The link between mindset and your decorations

I’m going to write a bit about art, home decorating and mental health! As usual I have a special interest in addressing young people with fondness, hoping to advise them in ways that they just are not hearing enough of today.

I’ll start by making my overall pitch to you, rather than build gradually up to my point, and then I’ll explain it and give examples. Societal values have changed for the worse, where art and home design have been redefined from what they traditionally have been, and thus have had a very bad effect on mood and mental serenity. Now, I am not talking about being trashy and that being a problem per se. I’m explaining that even “good taste” and “edgy art” have been propagandized in a way that they have been cultivated to have negative responses on the human rather than positive benefits. So here is what I mean in greater detail and with examples.
The most dramatic change in the way that people have viewed art and home decoration is that it has gone from being “what pleases you” to “making a statement.” Societal propaganda and brainwashing have convinced several generations that “making a statement” is the same as feeling good, but it is not, most assuredly it is not. Here is the easiest example to understand. Children, teenagers and young people are encouraged to take what may be a momentary feeling of alienation, depression, anger or existential angst and to “express” that feeling through your room’s decoration. So a phase you may be going through is now codified into a negative poster that you buy or art that you make that now becomes your continual companion. It was not always that way. In fact, if someone, child or adult, had started exhibiting sad or negative art that would have been viewed as a cry for help for a declining mental condition and there would have been a prompt intervention. So if a teenager was going through a bad patch with turmoil at home or inner angst and anger, and he bought and exhibited a poster with skull on it, you better believe that parents would have put an end to that and gotten the child to the doctor or a school counselor, or a sympathetic and wise family member, like a grandfather. See, I’m not being an “authenticity” suppressor here; I’m being “a doctor.”
Generations of humans understood that their home surroundings should not be filled with materials that weaken them and make them feel bad or sad. That does not mean that people were not thoughtful or even edgy, but it was unheard of, and a view as a very serious cry for help, to put in an enduring decorative fashion something that is angry, depressive or negative. Art that one selects that matches one’s worst moods and imaginings is like having a bad cold and then deliberately spreading the cold germs all over your room so you never get over it. No one in their right mind ought to display anything in their room or their home that does not elicit an “Ah,” when you look at it, rather than remind you of the worst of your feelings. It is a fact that people cannot heal from what wounds them if they surround themselves with reinforcements of those feelings and anxieties. It is quite literally like continuing to spread those cold germs so that you never get over your cold, while with time (and maybe interventions) you would have. So I remember the days before the phrase “making a statement” even entered into the mentality of either young people or adults. No one decorated their room or their home to “make a statement,” and certainly not if the statement was of your unhappiness or turmoil of mind. People used to seek relief from the terrible things they have experienced. Let me give you some examples.

Men who came back from war often brought back a souvenir. For example, I have a German iron cross that my German grandfather took from the body of a dead comrade so that it would not be left on the battlefield. So here I am talking about the World War I generation, and believe me, they saw horrible things in the trench and gas warfare of the time. Yet if you looked around my grandfather’s home in Berlin, it’s not like you could spot even a single item reflective of war or sad times. He had pictures of Dutch windmills, of birds and rabbits, of angels, of “Hummel” children. It would never have occurred to my grandfather to plaster some poster of bloodshed or war to “make a statement about what he had seen and ‘gone through.’” Men who went through the worse wars came back with trauma (not him, he was happy go lucky by nature) but they wanted joy and normalcy; they certainly would not even dream of surrounding themselves with depressive objects or art. The iron cross was in a drawer somewhere, rarely even encountered or remembered, and then given to his daughter, my mom, along with other little things that a poor family collected from their history (old coins and bank bills, pretty wine labels, postcards, etc.) Not only would someone like my grandfather never even dream of making himself sad through decorations from the war, who would he be “making a statement” to, since everyone had gone through the same horrible thing? When a war is fought, blood soaking your land and your neighbor’s, no one is looking to “make a statement” about their angst, since it was a shared experience where everyone if probed would have a worse story than the one before. So they returned, even those strong men with traumas, with joy back to life with calendars of cute Hummel children and bunnies with Easter eggs.

