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All In the Mind ABC Radio National 2010
Natasha Mitchell: But there's also a fear of nature. A point that you make , which is slightly paradoxical, is that the rise in environmental education and this generation's awareness of global environmental issues has perhaps compounded that kind of estrangement from nature.
Richard Louv: Certainly I hear folks who have camps et cetera, kids come on school buses field trips, they tell me that over and over again the kids get off the school bus and they're terrified to get off the sidewalk, terrified of the lions and tigers and bears. they really believe there are lions out there. In the mountains of San Diego there are, but...but there's another kind of fear though. Glenn Albrecht in Perth has come up with a phrase for that, 'solastalgia', which is a kind of deep homesickness for nature itself. We miss it at some deep level, and the fear of that loss of that nature is always there. There's another phrase for that that David Sobel at Antioch in the US uses, 'ecophobia', that's the fear of environmental destruction. Sobel makes the point that we are programming our kids way too early to believe that the Earth is over, that nature is at an end, because...
Natasha Mitchell: Well, kids are carrying a sort of sense of impending doom into their future.
Richard Louv: And there's nothing wrong later with talking about those things, but in their formative years...these children haven't even had a chance to go out and have that sense of joy and wonder and just playing in nature, just digging a hole in the backyard just for the fun of it, or finding a turtle. Those kinds of experiences, they're having less of those and they're being told more and more at the same time nature is dying. So if we do that too much too early, for the rest of their lives they associate nature with what? With fear and destruction and the end. That's not exactly going to produce good conversationalists and environmentalists in the future, it's not going to create really happy people in the future either.
We're missing two-thirds of the story, and the two-thirds of the story that we're missing is that, because of climate change et cetera, everything in the next 40 years must change. To any self-respecting creative 16-year-old, that could be good news, and we better be entering one of the most creative times in human history. That's exciting.
RALPH LAUREN
ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST NOVEMBER 2002
The designer's sprawling double ranch RL ranch in Colorado
Driving from midtown Manhattan to Montauk to see the man himself, I was thinking that it is hard to tell where Ralph Lauren ends and the real world begins. I was a pretty good example of the conundrum. Out of an innocent wish for comfort and hot-summer urbanity I was wearing a Polo shirt, a polo seersucker jacket and horn-rimmed Polo eyeglasses. Without even trying, on this little visit, I was unintentionally patronizing the creator. But if I had the look, so did everyone else. I could see Hamptons Casual: summer sportswear, the Ralph Lauren world splendid this summer morning on Long Island, Observable even from a moving car.
Later he would tell me, "Sometimes, something needs to be redesigned to bring out the interest in it. I was inspired by all the Old World things , but I gave them a little juice, and all of a sudden it brought back the essence of what was exciting about them."
He greeted me on the deck of his low, sprawling, shingled house of rustic elegance, sited on a bluff over Montauk's blowy ocean. "Have a look around," he said, but I was looking at him, with the scrutiny a man about the same age sizes another up. He was sturdy, deeply tanned, with all of that well-known white hair and the compact physique of a cyclist and tennis player. He was wearing khaki shirt and khaki shorts held up by an old leather belt. I was wondering why the founder of a company with annual sales of $2.4 billion, now celebrating its 5th anniversary, would wear such a sensationally scuffed belt, but later he told me of his love for the way leather becomes more interesting as it grows old. He also wore a new digital bombproof Suunto watch, Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses and running shoes. You would not have taken him for the billionaire he perhaps is, but rather for a trustworthy helicopter pilot.
One excellent definition of happiness - it is Freud's - is the fulfilment of childhood dreams in adulthood. The trouble with childhood dreams is that they tend to be unattainable fantasies. Over lunch on his deck (salad, chicken, vegetable terrine), I mentioned this to Lauren, and he nodded in agreement and said how as a boy he had wanted an MG sports car. After the war, his brother brought one back from England, and "I used to shine his shoes so that I could drive it the next day," he remembered.
He now owns a fleet of classic and contemporary cars. I asked him which ones he especially liked. "the new Aston Martin", he said without hesitation, and let drop the fact that he had just bought a new McLaren, a sleek and almost impossible-to-find British car that is better known as a triumphant entrant on a noted British Formula One racing team. But he values his old Ford trucks and classic Jeeps as highly as his sports cars.
