Stand Up Inspiration: Ursus Wehrli, Mary Mattingly and a Library That Became a Home

Ursus Wehrli's The Art of Clean Up: Life Made Neat and Tidy.

I've been following the charming and amusingly self deprecating Ursus Wehrli for the last six months, watching his Ted Talk and talk on Typo Design. I loved both volumes of Tidying Up Art. Then he came out with something right up my alley: The Art of Clean Up: Life Made Neat and Tidy. As a fan and lifelong sucker for before and after photos I thoroughly enjoyed this picture book and it went beyond a sight gag for me. Of course! I'm an organizer! I like things just so. Always have and I've turned that, perhaps pathological, need into a very nice business. But I can still laugh at the compulsions that drive it all and somehow this book gently pokes fun at me and all my kindred spirits, and rightly so, because without humor we can be a militant seeming lot.

Mary Mattingly. Life of Objects, 2013

Now turn your eye towards the photography of Mary Mattingly who just had a show in NYC. Mattingly, Wehril and the gorgeous home below are today's Stand Up Inspiration.

Mary Mattingly. Pull, 2013

I was reading the review in The New Yorker and felt this was yet another manifestation of the ways in which the overabundance of things and the effect on us as a society is being reflected in art all around the world. It's something I've noticed before in art.

Photo by Lincoln Barbour.

Then today, when I opened the New York Times Home section I was very happy to start my day with warm coffee and loads of photos of the home of Karen Gilliam and Sara Van Beckum. I read the article (old school style with the newspaper in my hand) and then scampered to my laptop to watch the slide show. Twice.

There are so many things to love about their perfect home and I love and covet it so much I may inspire a Portlandia skit about myself.