An Adulterated Icon

Our Journey to Make the Bertoia Chair Comfy

Jeremy and I live in an apartment. We also live with furniture that has historical design significance. We have three Bertoia chairs around our dining table. These chairs are the real deal. These are not high quality knock offs from IKEA.

We are regular, middle class people. You may wonder how we came to own these three extremely expensive furnishings. If I were you, I would wonder about this. I'd be scratching my head about it now.

About 25 years ago, plus or minus, Jeremy and I were working as freelance still life photographers. One day, someone from Knoll contacted Jeremy to see if he was available to do a photo shoot for them. They did not have much of a photography budget to offer, but the client was able to sweeten the deal. If Jeremy would do the job for a relatively low fee, he'd throw in a couple thousands dollars of wholesale shopping money from Knoll.

Furniture from Knoll won't pay the rent. Furniture from Knoll won't pay the electric bill. Furniture from Knoll will not be accepted at the Health Food store In Park Slope. It could be a challenge at times to pay for these things.

Jeremy accepted the job anyway. He wasn’t turning away a more lucrative job to do it because no one else was inquiring at the time. It was also an artistic project. In the professional photography parlance of the 1990s, it would be good for his portfolio.

A beautiful portfolio that includes photographs of Knoll items could open a lot of doors. The implication was that this could elevate one's cache. That would hopefully translate to money that would later be used to pay the rent and the electric bill, along with food and an occasional dinner out thrown into the mix.

Jeremy shot the job. We selected the three Bertoia chairs. We did not select four chairs because that would have exceeded our Knoll shopping budget. Besides, at the time we had a table that was pushed right up against a wall in our kitchen. Three chairs looked perfect.

We selected some gorgeous, muted green seat covers from swatches provided by Knoll. All in all, we were happy with this infusion of high design.

Fast forward to last week. The mid-century modern table, circa 1961 that my mother gave me after she re-did her kitchen has been returned from the re-finishers. It has been beautifully transformed. The Bertoia chairs look very apropos. Unlike the table pre-refinishing, the chairs look as new as the day we got them.

The same could not be said for the seat cushions. Three children, hundreds of meals, approximately 50 birthday parties, crumbs and spillage happened. Next to the table and the freshly painted walls, the seat covers looked depressing.

I set out to research my online options. I could buy authentic seat cushions in red from Hive for $175.00 each. I could buy authentic seat cushions on EBay or Etsy. I could buy brand new made to order seat cushions in an array of color options from a guy who makes them but has no affiliation with Knoll for $99.00 each. I started to lean toward this option.

Then my smart brain reminded me of something. The Bertoia chairs are exquisite. The Bertoia chairs are valuable. The Bertoia chairs are historic. The Bertoia chairs are extremely uncomfortable.

The chairs are made of metal. On top of the metal seat is an incredibly designed, perfectly aesthetic seat cushion. It is artful. But it is very flimsy. Not in a falling apart kind of way. Lord, knows, it lasted all this time. It is so beautiful that you almost don't notice that there's almost nothing between your ass and all that metal.

For the longest time, I thought it was just me. Unfortunately, I have a bony ass.

But after having a little bit of a family meeting about the Bertoia seat covers I learned that Jeremy and Hannah also found the chairs uncomfortable. Noah has always refused to sit in the chairs. However, I didn't think much about it because for the longest time he didn’t want to sit down in any chair.

Our consensus was this. We all wanted to be comfortable sitting at the table. No one wanted to admit we were uncomfortable previously. But now we were working hard to make our apartment a comfortable place for everyone. I was not willing to spend $99 dollars or more to preserve the integrity of the Bertoia chairs. It was time to acknowledge that Harry Bertoia designed uncomfortable chairs. It was time to acknowledge that we are not living in a museum.

The next day, Jeremy went with Hannah to IKEA to purchase some inexpensive knock off mid-century furnishing to match our authentic mid-century furnishings and other IKEA mid -century knock offs. He took one of the Bertoia chair set covers with him as a reference in case he found something good.

As it turns out, he found something very good. The seat cushion is named Malinda. This seat cushion is the opposite of the one designed to fit the chair.

