Time for Reflection : Mirrors

Here's an "intriguing"-and according to me-"debatable" quote. :-) Anyway, I thought of putting it out here to kick off this post on mirrors!

"Men look at themselves in mirrors. Women look for themselves" - Elissa Melamed

Above: This oversize Entablature mirror from Restoration Hardware is what inspired us to do this post. (Image Courtesy: Restoration Hardware)

Some History: Mirrors come in all sizes and shapes and have been a fascination for mankind in some form or fashion as early as 6000 B.C. Early mirrors were made of polished metal or stone. The history of the modern glass mirror coated with mercury, as we know it today can be tracked to more recent times- around the 16th-18th centuries. You can read an exhaustive history on it on Wikipedia. (So we wont deep dive into it here). As many of you, we too have been curious and thrilled by mirrors and more so the work around the mirrors, and materials, and shapes, and sizes which have become equally important (if not more)- than rather just the reflective surface alone!

Materials: Wood is the most common material used in mirror frames, and metal comes in second. In recent times though, composite, driftwood, shells and pretty much anything you can wrap around a shiny surface has been used to frame mirrors.

Our Collection:
Below are some of the mirrors we have acquired in our personal collection over a period of time. And finally we thought we had enough pieces to start a post atleast. ;-) So here goes..

Below: This hand painted Chinese mirror is one of our favorites. It features delicate floral patterns and butterflies in a muted palette, set in a frame that's carved in a stepped manner. This one was quite a challenge mounting as it was close to a 100lbs. (More tips on hanging heavy mirrors below)

Below: It's important to envision the big picture, and to do careful consideration of positioning before committing to mounting large mirrors on walls, because it's not easy to undo, and move around like you can with smaller ones. The night-shot below doesn't do much justice to the details, but you can see how this mirror fits in overall.

Below: This is a much smaller mirror (about 1.5 ft apart at the longest ends of the oval). The mirror features plaster detail on the wood-work. Many mirrors (as well as frames) in the 1800-1900's featured plaster work molding on a wooden base, such as this one. I found this tucked away in an antique shop in Niles district. (We probably will do a separate post on Niles one of these days)

Below: This one's a French Ormolu mirror (metal), awaiting restoration. (est-1800's). This one probably held a beveled mirror which was missing by the time we got it. It's one of our projects awaiting restoration, and we are planning to have the rear-side upholstered, and use as a vanity mirror. So now we've already covered 3 totally different materials in mirror making (wood, plaster, and metal..and they all look beautiful in their own way!)


Mirrors & Space: Mirrors are a great tools for doubling or multiplying space. Though used in such grandeur such as the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, where these is no dearth of space, many of today's decor applications of mirrors come from the need to create an illusion of "increased space", and works very effectively in hallways, nooks, small rooms,basements and anywhere you really need to visually open up the space but cannot physically do it.

Some points to consider when installing a mirror:

Eyeballing the location: Though its a good idea to measure out the exact location for positioning a mirror on a wall, it's a science as well as art in getting it to the most aesthetically pleasing location. There ARE certain sweet-spots and for lighter mirrors, its a good idea to have some one hold it for you, so you can step back and take a look at the "big picture" before you start drilling. (Note: This may be difficult/not feasible for larger mirrors). Interestingly, the mathematical center of a wall is often NOT the ideal position, rather it maybe a little more to the left, or right, or up or down. It depends on where the "visual focus" of the room lies (which very often is different from the 'measured center'), and this depends on the other elements in the room- including furniture, windows, shape and size of wall, etc. For example, in one of our projects, we centered the mirror against the dining table not at the mathematical center of the wall (which was about 2 feet off). See below.

Use your Illusion*: What does the mirror reflect in its intended position? This is an interesting point, and one we often tend to omit (till the mirror actually goes up on the wall). The spot may be perfect, but remember the mirror may reflect something that is totally out of place with the setting (like the back of your television with all the wires, etc., for an example). So before you start 'digging for oil', make sure the reflection matches the overall picture you are trying to build. Otherwise it will really end up as a failed exercise.

