Living on the Edge

I've been studying Selvedge Magazine recently (www.selvedge.org). It's a beautiful British publication that is released bi-monthly and focuses on textile, "The Fabric of Your Life" in areas of fashion, fine art, interiors, travel, and shopping. It really is a gorgeous book, it is so rich and diverse in content, scope, and in terms of photography. I recommend you pick it up if you are a lover of design and/or art.

I love how the magazine is titled after the edge of a piece of fabric. Selvage edges (or "selvedge" if you are in the UK) are the end pieces of fabric that are often discarded. While they are seemingly useless and boring they actually keep the fabric from unraveling. It's interesting how sometimes when we reach the edge or are pushed over it that we tend to unravel, but in the end, it is that act of coming undone temporarily that can hold us together in the long run. I like to think that magazines, art, or reading in general has at many times kept many of us from unraveling. In reading words we are provided with added comfort, with inspiration, with the glue to bind ourselves together again.

The covers above are some of my favorites. The one of the girl among the books is breathtaking and the one with the woman in the field of lavender holds special meaning because it is taken from the movie Bright Star about John Keats (a poet I've always loved). And of course the map of London at Highgate is just too cute.

So I guess the lesson in this post is that some things just shouldn't be discarded or discounted because what seems like the end, the edge, the unraveling, the unnecessary, can often times be just the missing piece of fabric you needed to tie everything together - the piece you needed most. Perhaps not. But it pays to be open to the possibility. Don't you think?