Summary

Click to Sip (What we are sippin’ on, fall flavors from David’s Tea)

Welcome back to Tea Over Interiors!

In this week’s episode, we are talking about

art is in everything and is accessible to everyone.

We live and you live in someone’s artistic expression from

the style of your home to your furniture and fabrics. Art is 

in everything and everywhere. 

Key takeaway this week is the appreciation for art, and how it is

expressed. What are your thoughts? Let us know! Email: [email protected] — Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/teaoverinteriors/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/teaoverinteriors/support

Transcription

Dee: [00:00:00] I’m Dee

Alicja: And I’m Alicja,

Dee: Welcome back to another episode of Tea Over Interiors. We are so excited to have you here today, guys. We have a very interesting topic that Alicia brought to us, and we are going to be talking about how to make your home feel more like a. Work of art Alicia, or creative space?

Alicja: Well, I think what it is is like to look at it as a work of art, to see it for what it is. All of our spaces are that.

Dee: So before we get to that topic, girl, what are you sipping on?

Alicja: I am having a chocolate chili chai. It’s laced with ancho and Aleppo chilies, and it has peppercorn for like a little surprising kick, and it’s also sweet.

Because it actually has it has like a Richie Fudgy taste and if you want to really improve it and give it that typical latte, put some [00:01:00] frost milk on it. But I didn’t do that. I’m just having it with a little bit of condensed milk, but I didn’t froth it. Should have, I will try that next time.

Very, very nice, if you like a little kick.

Dee: Yeah. Okay. Sounds like the perfect Pick me up in the morning.

Alicja: It is. And it’s good for this kind of cooler weather that we’re having in the Northeast. And I think that David’s tea is having a sale on it this week as part of their fall collection.

Dee: So I brought the butterscotch chai.

Alicja: Mmmh, Sounds good.

Dee: Mm-hmm. . So I have the butterscotch Chai and it has hints of sweet caramel, and creamy, buttery spices. And it’s a Roiboos tea, so it has some hazelnut in there, you know, pieces, papaya, cinnamon, cardamom, you know, all those nice warming spices along with the pineapple ginger. This one has more natural flavors. As you know, some people may like to look at the ingredients. As I know I do before I buy tea, sometimes they can [00:02:00] have artificial flavoring. So this one doesn’t and that’s why I like it so much. And yes, that’s from David’s tea also, and it’s caffeine free.

Alicja: Sounds good. Sounds nice. I’m gonna try it.

Dee: Yeah, you should chat out.

Okay. Moving on. It is time for Deeeeeeeee’s randomness?

Alicja: Let’s hear it What you got?

Dee: What I got for you? Okay, so. Last week, I think it was Alicia, or it might have been the week before, you had a Pu’erh tea, right? Mm-hmm. . And you were like, you didn’t really know what it was.

So I’ve been reading this tea magazine cuz I love it. I love reading about tea. Did you know that black, green, yellow, and white tea, all come from the same plant? The Camellia Sinensis Plant. I think I said that right. Mm. So they all come from that same plant, but it’s vary in degrees of how they oxidize it.

How they dry it, how they wither it. There’s a cut curl and [00:03:00] tear technique that they use on certain teas so it’s very interesting how they make teas. Tea is very complicated. And so, getting back to the Pu’erh that you had, comes from the Yunnan province of China, and it’s the only tea that actually goes through a fermentation process.

it’s kind of like an age one or whiskey because the longer you have the tea, the profile changes, and the better it gets. They describe it as a tea within a niche market, within a niche market. So this tea is not for the casual drinker, so anyway. But getting to about the tea, they press it into these Frisbee-shaped cakes or small bricks in large quantities. And this was a practice from the Ming Dynasty because it was good for long travels. So anyway, it’s aged. It can be bitter, harsh, smoky, smooth, or sweet, compared to the other flavors produced by the fresher leaves. You know, like I said, depending on [00:04:00] how long you have it, and you don’t even have to brew it that long, you actually, if you get pure Pu’erh tea, that’s not mixed already for you, then you only have to steep it for like 20 to 30 seconds.

