Herringbone Floors from Santa

The day after Halloween has officially become the start of the holiday shopping season here in America. The stores are already selling holiday wares of all sorts. Why not start your list a little early this year? Herringbone floors add such richness, and depth, to a home. I think they look best in a place with great bones. A loft in New York, an apartment in Paris, a beautiful old home in Connecticut, and many, many more...You could hire the elves now, and they could quite possibly be done by the holiday season...

Via-Door Sixteen

The Hauntingly Beautiful Pastel and Charcoal Drawings of Iris Van Dongen

Iris Van Dongen

Born 1975 Tilburg, Netherlands 

Lives and works in Rotterdam, Netherlands 

See more here 

If I Had a Place In Paris.....

If I had a place in Paris...It might look a little like this...


Erin Featherston's Home in Paris

You, and Your Art

I LOVE these two photo's of women in their elements, with their style right there on the walls, for all to see...I have always loved it...From the old days of Victorian photographs, and paintings, climbing the walls of the stairwells, to the glamourous Park Avenue gallery walls, of the 60's and 70's. Andy Warhol had 60's era modern gallery walls, with some amazing abstracts thrown in, and in the mid-seventies, there was the rock-chic vibe going strong, with images of musicians, or red glossy lips, or whatever floated that homeowners boat. Images in the early eighties on walls were loaded with black and whites. Of course, all of these periods had there mass-produced catalog moments, like "Nagel", or posters that said "Ireland", or "Italy". It seems though, that we may be turning a corner,(and let me know if you think I am delusional). In the homes of many, not all, but many, I am seeing more personal pieces that are actually from an artist, not a mass produced "art" company...Is it true? Has our taste evolved? Have we picked up the notion from the french, finally, that we should spend a little more on the one thing, (or two, or three, depending on our budget) that makes everything look great, and then save on all the rest? Just like your wardrobe...One piece is all it takes to make the outfit.

With Love, 

Happy, hopeful, artist, (me).


Images,Top- The Selby. Bottom- Mikkel Vang

Aidan's Monsters

There is a little boy, who is a great little artist, who has a very serious disease, and a huge hospital bill. Aidan Reed is a 5 year-old boy who has been diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. In order to pay for medical bills, he sells his original artwork on Etsy, which features adorably imaginative drawings of monsters, creatures, clowns and the like. What's even more incredible is that this young artist is already a hot commodity; Aidan has sold more than 500 prints in under a month! Make sure to get your piece of art now, because he’s already sold out once...


Buy his work  here


Via- Lonny Blog

The Celestial Photographs of Sofia Ajram

The work of Sofia Ajram and the way she plays with light in these photos makes it almost seem like magic exists. I have always been attracted to anything celestial, whether it be art, clothing, books, the images of the galaxy speak to me. Whenever I look into the sky at night and see the millions of stars, it makes me realize what little control we have...And that makes me  grateful for being here...

Have a great weekend!


Via- wetbehindthears

Lonny Nails It

I try hard to not post pics that are everywhere in blogland, but I could not help myself when I read the latest issue of Lonny, as I gasped with delight when I got to the pages of Celerie Kemble's  beautifully put together home. It made me fall completely in love with the old school color of TEAL. Her home is STUNNING...

I have loved yellows for a while now, but the pic above, brings the color to a whole other level. LOVE the fabric of the couches and the mirror,tarnished and warped to perfection... the black lampshades... Just cook me for dinner...I am melting...

Have a Great Weekend!

 Super talented photographer is Allison V. Smith. See more here

Rudolf Schlichter (1890-1955)

"Portrait of Karola Neher" 1929
This is one of my favorite portrait paintings ever...

The colors and outfit of this woman are so fantastic, it seems to me I may have met this woman today, somewhere, maybe at a flea market? Karola, was her name, and she stood out from the others, in her time, I am guessing.

Karola Neher was a well-known actress in Germany during the inter-war period and played Polly Peachum in the 1931 film adaptation of the theatrical hit The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht. Neher was also Brecht’s mistress for a time. A Communist sympathiser, Neher fled to Moscow with her second husband Anatol Becker in 1934. There they became victims of the Stalinist purges, Becker being executed by firing squad in 1937 while Neher was sentenced to ten years in a labour camp. She died of typhoid in a camp in 1942 aged 41.

This magnificent portrait was presumed lost until 2007.

"Margot"

"Speedy Half Nude"

Drunkards


Rudolph Schlichter was a German artist closely associated with the New 
Objectivity movement. The Nazis deemed his depictions of the realities 
of social life in Berlin degenerate and his studio was destroyed.
 His work became surrealist after the war. 

Artist and Feather - Kate MccGwire

I can appreciate all kinds of installation art, but this is the kind that

makes my mouth hang wide open for days...

