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Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder

Wonderment and beauty come in different forms. Some of us see beauty in the shining sun while others see it as a potential health threat. The same goes for money – to some of us it is a divine right of passage, to others it is the root of all evil.

When I walked into the new home of Maurice Teek, I saw beauty everywhere. The Ligne Roset sofa, the metal end table with cut-out leaf pattern, the black and white swivel cube coffee table and the dancing beams of light coming through the tall glass windows were electrifying. The owners, Maurice and Valerie, created their dream home from the ground up, with art and artistic findings that spanned the globe.

Yet I couldn’t help but be just as gleeful when I rode the train home to Palm Beach County. I was relieved that I didn’t have to brave the highway (a daredevil’s task) and was comforted by the sweet glances of strangers. To most people taking a train in South Florida is akin to sleeping on the street, but to me it was a dream sequence of the unknown – a cool respite from the warm night and a relatively mindless mode of transport.

Beauty also lies in the faces and figures of those around us. A tall blond model or chisel faced macho man enlighten our intangible sense of the visual (like a fine work of art). Yet, to many of us the Ugly Doll is a pretty sight. This plush stuffed doll doesn’t fit the prototypical beauty standard of our times. As a matter of fact, the doll is ugly and that’s why so many of us love them (and so many have sold worldwide).

The Ugly Doll would not get a date at a single’s dance, nor would an Ugly Doll get picked up to grace the cover of Ocean Drive Magazine (I couldn’t even get an interview for a writer’s position there) but on Uglyverse the Ugly Doll is beautiful. You know why, because on Uglyverse ugly means unique and special.

Beauty also takes on a new dimension at the “Collecting Biennial” exhibit at the Whitney Museum in New York City. It is there you can see Louise Bourgeois’s Pink Days and Blue Days. This very haute hot artwork consists of pink dresses hanging in mid-air from iron rods wrapped around enlarged human bones. The concept of beauty also takes a unique twist with Allan McCollum. This artist took 288 picture frames and filled them with black paper (it took him seven years to do this).

Beauty also lies within the simplistic in the art world. Sherrie Levine framed a piece of plywood with a few drops of oil on it and called it art – and lo and behold the Whitney Museum of Art agrees with her. This carpenter’s tool has been decreed a national art treasure and is worth a lot more than a condo on A1A (go figure).

This is not to say that the standard of beauty in our culture has changed. We still agree that Angelina Jolie and Heidi Klum are unequivocally beautiful. But most of us would agree that Klum’s husband Seal is anything but beautiful – which gives meaning to my original conclusion that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And for that I am grateful – because to someone we are all beautiful.

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