.
BTW, I feel the same way about most blocks that I see become an instant hit on instagram or the blogosphere or wherever. I feel like people are too afraid to say they like something different, and that they would rather follow like sheep than be a trail blazer. Kind of sad, really, when quilting (for me anyway) is a form of personal creative expression.
What an amazing post! After all the post-stress sadness of QuiltCon that many quilters seem to be experiencing---this is the post that they need to read! Make/Buy art/quilts/anything because you love it, because you want to, because if fulfills you---and don't give a blankety-blank about what anyone else thinks!
Thanks you for this encouragement!
Tricia
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