Micro-decorating as flip side of collecting

Last week I stumbled across a New York Times article that's been lingering in my mind ever since. It's a poetic meditation on the power of collecting by Questlove, who eloquently captures how the objects we've kept closest to us for the past two years have been sources of consolation.

The collected objects here are recorded music in its myriad forms and all sorts of music-related memorabilia. There's a beautiful passage in which the author shows us the meaning of all his effort in the form of a garden:

It wasn't just Questlove's artful language that moved me, but the screen-filling photos that demonstrate exactly what he's talking about.

The scale of his endeavor is staggering. The number of records alone is over 200,000. The sheer quantity of stuff led me back to my idea of micro-decorating, which is so focused on the tiny and the overlooked, the small single object and the tightly focused grouping.

Maybe collecting and micro-decorating are two sides of the same impulse. When we collect, we focus on volume, filling shelves and rooms with things we love. When we micro-decorate, we focus on detail, finding new relationships between things we already own, using the art of display to build meaningful arrangements.

Questlove hints at this other side of the equation when he discusses using found footage to create the documentary "Summer of Soul." He sees the choices he makes about what to include as similar to arranging beloved objects in a collection:

I urge you to read Questlove: Collecting is an Act of Devotion, and Creation to see if it resonates with how you've been relating to the stuff around you while spending more time at home than you ever thought possible. Are you fully inhabiting the spaces you cherish?

One thing I know about collecting is that as long as you're alive and breathing, your collection is incomplete.

It's always waiting for the next discovery, that perfect thing that casts everything else in a new light. It's always waiting for that clever shelfscape that tells your story in a way you never expected.

This newsletter too is only just beginning. I'll be taking a break in April, then returning for the spring/summer season of guy with an eye on Wednesday, May 4.

Please reach out in the meantime and let me know what's on your mind. I'm eager to get to know our growing community of design-lovers better.

Affectionately,