This is, incidentally, something that a USA Civil War veteran, if they still lived, would also be able to explain to you. I love arts and crafts, both historic and modern, so I know much about the Civil War era’s decorative and crafting styles. Big strong men coming home with terrible wounds of war did not want their wives to hang skeletons and skulls as a “statement” of what they “went through.” They craved being out of the mud and the horror and seeing the gentle handicrafts of women decorating their home. Rich or poor men wanted to see colorful quilts, religious art, peaceful landscapes done with paint or needlework by their wives or daughters, and touches of “wealth” and being a good provider, such as lace curtains. No man in his right mind wanted morbid war-reminding “decorations.” Part of their healing (in those pre “post traumatic stress disorder” diagnosed times) was a peaceful haven of normal surroundings with “a woman’s touch.” Men craved that in the settling of the west too. They didn’t want bloody carcasses of animals hanging on hooks off of rafters as “a statement of their authentic experience,” they wanted women to bring colorful fabrics and the simple arts of crafts of the time, such as needlework samplers and personal portraits made with outlines of the loved one’s head or hands, or lockets with a lock of hair. Part of the fun was grumbling about women “domesticating” them but men craved goodness and sweetness of decoration provided by “a woman’s touch.”

As the USA, and the world in general, became more prosperous in the mid-1900’s, such as after World War II (after war time rationing was over), another generation o f men sought homes that were normal and decorated in family oriented and traditional ways, not to “make a statement” or to keep examining the navel of their “angst.” So the 1950’s became kind of the golden age of home decorations about sports (and not “memorabilia” but from home town teams), the positive sides of the popular culture, combined with women who began to “style” their homes in modern ways. But it was still a “feel good” way of styling. No one wanted to relax in their home at the end of a tough day in the factory, or taking care of a large family, and then gaze at “art” that memorialized the worst of their feelings. That wasn’t denial; that was being normal and balanced. People knew from generations of common sense experience that you wanted your place to “look nice” and “feel nice,” even if you have experienced some not very nice things in your life. “It looks nice” was very high praise from a man and was sincere and being “touchy feely” in the context of their times. Men, women, teenagers and children wanted their home or room “to be their castle” where it “looked nice.”

For example, I could describe for you in great detail my brother’s room and its “decorations” from the 1950’s. He had bookshelves filled with books, bracketed by model jet planes. He was a three sport “letter man” (basketball, baseball and football) so he displayed his letters. He had (and still does) a shoebox full of baseball cards. “Posters” did not exist back then. What one chose for one’s walls in one’s room came from the family’s collection of traditional things, so he would have landscapes that he liked in there. He had a little statue of a fawn that I now have and prize. His “edginess” was a very cool rare beer can (I forget the brand but I have it somewhere; it has like jaguar spots on it) that he used as his pencil cup. Now, my brother was born in Germany during World War II, his father was killed the week after he was born, and he was a war refugee, surviving being bombed while running to the bomb shelters. It would never occur to him or anyone else of that generation to “make a statement” about “what he had gone through” by creating or displaying depressive “art” that would remind him of those times (which he barely remembered anyway since kids have a healthy ability to move on and thrive if giving half a chance). Oh, and his prize possession: his transistor radio! He was not a phonograph record playing type; his generation loved the radio.

So I think you see what I am getting at. A really creepy cultural shift started in the later 1960’s and has become progressively worse through the 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s and now the 2000’s, which is to “adorn” your room, apartment or home with decorations that reinforce and remind you of the worst parts of your life and mindset. Eventually a near total flip has taken place where even children are expected to have “edgy” and “action oriented” surroundings, promoting “adventure” and “fantasy,” and those who stick with the pleasant real life homemaking types of decorations are viewed as being “inauthentic,” “suppressed,” “stuck in the past,” and corny. Isn’t it odd how those who were not stuck in the past, who left war in the battlefield and who looked forward with joy to a “nice house” are now called the ones “stuck in the past?” While any boy or girl who has angst or anger who reinforces it over and over through their surroundings and their music are viewed as “not being stuck in the past?” That shows you the “big lie.” Hitler is famous for that expression. The theory is that the bigger the lie, the better it will stick, and it is often true. Somehow the idea that depressive, gothic and violent art is “good for you” because it “expresses how you feel” has become “the truth” and mindlessly accepted by two generations in a row.

