Object(s) of Our Lives

The story that I am going to tell you now is about trusting yourself, and perhaps even more importantly, trusting “life” itself, learning how to let go and saying “yes” to what life brings to you.

Well, it’s about my significant other…

My wife, alongside being my life and business partner, also works as a C2H (Contract-to-hire) prop stylist. In fact, the whole story of how she has become a prop stylist in NY is another fantastic story to tell, but the one that I’d like to emphasize here is somewhat more interesting to me because it was even beyond her imagination.

As a profession, Prop Styling is and has always been my wife’s passion. I believe she inherently has a unique gift of craft-fully combining common and unusual objects in a whole new artistic and poetic way. I also believe that her ability to see the beauty in everyday mundane objects, whether it be a ceramic cup or a piece of wood or stone she bumps into on a sidewalk, brings burst of optimism and joy to our immediate surroundings.

Out of her her habitual act or a hobby, she happened to acquire many interesting objects and textile in time from various places she’s been and turned them into her own special collection in a cabinet of curiosities. I remember that when we were moving to another apartment in NY at some point, we realized that we even did not have any furniture of our own, but just objects.

Since we moved to New York together, she has worked for so many prestigious clients in various categories such as food, fashion and lifestyle. But, among them, I think Food Network (FN) has some special meaning to her.

She worked for FN for about 4 years in a row for a popular TV Show. Fortunately, during that time, the show was nominated for Emmy Award in art direction category. She was not only decorating this TV show, but also creating some DIY (Do-it-yourself) ideas to be presented within the show. In addition to her creative contribution to the show, she was also bringing to the table her own personal collection of objects and using them as part of the set design.

However, when we were moving back to our own native country in 2010, despite her passion, love and affection to her collection of objects, she made a hard decision and let them go. Rather than having kept them in our storage unit, she chose to give away almost all of her objects to FN. Imagine yourself going far away and leaving your loved ones behind…

This is the first part of the story…The second part is about re-uniting:)

I always admired my wife's work ethic, her relentless thinking process, and meticulous organizational skills, but my utmost fascination really comes from her unique talent in bringing different objects together with a new sense of collage and giving it a new meaning and timeless look in such a beautiful and inspiring way. Honestly, to me, what she does is no different than creating an oil painting. Therefore, by fully appreciating her artwork, I always looked at her as a true artist.

That said, this is only my own perspective.

From her end, she has never defined herself as an artist, maybe because she did not have any formal training or anything. Every time we start talking about it, she shies away from our conversation and quickly finds a way to change the subject. But, deep down, I know that she was indeed aspired to become one.

A couple of years ago, out of the blue, she got a call from a dear friend, Mory Thomas. Guess from where: Food Network!

Mory came up with a project and with an offer. The project was about turning many, if not all, kitchen objects in FN warehouse, which were used in FN TV Shows for the last 22 years or so, into, well, unique art pieces to become part of FN Office's interior design.

Despite the fact that she has never done anything like this before, upon contemplating on it for some time, she decided to say “yes” and accepted the offer. Next thing you know, my wife, me and our multi-talented production manager and curator Tara Plath spent the next 3 months in our cute FN office and ended up creating 17 different art pieces, which are permanently part of FN office interior design now. So, in a sense, this was the answer to the question: What would happen if we pushed the limits of what we believe we're capable of?

I think by saying yes, my wife has shown tremendous courage to accept what life brings to her, embrace and enjoy the unknown as it is and become open to what develops. As they say: “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone!”

When the time has come to sign the contract and when she was humbly and joyously putting her signature under her title, “Artist”, we simply gazed at each other and smiled.

In a way, life has whispered to her ears: “Look lady, if you are not going to see yourself as an artist, I will.”

Once a wise woman has taught me an affirmation which goes like this: “I am worthy of receiving what the Creator wants to give. I receive with love and gratitude.” I think we all need to remind ourselves this simple mantra quite often to be able to accept what life wants to bring to us. Because, otherwise, unknowingly we may simply be blocking ourselves and sabotaging our own unique path full of wonder.

There is more to our story though…

In return for our extra work and effort at FN, we have inherited many kitchen objects from their warehouse. And believe it or not, once we were going through all these objects to choose from, we have come across many of those which my wife has given away years ago.

In the end, she happily reunited with her objects again. But, this time around, life rewarded her with even more than she accepted to let go.

The idea of believing yourself by having the courage to let things go and set free of your attachments is quite a liberating one and evidently it has become the object of our lives.

If you have similar stories and would like to share with us, please do.

-G

* Below, you can see the pictures of the artworks we have created for FN: