Showy displays of abundance (when more is more)
Click to read this one in your browser or the app so that it doesn't get cut off — I went a little long.
When I was in high school, I would drive to the campus of Southern Methodist University to do research in the library for my senior thesis. My little blue car parked at a meter on the side of the most recognizable building on campus, I’d carry my massive purse loaded with books across the main lawn, slightly slouched as I went.
I had not yet made decisions about where to go to college and I was in that tender time of teenage years where you’re at the cusp of responsibility and agency but you haven’t grasped it. The world was full of options for me but I didn’t have to make any decisions just yet.
One day, while I was walking along a shaded, curved path back to my car after some time of research, I stopped to take a photo of one of the pretty red brick buildings. I love red brick. It was a thing for me, finding red brick buildings and photographing them wherever I went. This one, with its historic charm and the contrast of the crisp white window frames, struck me.
I remember casually thinking, maybe praying, “I would love to go to a school like this.”
Attending that school was, in my mind, so far out of the question that the thought didn’t move beyond that — I wasn’t working out a plan to make it happen. It truly never crossed my mind that it would be an option; it was never a possibility. It wasn’t a negative or sad thing that I felt that way, either, it was just reality. I did well in school but I was not that sort of scholarship smart that opens doors that look like full-ride scholarships to prestigious, expensive universities. I never dreamed of telling my parents that I wanted to apply there, a private college planted in the middle of the city’s most visibly affluent neighborhood. It was just too impractical and unrealistic, so unnecessary.
But the buildings were beautiful and the grass was green and I felt so grown up when I walked to the library.
A few years later, while I was attending another college, I had this sense that it wasn’t where I was meant to be. That was it, just a sense. On a whim, I applied to SMU. Nothing had changed, it was still inordinately expensive and, to be honest, only two things drew me there: this sense that I should apply and the beauty of the campus.
So, I applied. I got in. I cried when I got the acceptance letter and I cried when I got a massive scholarship and more added to it later. I went to school and parked myself, almost every day, at the same set of meters I’d parked at years before.
My first day of classes, I walked the sidewalk in front of the library. The sun was shining, it was August and the grass was somehow still green — in August, in Texas. I remembered that moment, years ago, when I had uttered that little dream in my heart about going to school in a place like this.
Well, I was going to school in a place like this.
In the grand scheme of miracle accounts, a girl getting into a college she likes is not unthinkable. But it felt so extravagant and so comically superfluous that I had to laugh. And I did laugh in delight while I was walking around campus that first day. It was just too silly that this critical moment in my life’s trajectory — a choice that would shape much of my future — came down to the fact that I liked red brick buildings.
I think, whether or not you’re a person of faith, the only way to survive in this life, really, is to believe that life can surprise you and that it can surprise you for the better. This was one experience — there have been others — in my life that solidified in me a sense, a hope, for abundance. It’s this belief that an oversupply of joy could come my way, the belief that something beyond all hopes and dreams, something outside of my imagination, is available.
Abundance is not the same as excess, though it’s fair and reasonable to make that parallel. Excess has no point, but abundance serves a purpose. It begets wonder, it broadens your view, it expands your thinking — the purpose of abundance is abundance. It makes you want to soak everything up but, at the same time, preserve that moment in its perfect state, so that it’s untouched and uninterrupted.
I’ve felt an overwhelming sense of abundance when I’ve wandered historic buildings and gardens, when I’ve watched old movies with elaborate sets and when I go into a grocery store with a bountiful fresh produce on display. I feel it, also, in the moments when I realize that all the little dots of experiences in my life led to one dream come true of a moment.
I want to live from that place where you know that there is more than you could ever ask, think or imagine ahead of you. It’s an awareness that there is something far beyond what you could ever expect available to you, something that you didn’t account for or prepare for. You could never have measured for it or seen it coming.
On this last week of the year, abundance is our theme. All of the holiday celebrations, decorations and time with loved ones are such showy displays of abundance. I love how this time of year glitters and sparkles. Whether you are throwing celebrations, doing some end-of-year cleaning, or spending the week at rest, you’ll find something to delight you in here.
Read on for abundant-looking spaces, an abundance of questions and art, photos and traditions that convey a sense of abundance.
ALL-ENCOMPASSING SPACES
Rooms where a lot is happening but it works
When I think of the word “abundance” in the context of design and decor, I don’t necessarily think of piles of things stacked up in rooms. Abundance in design is, to me, synonymous with that sort of all-encompassing feeling you get when you enter a room that’s just really incredible. You feel cocooned, captured, captivated and you don’t want to leave.
There are a few design practices I’ve noticed that offer that sort of feel. Let’s take a look.
In this room designed by Jaime Parladé, a checkered pattern covers all of the surfaces. I love when decorators use the same fabric on the walls, curtains, bed and upholstery. I wonder if the Hotel Peter and Paul in New Orleans was inspired by this design, it uses a similar fabric in a similar way.
Again, another room swathed in a fabric — this time a ticking stripe. I imagine this space would feel really cozy with the fabric on the walls.
I’m not sure who designed this canopy bed, the source says it’s an image from Veranda magazine, but I love the mix of patterns. More really is more, here, where the designer has grouped a number of patterns together to create a truly unique design. Also — I’m not sure any piece of furniture conveys abundance more than a canopy bed.
