Think Pink!

Today I read on Apartment Therapy that there are two camps of thought when it comes to pink.  Those die hard fans who love it, and those who hate it.  Obviously, I fall into the first camp.  Pink has been my favorite color my whole life.  I am mystified when I hear someone say they hate pink.  I think it is by far the most mysterious, warm, romantic, soothing and flattering color there is.  It is also the most misunderstood color, which might be why it resonates so well with me.  I've often felt like a misfit.

Pink can be used in so many ways.  Pale pink looks great with blue, black or gray.  Hot pink looks great with yellow.  Pink works great in large amounts and in small amounts.  It looks great with wood and hard industrial pieces.  A small piece of pink brings needed balance to a room.  Pink is very flattering to any one's complexion, no matter what color.  Most importantly - as I've said a million times - pink is not just a girly color.  It can be used in a thoroughly modern way as these beautiful rooms from my inspiration file prove.

I don't remember where I got this image, my bad.  Inside/Out maybe?  In any event, hot pink works very well with cool blue.  Dig the ombre treatment of that hot pink canvas.  May have to steal this idea.

A very beautiful use of pink.  Those curtains are to die for!  Image Living etc.

I love this fresh approach to color blocking.  This is my dream home office.  Image from Emily Henderson's blog, but not designed by her.  I love Emily, but she has a bad habit of not linking to her sources.  Please contact me if you know the designer of this room. 

Love the peek of pink behind the door!  Very inviting and warm.  Also love the sweetness of pink juxtaposed with the edginess of this loft.  And dig those ceramics in the right corner by Jaime Hayon!  Image via Abigail Ahern.

Love the pale pink sofa with the yellow glass table, fabulous rug and white floors!

You know I am a sucker for light fixtures.  Dig this vintage pink and gold one.  Just enough femininity balanced with just the right amount of edge.  It's perfect.  I want it.  Above two images via The Apartment.

How sweet is this corner of a little girl's room?  Coral pink is also a beautiful, soothing shade and is used nicely on the door insets.  Also check those fab over sized knobs.  Another idea I may have to steal.  Traci Fleming via Apartment Therapy.

I adore all white interiors with pops of pink, and really love the combination of hot pink and pale pink provided by the pillows.  Image via my favorite designer, Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz.

An accent wall is great idea for a pop of color.  Also love the pink and gray pillows.  Image skona hem.

I love pink in the bedroom!  The pink walls look fab with the wood floor and night stand.  Love the gray lamp, brown curtain and yellow pillow.  Pink, gray, brown and yellow make a beautiful color scheme.  Image via  vtwonen.

For a pop of hot pink in a mostly white dining room, Julie Khuu cleverly chose these inexpensive vases from Ikea.  She proves that beauty doesn't have to cost a lot.  The vases gain prominence by being used in multiples.   Love the white table and chairs, and the rug.  I am loving the organic touch of wood provided by her clever art installation.  By using multiples of the same object, she again has achieved a beautiful look that is not expensive.  She provides interest by having each figure posed in a different manner. The look is still simple due to the repetition of the same object and its geometric display.  All in all a very stunning room.

Have you ever seen a more beautiful banquette?  I certainly haven't.  Image via Desire to Inspire.

Hot pink is so sophisticated with black and gray.  I love those lamps!  I love how they are shaped differently, but made cohesive by using the same shade and spray painting in the same color.  Hmm.  May have to steal that idea.  Image via HGTV.  Pops of pink looks so sophisticated with white, gray and black as the following rooms show.

Also HGTV.

House to Home.

I dearly love this room.  This is currently my fantasy room.  Man I love the pottery, the tables and the ombre treatment of the curtains.  And the rug.  A perfect room.  Also House to Home.

Or maybe this is my favorite.  Pink sectional, low scale coffee table, black pops from the vases and art, and organic touch provided by the credenza.  Retro and modern.  In other words, heaven.  

Ditto, but add a pop of yellow in a modern, graphic painting.  These two rooms look like they could be in the same house.  Above two images Living etc.

Just a small pop of pink is provided in this hanging shade, but it is very impactful.   Love the retro-inspired shade in this largely organic looking room.  Love the green and yellow chairs and the Moroccan-inspired stove (heater?).  I usually cringe with I hear the word eclectic, but this is eclectic done right.  Although I wish they'd edit out the antlers.  I just don't like dead animals or animal parts used in decor.  Sorry.  I'm stubborn that way.  Image vtwonen.

