Beauty Q&A With Maria Lilja
On thinking less and doing more
This week’s Beauty Q & A features a unique beauty hunter, Maria Lilja. Before Maria Lilja moved to New York City from Seattle, years ago, she was a friend with whom I had a lot of social adventures that exalted the senses. We showed up at parties where we knew absolutely no one and laughed our asses off; once, when I picked her up for one of these parties, she was just finishing sewing her dress for the night! We flew in a float plane to an island wedding, and took long walks to dinner on spring nights, rambling home under the crescent moon, and stopping to stare at the sky every 20 steps.
Maria lived in a house with a small yard on top of Queen Anne Hill. One year, she stood on her deck, threw a bunch of wildflower seeds at a patch of soil on the far side of her lawn, and by summer there was a bright field of colors that tickled everyone’s fancy. I think of this wild gardening act every time I see wildflowers. Sometimes, I chalked her aesthetic up to her Swedish roots.
These days, Maria lives just outside Woodstock, NY (after 20 years in NYC) with her partner, Dan, and designs children’s books. Read on for this delightful human’s take on Beauty and why she once wept at a furniture warehouse.
How would you define “Beauty”? What does “Beauty” mean to you?
Early in my relationship, my boyfriend took us to look at beds at a warehouse store on Park Avenue South and 32nd in NYC. It was a vast, soul-crushing expanse of factory-produced, dark wood bed frames and naked mattresses. I promptly started crying, something that surprised my boyfriend as much as it did me.
Turns out I’m a bit sensitive to environments!
Yet, when we were first asked to define Beauty in the Salon, I thought that it narrowly applied only to an amazing object that someone designed or created. Actually, the idea of discussing beauty made me uncomfortable, in that it would appear superficial or indulgent. In hindsight, I was probably a little embarrassed because I realized beauty encapsulates everything to me; it’s the whole aesthetic of an environment.
And broadening the definition, I realize beauty doesn’t have to be just a designed object. Obvious! It can be anything that brings comfort and a sense of delight. It can involve all the senses. A flavor can be beautiful. It can be something quotidian, like the beautifully-designed, recycled sesame seed oil bottle that now holds a flower, or the extra wide gutters that carry rain off the roof. Or, it’s tactile, in how the wood grain of the reclaimed teak table where I work feels to the touch of my hand, or the softness of a wool blanket. Or, in nature. Again, obvious!
I like deliberate beauty—something created by an artist or craftsperson. I also like accidental beauty—how certain weeds popping up in the garden make a beautiful texture, or the beauty in a collection of thrown-together objects.
Has your experience with “Beauty” changed over time?
I’ve become better at articulating what beauty “needs” I might have—better attuned emotionally to my environment and how I need certain colors, textures, materials, or sunlight and nature. I understand that beauty can be soothing. I see value in taking care of the things I have. For example, cleaning can be an act of bringing out beauty and showing gratitude, such as: nurturing the black currant bushes I planted as barefoot plants that so generously produced kilos of berries this summer.
How do you keep beauty alive in your life? And how do you do it in especially trying times (like now)?
By committing to learning new things to engage and distract the brain. Not thinking too much, just doing. I’ve been studying screen printing with a wonderful teacher in a beautifully-maintained old stone building with soaring ceilings. You meticulously design and build your screens as layers that then print on thick paper. There’s a lot of adrenaline involved because your hands have to move fast so the ink doesn’t dry on the screen. Each layer introduces new colors and little accidents happen in the process that lends a sense of magic and delight to each print.
In the Salon you brought up the necessity (or helpfulness) of Kindness. Can you tell us your take on kindness?
What I started thinking in the Salon was that “Beauty” (or the Pursuit of Beauty) could be seen as a mission statement for living, and that beneath that are our action statements—“Kindness” being one action to take. I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but around that time [fall 2021] I had gotten a bit of bad news. I have short-term memory when it comes to bad stuff, but someone must have shown kindness and I faintly remember it taking a load off.
A term we’ve coined in our household is “emotional hangover”—the awful, self-hate feeling that can linger for days after some tantrum. Kindness is something you can do for yourself (and others) to pre-empt any emotional hangover.
Why is Beauty necessary to daily life and living? (And is it?)
Sure, without Beauty you might find yourself weeping on Park Avenue South and 32nd, wondering what you have done to be shopping for a bed at such a horrible place!
Show us/tell us about an object or expression of Beauty in your life.
On our dining room table right now, is the accidental pairing of a handblown vase from Svensk Tenn in Stockholm, a recycled sesame seed oil bottle with a sprig of flowers grown from seed in the garden, plus a tiny handmade ceramic bowl filled with various flavored lip balms.
Keats’ has his famous line: “'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. Any thoughts on this?
Hmmm, I’m embarrassed to say poetry goes over my head!. Plus, the “truth” part feels too absolute to my brain—is there a truth when it comes to beauty? Don’t we all have our own takes on it? I like the thought “…all ye need to know…” in that it somehow correlates with the earlier idea that the “pursuit of beauty” could be a life’s mission statement.
What is a great reason to be alive today?
Complete 180: Binge watching a great show, old or new, that you know you still have several seasons in store to watch.
After 20 years of living and working in downtown Manhattan, Maria Lilja now lives on a sunny mountainside eight miles outside Woodstock, NY, where she designs books for a children’s publisher. She is also working on her homesteader skills, tending to fruit trees, berry bushes, and a veg garden. Having spent her early years summering in the idyllic Stockholm archipelago, on an island with no cars, in a house with no running water, things have come somewhat full circle, albeit with wifi and other modern conveniences.