The Malinda is cushy. It is cozy. It is several inches thick. That's a lot of cushion between you and the metal. The Malinda is not just thicker. It's also bigger around. A normally sized individual can sit in our Bertoia chairs without encountering any sharp, metallic sensations.

There would have been another way to go with seat cushions that would be comfier while respecting the lines of the chair. I could have hired someone to custom make us cushions according to both aesthetic and ass loving specifications. However, for me, this would be less fun than simply going to IKEA and purchasing the Malinda. And much more expensive. Which brings us to the next subject.

The Malinda is economical. The price used to be $4.99. Recently, it dropped to $4.49. By openly admitting that Harry Bertoia designed a terribly uncomfortable chair, we saved approximately 93.00 per seat cushion. By admitting that I did not want to hire someone to make us seat cushions, we saved some unknown but not insignificant amount of money.

The Malinda is machine washable. I washed our Bertoia seat cushions in the sink. Machine washable is always better. This is a household on a first name basis with OxyClean. OxyClean is a verb in this household.

Finally, the Malinda is colonial. Not literally colonial. But it has colonial references. Colonial is the opposite of modernist. I enjoyed putting a colonial inspired cushion on the modernist furniture. I even like the way the cushion does not follow the lines of the chair. In a way, it disrespects the lines of the chair. If it followed the lines of the chair, it would be much less comfortable.

While Jeremy was doing complex IKEA assembly, I busied myself with the easier IKEA related tasks. I took duvets from space bag type wrappings and installed duvet covers. I installed the new chair pads. I sat down in a Bertoia chair, declared it extremely comfortable, and watched my day-to-day life improve.

We selected a 4th dining chair from IKEA. It doesn't match the Bertoia chairs, but it works nicely as a grouping. Jeremy did not buy a seat cover for it. IKEA does not have anything available that would fit.

I thought about the idea of getting an authentic modernist seat cushion to fit the new chair. The new chair is made of smooth wood and is not nearly as uncomfortable as the Bertoia chair with the modernist seat cushion. In the end, $99.00 is too big a chunk of change to spend on a $39.00 chair, even if it is called Vilmar.

Back to the drawing board for me. I'll find something. I always do.

Our newly comfortable Bertoia chair.

Wading In

I've said this before. I'm a very consistent and disciplined person. I wrote a blog post about it called I'm Consistent. I also wrote another blog post related to consistency and sameness called Every Day, No Matter What.

This quality is a good thing when you want to accomplish things, establish a routine and get stuff done. There is a flip side to it. Sometimes all of this discipline can start to weigh on you. It can feel more rigid than what is called for. I've noticed this and I am working on it.

Recently, my family and I embarked on a major renovation of our apartment. It isn’t completely finished. It's a process.

That said, the major elements are behind us. The paint job is done. Most of the furniture is in place. Everyone has their own bedroom.

An apartment renovation takes a lot of planning. During the research, design and early packing phases, I kept on blogging. I kept on blogging while collecting estimates, getting people's insurance certificates in order, talking to re-finishers, taking trips to the Salvation Army and going to our new storage unit facility. I kept on blogging when our apartment got emptier and emptier as we packed, gave away, threw away or re-purposed most of our belongings. Sometimes I blogged about these activities.

There is a time to push through and stay the course. There is a time to change course. I recognized when it was time to change course with my blogging. When things shifted from spending some time most days packing to almost all time every day packing, I started to post my blog once a week rather than the usual twice.  When it was time for our family to vacate our apartment and the paint job to start I began blogging zero times a week.

Initially, I thought I'd start blogging again once our family got settled in at my sister in law's house. But once that happened, I realized that all of my mental energy was taken up. This is understandable. I was unusually tired. I would check in with the painters while they were working. Watching them scrape, prime, plaster and paint brought on a fatigue that was hard to negotiate with. You would think I was doing the work myself.

There were other things going on too numerous to mention now. There was a lot of adjusting. There was unprecedented novelty and surprise. Most of it was good novelty and surprise. But I still needed to process it. This turned out to be quite the big job.

I put my blog on hiatus.