I went to college in the autumn of 1971. I went to an Ivy League university filled with rich kids but rich or poor we both shared a common set of values, which was being very low key and “nice” in our decorations. We were kind of the last bastion before the depressives really took over. Here’s how it worked. You shared a dorm room (and later an apartment) with a roommate. Space was small and everyone was poor (or thrifty) so each person would buy one poster to display in the room, and the poster had to be one that was pleasing also to the roommate. People selected posters and art that you could look up from studying and go “Ah” when you rested your eyes on it. People didn’t want “art” that commemorated your alcoholic parents, or the time you were molested, or heads being blown off in Vietnam (even though that was the era of the actual war). My roommate got one of those “hang in there baby” LOL cat posters, which were brand new and funny back then! I got a poster of the LA Rams quarterback Roman Gabriel cranking up about to make a pass and looking very fine. By fine I mean athletic with great lines, not sexy in the way that celebrity posters are now. We admired kids who could afford lava lamps. The most subversive thing you might see is a poster of Janis Joplin in feathers and pearls, or Jimi Hendrix. We listened to Black Sabbath but no one would ever dream of decorating their dorms in some goth depressive way. The boundaries were still clear; it had not gotten so blurry where the harshest and most depressive artistes were now “speaking for you” and thus you “put on their uniform” of decorations, behavior imitation and self reinforcing lowness. And remember, ours was the generation of Kent State and the ending years of the Vietnam conflict, so people had a lot to feel crappy about. However, the last thing that would occur to anyone would be to wallow in it.

So I’m not going to start bashing individual contemporary expressions because I’m not at all being judgmental, even though it may sound like it. What I am doing instead is trying to free you from the chains of the mindset that so many young people (but especially their slightly older peers) have, which is this whole violent, sad, occult, gothic and desperately “New Age” type of room or home adornment. Again, I’m not some old f*** who does not appreciate edgy art. For example, I loved two vases that I used to have that were shaped like angular volcanoes that flow gold paint lava. But I have to admit, even them I decided were “stylish” rather than positively oriented. I’d look at them and think, “What a cool design,” but they were disquieting to look at. Why have something as “art” or “decoration” that is disquieting? I’m a very firm weeder in that regard, where I will pull like weeds anything within my line of sight that is anything but “nice” feeling. As an artist I’m no ninny using only granny pastels, but I will only use those bright tones of colors to make positive and good feeling works of art. I want to go “Ah” when I look at anything that is decorating my abode (such as it is) and I strongly urge others to do the same. Again, you don’t have to be dull to do that; all I am saying is that your decorations should be uplifting, stabilizing and satisfactory to look at, even if it is edgy. For example, I made a painting/collage of a volcano about to erupt watching on CNN the progress of Hurricane Hugo. That is edgy but it also is in an interesting way fun AND soothing to look at, while still being stimulating in an edgy artistic sense. (It’s in storage; I don’t have it here in my apartment). But it’s one of the best examples I can provide to you out of my portfolio of how I am careful to craft only art that is stimulating in a good way to look at, not stimulating in a bad, anger making or depressive way.

Anyway, do resist the constant propaganda to surround yourself with “art” reminds of your weakest, saddest or most angry experiences because that is truly not “authentic.” Being authentic is surrounding yourself, like those Civil War veterans, with what feels like home and what you want to reach for, not be pulled away from through chains of negativity. I hope this is helpful and that you know what I mean. Take care and be good to yourselves in the ways that you and only you can. I don’t care how “fine” the art is, how expensive, how edgy, how “authentic,” or how “one of a kind,” if you feel angry or deflated whenever your eyes pass over it, get the heck rid of it. Sheesh. Don’t we all have enough to feel bad about without that kind of depressive agenda? Here is an example. I have (in storage) a pewter plate that was recovered from a wreck of a ship. I love the age and looks of the plate and that is all that I think of it when I used to have it on display in my home. But if I knew that some moron member of my family was gazing at it and thinking about “drowned souls” I would have gotten rid of it in a New York minute. You should not have a single thing in your home (except of course things from deceased loved ones) that prompts what I call “optional” thoughts of sadness, anger or depression. That’s REAL Feng Shui by the way. There’s no way that you can have “balance” and “personal power” if you have stuff that creeps or bums you out (or your family or friends when they visit). Get rid of it and don’t buy or make any more of it!!!