ABSTRACT
The collective aesthetic life of a family may be one of the more telling components of family life. An examination of the time spent together in leisure and in aesthetic pleasure may highlight consistent but otherwise muted family behavior and meaning patterns. Although the selection and interpretation of aesthetic pieces, as with many aspects of family life, appear to be informed by systemic patterns and mythology, which in turn are informed by culture of origin, that which a family does together and in a ritualistic fashion may make systemic patterns clearer than more fragmented activities and that which the family defines as “play” may display more undisguised subjective information than other behavioral aspects of daily life.