For a while, things were so busy, variable and utterly out of the ordinary that blogging did not come up as an option. Whenever I thought about it, it would sound like this. I'll start writing when I feel more settled. I'll start writing after I feel more like myself. I'll start writing after the furniture comes back from the re-finishers. I'll start writing once I know what my bed will look like.

On Tuesday, the newly beautified and restored dining table and desk came back to a radically different home than they left from. On Wednesday, I established a reasonable prediction of what my bed will look like after ordering linens, shams and throw pillows online and on sale.

I wrote this on Thursday. The re-finishers have indeed finished. The bed is planned. I feel nominally more settled, but still feel like I'm getting used to things in a basic way. I feel like myself, but somehow altered. My life has changed more than I anticipated.

Having met half of my criteria for blogging again, I am blogging again. Two of the four criteria are rather concrete. Two of the four are not. This unsettled and altered feeling is something without a clear ending and may in fact be something I learn to live with. I decided it was not something to be checked off as much as it is something to be accommodated.

I planned to blog. That is what I am doing.

I’m not doing a cannonball and jumping into the lake. I'm putting in one toe.

I am tentative. I did not expect to feel tentative about working on my blog. I didn't feel tentative about it before the renovation. Now that the renovation has happened everything is both more orderly and also more askew. Instead of waiting until I felt less tentative and on firmer ground, I just went ahead.

So what if I'm tentative? It's not the end of the world. Just like there are much bigger stressors than home renovation, there are much bigger challenges to writing and being creative than feeling a bit tentative. Home renovation is a bigger challenge to writing and being creative than feeling tentative.

My apartment and neighborhood are the same. My family and children are the same. When I wake up in the morning I'm in a different room than I used to be with different things to look at. My life hasn't really changed but the landscape of it has. Things that used to be lying around on tables and desks have designated spots. Suddenly there's room for music and books.

Today, I make my collage at my daughter's desk while she is in school. Last time I did this it was at the dining room table. I put a large book under my work to protect the desk from glue and marks. The scotch tape is still packed so I use tiny pieces of masking tape to gently flatten my finished collage. Previously, I photographed my finished pieces on top of the base of our treadmill. There's no room in our current layout for it, so we reluctantly got rid of it. It was the right choice.

I bring this new collage to my bed, which is next to a bank of windows. I move it this way and that to take advantage of the ample natural light while eliminating unsightly shadows. Satisfied, I take the picture. It really is a lovely spot.

Aftermath

This daughter of mine

Unabashed pink, sturdy girlhood

There’s nothing to suggest in that ladybug smile

Or curls lilting with the melody

That track three of the Stephen Foster songbook

Could be the perfect song for a baby girl’s funeral.

I planned every inch of this healthy child

From her conception to now this memorial.

Unwelcome, unbidden, good ideas for bad.

You could slap me with your words and I would not blame you

Understand this.

I have travelled to funeral homes

Held tiny, exquisite urns in my hands

Seen Lilliputian caskets too small to truly contain a life

The funeral processions should have been held in a doll’s house

I drink her up and swing her about

No other baby of mine

Will rest in a dark box I had to choose

You beg me for euphemisms but I can’t help you.

I fold up my map

I try to put it away

But it has been folded and refolded

Shaped, cut and put together

By hands too small too write their own names

This poem was adapted from one I wrote about 15 years ago. I happened upon recently while packing files to prepare for our apartment renovation. I had completely forgotten that I ever wrote it - wrote anything - having put it away as soon as I hurriedly penned it.

I wrote this soon after my son Jacob died and an adorable girl was inching her way into our hearts. It accurately reflects the feelings I was having at the time – considerable post- traumatic stress from my child dying, and ever-present fears for my surviving child. I was also supporting other parents whose children died from cancer by attending funerals and being present for them.

I’m grateful to have come across this writing. This is a record of what happened. This is a record of the distance I have come and the two times connecting.

I didn’t have a blog then. There weren’t blogs then. But I did write just a little. The seeds were planted. And here they are.