Leaning into something unexpected and really going for it, can create an impact. What I like in this image is the candy pink on the walls — surprisingly delicate, sugary and sweet — coupled with the pinks in the collection of pottery.
When I was a child, I used to say orange was my least favorite color but this room makes me want to change my mind. How vibrant and beautiful is this shade painted on the walls of a historic home in Charleston? I’ve seen this sort of style a few times in room design in historic homes or homes with incredible architectural details, where the room is painted a rich, surprising color but the furniture, art and decor are kept fairly minimal to keep the room balanced.
And, finally, a room by Renzo Mongiardino, who might yet be the best example of abundance in design. Everything he did was just more.
AN ABUNDANCE OF QUESTIONS
Cure for all boredom: the Proust questionnaire
If there’s one thing I love, it’s asking questions. I have been known to have an abundance of questions (sometimes to the detriment of those around me — mostly those that work with me) and I love getting to know people.
But have you heard of the Proust questionnaire? It began as a Victorian parlor game in which people filled out notebooks (“confession albums”) that had lists of questions. The notebook would get passed around, filled out and then the owner would take it away as a sort of souvenir.
Many famous figures filled out these books but it was the French writer Marcel Proust whose responses in a confession album, responses he wrote when he was 14, brought the questionnaire to fame. His answers were discovered years later and then published in various journals and, to say the least, it snowballed from there. Vanity Fair has celebrities answer the Proust questionnaire and runs their responses in the back of the magazine.
The answers that you give to the questions are said to reveal your true nature. Here they are:
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
What is your greatest fear?
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Which living person do you most admire?
What is your greatest extravagance?
What is your current state of mind?
What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
On what occasion do you lie?
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
Which living person do you most despise?
What is the quality you most like in a man?
What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
When and where were you happiest?
Which talent would you most like to have?
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
Where would you most like to live?
What is your most treasured possession?
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
What is your favorite occupation?
What is your most marked characteristic?
What do you most value in your friends?
Who are your favorite writers?
Who is your hero of fiction?
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Who are your heroes in real life?
What are your favorite names?
What is it that you most dislike?
What is your greatest regret?
How would you like to die?
What is your motto?
MORE IS MORE
Instances where abundance has quite an effect
Part of decorator Max Sinsteden’s collection at his home in Rhode Island (via House and Garden).
You can take a virtual tour of the Austrian National Library. (Photo by Politikaner via Creative Commons.)
Vincent van Gogh’s “Wheat Field with Cypresses,” which is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is a painting that the artist considered one of his “best” summer works (according to the museum).
Bountiful artichokes at the Rialto market in Venice through the eyes of cookbook author Skye McAlpine (via Instagram).
Have you heard of the Swedish tradition of crayfish parties? They happen at the end of summer and Swedes gather to eat, as you guessed, crayfish (crawfish, if you’re a southerner). The tradition started when catching of crayfish was limited to a certain period of the year, to prevent overfishing. To me, it’s a picture of abundance in more ways than one. I wrote about a Texas version of this Swedish party a few years ago. (Photo by Patrik Svedberg/imagebank.sweden.se.)
Patterns on an embroidered jacket from the seventeenth century via The Met Museum. For more embroidery, a few beauties from the costume institute: “May” by Christian Dior and a music-patterned evening dress by Elsa Schiaparelli.
I ALWAYS FORGET ABOUT STARS
A city girl curates celestial art
I really do always forget about the stars. I’ve lived in a big city my whole life it’s not easy to see the stars with clarity at night and that’s why I forget about them. You can’t see them when you’re driving home after dark or when you get out of the car to go into the house.
But I love stars, moons and planets in art and design (and, of course, in the actual sky when I do get to see them).
Medieval artwork shared by the Getty Museum (above and below).
I like the faces in the sun, moon and planets. They all look so curious and a little bit worn.
The ceiling of Grand Central Station in New York City, captured in a photo from my first trip there as a teen.
The Carlisle Cathedral in Cumbria, UK, where stars are painted on the ceiling against a blue backdrop. Similarly, see the star-painted ceiling in a Brooklyn church that was rediscovered a decade ago.
Above, see the Brunschwig & Fils pattern “Sun, Moon, and Stars” on a chair in the home of Keith and Chippy Irvine, from the book “Brunschwig & Fils Style" (1995).
SPARKLY SILVER
3 beautiful pieces in silver and pewter
From left to right: 1912 silver-plated ice bucket from the Ritz Hotel in London, a large pewter tray and silver-plated bud vase (or water cup) with a floral design.
GOOD CHOICE
A fun way to send text invitations
We’re having a handful of friends over for New Year’s Eve and I used the Hi Note app to send out invitations. The app has loads of templates that you can fill in for every sort of occasion: party invites, a last-minute hangout, a quick hello, etc.
Creatives and tastemakers across the world — like Rebecca Gardener of House & Parties fame, designers Ken Fulk and Mark D. Sikes and brands like the Emily Post Institute and Aerin — have collections within the app.
How cute is that?
Happy New Year, friends! I wish you abundance in 2024.
All the best,
Mary Grace
Best ever!
I just love the thought and care you put into each of these issues. Thank you! ♥ Wishing you a happy New Year.