|
|
||||||
 |
||||||
| Dear
Ornament Reader,
It is always morning for the world and as Henry David Thoreau instructs: “Only that day dawns to which we are awake.” For us the year is dawning on 2007 on a simple but elegant sphere called Earth. This Earth we call home has seen millions of mornings; but this particular one is ours, and we are awake this morning, because in some measure we can thank you, Mr. Thoreau, for our attentive state. Somehow and one day, we were receptive to your candid words, ready to hear them, and they have been beneficial. We are deeply thankful to our parents, brothers and sisters, our children, and beyond the personal world of family to that of friends, coworkers and colleagues who have helped us to learn more about the life and world we inhabit and share —to become more awake. We look upon the coming mornings with gratitude and great expectation for the world of personal adornment. So we also welcome our dear readers to an Ornament morning as we envision the creative encounters we will all make in person at shows or lectures or workshops and through the pages of Ornament magazine and our website ornamentmagazine.com. We have just finished in 2006 our transition from four to five issues per year and now have spent more than thirty years exploring the public and inner nature of the art and craft of personal adornment. We thank you and are appreciative for our time together. Many, many letters, telephone calls and emails have been received by us regarding the last issue’s Postscript that memorialized our father and father-in-law Peter Benesh who died last August. Dad was a great, good and loving friend to Ornament and it was in no small degree due to him and our mother Kathryn that Ornament flourished. Ornament has been very much a family enterprise since its beginning in 1974. Earlier last year, there was a phone call from Dad, and a little surprisingly, it was very late at night and he was calling from his home in Michigan to ours in California. We talked a bit and then he said that he had just been reading one of our Postscripts, “you know the one where you quote Carl Sagan” (Volume 29, Number 2, 2005). “That last paragraph, did you write it or Mr. Sagan?” Well, no, it was not Mr. Sagan; it was our reflections on his comments. We wrote: “For all our darkness and cruelty, humanity could not have developed art, music, literature, science, philosophy, or concepts of peace and justice, kindness and compassion if there had not been the possibility of improving upon ourselves, as we infinitely suspend in the gracious beneficience of a sunbeam.” We had asked our readers to visualize Earth as “that blue globe” in their hands. “That’s us,” we went on. “Think of it kindly. Think of it compassionately. Think of it responsibly. Take a next good step. Help us evolve a little bit more. It is all up to us.” “Ah, that’s very good,” said Dad. “I thought you wrote that part. I just wanted you to know I’m holding that blue globe in my hands. It is all up to us. I love you. Good night, morning is coming.”
|
||||||
| The
Art & Craft of Personal Adornment © 1974-2007
Ornament Magazine. All rights reserved. |