Heave - 2008 Pigeon Fight Feathers - Felt and Wood Installation Evacuate, 2010

Site-specific installation Mixed media with feathers (Mallard, goose, peacock, pheasant, teal, woodcock, woodpigeon, quail, grouse, French partridge, turkey and chicken) 400 x 350 x 120 cm (approximately) Kate MccGwire's work asks questions about the very nature of beauty. She's intrigued by the possibility of envisaging beauty as something more complex than merely what delights the senses: beauty can be about a problem; it can be something that repels you or makes you question the status quo. The idea that it is a cultural phenomenon, susceptible to argument through the creative process, fascinates her. She will take an everyday thing or idea that is intrinsically discomfiting and, by re-framing it, entice the viewer into re-examining their preconceptions and prejudices - cultural, historical, personal - about the everyday. The viewer's response is visceral, the impact immediate, the ideas triggered resonating in their mind somewhere beyond rational interpretation. For more info on Kate, go - here.    Photos by Jonty Wilde

Heave - 2008

Pigeon Fight Feathers - Felt and Wood Installation



Evacuate, 2010

Site-specific installation Mixed media with feathers (Mallard, goose, peacock, pheasant, teal, woodcock, woodpigeon, quail, grouse, French partridge, turkey and chicken) 400 x 350 x 120 cm (approximately) Kate MccGwire's work asks questions about the very nature of beauty. She's intrigued by the possibility of envisaging beauty as something more complex than merely what delights the senses: beauty can be about a problem; it can be something that repels you or makes you question the status quo. The idea that it is a cultural phenomenon, susceptible to argument through the creative process, fascinates her. She will take an everyday thing or idea that is intrinsically discomfiting and, by re-framing it, entice the viewer into re-examining their preconceptions and prejudices - cultural, historical, personal - about the everyday. The viewer's response is visceral, the impact immediate, the ideas triggered resonating in their mind somewhere beyond rational interpretation. For more info on Kate, go - here.    Photos by Jonty Wilde

Site-specific installation
Mixed media with feathers (Mallard, goose, peacock, pheasant, teal, woodcock, woodpigeon, quail, grouse, French partridge, turkey and chicken)
400 x 350 x 120 cm (approximately)

Kate MccGwire's work asks questions about the very nature of beauty. She's intrigued by the possibility of envisaging beauty as something more complex than merely what delights the senses: beauty can be about a problem; it can be something that repels you or makes you question the status quo. The idea that it is a cultural phenomenon, susceptible to argument through the creative process, fascinates her.

She will take an everyday thing or idea that is intrinsically discomfiting and, by re-framing it, entice the viewer into re-examining their preconceptions and prejudices - cultural, historical, personal - about the everyday. The viewer's response is visceral, the impact immediate, the ideas triggered resonating in their mind somewhere beyond rational interpretation.


For more info on Kate, go - here.    Photos by Jonty Wilde

Have a Great Weekend!

Leaves falling all around...Some parts of the country already seeing some snow! This is the best time for delicious smelling kitchens, warm fires, and baking galore...What makes you happiest about fall?

Photo via-The Dreamer Gallery

The Art of Magic Jewelry

Anndra Neen is a collection of jewelry, and clutches, made by two super stylish sisters, Phoebe and Annette Stephens, from Mexico City. These girls know how to make sophisticated, bold, statement jewelry, and I think they have a very successful future.

The necklace above is soooo insane....I bet it hypnotizes you, if you look too long at the round magic stone...

Below, a jewelry artist named Jody Candrian, from Arizona, is making these gorgeous cuffs that I bet cut through steel doors with laser beams...or so I imagine...

I am a cuff girl all the way....I like to glam it up with a large cuff...I feel like wonder woman...Hope you like!

Via- Capitol

Video of the Month - Space Girl Dance

This video was filmed in Mexico City, a city with super stylish architecture. You must visit.

Albert Von Keller, 1844 -1920

Just in time for Halloween, The Frye Art Museum, here in Seattle, is showing

Séance: Albert von Keller and the Occult - Oct. 9th - Jan. 2nd

I am so looking forward to this show. There is nothing more that I like than to see traditional paintings, (especially old ones) that are beautiful AND have a unique, or even twisted slant to them....The women in these paintings look they have a spell cast on them...and they don't care who's watching....

These two (top and bottom) have to be my favorite... Pure, unadulterated confidence and bliss.

Gorgeous use of color.

In the late nineteenth century Munich Secessionist Albert von Keller (1844–1920) was a key exponent of a new, modern painting, which sought to link the aesthetic, the scientific, and the occult. Keller’s depictions of séances, mystical healing, and dancers in a state of ecstatic trance attracted attention in Europe and America with their cachet of strangeness, contempt for banality, and fascination for the human soul. The Frye Art Museum presents the first solo exhibition of Keller’s paintings in America with loans from the renowned collection of the Kunsthaus Zürich. A 100-page, full-color, illustrated catalogue with essays by the curators, Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker and Gian Casper Bott, will be available in the Museum Store.

Séance: Albert von Keller and the Occult is organized by the Frye Art Museum and curated by Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker and Gian Casper Bott. The exhibition is funded by the Frye Foundation with the generous support of Frye Art Museum members and donors. Public programs are supported by Humanities Washington. Seasonal support is provided by ArtsFund.