The first. The tea, you have to wash it first. It’s like a whole process, but it does have a lot of different benefits to it. So they say but they’re still looking into all the benefits of the tea.

Interesting. Very interesting. Yeah. Very good randomness today, Miss D.

Oh yeah. Thank you

Alicja: I love it.

Dee: All right, so let’s move on to your topic. You wanna go ahead and get us started?

Yeah, I would love to. So I am an alumnus of the More College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, and I was reading our More magazine and the president of More College of Art wrote in the article that the arts are for everyone.

And it got me thinking, do I really believe that? Do I believe that? Arts for everyone and, [00:05:00] and since d and I are interior designers, I thought about living in art. And we typically live in art every day. I mean, our homes are art. Our whole world is a canvas. And I mean that literally like we are, living and experiencing.

Art and artistic expression in our everyday lives. Mm-hmm. , everything. We touch every, a lot of the things that we do have art at their base. And when I say art, I’m not talking about paintings, I’m talking about. The materials that we use were created. So when I think of art, I think of something that was created, something that was new and fresh and came and was born out of someone at some time.

It may be ancient times, it may go way back, but I, I thought about ancient times and I thought about the pyramids, and then I began to think [00:06:00] about our houses and. What sparked my thoughts were the stairs. If you have stairs in your home, even if it’s the front steps that lead into the house. That goes right back to the pyramids and the structures of being able to climb.

And you look at the stringers and the steps and the rises, and you should see the varied. Types of stairs and houses. They’re just plentiful. And some of them are wonderfully artistic. Some of them are just utilitarian. You just got your stairs, you go up and down, but what a, what a concept. You know what a concept of being able to put houses on multiple levels.

I was in a house in Philadelphia not too long ago. It had five stories. I was thinking to myself, oh my Lord. Of course, there were only like two rooms on every floor. But what a concept for saving space. And then I began to think about, well, if we are all [00:07:00] living in art, in our homes, in our environments, our art, What else is an artistic expression?

And I just began to look around at the furnishings. Every single piece of furniture was crafted by someone. Whether you have old pieces of furniture like I do, or if you have newer replicas of something that was made centuries ago, just look at their shapes of them. Yes, they’re utilitarian. They’re there to hold stuff.

They’re there to make sure that you could put a lamp on it or you can sleep in it. But incredible how many pieces are around our houses. And of course, some people are probably thinking yeah, in your house, maybe. But no, all of our houses, let’s go to functional items. Like stoves, washing machines, refrigerators, I mean, it’s endless mirrors.

You know, we look at ourselves every day before we go out to work or before we do whatever. Everything was created at [00:08:00] one point, and that is art. What do you think about that D

Oh, that’s interesting. I thought you were going to come from a different perspective. So yes, Everything in our lives is created from art.

Even when you think about your vehicle. Like you may not think your vehicle was a work of art, but an interior designer and a designer, car designer got together and thought about how do we make the car look like movement? Especially when you get into the luxury class, right? How do we make the car look like movement?

The cars are sculpted first and they scoped out the body and it’s, it’s this whole artistic process and then even from the way that they choose the materials for your seating, your dashboard, the way it looks, they, they thought all about that in an artistic way.

Alicja: Exactly.

Dee: But I was just using that as an example that, yes, a lot of things in our lives are influenced by art. And we’re just not always paying attention to them unless we’re highly sensitive.

Alicja: That’s right.[00:09:00]

Dee: so when you were saying art in your home, everyone can have art. I was thinking of how can you.

Build a home that fuels your creativity. Because even if you don’t see yourself as a creative person, what if you like to write? What if you like to do poetry? What if you like to craft? Sometimes? What if you see an object in your house and it looks kind of boring and you wanna elevate it? You know you watch these videos on YouTube and you’re like, Oh, I have an idea.

I think I might try that. So you take your vase, you tape it off, and you start to paint it in different ways and stuff like that. And now you’ve created a piece of art for yourself to put your flowers in that you can enjoy, even though you may do something different for work. We as a species, always want to be surrounded by some type of art.

