Recently, in London during Christmas,�my family�stayed at the century-plus old Chelsea Arts Club, founded by the artist� J.A.M. Whistler for himself and his friends.��Knocking on the rather insignificant door,� identified by a stone plac on a side street between�the two great shopping�roads in Chelsea�, the Kings Road and the Fulham Road, one is whisked into private world, a communal personal vision, that could only be English. In the drawing room�seen in the photo at right� the sign posts were all there in force leading with�the red and SHINEY walls,�a signature English look�I’ve always assumed�has been used to �reflect�what ever light can be had and to cheer�up the incessant gloomy days.� Please note the paintings and drawings on the walls, with provenance-or not, and rakish angle of the feathered lampshades (reference to the English love of nature),� the comfortably distressed leather sofas, and the lavish and bold striped curtains, arranged by some seemingly careless and perhaps batty hand.
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�And feast your eyes on the main room, deorated in pure Mad Hatter style for the holidays.� An enormous tree is festooned with ridiculous, colossal ornaments in a style that could only be called�Extreme Festive.� It’s the place where we had our breakfast every morning and where you can get a drink at any time.� A coal fire whispers in the fireplace gate and one can come and go, eat or not, read, or go out for a breath of air under the pergola outside.
Outside, on the Kings Road, my daughter and I make a pilgramage to World’s End, the site of Vivienne Westwood’s first shop in the Go Go early 80’s (see first photo on top).� Note the giant clock with thirteen numbers, and strangely slanted entry steps. To get just a small sense of Westwood’s cock eyed and seditious genius check out this link from the Victoria and Albert museum’s exhibit on her :http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1231_vivienne_westwood/changing_styles.html.
You might also want to give some thought to one of her�sage sayings ” You have a much better life if you wear impressive clothes”.� Amen.
Curiouser and curiouser, we fall for the nursery school charm of English life, where things are not what they seem.� Overscaled, off-kilter, celebration-prone, we embrace the�delight of nursery food on our family Christmas Eve pub crawl with one of the most delicious foods I’ve ever eaten- Toad in the Hole.� We celebrate Christmas with friends�linking arms to pull�Christmas crackers and�play games; everyone is carousing and�intimates and strangers are exchanging kisses and drinking lavish amounts of champers and no one seems to even consider networking which I suspect would be considered the height of bad manners
Then we’re off to Paris, a place where grown-up people live and celebrate in a conciously grown up way. Beautiful, elegant but there’s not much place for fantasy.
I’m not here to cast aspersions on the English character, or lack of serious purpose. Oh no no NO!� Quite the opposite….
So, what’s it all about?� The Chelsea Arts Club may be trying a wee�bit too hard to embody the carefree Bohemian days of yore, but what harm that?� I’ll happily fall into a rabbit’s hole of dress up, grown up play pens and children’s parties.� What harm done?� It’s the holidays-�and frankly�herein lies�a rich form of� nourishment that feeds my inner life and creative imagination.