Author: doodledweller
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The Peasant’s Garden
During the dog days of summer, the women of ancient Athens fashioned little gardens in baskets and pots, each holding a mix of quick-sprouting grain and herbs. These makeshift seedbeds were carried up the ladders onto the flat roofs of private houses and left to wilt in the sun – a botanical reenactment of the…
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The Kantha Jacket
Kantha, meaning “patched cloth”, refers to both the traditional craft of making quilted blankets as well as the stitch itself. The craft is native to rural Eastern South Asia, particularly Bangladesh and the neighboring Indian states of West Bengal and Odisha, along the Bay of Bengal. Originally made from old, recycled saris, the traditional kantha…
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The Great Wave
The Great Wave off Kanagawa is Katsushika Hokusai’s first and most celebrated work in his collection of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. It is of the Ukiyo-e genre, meaning “pictures of the floating world”, which flourished in 17th-to-19th-century Japan. The woodblock print depicts three elements: three boats weathering the stormy sea, the great wave, and…
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The Flamingo Party
Color had been considered superfluous in Western culture since ancient times. Classical writers saw it as being indulgent, even sinful, a distraction from the true glories of art, which were of line and form. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote in Theory of Colors, 1810 that “savage nations, uneducated people, and children have a great predilection…
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Aries
To paint a sky onto my cloth, I have chosen the Aries constellation. It is located in the Northern celestial hemisphere between Pisces to the west and Taurus to the east. The name Aries is Latin for the ram, thus the astronomical symbol for Aries represents the ram’s horns. The brightest star in the constellation…
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Zoot Pants
Interviewed by Vogue in 1911 about the possibility of women wearing trousers, the English designer Charles Worth said, “Yes, certainly they will. They will accept it because it is vulgar, ugly, and wicked – those reasons insure the success of any article of feminine wear! The world has gone mad!” The earliest versions of female…
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Tee’s Sleeves
Beyond the classic T shape, graphic tees have become a most popular medium for self expression. Whether proclaiming advertisement, activism, pop art, science, technology, or humor, it is the unique advantage that the tee has gained over other apparels. While Marlon Brando was looking hot in his ringer tee in the 1960’s, companies such as…
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Small Talks
Until we have walked in others’ shoes, we’ll never know what they’ve been through. All things considered, it is not fair for us to hope for others to see with our eyes. Even more so, those leading interesting lives should not expect those who’ve seen less to possess their nature, their sensibility, or their temperament.…
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The Empire
The concept of empire has been considered since ancient times. The Roman historians Livy and Tacitus argued the empire formed not on the basis of force, but the capacity to present force as being in the service of right and peace. The empire was not born of its own will, but rather called into being…
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Freedom, The State, The Nation
In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes argued that the sovereign derived his legitimacy from an unwritten social contract by which the individual forfeited their natural liberty in order to secure their natural right to life, which would otherwise be threatened by the “war of every man against every man.” Human beings were willing to concede their freedom…
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