I ran across this thing and experienced a mild zap of recognition. I know I've handled one like it somewhere, some time, in some modern-design context, but the origin and function are hovering just out of mental reach:
Picture, if you will, a beautifully-finished, heavy hardwood (walnut?) object, flattened oval in shape,
approximately the size and proportions of a medium-size bar of soap. Comforting to hold in the hand. Possibly a paperweight? For some reason,
it's not a solid block of wood, but composed of two identical halves. The dividing line, or equator, runs around the two shortest dimensions -- perpendicular to the long axis, if you see what I mean. The two halves seem designed to twist (or pull? apart) -- there's a little rotational wiggle there, but I was reluctant to force it for fear of breaking it. A secret compartment? A puzzle? My substance-abused memory keeps whispering, "MoMA design shoppe," but that could be imagination. No surface features other than a very faint white imprint on one side -- Roman characters, apparently, but too worn for me to read. It feels like the 1960s. Definitely not a doorknob or a darning egg.
Any thoughts, design sleuths?
Sounds...
very much like a Piet Hein Super egg or revolving super ellips.
Does it look anything like the picture of the Piet Hein egg in this description?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_ellipse
Did it look anything like...
Did it look anything like this?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Wooden-Bar-Treen-Egg-Figured-Wood-Bottle-Ope...
Mystery object
I have a "paperweight" on my desk that is nothing more than what has to be the most elegant, perfectly-shaped,time-smoothed piece of black basalt off a beach from Lake Michigan. It too is about the size of a bar of soap and has a lustrous finish from constant handling.
I put on little clear rubber feet so as not to scratch the glass surface of my desk. Throughout the day I will occasionally glance at it, and even though it has been there for three years, I still get pleasure from look over at it.
The point to all this is how a simple lovely shape can be so beguiling and luxurious that it can evoke such tactile pleasure. I can feel your passion for the answer to this mystery.
It not only stems from basic curiosity, by a quest for more information about who may have designed such a lovely object, but yet excercised such restraint in its execution.
Now as I grow older,I see things so differently.For example; If I see a "painfully" beautiful woman (and this should be read: ,dignified,elegant,and sublime,) I am compelled to stare - hopefully unnoticed - not with the yearning eye of a young man, but with a very different yearning. One of admiration of her beauty, the pleasure of her aesthetic. For the same reason there are benches in art museums, to give one more time to admire something lovely, In this case - someone.
This same emotion permeates how I observe everything - a mouthful of magnificent Cabernet, a gentle breeze, the sound of my children humming while they play in the next room. Sometimes being a "hopeless romantic" can be a terrible burden. Other times, being sensitive to the simple pleasures evoked by beauty can be wonderfully fullfilling.
And so,this forum impatiently awaits the indentification of a lovely little wooden "object" because we have the good fortune to "want" to know - to need to know - because it is beautiful.
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