Tuesday

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Finding singles of these plates is common, finding pairs is rare, finding a full set or sequential pieces of the set is basically the holy grail. To have a matching pair in sequence from the same set is pretty much like having a low winning lottery ticket. It’s exciting in a heart-pounding kind of way that brings a shit-eating grin to your face, but it’s not as blissful as having a complete set would be. However… man, it proves that I’m a nerd that I know the entire verse that goes on the plates.

What is a merry man/ Let him do what he can / To entertain his guests / With wine and merry jests / But if his wife do frown / All merriment goes down.

Monday

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This chair is simply stunning. Though the lines are simple and swooping, they are meant to draw the eye and hold it. The contrast of the gilded coloring against the darkened wood is meant to direct your eyes inward to the exquisite upholstery. And, let’s face it: that cushioning is freaking fabulous.

Sunday

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I know armour’s purpose is to protect you, but in most cases, does it have to literally be so ostentatiously bloody shiny? You don’t have to carry your entire wealth on your body to protect your dumb fighting ass. In fact, you’d think it would be detrimental to the fighting, all that shininess, all that glare…

Saturday

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There is a simplicity and a complexity in trying to replicate nature in art. It seems both easy and trite, yet isn’t easy to achieve in the slightest. The execution sometimes becomes abstract, such as in this case.

Friday

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This is the art of designing in multidimensional space – each layer clearly had to be meticulously designed on its own before being spliced together, else they wouldn’t work together so harmoniously. So many things could (and probably did) go wrong; I’d like to see the original models to see what changes were made between the conceptual models and the final piece, but they probably no longer exist.

Thursday

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This isn’t your typical Tiffany glass vase; it’s not as schooled and elegant, the lines aren’t as crisp and clear, but you can definitely tell it’s from Tiffany as opposed to anyone else. It just has that panache.

Wednesday

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This ring is tiny. Not just small, tiny. It’s like pinky ring sized for me, so it’s hella wee, like a standard size 5.5. You would think this wouldn’t be a pinky ring for Akhenaten, though, so he probably wasn’t the biggest guy to start with.

Monday

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Nice to know that the bureaucratic way of life hasn’t changed in thousands of years and we have the records to prove it. Also nice to know that handwriting standards haven’t slipped, either… and that cursive is still elusive in most written languages.

Sunday

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A lot has changed in St. Louis over the years, including urbanization, city blight, gentrification, etc., and that began as early as 1888 in some parts of the city. This painting embraces a kind of optimism about the pre-WWII industrial expansion that was going on in parts of the city and shows it off in bright colors and flashy ways that belies the truth of how the sprawl actually became more of a problem than a solution.