I mean, they found. Drawings in the caves, right? And some of them were, okay, look out for this bear. Look out for that bear. But some of them were actually just expressionistic. They just were [00:10:00] expressing themselves in an art form way, and they found that out. They were making pottery. They had to put the markings on the pottery.

They could have just made a plan, no pottery. Mm-hmm. . They didn’t have to make it these beautiful shapes and make it all intrinsic and then carve into it. They did it because yes, it represented their tribal heritage or culture, but they also did it cuz they like to look at something nice. Right.

Alicja: You know, I totally agree with you.

I think that there are some of us out there in the world who are. Creative, and I think it’s a good idea to encourage people to take part in being a creator in their homes. And I think if we don’t necessarily see our houses as a creative canvas or an opportunity for creativity, these are ways that we can start.

To infuse our personalities into our homes. I know we’ve talked about this a lot over the. Years in general how you as a [00:11:00] homeowner or as a, you know, a person living in space can begin to change your perception a little bit of the space. And not to put pressure on anyone, cuz there are a lot of people who, I talk to people all the time, they’re like, My God, I don’t know what to do.

I am completely not creative. I don’t know how I’m gonna make this house. I need you. I need you. Yes, you do need us. But we do want to know who you are and when D and I design, we don’t design with ourselves in mind. We design with the client in mind. So we do need for you to get a little in touch with what you’d like and what you would like to see in your spaces.

And so as an exercise, I’d like to encourage. All of our listeners see the home as a creative space and you as the artist creating in that space. As much as that may seem like a very daunting task, it’s really not. You’ve already, you’ve already done it and many of you’re probably saying Yeah, but not very [00:12:00] well.

But you have, So what I’d like to encourage you to do is, Walk your home. You know, walk your space, look at things differently. I really wanna encourage you to see things, which is why I was talking about looking at everything in your home. You chose those things, whether you like them or not. You chose them and to look at them more critically and see why, and appreciate them.

In a very different way. And d I know because you are all about minimalistic living.

Dee: I’m not. I’m not. I’m not a minimalist. I’m just, I think, calling it a conventionalist because I think you should have things in your home that use love. Right. And that’s it. And if you happen to love a lot of things and you use a lot of things, use is the really big key here, then I’m cool with it.

I mean, you don’t have to stick to my rule of five furniture pieces in the bedroom or less. But that’s what I recommend.

Alicja: I don’t want people to do anything differently [00:13:00] except see differently. And I’ve given them a couple of things to do. If you could walk your home and walk your space and look around it and see it as artistic expression, see it as art. See everything as art, and you don’t have to do it at home.

Only you could do it as you walk around. And I’m telling you, there’s not a new concept at all. Like if you do much research on this, you will find, you don’t even have to do a lot. You will find that everything in our lives is an expression of art. So I just want people to not feel the pressure that they have to create art or buy art.

Because when you say art, everyone just thinks of stuff. You hang on the walls. Yeah. No, it’s, It’s so not that every single thing we’re living with is art. Now, I will suggest. That there are more visually expressive items that you could choose but I don’t, I don’t think that one is better than the [00:14:00] other.

Dee: Once you do look at your home and it doesn’t inspire you and you can’t find art within it, cuz some people just are not attuned that way, You know, unless it looks like art to them and it smacks them in their face and it looks like something different or wonky, they may not see it as art.

Unless they do have antiques. Because sometimes a lot of the antiques, you know, they had the motifs, they had Greek key, they had ex form legs. And like you were talking before about, the pyramids and things like that.

She

Alicja: Fabric is, is art too.

This is why I’m saying d I think, it’s not deep. It’s really very. It’s all around us. And I know that I live in a house that may have a lot more layers and different textures and different patterns and finishes, and I do, I mean, I’m sitting in my bedroom and I’m looking around and I’m like, Okay, I got a lot going on.

And it’s not a busy space, but it just has, even my lamps are textured and the mirror is textured. And the headboard [00:15:00] is stylized, you know, But everybody doesn’t have that. They may be in, you know, may have a very clean aesthetic, very, very plain. But it’s all art.

