New Painting

Untitled 2010, 24" x 24", Behr custom mix and acrylic on canvas. This is the first painting I've done in my new apartment. Well, let me take that back. This is the first painting I've done in my new space, that I actually like. I'm starting to feel at home. This painting is not as simple as it seems. There were colors in my head for quite sometime that would not be silent until they had been made manifest. Each color has been painstakingly mixed, it took a while to get the colors right.

Here are some of the influences in this work: I was listening to the music of Walkner Moestl. As you know, I have been obsessed with the perfect gray. A fine young man at Home Depot mixed a Behr Custom for me to match these pillows. I asked him to make it shiny, and he knew exactly what I was saying. I should have bought more than a quart. I've already used up that paint on several projects, and the color is, well, perfect. Here are some other influences for the painting:

Jennifer Davis. I love Jennifer's use of color. I'm not sure why, but the painting makes me think of the balloons of Jennifer Davis. And for some reason, the painting makes me think of birthday party hats. That's a good thing, it makes me happy. Maybe that's what I should title it. Birthday Party.

Mia Linnman. I also love Mia's use of color, as discussed below.

Stephen Ormandy's work still haunts me. I've written about his work before (see previous post here).

Some pretty rooms from my inspiration file

It seems I never tire of looking at beautiful rooms. Here are some rooms that are currently inspiring me. Hope you enjoy!

Gorgeous! Serene! Look at those colors. Love, love, love the salmon colored sofa against the white walls. Love the symmetry and love the enlarged baby pics. Such a great idea to turn your family pictures into art. Image Sara Hicks Malone via decor8.

Oh my goodness. Will you just look at that lamp! I need it. Please let this lamp show up on the curb or at the Good Will. That pillow's not bad either. And of course, the Saarinen table. One of my all time favorite designs. Image Bella Makes the Move to Brooklyn via Apartment Therapy.

Love the monochrome. I've always wanted to do a white painting against a white wall. Love the lamp. Love the pillows. And - gasp - those white floors. Image Isabel Lopez Quesada via Desire to Inspire.

This photo is from the AT color contest. Love the color of the wall, and I'm always a sucker for a large painting and vases. Love the table and the lamp. I'm pretending not to see the animal skin rug. C'mon let's just face it. Animal skin rugs are gross.

Love the painting, lamp shade and accent wall. Love the pillows. I think I need a furry pillow (fake fur of course). Look! Another Saarinen table. Image HGTV.

A Little Bit of Happy and A Lot of Blog Love

I've been following Apartment Therapy's Color Contest, and Nichole's "Little Bit of Happy" Room is by far my favorite. I had to see more of this wonderful place, by reading the comments I found she has a blog. And a wonderful blog it is! It's entitled Parlour, and I will be adding it to my link list. Here's a peak at her beautiful home. It's feminine, cozy and oozing creativity.

As you know, gray is my new favorite color. Love the gray sofa. Love the nature pics by Cassia Beck. Also love how they are framed uniformly and straight. Hanging them this way cuts down on the cluttered look of a grouping and looks like one large art piece. Love the large hanging light. You must read her blog to see how she created it! She glued coffee filters on a paper lantern. Fab!

Love the big cameo! She painted that. Love the black pops against the white.

Sky blue coffee table. Gorgeous. Love the houndstooth pattern on the rug.

Love the black accent walls with the pops of white accessories.

Cute kitchen! Love the gray cabinets, the paintings and look at that pendant lamp! She painted it. Love the pink peaking out!

Nichole is incredibly talented. I had to show this table that she painted. Love the chevron pattern in pink. It's for sale at her Etsy shop. I want it! Nichole, you go girl! Thanks for being an inspiration. Hope you win the contest!

I wish...

It's a sickness. Even as I'm trying to weed stuff out, I keep looking at stuff. Sometimes it makes my head spin. I'm trying to make my apartment beautiful with no money. I have a confession to make, I'm a hypocrite. I write about the virtues of decorating on a budget. But, I wish I had a lot of money. It's just that I'm not very good at the things that earn a lot of money in the U.S. Shameful, I know. Here are some beautiful things I'd like to have for my apartment:

This painting by Joey Slaughter. It's perfect. It would look great in my place. Wish I'd painted it.

A Moroccan wedding blanket. I've always wanted one. For more beauty of Morocco, see Holly at decor8's post, here. The lucky girl actually visited Peacock Pavilions, the project of one of my favorite bloggers, Maryam at My Marrakesh.


An ghost chair by Philippe Starck.

White floors. How I covet you. Look at this beautiful space. Like living on a cloud. White floors would be perfect in my attic apartment since I already feel like I'm living in a tree house. Image via Desire to Inspire (10/19/10). More than anything, however, I wish I could learn to be happy with what I have and not always want to change things.

