The Great Table Search Begynneth

Ha ha. I just wanted to try some creative spelling there... applying some Gwyneth-esque y-th stuff.

I decided in December to sell my dining table and chairs and get different stuff.
It was a beautiful, solid table that felt warm and comfortable. The problem was never the way it felt, or its quality, but that it was round and had curvy legs and curvy chairs and was kind of traditional. My taste is currently very modern.

I wonder how many times or how frequently in life, on average, one's taste changes radically. I haven't really lived long enough to have seen many people age significantly; only my parents. My Dad has always been the exact same! I don't really know what his taste in art is like; he owns one piece of art; it's a Salvador Dali lithograph called Lincoln in Dalivision and he likes Japanese design and has worn the same style of clothing my entire life (hates jeans, wears flat-front khakis, comfortable walking/hik-ey shoes and solid colored shirts and a practical jacket, and when I was young he had longish hair and a full beard but as his hair thinned and went gray he kept it shorter and shorter, so he's not a hairstylin' kind of person. My mom went through one major shift, as far as I can tell. She used to wear a lot of colors, like teal, purple and red, and had flowy long hair and red lip gloss, and then she got a bob hairstyle and started only wearing very tailored clothes in only brown, black, gray and navy. This happened gradually.
Also, she used to like modern art and mid-century modern furniture, and she shifted to contemporary art (but she doesn't actually buy art; she's the kind of person who will decorate with pre-framed art you buy from the Crate and Barrel catalog) and traditional furniture. Now that I think about it, it's possible modern was never really her thing, but what she happened to fall into because her parents were modern, and then as she got older she started to be her real design self. I benefitted from this change heart; she decided that a mid-century modern sculpture that belonged to my grandparents didn't "fit her house", and I ecstatically took it.

As for me, my tastes in my early 20's were shaped by my love of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, my love of Betsey Johnson, and probably the fact that I was an English major. English majors always fall in love with Queen Elizabeth and Christopher Marlowe and the Victorian era before they go into their more specific area of concentration (which, in my case, was American lit). I liked everything curly and ornate and leopard print and white lilies in a wrought iron vase... I loved the paintings Pinky and the Blue Boy. Well, I still do. And I still have that love of frills and lace and old-fashioned things but it's more in the realm of clothing, paper and objects than decor. I started to like things more and more modern in the past three years.

A family bought the dining table in January, but I stored it for them till yesterday. They were having their home remodeled and didn't have anywhere to put it while the contractors lagged behind schedule. It's finally gone, and now I can evaluate the empty dining nook and think about what kind of table I really want!