The Expectation Of Quiet

Jeremy and I were living in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I was doing freelance photography during the week and working at a beautiful bookstore on the weekends. I made lots of new friends at the bookstore. Jeremy and I also made friends with the friends of the people I met at the bookstore.

One evening, a friend of a friend of mine from the bookstore had a party in her Park Slope apartment. I remember the apartment. People in NYC always remember details about one another's apartments.

One of the most striking things about this apartment was the large piano in the living room.

It started out as a regular party. There were cocktails. There was conversation. There was recitation of poetry. One of my friends from the bookstore was a poet. That is what she did when she wasn't working at the bookstore. She was reciting one of the poems she'd written that week from memory.

We had all had a number of cocktails. That is when one of my friends suggested that everyone gather around the piano. Fantastic idea. Why have a piano if was just going to sit there gathering dust?

There were these books I was obsessed with a child. They are the All-of-a-Kind Family series. I will tell you that people gathering around the piano to sing together is very All of a Kind Family.

The part of it that was not so All of a Kind Family was that this sing-along commenced past midnight. This was not something at the forefront of our minds. Nor was working at the bookstore early the next morning. There was a remedy for that one. I had recently turned all of my colleagues on to Snapple Iced Tea. Someone would make a Snapple run to the deli next door when we all started to fade.

The friend giving the party sat down at the piano. We all gathered around. There was sheet music on the piano. All of the sheet music seemed to be songs that were popular in the 1970s. I knew all the lyrics already. I have no musical talent except for an uncanny ability to learn lyrics quickly and then remember those lyrics for the rest of my life.

We sang a few songs. What I lack in a melodious singing voice I made up for in volume and enthusiasm. Some of the people there could harmonize. This is good because having them sing with me made me feel like a good singer. That, and the cocktails.

If you are picturing an extremely nerdy scene you would be right. I'll say this for myself. I already know. For a segment of my life, I believe I was cool. That part of my life lasted for twelve consecutive years.  Before then, I was not cool. Afterwards, I was not cool. It was like I was temporarily able to shake off my nerdy features for a bit. Then they came back for me. Once that happened, I put up no resistance.

The evening I am describing is after I became nerdy again.

After much revelry, came my favorite song of the evening. Piano Man by Billy Joel. If you were still thinking that maybe I had some residual shred of coolness left, I am about to put the last nail in that coffin.

I’m admitting publicly that I love the entire Billy Joel songbook. I don’t love Uptown Girl or New York State of Mind as much as Piano Man and Just The Way You Are. Uptown Girl and New York State of Mind are my guilty pleasures. The earlier material is my pleasure pleasures.

It has been suggested by someone very close to me – Jeremy Shatan – that perhaps all of Billy Joel’s material should be considered a guilty pleasure – the entire body of work. I have chosen not to take this suggestion. Jeremy and I sometimes disagree yet he does continue love me just the way I am.

It was without a hint of irony that I joined my friends in a heartfelt, rather emotionally charged rendition of Piano Man.

Then came the knock on the door.

There was a uniformed police officer standing there. Someone had called in a noise complaint.

As I look back over this time, I realize that I was in the wrong. We shouldn't have been engaging in piano playing and singing at such a late hour. There is such a thing, in NYC apartment parlance, as quiet hours. This was beyond anyone's definition of that.

Also, piano playing plus 15 people singing would be a major irritant even during the day, even if you happen to like the Billy Joel songbook, even if you have a sense of humor, even if you drink cocktails yourself.

Knowing that I was in the wrong this one time doesn't keep me up at night.

I love NYC. I love it because of the rich culture, the excitement, the fun. I love that my music-loving husband can go listen to bands that he loves and that we can go to museums. I love that the city never sleeps even as I do. I love the energy. I love that I can take the subway and I am in a completely different neighborhood. In many cases, it's almost like going to another country

But these are not the only things I love. I love the proximity of other people. Even when I don't talk to someone, I like seeing them. Jeremy and I thought about moving to the burbs. A lot of our neighbors were doing it. One of the reasons we didn't do it was the isolation I thought I'd feel.

Everyone who lives in NYC has their own reasons. For some people, it's similar. For others it's not. Some people live here in spite of all the things I mentioned not because of them. Others are doing so by default. They're living here in a state of inertia.

