Fifteen years ago I bought a complete tea service for six at a china shoppe about a block away from The Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland.
Do you know how useful a complete tea service for six has been to me in South Texas?
I know why I bought it. So I could bring home the experience of an English tea party at breakfast. I wanted to have that all the time -- the experience of walking down the stairs, all polished up and ready for a big day of adventure, having tea and toast and eggs brought to me ... and in the case of St. Andrews, looking over the Old Course or the bay, with their morning mist -- begging me to stay inside that B&B and drink tea all day.
I just read The Art of Travel, and in my previous post I mention John Ruskin. John was well-traveled. The author, Alain de Botton, summarizes John's conclusions on travel and our experiences.
"Ruskin's interest in beauty and in its possession led him to five central conclusions.
First, beauty was the result of a number of complex factors that affected the mind both psychologically and visually.
Second, humans had an innate tendency to respond to beauty and to desire to possess it.
Third, there were many lower expressions of this desire for possession (including, as we have seen, buying souvenirs and carpets, carving one's name on a pillar and taking photographs).
Fourth, there was only one way to possess beauty properly, and that was by understanding it, by making oneself conscious of the factors (psychological and visual) responsible for it.
And last, the most effective means of pursuing this conscious understanding was by attempting to describe beautiful places through art, by writing about or drawing them, irrespective of whether one happened to have any talent for doing so."
For over 80 years, lovers of Southwestern and Indian Art make a pilgrimage to Santa Fe, New Mexico for the Santa Fe Indian Market. Last year, the Market attracted over 100,000 people from all over the world. The economic impact of the event each year to the state of New Mexico is around $100 million.
The American Southwest has drawn people to its beauty and culture for over a century. The study of its birth and life has been my fascination and my passion. And, if you're in art, architecture, tourism or real estate development -- you'll learn from its executions and lessons.
Ruskin spoke of beauty and our desire to possess it and the wisdom of understanding it.
One hundred thousand buyers still come from all over the world to a special 3-day event in August to possess the beauty of the American Southwest ... from those who know how to share their understanding, their stories, through their arts.
William Robinson Leigh, The Hopi Pottery Merchant
