Patience & Old Things

​The bank building at the end of the street I grew up on, as it once looked.

The work I do is generally not garish. For the most part, I help quiet, old, beautiful things stay quiet, old, and beautiful. A few days ago, I posted a picture of a gorgeous piece of multicolored glass with the caption that, "I cannot not like this piece of glass."  Y'see, I am not a fan of the whimsical color splash. I think a lot of times it is just a cheap, easy way to say, "Look! This is ART!" I have tried to not like that sheet of glass, but it is just too good. There is skill and craftsmanship and an amazing amount of know-how wrapped up in that beautiful thing.  It is not representative of the lion's share of the work that I do, but I appreciate the heck out of it, and it is joyful, so I share it.

Like I said, most of my work is quiet, old, and beautiful. I love the order and geometry, and the fact that it has stood the test of time. There is history and culture in the design language of these old things, so I try to learn from them and appreciate them. This week, I repaired a sweet little cabinet door with a beveled shield. Simple and timeless. It speaks to the aesthetic of the time the house was built. The homeowner said it had been in storage since they bought the house because they didn't know anyone who could repair it. Twenty-three years. All it needed was a couple pieces of glass replaced, a couple of hours to get that beautiful thing back in shape. Now it can be put back where it was meant to be, and appreciated again. Yesterday I spoke with a potential client in the same predicament.  Her window has only been waiting for seventeen years.

I am heartened to see that people care about these things and appreciate them enough to mothball them until the right thing can be done. Maintenance, care and appreciation of things is complicated  It takes time, money, and knowledge. Often times more of any of these than one can imagine will ever be available. Patience pays off, tho. The fast, cheap, solution rarely stands the test of time.

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This brings me back to the bank building on Waterloo. It's not my building, and I don't live there anymore, but what was done to that facade saddens me. Maybe I'm more of a preservationist than an artist, but I appreciated the gravity and dignity of the building as it was. The sides and back were architecturally unremarkable, so the exuberant paint job fits the Mural-Every-Surface aesthetic of the Arts District. The stone front, though, was one of the quiet, old and beautiful things left on the street. And I think that empty or not, many of us appreciated that. Now, though, like so many of the leaded glass windows I see thoughtlessly discarded for vinyl replacements, it's been lost.

Sigh.