But it's always a choice.

I live in peaceful proximity to most of my neighbors. Some of the most exemplary individuals I've ever met are my neighbors. A lot of them would give you the shirt off their back.

My days of geeky and noisy partying have passed. The parties we have now are birthday parties. They are in the middle of the afternoon. Quiet hours find us either asleep or getting ready for school.

The noise our treadmill makes, the noise our active son makes and the noise of our being alive is upsetting to some people. These people want a sanctuary in a thriving metropolis. These people have a firm expectation of quiet. Some are sensitive souls. Almost all of them have advice about being a parent. We receive this advice in the form of anonymous notes. We receive unexpected knocks on the door from people who have never bothered to say hello or introduce themselves before issuing a complaint.

I could write an entire post about ways to work these things out and ways not to work these things out. I'm saving that for another time.

But here is what I will say today. By leaving me a note or coming to my apartment unannounced you are breaking a social contract. You have an expectation of quiet. But you are not quiet.

I hear you.

I hear the cell phone conversation you had in my courtyard last night. I wasn't trying to listen. It's the acoustics. It comes straight into my apartment at a higher volume than seems logical. Anyone wanting a private discourse in my courtyard should think twice.

You have a delightful and strapping son. But when he was a baby, his cries were so high pitched and pitiful I was in a constant state of gratitude that none of my children had colic. You were having a tough time. I get that.

I hear you running the vacuum when I am ready to go to sleep. When Whitney Houston died, you held a musical vigil. I waited for it to pass. It did.

The sharp click of high heels. The renovation you did before moving in. The sound of your hammer as you decorate. The sound of late summer evenings spilling over as you come home, your children's laughter mingling with your conversation. Your TV. I can almost hear the show you're watching but not quite. It has a laugh track.

I am surrounded by noise. Even as the electric company jackhammers, I hear you. The noise is a two way street.

I wonder if I should be tit for tat. But my heart isn't in it. I'm not a martyr, either. I never have been.

The noise I hear is the sound of NYC. It's the sound of people living. It's the sound of not being alone. It's the sound of living in a community. The truth is that most of it is music to my ears.

Make no mistake. I hear you. It is a choice not to complain. I chose to live here. I chose to live here surrounded by noise.

Granted, none of it is three in the morning, alcohol-fueled, toxic noise. I'm not making that noise either.

There is an alternative to my choice. There is the verdant countryside. A little house on a couple of acres. Tall trees and bushes between you and the neighbors. The sound of birds and wind. A reality instead of a wish. It’s not for me. But it may be for you.

Blizzard

The blizzard was named Juno. It was supposed to be historic.

I'm not Al Roker. I'm not StormCopter. I'm not StormCenter. I'm not a member of StormTeam or Weather on the 1's. I did not attempt to predict the weather. I listened to all of these sources. But even as I listened, I remembered something I've learned through experience. Weather is notoriously hard to predict. Even for StormCopter.

I prepared for the blizzard. It was mostly common sense. I do grocery shopping weekly. The weekly shopping I already did would get us through any storm. I changed one appointment to earlier in the day. I checked the flashlights and batteries. I urged Jeremy to bring work home rather than work late.

I did not go to big box stores and lay in tons of supplies. I saw people doing this on the news and it got me thinking about Blizzard Hoarding. I've never heard this terminology before because I just made it up. That said, I think this concept has some merit.

I set aside small, discrete periods of time to watch blizzard coverage. It turns out that I like watching speculation about blizzards and how bad they are anticipated to be. I enjoy watching news conferences about the blizzard with the mayor and the governor.

I enjoy watching blizzards out my window. But it seems that it is not enough to simply look at snow falling and wind blowing from my apartment. I must also watch the blizzard on TV. It is life affirming to watch New Yorkers banding together in scrappy, innovative ways. It gives me perspective to watch how bad things are in Islip. Things are always worse in Islip.

So if I didn't set aside specific periods where I allow myself to do this, I would be doing it all the time. I permitted myself to watch it while folding laundry. I watched right before going to sleep when my brain is not on full throttle anyway.

