"I Love Kitsch: (or what the cheap tells us about sustainable design.)"

For any of us who have administered or attended an estate sale, we are very aware of the power that so-called kitsch object holds on our affections. Chalk figures of clowns or Disney characters from the 1930s, trinkets fished from the bowls of gum ball machines, or souvenirs from some long-past fair populate our homes. What was once sentiment, passes into nostalgia. But at each stage the need to hold tight to the object is strong and palpable. Even if we realize the object is insignificant, the hold of the object on us is strong. What compels us to keep the cheap? We have moved from wall calendars with landscapes by Maxfield Parrish to walls covered by the paintings of Thomas Kinkaid. It seems that we don’t live in a world of sophisticated aesthetes. Rather we live in a world where our hearts rule our minds, and where our emotions rule discretions. In this paper I explore our attraction to the cheap, simple, and sentimental. I look at how even the sophisticated can develop an enduring relationship with kitsch. I examine how the kitsch relationship--—far from being simple—is actually quite complex, and how this relationship may hold a key to imagining sustainability