Southwestern decor has always held a special place in my life. I think I most recently realized this when moving from my home state of Arizona to a small town in upstate New York. It was crazy and extremely overwhelming. I was having such a hard time adjusting, so much so, that it started to affect my health. Anxiety and depression hung over my head like a black cloud. I couldn’t find any comfort in my own head. After a few months, I couldn’t take anymore. I decided to make the best of things by taking our four bed, two bath rental and making it our own. Because it was a rental there was not a lot that I could do but I took baby steps forward.
Southwestern vs Western Style
Room by room, I went through that house, looked for anything and everything that made me uncomfortable or that I may be really enjoyed. Once I had an idea of what I wanted to do I slowly started to change, and it was exciting! I brought in colors that brought my mood up. I lit up the dark rooms that I would hide it when I just felt like giving up. Southwestern decor allowed me to change my life, crawl out of a dark spot, and made me feel like I was home, even though I was thousands of miles away. I couldn’t be more appreciative for being able to adapt in the world through southwestern decorating.
Aesthetics is a philosophy that deals with assigning life value on beauty and test. It a philosophy that is as ancient as man himself because it is tangled within the very physical nature of humanity. By nature, man attribute value on things seen, heard and tested. This value is measured in the degree of beauty and test. For example, a green and flowering garden is considered as a vineyard of abundant life and of divine favor while its opposite is considered to be a place of suffering hence hell on earth. A beautiful piece of music is a source of soul relaxation, peacefulness and love. At the same time, a good and testy meal is considered by those who partake of it as a sign of hospitality and care from the one who prepared it.
The art of aesthetics has played a major role in the socialization of the world. In the religious world, the art of beauty and test has been used since the advent of religion to communicate God to the human senses. For example, in the Jewish religion, sweet testing aroma were burned on the altar, the temple décor was unmatched in contemporary times while bread, wine and meat from sacrifices were served to worshipers as a symbol of life. History of religion reveals that nothing has ever penetrated the soul of mankind like the beauty of the religious songs. To sum up, human beings behold God the creator in the beauty.
This notion has been founded on the fact that the created world is outstandingly beautiful and thus reflect its creator. As a consequence, the décor of the church is expected to be exceptional in its beauty because worshipers equate it with the presence of God. Psychology of worship contend that a church that ignore aesthetics in its worship risk to lose the sense of God’s own presence among the worshipers.
Love is an ultimate social aspect sought by humanity. Love means everything in life and where love abounds, life abounds also because there live peace and prosperity. In the social world, there is nothing that physically communicates love like the aesthetical arts. One is able to tell a wedding ceremony by far by just perceiving the décor of the environment. In addition, it is possible that one can notice a house prepared for very important visitors by looking at the western decor in the siting room with the western and southwestern style in the area rug design. A visitor is able to tell how much is loved by the amount of decorations made to the environment. We are all conscious of how it can be disturbing to a visitor who is welcome in a smelly and dirty house full of all horrible things.
A sense of rejection, worthlessness and fear will always crawl into the mind of that visitor in a situation such as this. Though the word of rejection and worthlessness has not been verbally spoken, the host in this manner has physically communicated the opposite of love to the visitor. Most of the discrimination cases we hear of in our homes, institutions and places of work are not spoken words but are actions void of decor done against the victims of discrimination. For example, assigning a rusty hostel to a new arrived student or giving badly cooked food to a stranger in the house, is enough to make one feel rejected hence discriminated in the community.