Happy Memorial Day...Happy Start to SUMMER!!

When I think of Memorial Day, I think SUMMER. I am so ready...boating, lakes, BBQ's and friends...all day, and into the warm summer nights....Hope you have a good one...

Photo- Unknown

The Art of the Inside of a Treehouse...

At our house we have an almost done chicken coop, and a not quite almost done treehouse. With a moment of coming up for air from the craziness of our lives, we are hoping to finish them this summer. With 2 chicks still under heat lamps in our garage, and getting closer, and closer, to laying some eggs, the coop comes first. But I am dreaming of the summer winds flowing gently through the window of our beautiful abode...

Have a fantastic Memorial Day Weekend!

Photo: The Trashed Fashion

Elle Decor Modern Life Concept House in NYC...

I was lucky enough to be asked by the UBER-talented designer, GRANT GIBSON, if he could use my art in the  Elle Decor Modern Life Concept House in New York's Chelsea gallery district, where they picked 10 up and coming designers, (paired with vendors), to design a fabulous room. I was super honored, someone I have watched, through the my little blog lens, rise to become one of the A-Listers of Design, in one of the best home decor magazine's in the U.S. And he asked me to do something with him and Elle Decor?!

Obviously I loved Grant Gibson's design, but my other favorites were, Beth Martin's, Sara Story's, and Aurelien Gallet's  rooms....

I cannot believe I can even say the word, "Elle Decor", and my art in the same sentence?

How genius to use Chinese take-out food menu's as wallpaper??

Beth Martin's room was the perfect compliment to Grant's room. I was immediately drawn to the coffee table. It tied everything together with hits of great graphics, and color...

The infamous room above, that was designed by Grant, is iconic in the blog world, and very associated with him and his talent...
What strikes me most about Grant, is that he get's it... He is down to earth enough, that his ego doesn't get in the way. He seems to know how to decorate for a messy family with kids, who still want to be chic, and how to decorate for an older widow on the upper east side, who won't step out of the house in sneakers.
He knows comfort and elegance. I love that.

                                                                    Thank you, Grant!

    

Be sure to check out the June Elle Decor to see some of these gifted designers at this event!

The Modern Concept House is open to the public now for 3 weekends until June 5th,

 so be there, or be square!

My camera broke on the trip, and so these are by the super talented Jamie Beck, from For Me To You, that were taken for the lovely blog Sacramento Street...
Thanks Guys!

Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele

Good Times in NYC....

Back from a whirlwind trip to the city that doesn't sleep. Here are some of the highlights. (my camera broke on the last leg of the trip, so these are the highlights I could capture)... 

Lupa, one of Mario Batali's gems, is consistently one of my favorite restaurants in NYC...A table is usually a very long wait, if you can get a table at all...You won't be sorry...

I cannot even tell you how amazing this incredibly simple dish of pasta was. I don't think a word was said, except with our eyes popping out of our heads...

A NYC gem of a place that has been around FOREVER, (many people outside of the city don't know about it, and let's hope it stays that way), but you feel like you are in a beautiful old movie, where the mafioso are going to bust in at any moment, and bring down the place. There are no windows  because it was built during the prohibition, as they had to have been hiding some serious high end liquor. The cabinets look like they were in the Astor's or Vanderbilt's dining room's, and I fantasized that I was in an era of yore, while some friends and I tried some sips of some serious Manhattans...

Fun times...

Photo's by me and the bartender...

N.Y.C. Bound...

I will be in N.Y.C. next week with friends new and old, and hope to show you pics of my explorations...

Have a GREAT weekend!!

Image: Unknown

New Work...

Some of my new pieces for you all to check out...Let me know what you think...

Limited Edition Prints of 30, sometimes 10.

jenniferament.com

The AMAZING photographer John E. Hollingsworth took these photos.

The Art of Architecture...

There are only a few rooms in the world that, (i feel), have no need for 

art hanging on the walls, and they are those, where the architecture is the art...

 Images- Elle Decor, and Unknown

Video of the week

The Art of The Outlaw...

make them appear guilty before knowing an

Australian mugshots from the 1920's of people charged with, among other things: impersonating a male, conspiring to procure a miscarriage murder, breaking into a house, cocaine possession, and stealing blinds.

y details about them at all. (images via NPR.org)

 All Images via NPR.org

The Art of Motherhood...

 Artist Mary Cassatt is well-known for painting scenes from the lives of women and portraying the intimate bond between mother and child. Her painting The Caress is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Though Cassatt did not have any of her own children, her paintings depict the emotional and tender love that mothers feel for their sons and daughters.

This is another one of my favorite paintings of all time, and I think, as a mother, it is especially affecting and realistic...The curve of the child leaning back into the mother and the nakedness (and freedom of running around like that), is  a common occurrence among little ones, and it gives me the warm fuzzies, just looking at it.

And this letter (below), that is from Ruthie Sommers mother, as a gift for mother's day, is super inspiring...Any child that has just some of these traits instilled in them, would have a quality of life that is hard to come by. In her post, on the Tory Burch blog, she says the most important thing her mother instilled in her was the motto of, "ideas...not people or things." That is my favorite part of this letter, and valuable advice.

To all of the mother's out there, (clink, clink), who think about their children's happiness and internal value system, as their biggest asset, not fame, fortune, or external forces...

(The letter was first seen on the fab Simple Lovely blog)

The Boys of Summer...

 I have always been fascinated with surf and skate culture. Many of these boys were a little rough around the edges, didn't play by the rules, and epitomized Southern California rebel culture before there were skate parks on the beach, and every Tom, Dick, and Harry, pretending that they were one of the first. These are available, by certain photographers, in a large scale format, and I think they would look great in a certain home, maybe close to the beach, a boardwalk, a killer skatepark, or in the middle of the Ozarks. If you love it, and it's a killer shot, I say blow it up huge, and look at it everyday...

The following photographer's captured the scene like no others...

Photography by Hugh Holland, Warren Bolster, and Glen Friedman