Design Musings Post-op
LONG AGO I DRANK the Kool-Aid known as Stylized Ornament. In my powder room, I hung a Bradbury & Bradbury adaptation of Walter Crane’s wallpaper frieze. Punctuated by repeating cattails, the lancet leaves of the lovely flattened irises create an endless row of arches. When I sit in the little room, eyes focused on the up-and-down of the fleur-de-lys flower heads, my brain waves regulate likewise. (I think most women who’ve had children go to the bathroom to calm down.) I itch, however, when I sit on floral upholstery. I’ve been brainwashed, I’m sure, by years of exposure to Crane, William Morris, Bruce Talbert, and Charles Locke Eastlake: English Art Movement tastemakers who insisted that the flatness of a wall, a floor, or a chair-back be respected, that it be…