"I'm fulfilled," he said. "I am more than fulfilled. I went beyond my dreams."
He uses the house in Montauk off and on in the summer; he also owns a shorefront villa in Jamacia, a mansion in Bedford, about 45 minutes north of his Manhattan town house, and a ranch in Colorado. Each one has a full staff, so he can stay at any time, though he tends to apportion his pleasures-July at the ranch, some winter months in Jamacia, shuttling among the New York houses and Maine. "I'm thinking, What about a lighthouse?"
In the Profiles of Lauren a great deal is made about his humble origins, his notion of fashion as role-playing, his self-invention as a result of his self-improvement. But these are peculiarly American qualities of this intensely American Man. It goes almost without saying that he lives through creations, which are dreams fulfilled.
"I designed safari clothes before I went on safari, English clothes before I went to England , the Russian look before I went to Russia." He has often been disappointed in his travel-England was not quite English enough, French youths have adopted American Rap fashions, and the Colorado he first saw had lost many of the traditional trappings of the Old West.
"We started out with an idea of what the West was like," he said. "But what we thought was there wasn't there. No Large houses, no hunting lodges - not even a fence, like a split-rail fence."
But he found the place he was looking for , a half hour from Telluride. He has since added to his acreage and now owns "15, 000 or 16,000 acres" - he is not sure. "It was a little bit like pioneering," Lauren says. "Someone told us about a barn that was 100 years old on this property. We saw the barn. We fell in love with the place.
"Colorado was for us an escape. It wasn't about being in fashion. It wasn't about saying, 'Wouldn't it be nice to have this cute ranch!' It was about a life that would be different, that would be freer - that would have nature and trees and animals and big sky."
He built the ranch from scratch, and it reflects his active life and sense of style, his wish fulfilment. When I asked him about his routine, he became very specific. "I get up in the morning and run. I come back, take a swim, work out. I built a very good gym for myself. Then we go horseback riding or take a drive. I have sports cars there and some old ford trucks, some Jeeps, a red Ferrari. I like the diversity of speed and also riding an old pick-up truck in the mountains."
The place is more than a ranch with horses and cattle; it is, like all of Lauren's houses, a design opportunity and a source of inspiration. He admits he has only the most modest education. "I never went to fashion school, I never studied design, I dropped out of college."
Plainspoken, he is an un-boastful, earnest and intensely watchful person. And he is helpfully concise about his trajectory, from reimagining his first necktie in 1967 to designing just about everything these days - 'a one-man bauhaus,' as he has been called, though the word Bauhaus might not have entered his vocabulary until rather late.
Although he is an enthusiast and has a powerful visual sense and is relentlessly creative, he can be somewhat inarticulate. Ask him what he likes about the West, and he mentions an assortment of physical objects - the cetury old barn, "animals, trees," and also "saddlery, old leathers, oldness." You know what he means, but you cannot quite see it.
His verbal imprecision seems to have given him an instinctive connoisseurship for the texture of the world, the pulses of the air, a feeling of atmosphere, for the mood of physical objects. He understands that the things we wear and the things we use and the places we inhabit cast a spell on us, as well as making an impression on others. when I hinted at this he did not disagree. He said I write through my clothes."
On the way back to Manhattan, talking with Carrington Wiliams, Lauren's personal chauffer for the past 25 years, I said, "He knows how to live." Williams said, "He do."
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Ralph Lauren-tough name
Ralph is Jewish, what do you think about it boarding school
Ralph Lauren-keep it real
'It goes almost without saying that he lives through his creations, which are dreams fulfilled.
"I designed safari clothes before I went on safari, English clothes before I went to England, the Russian look before I went to Russia."
He has often been disappointed in his travel-England was not quite English enough, French youths have adopted American rap fashions, and the Colorado he first saw had lost many of the traditional trappings of the Old West'
I find travel very disappointing too. x
'Mustang Sally'
17 march - 03 April 2010
opens wednesday 17 March 6-8pm
TCB Art Inc
Level 1/12 waratah pl melbourne
Dan Attoe, Jesse Albrecht, Brandon Buckner, Possie Currin, Rebecca Steele, Katherine Parker Bryden, John Dilg, Jeremy Willis, Crystal Schenk, Gordan Barnes, Selby Davis, David Dunlap, Keven Hooyman, Jeremy Tinder, Diana Cooper, Cece Cole, Katherine Parker Bryden, Ji Yong Kim (all US) and Brendan Dwyer (Melb)
Done by Bill Donovan and Kate Smith
'Mustang Sally' is a collection of small works on paper and little sculptures, posted by Bill Donovan to me. Bill is my bestest blog fan ever. The exhibition brings together who Bill likes in his America and brings Bill and I a little closer together. Mwahhh! For my part I've put in Brendan Dwyer. We've never met either, But I've had some Mad intranet emails. I got in touch cause I liked his Victoria Park show. It was Mad.
