smow Blog Design Calendar: January 10th 1875 – Happy Birthday Louise Brigham!

“Boxing is not an exclusively athletic term in these practical and utilitarian days”, noted John Crocker in 1913, rather, “the making of useful and ornamental things for the home, from the boxes, that in other days adorned the rear of stores, is the nucleus of armament that has made “boxing” a pursuit that contains both amusement and substantial results.”¹

And nobody contributed more to promoting and advancing the amusement and substantial results of the practical and utilitarian craft of domestic boxing than Louise Brigham.

A contribution that for all it may have been little recognised in recent decades remains as informative and instructive in the early 21st century as it was in the early 20th century…….

5 New Architecture & Design Exhibitions for May 2018

In the wonderful month of May,
As all the buds bloomed,
My heart became,
With Love consumed

In the wonderful month of May,
As all the birds did sing,
I confessed to her
My desire and yearning.

Heinrich Heine, Im wunderschönen Monat Mai, 1827

And then???

Heinrich, don’t leave us hanging! It all started out so positive!

It’s an awkward month May, the vitality of blooming buds and oratorio of singing birds luring us into hopeful fantasies, utopian visions of what lies ahead: but what will become of them? Will the freshly bloomed buds survive the inevitable late frost? Will the birds’ new chicks evade their predators to flee the nest and carry their song to pastures new? Will she respond to your confessions of desire and yearning?

Probably not. And so therefore rather than losing your May to romantic dreaming, before May becomes but a painful memory of what could have been, something destined to remain forever in the past tense, use it to improve your understandings of the realities of the world around you, to learn to talk confidently in the future.

Our five recommendations for new architecture and design exhibitions opening during May 2018………