Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Where science, poetry, Native American wisdom meet
It can be dangerous to walk into a library. You never know what might reach out and ask to go home with you. Recently, in the Chester County Library in Exton, a book displayed alone caught my eye. There was a sign: Longwood Gardens Community Read. The book’s title: Braiding Sweetgrass.
I almost walked on by, but then I read the subtitle: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. “Oh,” I thought. “I think this book is for me.
I was in a hurry and didn’t even look inside. I went up to the check-out counter with the new book in my hands.
There are a million things that I should be doing outside right now, but I find that my attention keeps turning to the book. A few pages, or a whole chapter at a time, there is something so delicious and so enriching that I keep going back, like a hungry diner at a smorgasbord. I want to suck it down all at once. I want to make it last forever.
Author Robin Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, a scientist and a professor. She weaves together what she learned about the plant world on her own, what plant knowledge is culturally a part of her, and what she learned in college. She’s a beautiful writer, finding just the right words to convey concepts that sometimes lie outside the known body of scientific knowledge.
She had me hooked in the second chapter, “The Council of Pecans.” She writes, “Heat waves shimmer above the grasses, the air heavy and white and ringing with the buzz of cicadas.” In this chapter that is part botany, part history, part poetry, part memoir, she describes how — a hundred or so years ago — a good nut harvest or a poor one could seal the fate of Native American children.
She describes a phenomenon that I just recently learned about: the cycle between good “mast” years for nut trees, and poor ones; how nut trees don’t make a crop every year; how it tends to be boom or bust. It’s all woven into a cycle, a fabric of species interaction. But it doesn’t happen just one tree at a time.
“If one tree fruits, they all
Burnham of Burnham Design in Los Angeles — offer advice on mixing the darkest and lightest of shades for a truly beautiful result.
Creative additions
You don’t need an entirely black wall or a solid black sofa. “Sprinkle it around,” says Burnham, by adding things like print fabrics that include black.
“There’s something about a fabric when it’s grounded with a little bit of black in it,” she says. “It just becomes chic.”
Flynn agrees: “Anytime I can use a black-and-white print, I do,” he says, “especially classic prints like checks, plaids and gingham. If black and white is too contrast-y, consider a mix of charcoal, brown and taupe. My closet doors are upholstered in a classic ikat featuring those colors, and although it’s traditional in style, it’s fresh and modern in application.”
For extra punch, Paquette suggests covering throw pillows in a print that includes black, then sewing a solid band of black or charcoal fabric about 1.5 inches thick around the edges of the pillow. “It allows the print to really stand out,” he says.
Paquette also loves black metal accents on light fixtures. Consider a black lamp shade on a lamp with an antique brass metal base, he says, finished with a black braided electrical cord. He also likes black metal chair legs, and windows with just the casements painted black. “It’s just something that sort of draws the eye in,” he says.
Another option: “Art is a great way to use neutrals in a one-of-kind manner,” Flynn says. “I’m a huge fan of mixing modern pieces with traditional oil portraits. When you choose dark oil portraits and hang them on light neutral walls, the juxtaposition of the light and the heavy is fantastic.”
One thing Paquette avoids: photos in black frames. He thinks they’re overdone, and white frames do a better job of spotlighting photos.
Black is less intense
A sleek, shiny, black dining table or black grand piano conveys drama and elegance. But even if your dec- orating style is more casual — maybe farmhouse chic or beachy — you can still make black work.
Black “doesn’t have to be uptight,” says Burnham. She likes distressed, rubbed finishes, which can make a piece of black wood furniture feel “really farmy or beachy. Really casual. Espe- cially if you use it with oatmeals and pale blues.”
Another way to make black less overpowering is to use it on lighter materials, Burnham says. “Glass and wrought iron, and even driftwood, look great with black finishes,” she says. “It takes some of the ‘weight’ out of it.”
Get your beiges right
Beige and black can be wonderful together, or awful if you use the wrong shade of beige.
“I think most people have an aversion to beige because of the super yellowy, flesh-toned beige that was popular mixed with mauve and brass in the 1980s,” says Flynn. “But if you’re going to do beige, stick with sand tones that have a lot of white in them. The absence of yellow makes the color much lighter and even beachy.”
Another way to make beige work: Use a mix of pale gray and beige, known as “greige.”
Flynn says “greige” is also a good alternative to white. It’s warmer than a true white or ultra-white, so it doesn’t “come across as clinical or sterile.”
Pair black with brown
Another way to make a neutral room look fabulous, Burnham says, is to add brown as well as black. As with classic, leather riding boots, “a mix of black and brown is really sophisticated,” she says.
“Throw some cream into that, and some oatmeal,” she says, and you’ll have a casually elegant room that’s remarkable and yet still neutral.
Paquette is also a fan of that pairing, especially in lighting and furniture: Think of a black leather sling chair with walnut legs, he says, or a lamp that combines black and a deep shade of brass.