consequence of a crack in the center of the tree, some interruption
of life. And the trick, it seems to me, lies in such contradictions.
I f we acknowledge the way we rely on comfort, the funny thing
is how easily we then find it aligns itself with provocation. There
is something sustaining in the way the table accommodates its error.
I wear a white sapphire ring made by the jeweler Gabriella Kiss.
It is a little oval of brightness that sits precisely in its gold bezel,
which is securely attached to its shank that itself fits comfortably
on my finger. Yet the stone is marked by a slight fissure, a tear in its
brilliant clarity, some lingering trace of the geological havoc that
produced it.
This congruence of accommodation and provocation, it seems
to me, is what we look for in the things we live with. Surely it pro-
vides a livelier and more relevant interaction than that of the ex-
hausted round-robin concerning the relative value of functional and
conceptual objects. And I find that the things I value more and
more are those that comfort and challenge at once; in doing so, they
seem to allow for a deeper sense of engagement with the human
imagination. They recognize some necessary coincidence of fit and
irritation; they acknowledge that these qualities are not mutually
exclusive, and how, at the best of times, they can even inform and
sustain one another.
Icons of modern art and design spell this out explicitly: Think
of how the sinuous spirals of Frank Lloyd W right’s Guggenheim
Museum offer both the promise of a womblike containment and
a kind of vertigo. Or how the knife-sharp pleats of Issey Miyake’s
textiles manage to convey constriction and flow at once. Or how the
seeming disconnect between the conventional bowl form and ur-
banist Deco graphics of Viktor Schreckengost’s
J a z z B o w l
actually
works out just fine.
The familiar and the strange can inform one another; they recog-
nize one another. They have a better relationship than we think.
They are natural cohabitants. You might even say they are comfort-
able with each other. ♦
A kiko Busch is an essayist whose work has appeared in numerous national
publications. She is the author o f N in e
Ways to Cross a River
a n d
The
Uncommon Life of Common Objects.
oct/novo9 american craft 037
www.freedowns.net & www.journal-plaiza.net
