Elizabeth Chase

Elizabeth teaches about the Design Market in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies Masters Program at The New School Parsons Paris. She also advises clients on design. She is a contributing editor for Cultured Magazine. Previously she was a European furniture specialist at Christie’s New York,  and her career started as a assistant curator at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in NY while earning an M.A. in the History of Design and Decorative Arts from Parsons The New School for Design. 

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Feeling connection which for me means having a positive impact via contribution

Which living person do you most admire? 
Murray Moss 

What is your greatest extravagance?
Reading, new pair of Church’s (Lily) that I’ve been pining over for about 6 months, 

What do you consider the most overrated virtue? 
Self-control

Which talent would you most like to have?
Seeing the wheat through the chaff

What is your most treasured possession?
I don’t have that many … I truly only own things with which I have a relationship… so they are all very meaningful to me. They carry memories and connections to people, ideas and places I love. 

What is your favorite occupation?
Right now I would say teach - with the qualifier that I am learning at least as much as I'm teaching!

What is your most marked characteristic? 
Loyalty

What do you most value in your friends? 
Loyalty

Who are your favorite writers?
Currently Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me), A.O. Scott (Better Living Through Criticism), Alice Rawsthorn (Hello World) 

What is it that you most dislike?
Superficiality

What is your greatest regret?
I would be lying if I said there was only one  - but if I had to say one - acknowledging fear.

What is your motto?
This is a quote that resonates deeply with me..., I’ve always regarded most of the non-life-saving material world as ‘souvenirs’ of more or less profound thought expressed through functional ‘things’ which, by definition, possess therefore a divine duality for which they are sometimes considered inferior to Art, rather than the other way around. - Murray Moss from his intro to Dialogues between Art and Design Oct 2012 Phillips Sale in NY. I believe it’s the other way around and it’s my goal to bring more consciousness to what it means to own objects in this world.