Mitsuru Koga, or collaborating with nature

It's a bit trite to say that artists are influenced by nature. Interaction with and observation of nature are endless sources of fascination, but nature cannot be improved upon. Better to collaborate with nature than try to dominate her. Indeed, attempts at domination of nature are futile - nature will always win. So much has been written about nature, there's no need to intellectualize it again. For now, please join me in contemplating the marvel of rocks. Rocks are one of the amazing things the Earth has given us. Hold a rock in your hand, it's a meditational experience. Imagine how long it has taken for that rock to form in its current state. Amazing. I can spend hours admiring Lake Erie's rocks.

The artist Mitsura Koga is also fascinated by rocks. He states that: "Natural objects [are] constantly changing under the influence of the external world." He interacts with natural objects, in a minimal way, "creating a bridge between nature and human beings." The result is remarkable, have a look:

Architect Love and Procrastination

I have a confession to make. I don't buy exercise equipment. I've never used it for its intended purpose. Instead I've hung (dirty) clothes on it.

Architect Victor Vetterlein has come up with a stylish solution with his G-Force wardrobe chair. I think I need one. The G-Force is such a fab piece of sculpture, it would dissuade me from hanging clothes on it. I would sit on it to put on my pink pumps, though, and I'd be lookin' good. I'd call that a success. Design at its best. Solving problems. Victor is one of my favorite designers, I've written about him before. See previous posts here and here.

Do visit Victor's website. I love the presentation of his products. I think his model and wife is too fab! Love the white hair and pink eye lashes.

looooove from my Starbucks cup. Playing with fonts in Picasa, this one's called Australian Sunrise. Yep, I'm in procrastination mode.

David Cho

I'm working feverishly on making my apartment a beautiful and efficient work/live space. While working I've been listening to music and obsessing about art. Over the next few days I'd like to present a series of artists that I love. The common thread in the work of these artists is that there is an organic quality to their work. The works have both primitive and futuristic elements. The first is David Cho. I think it's especially cool when an artist comes from a street art tradition.

I was going to write a pithy review of his work, but just check out his website. Make sure you read the About section. The guy is fascinating.

This is Munko, a vinyl toy of David's work produced by KidRobot. I need one.

Blog Banners

Dear readers, I decided to redesign my blog. I like to do this approximately once every season. I wanted to make it look a little simpler, and to tell the truth the HTML coding was kicking my butt. I know you feel me when I say that I am swamped, so I am limiting what I'm learning, and I am not fooling myself that I will learn something when I won't. HTML (along with sewing) didn't make the list.

Here is the banner I used for summer. The blog design was done by blogger and designer extraordinaire, Jessie of My Mod Style. I love the design and I am so grateful for Jessie's help. Contact Jessie if you need help designing a banner or mood board for your room. She's great fun to work with.

Here's a draft banner I designed. I used one of my paintings as the background. I wanted to include something that looked like Autumn, hence the tree to the right. Also, this reflects my new love of the color gray. However, once I placed it in the template, I couldn't bear not using pink in my blog design.

So I opted to use this design. The background is also one of my paintings. I like the simplicity of it.
For my photo blog, here is the banner I used for Spring.

And this is my Autumn banner.

Announcement....

Please bear with me over the next couple of days as I redesign my blog.  Lots of exciting posts coming!  Stay tuned.  xxoo

Broken vases and other things

Today I cleaned and organized my apartment. Again. All the while lamenting how much stuff I have. I've made a vow that I will not acquire more just because I have a larger space. So I packed up some pillows, paintings, purses and vases and took them to the Salvation Army. I love pretty things, but I also love the look of an uncluttered, sparse home.

As I was organizing my closets, one of my favorite vases sacrificed itself to the greater good and leaped off the shelf. As I cleaned up the mess, I thought this would make a great mosaic, or wouldn't this be interesting in an installation piece? I'd love to do an entire installation of ugly, amateur and broken vases (see previous post here). Perhaps I should save this for this purpose. Wait a minute, the rational side of my brain said. There's a stereotype that artists are packrats. It is difficult to fight this tendency. Afterall, I see beauty in the ordinary and I don't want to waste things. However, it's also true many things we save don't get used and just add to the clutter. Since I was lamenting how much stuff I have, I decided to put it in the trash, but not before thanking it for serving me.

As you know, I've been thinking about the color gray a lot. Fortunately, my landlord won't let me paint. I say fortunately, because that's one less thing for me to obsess about. I'd go crazy painting this apartment and exhaust myself, there's so much trim, hallways and strange walls. Better to just let it go. I decided to satisfy my urge to experiment with gray by putting it on a canvas. I love this color. This is a Behr high gloss custom color match. I took one of my gray pillows to Home Depot. The paint specialist was a dear, and we had a great conversation about gray, we agreed we love it in modern decor. Now I'm wondering if I should paint my hot pink bookcase this color.

I worked on a decal project in my kitchen. I found these decals at the dollar store. There are a million combinations! I had to let go of my perfectionist tendencies while working on this project. I tried not to worry if they were straight and to remind myself that this was FUN. I think the key is balance. I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out. Now I need an orange, glass vase for my table.... oh it never ends. I think I'm ill. In a few days I will reveal my apartment's new incarnation. Yes, it has only been a month and I've already moved things around. And it's no surprise that I added gray. Stay tuned.