I love these pink vases with the green credenza.  Bad blogger again.  Oops.  Please contact me if you know the source of this image.

Love hot pink with yellow!  It looks especially fabulous with the gray rug and the silver sofa.  I'm having sofa envy.  House to Home.

Love the international flavor provided by the poster.  Love the pop of yellow from the lamp.  Also love the use of color blocking here.  Nancy Riesco via sfgirlbybay.

Let's review shall we?  You can use a lot of pink or a little pink.  You can use pale pink or saturated pink.  You can even combine the two.  Pink looks great with yellow, gray, silver black, white, brown, blue and green.  Heck, pink looks great with any color.  Pink flatters anyone's complexion.  Pink is not strictly a girly color and can be used in a modern way.  If you're afraid of pink, start with a pink pillow.  I promise you will be a convert.  There's only one rule when it comes to pink:  There's no such thing as too much pink.

Art in the Valley

Last Saturday I was honored to have some of my art shown at Art in the Valley.  Art in the Valley is a pop up gallery in Fairlawn, Ohio.  It was held in a club house at the Cedarwood Village Apartments, near the Saffron Patch.  The Saffron Patch offers the best Indian food I've ever experienced, and provided free appetizers.

This is Jenna and her boyfriend.  Such a cute and warm couple!  Art in the Valley is Jenna's brainchild.  This is the second pop up she's done and judging from its success, there will be many more!  Her boyfriend served as the bartender and made everyone feel welcome.

This divine beauty is my good friend and artist extraordinaire, Haley.  Thank you so much to Haley who acted as my agent for this show.  She chose the work, and together she and I came up with the theme.

This is the DJ.  Sorry, I don't remember his name.  He also had a warm and welcoming vibe.  He is posing next to my photos.

Music was provided by the fabulous Leah Lou!  Leah is adorable and so talented.  Leah's band is entitled Leah Lou & the 2 Left Shoes.  She was solo this night and is a multi-talented one woman band.  She sings, plays guitar and plays the drum and cymbals with her feet!  You can listen to her album for free on her website, once you do, you'll want to buy it!  I have no doubt we will be seeing big things from her in the future.

There were tons of hipsters!  Best dressed was this lovely creature in a flapper dress and cute beehive!  Wish I had that kind of courage.  Here's a couple of my pieces that were shown.  Thank you to crowd for the reception I received.  It was a thrill!

The theme of the show was Alien/Alienation.  One of my favorite pieces is entitled "Six Hours" and comes from a dream I had of being on another planet.  For the story of how this painting came about, see previous post here.

This painting is entitled "The Universal Language."  It shows a Vietnamese farmer and an alien discussing Einstein's famous equation.  It seemed appropriate to feature this painting at this time, since CERN recently discovered the Higgs boson, probably the most significant discovery of our time, but I digress.  

Four of my paintings were shown and four of my photographs were shown.  Among the photographs was this  photo of a temple in Tremont.  This speaks to me of alienation, as I have long been alienated from the church having attended a fire-and-brimstone-girls-are-born-of-original-sin-and-therefore-not-worthy kind of church as a child.  I consider myself to be spiritual, but not religious.  I adhere to no group-think, no labels and am fiercely independent.  Again, I digress, but art, politics, spirituality and science all lead to the same path.  We are all one, we are all part of something great.  Alienation is merely an illusion.

Also included in the show were three of my photos from my trip to Seattle last year (see previous posts on Seattle here).  The tree is included based on our alienation of these magnificent beings.  I have always adored trees and feel devastated that they are cut down so recklessly.  When it comes time to buy a house, the house will actually be secondary to the land.  I'd rather have a crappy house with a lot of trees, than a McMansion with no trees.

There are so many benefits I have enjoyed since moving to Akron, such as the love and proximity to my family.  The downside has definitely been the lack of trees.  I lived in an area in Cleveland that was lush with trees.  I am now living in a mainly concrete jungle, which makes this hot summer excruciating.  Thank goodness one of the few trees in the area is right outside my window.  I am so grateful for this tree.  I can think of no greater blessing.  I start each day giving gratitude to the cosmos for my apartment and the tree outside my window.

The pop up gallery was a wonderful experience, I had a great time.  Thank you to Genna and to Haley.  And thank you to my friends and family who attended the event. xo

To see all works exhibited, click here.