I woke up the next morning and went over to the window. It was cold and windy. There was snow on the ground. I could see that it was less than was predicted. I figured that the blizzard had changed direction at some point.  This has happened before. It's also gone the other way. Sometimes weather is much worse than you think it will be. That's weather.

I wouldn't have thought much more about it except that I went on Facebook. I also turned on the TV. That’s when I realized some people were very emotional about the blizzard.

The negative reactions New Yorkers had about the blizzard fit into some basic categories.

Political reactions

Some people were very upset with NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio and NY State Governor Andrew Cuomo for holding press conferences and then shutting down the subways and busses. They called them fascists because they did not allow people to drive without incurring a fine. The same people said that NYC and New York State are turning into an actual fascist state. I belong to a very special political party. It is called the better safe than sorry platform. So I think the next time there's a bad forecast, they should do it again. I think it would also be good if they shut everything down for the next gentle snowfall. Or really hot summer weather. I'd enjoy that.

Conspiracy theories.

Going hand in hand with fascism, was the idea that the forecast and response was all part of a conspiracy to distract New Yorkers from more important matters. Apparently the news media, Al Roker, Bill De Blasio and Andrew Cuomo were all in cahoots. If this is true it may have worked. The day after the storm, many people were distracted by conspiracy theories and lack of snowfall.

Just because you're paranoid does not mean that the weatherman and the mayor aren't out to get you.

Wasted supplies and wasted time getting supplies

Some people were upset that they bought a lot of extra food and other supplies and spent time waiting on long lines and going to multiple establishments. They felt that getting the supplies and then not losing electricity, heat or contact with others was an affront.

I'd like to suggest that New Yorkers shift focus next time there is a blizzard forecasted. How much food do you really need to eat during a blizzard?  This laying in of food is a missed opportunity for New Yorkers to engage in something trendy. That is fasting, cleansing and juicing. If you lose electricity, then you can't use the blender. You can still mash and whisk. You can still fast.

Boredom

People enjoy watching action movies. They also enjoy watching blizzards. Some people were very disappointed that the blizzard didn't dish up  more entertainment. NYC wasn't crippled. There wasn't footage of people stranded in their cars, cars abandoned at jaunty angles, death, dangerous fallen power lines, trees impaling houses, people falling on top of one another on icy sidewalks, familiar landmarks destroyed by snow or biblical style carnage. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Having to go to work and having to leave the apartment

Until this blizzard, I didn't know just how much many New Yorkers enjoy staying in their apartments and how much they hate their jobs. The fact that the blizzard was mild and people were able to move about freely come Tuesday afternoon was deeply disappointing to many. Rather than feeling grateful that work was closed on Tuesday, some people were apparently expecting their businesses to be shuttered until March.

People were jealous of Boston because those people stayed home longer. They had been counting on the blizzard to interrupt a day-to-day life that has grown tired and unbearable. That's a lot of pressure on one blizzard. Maybe the blizzard isn't the main problem here.

People from the Midwest and upstate New York criticizing New Yorkers and the lame blizzard

During other weather events, I have been guilty of this. I come from Syracuse. I went trick or treating with my costume stuffed into my snow pants.

Other places got more snow during Juno. Other places get more snow on a regular winter day that NYC ever gets. That is not because you are superior or did anything right. You did not invent heavy snowfall. It just happened. It's the weather. It’s the lakes.

In the end, I was not bored, disappointed, or paranoid about the blizzard. I did not feel jealous of Boston.

I went for a walk on Tuesday afternoon and took these pictures. The blizzard wasn't historic. But it was still interesting and beautiful. I liked it a lot. These are the photographs I took before the snow got dirty. We're supposed to get more snow soon. Well see what that brings. I'm good either way.

Snowfall + precious peek of colorful plant = Peaceful scene

I like making collages and I like finding them.

I love it when snow gets stuck in the bark. It's like punctuation.

More punctuation.

These snowdrifts form on the outside sills of one of our windows. This one was about 8 inches high. It was fun opening the window and taking a close up.

Obligatory shot of car buried in snow. At least it’s artistic.