Notes From the Field: Marble Eyed

By Cheryl Katz

As a kid, I opted to spend most of my free time indoors changing my dolls’ clothes. Ginny, my favorite, was the busiest. She had lots of places to go. With restaurants dates in our kitchen and ballet performances in our cellar to attend, I became her lady-in waiting, scurrying around to find just the right ensemble for her to wear.

The only thing that lured me out of doors and away from Ginny’s vast wardrobe – my Aunt Lee helped keep us both well attired – was a game of marbles.

It wasn’t a competitive spirit that attracted me to that little hole in the ground that the kids in the neighborhood had furrowed out for the match. Rather, it was my mad attraction to the swirly patterns in the colorful orbs.

As my attention shifted from dolls to boys and cars and mini-skirts I forgot about those marbles and the delight they brought. Until, about ten years ago, when my friend Tarek found a cache of marbleized paper which he decided to use as gift-wrap and of which I was the lucky recipient.

And though I never would have let on to my marble- playing pals that it was the strong pull of the marble not the game that got me out of doors, it seems I wasn’t alone in my infatuation.

John Derian’s latest collaboration with the French porcelain company Astier de Vilette

Liz O’Brien’s chic Albert Table.

Peter Som’s Spring 2014 fashion collection

Seems that dizzying, mesmerizing pattern has more than one devotee.