Dee: What I’m curious about is, okay, so you want people to walk around and look and observe and see if they can find some art in their home.

So what would this do for them? What if they look around and they’re like, You know what, I like plain fabrics, so everything in my house is solid. I don’t like patterns.

What if everything I look around is just like, No,

Alicja: no, no. Like, did you miss it? I was talking about everything. So if they have a stove in their house, that’s not solid,

Dee: right? It’s not. But I’m just saying, what if some people just can’t? So what if they, what if they’re like, Okay, I looked at the space. I see what you mean.

The stove is art. The dresser art, but I find it all very boring. What do I do? I wanna change it. Now you’re having me look at my space differently. I see what you mean about the stairs. They look very utilitarian to me. You know what if people are just [00:16:00] like, now that I’ve looked at everything, it’s so boring.

How can I change it? Or do you want them to make any adjustments? How can they live with that, with more of that creativity? Or do you want them to just observe everything and appreciate it.

Alicja: I do, I want them to observe and appreciate and not be intimidated by art, because art is for everyone.

That’s, really what my thought is. And then if they feel like they don’t have anything, then they really do need to call us. Okay. No, I’m serious. Like they, they really need some help because if you can appreciate it, then you probably need a little assistance. If there’s nothing, you feel there’s nothing, then I think that you know, that person and I get those calls, I get those people.

I get people, me too, who need help, and I get that. I’m not saying that you know, this is super easy or else we would need to talk about it. Mm-hmm. , But it is A very simplistic concept, and I didn’t think it was so academic that, you [00:17:00] know, most of us can’t grasp it. I do believe most of us can grasp it, and even the people who are having difficulty grasping it, at least they’ll know enough to say, You know what, maybe I do really need some help with this, and that’s cool too.

Dee: All right. Well, that was interesting. So if you want more advice or you’re looking for some creative ways to inject some art into your home, we’re here for you. So, mm-hmm. , you can always contact us at [email protected] We thank you so much for listening. Don’t forget to share this podcast with a friend. Sharing is caring, and that’s how we spread the word about the pod.

If you really like it, you listen to it every week, and I know you do cuz I see the numbers. I know you’re listening. Why aren’t you telling other people about it? Don’t keep it to yourself. I know how much you love us. I know you love us so much, you wanna keep us the best-kept secret, but you know what,

Alicja: no, don’t do it.

Don’t do it.

Dee: Share. [00:18:00] If you’re listening on Spotify, go ahead and rate us. You know, there’s a star there when you go to our podcast page. If you’re not following us, make sure you hit that follow or subscribe or forget what it says on Spotify. Apple is a similar thing. You can rate us there too, but you can write a review.

That’d be great. We’d love to read it. If we haven’t read any of our reviews, we probably should, but there’s a lot now, so I don’t think I wanna go back and read 67 or 80 some odd. I do, I do. Okay. We’ll have an episode where

Alicja: we read all the reviews. . Well, not on the thing, but on the podcast. Podcast though.

Dee: And so what did I wanna say? Yeah, So make sure you are sharing with us, Make sure you are visiting our links in our podcast notes. We are an affiliate of David’s tea. We’re not asking you to give us any money at all, but if you support our affiliate, Then that helps support us if you’re gonna buy tea anyway, you might as well get it from through us.

Right? Might as well hook us up and drink some of the tea [00:19:00] that we’ve sipped on. Cuz you know, we have a nice pallet for tea. But we also have some other affiliates. I don’t know how to integrate them into the pod, so I had to put their links in and we’ll figure it out later. They’ll be on the website: http://www.teaoverinteriors.com one of these days very soon, and we will have some special offers for you once I figure that all out.

But yes, I have like 3000 jobs, so bear with me. Okay? , I love you guys. Thanks for listening. What about you, Alicia?

Alicja: I ditto. Okay. I love our listeners. I feel so very blessed to have everyone. We know that you’re out there and, We do this because we know that you are inspired by it. We know that you want us to continue to bring you. Content and so yeah, we appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Dee: Bye guys. See you next week.

Alicja: Take care.