The exhibition includes a drawing swap box by Katherine Parker Bryden, Katherine says "I don't know if the 'Have a penny, leave a penny. Need a penny, take a penny' dish exists in Australia, but they are common here in Iowa and generally have penies in them, spare change left next to shop tills for people in need by people with extra (or people who hate pennies).We shall see if the gift economy flows"
So if you hate yr drawings come and leave one behind and get a better one by Katherine. I'm hoping to bag a couple of these sweet bunnies me self.
It's a big karakoe favourite here in Oz, wel it was with the local punters, the normal pepes, who drank at the canberrrra bowling club because it was there true watering hole and not because it was ironic or funny to drink there, like it was for us kids, I don't really like going there, I found it a bit ... or it was just uncomfortable with me at that time hanging out people who were gobbling up the eightes, buying shit at opp shops, grosssNboring. I found it sad as well, that this bowling club and singing mustang sally really was the locals life, the place was fucking ugly with plastic chairs and fat people and scrubbers, bra straps and massive king size packs of Holiday cigarettes. So I am a snob, well I know I am, I can feel my nose curl. so Mustang Sally has all of that wound up in it for me. does that work for you? I might extent the letter in sally eg sallllllly just to keep it a bit kool for the kids, cause I like the kids and stick up for them all the time, but i can't shit on someone's real life.
....familiarity contempt not sexxy, like you don't want be re-heated and re-heated left over vegetables you have to be oysters or something... ha ha pfffffffffffft!
so I've never met you and one australian dude brendan dwyer, I'm going to put in, internet communication, I really liked his appraoch to materials when he had a show here 4 years ago when I first moved to town, he just squirted clear gap filller on to raw canvas and then has this fish tank full of cotton wool and above it 'I am a paedophile' written in those colourful frindge magnet letter, backwards, balm for me when I found Melbourne stuff all slick same 90's colours, there is ninja motorcycle green that's everywhere..."
scum manifesto . good word use! I like the squishing of all the words/terms together, it makes them all contradict or exchange partners, this thing is a gem, perhaps not for the reason's it intended, nor exactly the opposite, but somewhere in between or from the future and not really about men, inherently, of course not, jeepers, but just how things a set up for us, if they are. I kinda like it
'...to be sure he's a "Man", the male must see to it that the female be clearly a "woman", the opposite of a "man", that is, the female must act like a faggot. And Daddy's Girl, all of whose female instincts were wrentched out of her when little, easily and obligingly adapts herself to the role...'
therefore I am a faggot, awesome.
'...to be sure he's a "Man", the male must see to it that the female be clearly a "woman", the opposite of a "man", that is, the female must act like a faggot. And Daddy's Girl, all of whose female instincts were wrentched out of her when little, easily and obligingly adapts herself to the role...'
therefore I am a faggot, awesome.
well you can sometimes, what's even the problem, human solutions are ad-hoc, fadish and trickled down, and that might be ok enough, revolutions don't start until they cut of the bread n' cigarettes, plastic bags can't really be the problem, is wooder better that plasticer, perhaps in selfishness there is freedom, with true liberalism you can be unconservative, and even optimistic, but if you represent yourself, do you ethically reflect something broader or reinforce shit, is my experience unique or generic or both, i'm a whitey, girl from a farm, have a couple of degrees, went to boarding school, I've been to Europ, I've rebelled, have I, why do I feeel so damn s p e c i a l
"'death of a scenester is a quarterly zournal (a cross between a zine and a journal) mad in Melbourne that maintains a punk, DIY underground edge, as well as upholding a slicker style. Its ethos is that it would like to strike the ground squarely between a grass-roots zine that promotes the freedom of artistic and individual expression and Realpolitik publications that refer to issues such as the generation gap, design, architecture, music, art, and a host of counter-cultural activities.""""""""""""
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