Regifting

[magid]

Yesterday I saw a Macy's ad on a bus with the slogan "Regifting is for wimps". My initial reaction: no, it's not, and what an obvious sort of commercial, playing off people's insecurities. And then in today's Globe there's an article on regifting, the etiquette thereof, etc. Perhaps it's my thriftiness/cheapness/frugality coming to the fore, but it just doesn't seem like that big a deal.

I've always thought that if someone gave me a gift that I didn't need/ already had one/ was the wrong size and not returnable/ was inconvenient in some way or another (Where to put that life-sized stuffed baby elephant?), it was perfectly acceptable to give it to someone else, if I thought the next recipient would enjoy it. I don't know that I'd go tell the original giver, but if they asked about it, I would tell them why I'd regifted, and that would be that.

Of course, it matters more to me what other people think about this one, since you/they would be the pool of recipients and/or original givers. So.... what do you think about regifting? Is it perfectly ok? Is it ok only as long as no one twigs on to what you're doing? Is it ok only if there's a significant amount of time before regifting? Or is it completely anathema?

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

You're right about certain unique items being pretty much un-regiftable (I'm lucky that the art I was given last year was not only made by friends, but also totally to my taste :-). Fortunately or not, it seems that the vast majority of presents exchanged during the Season of Holiday Shopping are mass-produced, so fall into the easily-regifted category.

(In re: meat as gifts: the sister of a friend was gifted, along with the rest of the family, with a product called "Yard o' Beef". She's vegetarian...)

I'm curious: I didn't know you paint. What media do you use? What do you like to paint?

You reminded me of a situation that could've been awkward. Friend A helped me (finally) get paintings hung at my house, including putting up two small paintings by her friend, B. Some years later, B stayed with me overnight, and was surprised to see her paintings at my house. It turned out she'd forgotten about them. She was very nice and said things about being happy I liked them, wanted them up, etc, but now I start to wonder if she was making the best of the situation...

[cellio]

(In re: meat as gifts: the sister of a friend was gifted, along with the rest of the family, with a product called "Yard o' Beef". She's vegetarian...)

Oops. I take it this was from someone who should have known better?

I'm curious: I didn't know you paint. What media do you use? What do you like to paint?

Lately, not much. I used to do a lot of scrolls in the SCA -- so pieces of art based on medieval/renaissance illumination (like in books of hours and similar manuscripts). This doesn't have a lot of non-SCA practical applications, except that some of those pages are almost entirely art, so I could conceive of doing a painting like that as a gift to a non-SCA person. (Or pressing a friendly calligrapher into service to letter a short poem and illuminate that, or something.) I use guaches mainly, and india ink for inking, on heavy acid-free paper. I've worked with gold leaf a little but that's hard and I'm not very good, so I tend toward gold paint instead.

I've fallen out of the habit, having realized that I'm not that good and my vision makes some ought-to-be-simple tasks into nuisances. But I owe a good friend a piece (gotta poke the calligrapher), and I'm actually trying to teach a friend some so that someone will get some benefit out of my years of playing with this stuff. :-)

I've found that I enjoy drawing more than painting, so I could see myself getting into charcoals or colored pencils or prismacolor or something like that. I'd like to learn how to draw people and animals better someday. I could also see myself doing fantasy-oriented stuff like you see at cons -- not to sell (there's that "not very good" factor again) but as gifts for particular friends.

[magid.livejournal.com]

The impression I have is that it was from someone who, had they thought, would've realized, but was doing the "generic gift to all family members" thing.

I should've guessed you illuminated pieces for the SCA; that fits. I definitely think of that as art, which doesn't need "practical" applications, other than beauty.

I don't know the practical difference between working with gold leaf and gold paint, though just from the sound of it paint would be easier, just another color of the regular paint you use.

Is there an adult ed place nearby? I have a friend who took a figure drawing class locally, and seemed pleased with it (Er, in your copious free time...).

[cellio]

I don't know the practical difference between working with gold leaf and gold paint

Paint, as you said, just involves doing what you're already doing with a different color.

For gold leaf, you have to treat the surface first -- optionally build up a raised area for that 3-D effect, and apply a binder regardless. Then you take thin sheets of delicate, expensive gold, lay them gently on top of the treated area, and make them stick. The process is sensitive to humidity, so this isn't a sure thing. And breathing on the sheet mid-air can have unfortunate results.

