Everyone deserves beauty. It heals us and brings us the Energy for a fulfilled life. In Decorating Project-Symbols and Patterns, a former math teacher, MC, a middle-aged disabled man, asked me to help him decorate his. Keeping up a neat appearance was difficult for him. Furthermore, health issues were draining MC’s assets, putting beauty on his back-burner. It is also painful that disabled people need beauty for their physical and emotional health.
MC wanted to concentrate on his kitchen-dining area. It was a room dated back to the 50s, MC didn’t want to remove anything because he associated this area with his deceased, loving mother.
I explained to him that he didn’t need to dispose anything that comforted him. He just needed to do a few things to create a subliminal geometric pattern. It is in that geometry that decorating has its greatest power. [1] Using geometry, part of our Western tradition, we created the plan. Many Western people went to the East to learn Feng Shui and other ways to create harmony in their environment, as I told him.
I believe we can create a Western form of Feng Shui, using ancient Western techniques. One uses geometry. Since MC had been a math teacher, using geometry excited him.
The Kitchen Upon Entering Wall One with Sink and Part of Wall Two with Stove
Continuation of Wall One
Wall Three
Wall Four
The Corner of Wall Three and Wall Four
The Plan
The first thing readers might recommend is to eliminate the clutter. But MC’s disability meant special ways to deal with clutter while harmonizing the space. I started with a plan to get the eyes to move in a circle, the simplest geometric form. We had several ways and utilized them all .
Method One – Using the Gestalt Laws of Similarity and Continuation
The brain uses tricks to assimilate ten billion things per second. Gestalt psychologists analyzed those tricks to develop the Laws of Perception. For example, as the eye moves, it creates a subliminal geometric form. In Method One, we will use the Law of Similarity. [2] In a nanosecond, the brain connects all similar things. The brain connects texture, height, and color for instance. The most important thing in decorating, however, is color.
There are three shades of brown and some white walls that are similar in color. They are, howeve, not exciting. The most exciting color in the dining area was the secretary desk, colored close to a sage green. Using that desk as a focal point, we created several sage green items. Placement wasn’t a worry because of another Gestalt law, the Law of Good Continuity. [3] In areas that are square or rectangular, that law prompts the eye to travel in a smooth circular or elliptical path. This movement pleases the subconscious.
To place around the room, we chose sage green items. A friend of his bought material in sage green to make quilted placemats, dish towels, and pot holders. She brought a dark red cloth for the placemats’ bottom and trim. The placemats were reversable. The dark red was close to the complement of sage green. Complementary colors relax the eye. [4]
I also brought two sage green vintage vases. They were placed on the table and island. and eventually filled with dark red flowers.
Method Two – Using the Gestalt Law of Common Region
The most important use of sage green served a duel purpose. Clutter was difficult for MC to address, but he could contain it. The Gestalt Law of Common Region [5] could be used to contain clutter. The eye sees a dozen items corralled on a tray, as a single one. Clutter seems to disappear.
So we bought trays of various sizes and sprayed them sage green. Pill bottles, mail, cleaning supplies, and other items were placed in the trays. Seven trays make 150 cluttery items disappear from the brain’s attention.
The sage green trays also continues the Law of Similarity, a double benefit.
Completing the Laws Similarity
Some of the wall above the kitchen cabinets was yellowish-brown, a different color from the cabinets below. They clash. Using the Law of Similarity, we will paint the small wall above the kitchen cabinets white. The same thing will be done with wall 4. The color white traveled around the room, engaging the Law of Similarity and eliminating an unnecessary color. He will paint wall 3, and the wall behind the dryer at the corner of wall 1. both already white but need to be refreshed. These white walls will engage the eye to travel in a circular manner. We will also install wainscotting in the same color of the golden oak kitchen cabinets around the dark brown island.
Method Three – The Old Professor’s Theorem and the Gestalt Law of Closure
In Lesson III of my book, I describe how I used the plans for a painting into a 3D format for decorating a room. See the diagrams in that lesson. [6] A painting was divided up into four quadrants. One was dominant, two were less cluttered, and one virtually empty. The eye looking at this pattern tried to close the emptiness moving in a circular manner. Gestalt psychologists call this the Law of Closure. [7]
In my adaption in a 3D model, I made one wall dominant, That is, I made one wall highly detailed, two walls less detailed, and one wall virtually empty. As in the 2D painting, the eye moves in a circle to “close” the gap in a 3D room.[8]
It turns out that MC’s kitchen was perfect to apply the Old Professor’s Theorem. Wall two with the stove was dominant; Walls three and Four were subdominant; and Wall Four with the window and dining table were virtually empty.
Method Four – Circling the Square
Circular rooms are healthier for us, but we live in square and rectangular rooms. If we catty – cornered items in our rooms, they would approximate a circle. [9]
MC has three corners which are perfect for catty-cornered items.
- He moved the painted green secretary catty-corned on the corner of walls three and four.
- The microwave on wall two was catty-corned on the corner of walls one and two.
- The washer on wall could not be moved, so a one-foot artificial plant was placed in a can seemed to curve walls one and three. The green leaves also helped the eye move according to the Law of Similarity.
- (As an aside, the empty space where the secretary could then house the refrigerator. This contributed to wall two’s dominance and freed up wall four’s clutter.)
Clutter
One issue of concern were the papers attached to the refrigerator. They were drawings and cards symbolizing care he was receiving John Wheatman in Mediations on Design talks about such objects getting respect. Referring to children’s drawing attached to refrigerators, he recommends a few of them framed together. I recommend all papers of good wishes placed in a folder, to be read in quiet moments. [10]
Finishing Touches and Unsolved Problems
The few items near the washing machine on the corners of Walls One and Three were removed. Over the washing machine was hung a picture of the Last Supper.
One problem remains with the island: it is a dark brown. Similar cabinet doors used to enable access on both sides. Temporary tenants had once removed the cabinet doors and sealed that side with ugly brown plywood. Painting it with white or sage on this raw plywood would have been ugly. I suggested wainscoting and a molding, matching the cabinets in color, on the plywood.
*****
[1] Patterns and Symbols in Decorating, Lesson VII, Part D – What to Do. No matter how good the symbols are, if their placement does not hold a harmonious scaffolding, they take down the design and rob it of Energy.
[2] The Gestalt Law of Perception, Lesson V See Law of Similarity
[3] The Gestalt Law of Perception, Lesson V See Law of Good Continuity
[4] Let the Eyes Have a Pleasurable Dance, Lesson VIII, Part B – to be completed
[5] he Gestalt Law of Perception, Lesson V See Law of Common Region
[6] Finding Energy Through Geometric Patterns, Lesson III
[7] The Gestalt Law of Perception, Lesson V See Law of Closure
The Law of Closure is very powerful. The philosopher V. K. Maheshwari once wrote, “Closure is dangerous, volatile, seductive and even playful. It works to show us an image that does not actually exist before our eyes; it reaches into our psyche to create a fiction and compels us to believe it.”
Look at advertising designs to understand the power of the Law of Closure. Almost all corporate logos use the Law of Closure. I often tell my clients to watch what big business does decorate for Energy. l
[8] Finding Energy Through Geometric Patterns, Lesson III
[9] Let the Eyes Have a Pleasurable Dance, Lesson VIII, Part A
[10] Patterns and Symbols in Decorating, Lesson VII, Part D – What to Do
← Previous Post
Signs of the Beautiful – Hearing the Silence
About Ruth Dec-Friedman
Reader Interactions
Leave a Reply
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Primary Sidebar
About Ruta
Leave a Reply