mezzanote's Profile

When I was a kid, we had a wood burning stove. A bird got trapped in the stovepipe leading outside and somehow found his way into the house. My mom trapped him under a laundry basket and then just scooted him to the door.

This also happened to me when I was an adult. Unfortunately, I had a broken leg at the time, so the laundry basket trick was a little beyond me. I had to call my father in law, who was agile enough to catch the bird in a huge bath towel and release it unharmed. But until he arrived things were quite exciting, because I was trying to herd my two cats, who had gone into 'hunting mode' into another room, away from the frantic bird banging around in the living room. There is nothing like trying to herd cats while on crutches. I wish I had a video of this whole event, because I'm sure it would make people cry with laughter.

I really wonder sometimes if Americans are just too sensitive on the subject of nudity. When my husband and I were in our mid twenties, we took a trip to London and Edinburgh. We found it pretty funny that they only had four TV channels, so whenever we turned on the set we would pretend to be very serious about our 'evening entertainment'. Well, then we saw a commercial featuring an older couple, who happened to be nude, wandering in an idyllic green pasture. I don't even remember what the commercial was for because this was so mind blowing. In America, being seen without clothes is 'not done', unless you are young and sexy. So, nude, to an American, equals sex. And sex, to an American, is something we rarely talk about except to our closest friends, or when we can be anonymous.
The difference between art and pornogrophy, normal and strange, sexy and just naked, is really just in how often something is seen. Hiding images in a closet turns them into something forbidden and secretive. Sure, art is in the eye of the beholder, but I wouldn't want my friends to have to hide parts of their life from me because they were afraid I was judging them. If I found out someone was taking down artwork that they considered beautiful, just because I was visiting them, I would be ashamed. Of myself.

Now that we know what the darn thing is...can someone tell me how to use the three seashells??

I think the main problem here is that you have a wall of large windows with a changing outside view on one side of the room and an enormous blank canvas right next to this wall. I would try to divide up the big white wall in a way that mimics the window wall. It looks like there are three windows on that wall, so you could do this with three window sized painted sections, or three large white textured wallpaper areas, or three vertical artworks. If the art was of the 'Chinese screen' variety, with a scene that stretches across the three pieces, that would be even better, since your window wall is one continuous scene also. But it can be hard to find art that you can live with on such a large scale, and the search might take a while.

Another option would be one enormous panoramic scene on that wall, like a cityscape at night. The strong black skyscraper background would help your TV blend in better.