Weight: Will the drywall hold it? Some mirrors like the hand-painted one we have featured here are over 100lbs and can be quite a challenge to install correctly (and safely). Use plastic or metal anchors. (You will find some very valuable tips here). Note that screws in the U.S. have weight ratings- 100lbs, 150lbs, 200lbs, etc. (It's safer to use ones that comfortably exceed the weight of the mirror.)
If you have a brick wall, be sure to use strong and deep nails that go beyond the plaster so that it will not crack and come off with time.

Tools: Tools that we have found very useful in mounting mirrors include a Stud finder to detect the strong points in a wall, Laser level to ensure level lines with other pictures, or reference points, Drill kit (very useful), Measuring Tape, Anchors/Molly.


Above: This one was featured on our post on our Dining room Salon wall. It's no antique but probably a commercial reproduction of an antique (though we really cant tell the difference when it sits on the wall). We love it for its fine lines, proportion and unique shape.

Below: This one came of a estate sale from a couple who had been collecting for over 60 years. It remains one of our favorite pieces.



A Special Note: Aranmula Kannadi (Mirror)
We wanted to include this as a tribute to the State we come from. The Aranmula Kannadi (Mirror) is made of metal that is polished to a high sheen. This process of metal mirror-making tradition survives ( from the 14th century ) at the small village of Aranmula, in the State of Kerala, in India. A unique composition is the most critical factor in giving it the ability to be polised to a mirror-like sheen (cast high-tin bronze mirror, 33% tin with highly polished surface.)
The British Museum in London has a 45 centimeter tall Aranmula metal mirror in its collection.

Below: The Aranmula Mirror featured below in conch shape design belongs to one of our friends.


Mirrors & Superstition: Probably one of the oldest superstitions worldwide-is still alive among millions of people today-the superstition that breaking a mirror brings 7 years of bad-luck. This one has been in vogue since the Roman days, when a mirror was believed to be a reflection of ones soul, and breaking it would have a connected impact. Our take on it? Well there's already enough bad stuff happening worldwide to people nowadays even without breaking mirrors. So don't worry about it. However, its probably better to handle these with care- more for your family's safety reasons especially with children around. :-)

Note: "Use your illusion" is a copyright of Guns'n'Roses

Post-a-Card : From Lego Land, Billund

Above: Baby Blu making Lego towers.

The Blue family is slowly swinging back to action after little Blu brought back home a really bad bug.. and happily passed it on to us grown-ups too. Two weeks of aacchhoo!(s) & ouch!(s) , red noses, ER visits, soups & toasts and a TV running 24-hours ...we are now raring to go!

On the plus side, Blu who had so far refused to play with anything else other than "Cars"..has finally found another thing to do.. making Lego-castles for mommy after he saw Ellie ( his favorite elephant from Pocoyo ) making one! So it was a real surprise when we got a post-card from Legoland, Billund (Denmark) in last week's mail... just in time for the Lego sky-scraper-phase that we are going through now :) Blu's "Uncle Ribo" ( that's not his real name, but Blu's version of it ) was visiting Denmark and had posted a card for him from there.

Below: That's a picture of the postcard sitting on our table


As "jobless" as I can be, I decided to do some trivia-hunt on Lego and here they are! But before that, let me show you one kit put together by my beloved husband and partner-in-crime, Joe.. I call it his "Wheels (only!) in Dreams"- a Lego replica of the $1Million Enzo Ferrari (kit available online). It took him a few after-work-sleepless-nights though, to put it together.
Below: Two car fanatics checking out the works :)
Now to the trivia :

• The Lego brand of toys was first made in 1932, by Ole Kirk Kristiansen ,a Danish carpenter. The toys were made of wood and called Lego , a contraption of 2 Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well".

• The Lego-brick which our kids get to play with now was designed in 1957 and was introduced to the consumers in 1958, and has remained the same in design eversince. So a brick made in 1958 would still be compatible with the bricks that are available now. read more
• Lego is the fifth largest toy company in the world and can be found in about 75% of American and 80% of European households with children
  
• LEGO has 4 theme parks all over the world, oldest and the largest one being in Billund,Denmark. The park opened there in 1968. The other 3 are in Windsor(England), Gunzburg (Germany) and Carlsbad (USA).
• The worlds tallest LEGO tower is at the Windsor Legoland made of 500,000 Lego bricks and and stands almost a 100 ft tall. (below)

Lego sculptures:
While scouring the internet for Lego sculptures, this name kept popping up - Nathan Sawaya . Mr.Sawaya is a freelance artist who designs and builds custom Lego sculptures. Check out some of his really cool and mind-blowing creations, below.