There are actually two kinds of gold leaf, what I just described and a kind where the sheet is on a backing (glassine, like those envelopes that stamps used to come in). For the latter, instead of moving the sheet through the air with tweezers, you take the sheet and plop it down, gold side down, and peel away the backing. The reason anyone bothers with the former kind is that you can get a much better shine out of it when you burnish it -- or so I'm told, anyway. But even if you use the stuff with the backing, you still have the problem of getting the humidity and binder just right. When these things aren't just right you can get flaking, or irregular globs, or the like. You usually add multiple layers of the gold anyway, so in small amounts that's not a problem, but it can be annoying. And sometimes the answer is "too humid today; try again tomorrow", which sucks if you're in a hurry. And you need to do the gold leaf first, becasue otherwise the leaf will stick to your painted areas.

Is there an adult ed place nearby?

Yeah -- but as you guessed, it's the "copious free time" thing. :-) Someday...

[magid.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the explanation; I hadn't realized that working with gold leaf was anywhere near as finicky as it is. I suppose the effect is enough different, or there's a snob factor, else everyone would be using the paint.

adult ed

Well, if you take a break from one group or another, there might be time to fit in a class...

OK, and to take this totally and completely off-topic (as if it already weren't, just a bit :-), are you planning to come to Arisia this year?
If so, I might have to get the cookies I saw at Bread&Circus/Whole Foods: Monica's brand.

[cellio]

I suppose the effect is enough different, or there's a snob factor, else everyone would be using the paint.

The effect is somewhat different. You can buff gold leaf to a bright shine, and no matter what you do with paint, there'll always be brush strokes visible to anyone who looks closely. And yeah, there's a snob factor too -- only the real stuff, not the paint, for the duke's personal prayer book etc. :-)

OK, and to take this totally and completely off-topic

Oh, like that's unusual for us. :-)

Arisia: Sadly, I think I'm leaning against this year, though I guess I've got a couple weeks to change my mind and still get an affordable plane ticket. There's something big, important, and hectic going on at work (due in February), but it looks like I'm not very involved. And it would only be one vacation day. Hmm. (I'll probably end up wussing out -- while I'd love to see the folks up your way, I also hate travelling.)

[magid.livejournal.com]

I guess I am not enough of a snob for many consumer goods in general, so while I can well imagine a duke wanting gold for his siddur (as it were), I'd just be happy to have such a beautiful one. Hrm, though I'd think it would be trickier to daven out of than a printed one, in the long run. (Have you seen the Moss Haggaddah? Gorgeous, but meant to be looked at rather than used.)

off-topic

Totally unusual. Yeah.

Arisia: Ah, well. It would've been cool to meet in meat space and all, but there's always next year, when there's the possibility of no big work project in February... (Next year in Boston? Hm.)

[cellio]

Hrm, though I'd think it would be trickier to daven out of than a printed one, in the long run.

The heyday of books of hours came before the printing press. I don't know how long the transitional period was -- when you could get a printed edition but hand-painted originals were preferable.

Some of the surviving books of hours show obvious signs of use, though, so they weren't (always) just for show. There are cases where you can tell where the user routinely kissed the page (usually on a cross -- these are Christian books), because the paint has been sort of smudged away in a way different from the wear of the facing page rubbing it.

(Have you seen the Moss Haggaddah? Gorgeous, but meant to be looked at rather than used.)

I don't know that one. Does it exist in facsimile, or is pilgrimage to a particular museum required in order to see it?

Speaking of being off-topic, happy bath day! With bath day and the first day to pray for rain and a snowstorm (according to your weather), you've got a real wetness theme going today. :-)

(Next year in Boston? Hm.)

:-)

[magid.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of calligraphed v. printed books now, not really in historical context; of course, before the press, you took what you could get, and even after, the cachet of hand work and detail has a lot going for it (especially compared to some of the early complicated German fonts in use :-).

Moss Haggaddah

It was orginally commissioned; I don't know where the originals are, with the guy who paid for them (Moss? Or is that the calligrapher? I don't know.) or in a museum. However, there have been books printed with facsimiles; I'd assume some library with a biggish Judaica section would have a copy.

bath day

A wet day, indeed! Happily, the snowstorm isn't starting until late tonight, so it won't get in the way of Shabbat prep :-). 3-6 inches are predicted, of wet snow, too. It ought to be interesting... At least I won't have a commute in it. Happy geshem-ing :-)