forts for grown-ups

I need one of these for my back yard. 

 

Suzanne Husky's Sleeper Cells blend beautifully into the outdoors, like cozy little hedgehogs or beehives, providing a small space of one's own in which to get away. Recently chosen to be one of the artists in this year's Bay Area Now at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Suzanne is an inspiring mult-disciplinary artist who talks about her thought-provoking & environmentally responsible approach to art in an interview here.

from here

happy weekend

This weekend is my love's birthday, so I am signing off early to begin the celebrations. Have a swell weekend!

bedtime stories

While the temperature outside hovers in the teens, comma workshop's lyrical & gorgeous quilts certainly struck a chord with me: a well-turned handwritten phrase paired with simple design & exquisite craftsmanship always wins my admiration. I especially love the contrasting thread & piping details & phrases wending their way along the snowy white expanse. I can imagine nothing but sweet slumbers while wrapped up in one of these beautiful pieces.

from here 

this is beautiful

 

When he received a 15-year grant from the Finnish government in 1991, photographer Pentti Sammallahti retired from his teaching position at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki in order to travel more widely & photograph the creatures, both human & animal, that crossed his lens. The softness of his detailed, delicate gelatin silver prints capture the emotional layers of both human & animal existence, lending deep personality to landscapes & cityscapes alike.

It almost feels as though an animal were behind the camera, capturing creatures doing what they do when human eyes are not upon them.

If you are in New York, be sure to catch his exhibition here

from here

happy weekend

As we get a few several more inches of snow, we're bracing ourselves for a few days of bitter cold in New England (a low of -17ºF on Sunday - that's right - minus), making it a perfect weekend for hunkering down indoors with a large pot of hearty soup simmering on the stove & fiery spirits in the belly. Have a cozy weekend!

between the pages

Holly Chastain makes delightful pieces of art & illustration using vintage books & bits of found paper, in which she incorporates the hand-written & drawn messages from previous readers to create pieces with a very personal feel. I love her use of simple form & spots of saturated color to convey detailed vignettes that tell a whole story in one page. So charming.

She also sells affordable prints of her works as well as originals here.

from here

bared bones

While wallpaper is (finally!) coming down in our bathroom & paint is slated to go up, this marvelous wall treatment caught my eye - the blue & gold together with the buff & bared plaster wall are perfectly poised in a state of suspended transition. And check out that stack of books!

The rest of the house is fantastic, as well - do check it out.

from here

happy weekend

a little spot of green relief for a snowy start to winter. have a wonderful weekend!

with this ring

new limited edition pieces

live to work

found a new site obsession...

This beautiful Brooklyn loft is home to Patrick Weder & Tamika Rivera, artist/furniture designer & artist/designer, respectively.

What don't I love about this place? It has great light, great floors, beautiful details (the pressed tin beneath the cabinets in the bedroom, the undulating rough wood kitchen countertop with rippled galvanized steel skirt, wooden beams), loads of art, has work areas integrated into the living space & is furnished with smart & elegant furniture designed by Mr. Weder himself, flecked with vintage pieces & topped off with a cat. The blackboard & anthropomorphic light fixture above the kitchen sink are killing me, in an appreciative-green-with-envy sort of way.

an afternoon with is a wonderful selby-like site where photographer Michael Mundy visits homes & takes unstyled, natural-looking photos of interiors & their inhabitants. Like peeping through windows at night to see how people have decorated, minus the potential lawsuits.

via here

yahoo!

the utterly charming & exquisitely filmed Junglee Song with Saira Banu & Shammi Kapoor

russian fairytale

Mother nature walloped us with more than 12 inches of fresh snow today, so between shoveling & clearing we got a good snowshoe in, & packed away some warm & hearty food. While my husband made heroic gains with the driveway & path to our compost heap, I made a late breakfast to go with a big pot of tea: steel cut oats with slivered almonds, bosc pears, cream & local maple syrup. 

The snowshoe was absolutely glorious; we are fortunate that our house sits on property that abuts a large swath of more than 400 acres of protected land through which 9 miles of hiking trails wend – we simply strap on our snowshoes outside our back door, & cut a path to the trailhead through our back yard. As far as we can tell, we shared some of the trails with a single snowshoer & their dog, who cut some exuberantly zig-zagging paths through the snow alongside their tracks. Blazing our own trails, we sank down into soft, pillowy snow that reached over our knees.

When we got back in, a big bowl of leftover corn chowder with a glass of tawny port did the trick to warm us up. I do believe we will sleep very well tonight...

happy weekend

We're bracing ourselves for another snow storm on the East Coast here, & the flurries have just started as I sip a little hot cocoa with a pinch of cayenne. Tomorrow I have an appointment with a friend who is a wonderful portrait artist - I'm so very flattered that she asked me to sit for her, & am excited to see the results! Here's a little homage to the "fleurs du mal" wallpaper which will disappear shortly from our bath... 

Have a lovely weekend, everyone - any plans?

illuminated upholstery

I love the idea of re-using fabric such as burlap grain sacks to reupholster furniture, what with the fantastic images & fonts that are often imprinted on them advertising coffee & flour companies from around the world. However, I have always wondered, having some first-hand experience lounging on bags of green coffee beans from the days when my husband roasted coffee, how comfortable that would actually be, especially on a hot, humid summer day. A new printing technology developed by a couple of members of the Los Angeles artist collective The Brewery have made printing bright & clear images on more lounge-friendly fabrics possible. Even better, the technology creates vivid images without any chemical treatment or process. Using the process on recycled fabrics - now that's a match made in heaven. 

I do still plan on making a stack of floor pillows from coffee bags for extra indoor & outdoor seating - bean bag chairs, anyone?

check out LUMI CO here

from here

transformative

We were very fortunate to catch an exhibition by Brian Jungen, an artist from British Columbia with Dunne-za ancestry, at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal a few years ago, a show whose inspiration stays with me to this day. Brian's playful wit & outstanding craftsmanship combine to create thought-provoking pieces which comment on the juncture between First Nations culture & contemporary consumerism by working everyday objects into traditional designs & natural objects. Plastic lawn chairs were transformed into an enormous whale skeleton that floated across the gallery, & sneakers were transmogrified into masks which, when suspended from the ceiling, recalled a ghostly ritual. Baseball skins reconfigured & stitched into a skull-like mask made for a melancholy sentinel between the two worlds.

photos from here