Circle Triangle Square (below)
Think (below) Reflection (below) Red (below)The Grasp (below)
Mt.Rushmore Replica (below)....and a Life Size Replica .

And if you cant have enough of these tiny bricks..visit Sawaya's website at brickartist.

Happy Weekend to all of you!!

Dedication: This post is dedicated to our dear friends' son Tim and his feverish passion for Lego's., and our baby Blu's "Uncle Ribo" who sent us the Legoland postcard from Denmark, inspite of his packed schedule, and inspired this post to begin with. Tim is the best Lego artist I have known personally; it takes him less than a couple of hours to put together a 3000pc sculpture , and that too without referring any directions :)

Why do people collect?

Here is an example. We got this old model ship from eBay. It was one of those spur of the moment bids- which you kinda later end up regretting- to be honest. :-) The ship arrived in broken condition, and with literally balls of dust (and grease!) collected on its deck and sails. On first thoughts, we had a good mind to put it back on eBay, or just sink the cost. It really was that bad. And we didn't want dust mites crawling in our home. It looked like it was a part of someones kitchen hood.

Anyway. We are collectors- (or so we let ourselves believe), and werent quite willing to let go without a fight. So one afternoon we took this outdoors, and gave it a good dusting. Not much use.... Several paper-towels, and of-course baby-wipes (remember, its our favorite cleaning tool) later, the ship still showed no signs of recovery. We decided to give it a final shot, with compressed air- the ones you use to clean your laptop keyboards and electronic equipment. (Another run to the store, and $5.00 more sunk into the investment cost). After almost half a can of compressed air blowing through her sails, more baby-wipes, and earbuds, she finally seemed to be catching the wind. A little help from Elmer's glue helped fix back the broken front part (think its called the 'Boom').

With the wind changing, and the decision now in favor of keeping her, now that so much work had already gone into it, we started doing some study on the type and nature of this ship. (It was sold as a war ship- which it really wasnt). This is where it starts to get interesting. This type of ship is called a Clipper Ship, and they were famous for trade in the 1800-1870's. These were made for trade, and sailed the high seas mostly between England, US and other parts of Europe 'and China, and European colonies. These were built sleek and light for high speed, and clippers raced against each other setting record times which were often published in news papers. You can read the whole history about clipper ships on Wikipedia.

Now coming back to "our" ship :-), there is a small label on this one that says "Hurricane". Our research was based on this. The time spent, eventually paid off. Though the Hurricane, was not known among the great Clippers like Cutty Sark, and Flying Cloud, she too had her flying moments, before finally being sold in Singapore in 1876 and renamed (hence appearing for the last time in shipping registers. (By the way, she was launched in 1851 in the shipyard of Isaac C. Smith, in New Jersey.) The whole nautical history is thankfully registered here on one
website!

The departures of clipper ships were announced on Clipper Ship sailing Cards at their ports such as the one shown below. (Source: UC Santa Barbara, Dept of Geography, Website)

It gets even hotter now: I found a reference on New York Times archives, about the Hurricane and other clipper-ships in a race to Rio de Janeiro, dated March 29th, 1852.
Her moment of Glory came when in1852, she arrived at San Francisco from Rio de Janeiro in 66 days, a time which has only been beaten once in those times.
Phew! that was some journey. We just went from a dusty old model one afternoon, to sailing around the world, and ending up on the top of our front door.
Perhaps, this is why people collect, to begin with. :-)

Below is an Oil Painting of the Hurricane, from the Peabody Essex Museum Archives.
Oil 29 1/4 x 41 1/2 in., signed: Skillet (Artist), Built 1851, Hoboken, N. J., weighing 1,680 tons.

Happy Sailing !!
-Joe