Jonathan Adler is my new BFF
Believe it.
Three weeks ago I got a call from the terrific Cathy Bame, the doyenne of Sub-Zero and Wolf . Cathy told me that she'd recommended me to the DuPont Corporation as a good addition to a party they were hosting in Chicago during my industry's big trade show, KBIS. DuPont was being particular about who they'd put on the guest list and somehow I made the cut.
A detail of this event that I found endlessly amusing was that the official host was none other than Jonathan Adler. To make it even more precious, the party was being held at Chicago's Adler Planetarium .
The connection among Jonathan Adler and the Adler Planetarium is coincidental via the manner.
Anyhow, I was allowed to bring a date. I wanted to bring someone who would appreciate the humor of my being in the same room as the man I've made a virtual sideline out of mocking. The lucky woman I selected was none other than Cheryl Kees-Clendenon . Cheryl's a high-profile designer as well as one of the most amusing women I know. I figured that we'd have a couple of inside laughs and that would be the end of it.
The evening started with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres and there were about 50 people in attendance. Most of them were DuPont marketing people, their PR agency and then the rest of the crowd were DuPont's high-performing sales people. It was a pleasant, if reserved crowd. Cheryl and I worked out way through the buffet tables and the bar and then we spotted him.
He's smaller than I thought he'd be. That makes him my height and build. It was an odd thing to be standing so close to someone who's work I've mocked so regularly. He was surrounded by a small clot of people and before I could work my way over toward him, the hostess announced that Adler was going to give a short presentation.
Jonathan Adler took the level and proceeded to deliver approximately a half hour presentation on his existence and his paintings. He reviewed his creations from his beginning out days as a potter and then introduced the whole lot updated together with his stores and his indoors layout commercial enterprise. I uncrossed my hands after about 5 minutes.
The longer he spoke, the greater I should see that Jonathan Adler's an artist who used to battle and who can not pretty trust his appropriate fortune these days. I started out to peer that he's an moral enterprise man. I commenced to peer that he's a decent human being. He spoke candidly and truly approximately his existence at home with Simon Doonan, a person he married two years in the past at some stage in a brief window of possibility in California. That he was so forthright approximately his domestic lifestyles in front of a crowd completely no longer used to listening to such matters made me see him in a light coming near the heroic frankly.
He took some questions from the target audience after his presentation and I desired to get up and shout, "Why are not you an asshole?!" I passed on the possibility.
After he was completed I walked over and brought myself. His licensed product supervisor was standing next to him. Cheryl sells Adler lighting in her showroom. The four people stood and talked for about five minutes and it was truly fun. I'm happy I met him.
I will now not be buying any orange giraffes any time soon and that evening confirmed me once again that I can dislike an concept however nonetheless just like the character behind it. I become counting on getting a snarky publish or two out of the evening however it's not at all what I were given. No, what I were given was a lifestyles lesson. From Jonathan Adler no less.
As an endnote, when Cheryl and I were leaving the party we ran into the VP of Marketing for DuPont Surfaces. She knew who I was and we exchanged pleasantries for a moment or two while waiting for the elevator. She told me that for the party, they'd made a concerted effort to reach out to the design blog community. "Oh really? I asked, "Who else was here?" She looked at me and said, "Well, there's you and we invited Apartment Therapy."
Apartment Therapy. Ugh. I desire I never meet Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan and Oliver Ryan, the men who commenced Apartment Therapy. With my good fortune they'll be respectable humans too and I'll be out of punchlines.
Jonathan Adler's stuff can be found on his website . And that my friends is a back link.