What I've been working on

I have an exciting announcement.  I will be taking part in a pop up gallery tonight! My good friend Haley selected the works that will be shown.  They will be showing four of my paintings and four of my photos, based on a theme.  Stay tuned for more details.  In the meantime, I'd like to show you what I've been working on.  Even though I've faced several limitations recently (allergies and no studio space), I must create.  In my never ending quest to find a clean medium, I've been doing more digital work lately.  Here are a few of my paintings which I have enhanced with digital processes.

This is actually a digital enhancement of my blotter pad.  I'm always fascinated by the random patterns on my blotter.

I am having these printed on large canvases.  I've always been fascinated by multi-media, multi-processing and meta-communication.  Remember my post about photographing toys?  A 2D image is rendered 3D by the miracle of plastic, then photographing it renders it back to 2D (see previous post here).  It's the same sort of thing here.  A canvas is processed digitally and then reprinted again.  Meta art.  I plan to push the boundaries of this art form.  I like to experiment digitally to help me decide what art to hang over my sofa.  I am also having some of my photos printed on large canvases.

This is one of my photos.  I'd love to have it enlarged.  I don't even mind if it loses resolution, in fact I think that would be kind of cool.  I'm into imperfection and low tech.

Hmm.  I always like the more minimal, simple paintings in my decor.  They may be simple, but are not easy to execute.  Here is one of my paintings from Sans Electric Chair series (see previous post here).  It has been sold, but this photo makes me want to do another version of it.

from drab to fab

Dear readers, as you know, I am addicted to pottery.  I love simple forms and I love experimenting with placing it like sculpture in my home.  Below I wrote about my love of painting and upcycling vases.  I'm obsessed.  I go to the Goodwill and I want to buy all the ugly, orphaned and unloved vessels.  I have a limitation though.  I'm not very good at spray painting, although I love it (see previous post here).  And I don't have a studio space right now so have no where I can make a mess.  So I am limited to vases that are porous in texture because they can be brush painted.  This is the story of how one orphaned vase became two new fresh pieces of art.

I found this vase for $.99!  Perfect shape, perfect texture.  Horrible color, horrible press on flowers.  This little vase is in need of a face lift.  I sandpapered the flowers.  Then lovingly applied neon pink paint.

Here is the after.  Much better!  The vase is fresh and new.  I love it.  I also created a digital art piece from the photographed flowers.

Here is the little vase taking a place of prominence in my apartment, along with other vases I painted.  I love it.  I'm hooked.  Now I am on the hunt for other vases I can paint.

Here's a little experiment with the digital art over my sofa.  Hmm.  Maybe I'll have it printed on a canvas.

Upcycled Vases

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you already know that I am obsessed with vases and vessels.  I've always loved the look of upcycled furniture, nothing gives new life to a tired old piece like a coat of paint.  The same is true for vases!  I am seeing tons of exciting vases given new life.

If you love thrifting, you already know that milk glass vases are everywhere.  I find them a little boring, maybe because they are so common.  But give them a coat of paint in an exciting color and they are fresh again!  There are a lot of great selections of upcycled vases at Etsy, these ones are from Eiffel Studio.  Love that orange vase!

These hobnail vases actually look modern in this lovely aqua shade.  From Rustic Prairie Cottage.

Love these teal pieces!  A simple wood bowl and a candlestick become sculpture.  And how fabulous is that teal pineapple?  Available at RetroPops.

More funky painted milk glass.  From Nashpop.

Here's a simple but impactful idea.  If you are a fan of mosaic, but want something a little easier, how about a paper mosaic?  Love it.  From Badcandy.

Here's a great idea for all those little, orphan plates you see at the thrift shop.  Tape them off.  Spray paint.  And instant freshness!

I need these vases.  Above two images from My Attic.  Have you seen this blog?  It's awesome.  The author is extremely talented and creative.  And she is amazing at upcycling!  I adore her use of neon, and she is working on a project that I dearly love called "Neon vs. Pastel"  (see previous post here).  As you know, spray painting vases is difficult and she does it with ease!

Need something quick and easy for your summer table?  Here's a simple idea.  Just add tape!  Duct tape comes in all kinds of fun colors.  The tape can be changed on a whim, so your vase always matches the mood of your table.  Sorry, I don't remember where I got this image.  My bad.  Please contact me if you know the source.

Love the simplicity of these form juxtaposed with the pop of bright color.  Image via The Cool Hunter.  Excuse me, I have some vases to paint.