Nature & Fashion

This summer Daryl & I went hiking with my dad in the Frenchman River Valley close to where I grew up. I was struck by the starkness and beauty of the hills, rocks, and foliage. The thorns on the Russian olive trees, the brightly colored lichen clinging to the rocks, the smell of sage bushes as we brushed past transported me to another time and place; the wild frontier or even the days of the dinosaurs.

It was the lichen though that twigged my memory to furniture and house decor from the '60's & '70's. The use of brown, orange, yellow, and green, sometimes to excess, enveloped a room. I came across a blog posting that sums up the 1960's design quite nicely, Retro Planet.

It is interesting to me how nature gets it right. The elements & principles of design, such as color, line, shape, texture, contrast, harmony, & dominance are inherent to nature or rather God, who is the masterful designer of it all. When I go to a lake, I don't think to myself, "A taller and bushier tree on the right shore line would balance out the picture" or "The birch tree trunks are too white and they don't compliment the coniferous trees." The delicate and intricate design of a butterfly or the flower clinging to life in the crevasse of a rock cause me to stand in awe of the Creator.