love notes 02 | wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?
winter work week palette, UWS nostalgia, gemstones
When we speak about love, we mean the desire for beauty. — Marsilio Ficino
Hello! Love Notes is a new series I’m starting here, as a visual journal where I document imagery, ideas, spaces, textures, flavors, and other elements that evoked beauty or punctum for me. In the same spirit as my recent LA love notes, I want this to be a continued creative exercise in seeing, in paying attention to the quotidian, and in thoughtful curation to share the light with all of you.
Taming the Light will continue to have longer-form art writing, personal essays, and critiques, but I hope you enjoy this new format too. Thank you for being here and sticking around as I mix things up! xx
-LK
… in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color; and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows—a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink?
And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues—every stately or lovely emblazoning sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, forever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge…
And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol.
Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?
— The Whiteness of the Whale, from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
PALETTE NOTES: WINTER WORK WEEK
Chromatic monotony, yet again.
Since getting back to New York from LA, I think I may have gone two weeks straight without seeing a glimpse of sunlight. I’ve accepted the sky will most likely be an inanimate grayness looming over, and still need to remind myself to count my blessings on days without snow. The midtown commute continues.
But I cannot help but wonder - what would a midtown winter work week look like as a color palette? Is it really just the grey monochrome and chromatic silence as I thought? Or would there be unexpected accents? Am I overlooking anything?
There’s only one way to find out - I assembled my mood board:
Palette notes:
Lots of brown and grey in my go-to midtown winter uniform: vintage leopard print pants (NOT mob wife), unlined black Prada loafers, wrapped up in oversized dark grey wool coat and Holzweiler Black & White Bambino Scarf to brace the commute. Plus the dark marbled brown Acne musubi tote
Matching chrome silver nails and phone case, in juxtaposition with gold tone jewelry
A perfect weeknight dinner at Piccola Cucina to decompress after work. Dark mahogany table, decadent chocolate gelato and cannolis to finish
Yellow as punctum! Breaking through the grey asphalt - and on the lemon cheesecake at Piccola Cucina. I wrote about yellow last summer and really love how the color captures so much of the levity and warmth I so crave now. Also still thinking about
’s brilliant piece on butter yellow’s quiet rebrand to banana milk. Will be holding yellow closely, even if curbside
IDEAS ON MY MIND: NOSTALGIA & HOME
(I’m admittedly never not nostalgic, proof points here and here and here.)
This weekend was the first time the sun came out, blessing us with clear cerulean skies! On Saturday, I met up with my friend Lexy for chirashi lunch at Sushi Yasaka on the Upper West Side and afterwards we made our way to the Natural History Museum basking in afternoon glow.
This was my first time getting out of the 72nd Street station in years, and the memories came flooding back - the first New York apartment Alex and I’ve lived in was a summer sublet on 74th and Columbus during the height of the pandemic. Although just a mere block away from Central Park, it was a garden-level walk-up with close to no natural light, a gas stove older than myself, and more than its fair share of drainage and pest issues.
At the end of that summer, Alex and I retuned to California appalled by the severity of New York City living - but now I see the happy moments too: the carefree summer days when I carried a New Yorker tote without reading The New Yorker, strutted down Amsterdam and Columbus and Broadway, picked up cookies from the original Levain, meandered my way through the park, and outrageously overdressed for date nights at Daniel and Aquavit and Gabriel Kreuther.
We were 20 years old, and so blissfully confident that we had all the time in the world.
I showed Lexy the door to the apartment on 74th - what used to be my home, if ever so temporarily for two months. But in a city where 69% of people rent their homes dictated by fixed-term leases, is home ever permanent?
Or is the hopeful permanence of memory enough?
VISUAL PUNCTUM:
Historic Architecture on Broadway, UWS
Top left: gilded wrought iron gates of the Apthorp on Broadway, built by William Waldorf Astor in Italian Renaissance Revival style - partially based on the Palazzo Pitti in Florence!
Top right and bottom: the Ansonia, in Beaux-Arts style with terra cotta decorations, Parisian-style copper Mansard roofs, and French windows with elaborate iron balconies
ON VIEW:
Van Cleef & Arpels’ Garden of Green, at the American Museum’s new Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals
- On view until March 17, 2024
This was my first visit to the stunning new canyon-like Richard Gilder Wing of the Natural History museum since it opened - especially for the Van Cleef exhibition in the Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals. I found the exhibit a delightful marriage of science and art, celebrating both nature’s wondrous minerals and the superb human craftsmanship shaping peridots, malachites, and emeralds into the exquisite pieces.
Also, a gem’s brilliance comes from its capacity to refract light - taming the light is what makes a gem sparkle.
And that’s it on the first (really second) Love Notes!
Wishing you a wonderful week ahead -
Finding, creating, and cherishing beauty in an inanimate grayness northeast winter season is commendable.