Thursday 21 February 2013

angela a. & sherwood h. COLOR

angela adams and sherwood hamill's extraordinary work are seen above. 
they share a complimentary aesthtic and beautiful showroom & storefront in downtown portland.  angelas bags, rugs, housewares, cards, textiles - (and more) and sherwoods furniture are combined and shown together. the store always has fun, unexpected window displays.
angela has always had an adventurous, amazing sense of color and i was immediately drawn to her painted wood pieces on the walls. ( see above)
i am reminded that in the dead of winter that adding some color to ones life is a good thing and goes a long way.
either in the home with flowers ( i have several bouquets of daffodils arranged around the house now) or painted walls or with your fashion.  i, sadly, can't get away from black & white & cream in this dept but hugely admire designers like trina turk, jcrew  cynthia rowleys colorblocked wetsuit - (gorgeous) and so many others that use color color color.
the dutch are great at incorporating color into everything. see my post kleur
up next i think - YELLOW. 


Friday 15 February 2013

CHESTNUT BROWN


 KASTANJE.  CHESTNUT. CHATAIGNE
the predominant image and color : chestnuts that we gathered at our writer/artist friend marion bloem's home in the netherlands. it was fall and they covered her lawn. the children were sent to gather them up and put them in buckets to be cleared away. i wanted to photograph them. so rich, shiny, varied, smooth - they feel wonderful in the hand.
also seen here in fragments:  a sherwood hamill table coffee table
the frame of an original vermeer painting i saw at the rijksmuseum in amsterdam
stacked firewood along the road at the wealdon farm

Wednesday 13 February 2013

winter white

W I N T E R    W H I T E
embracing winter and seeing the beauty in the everyday.
thats my goal over these few months having just returned
from the netherlands where its much milder and greener.
yesterday i went to scout a house and stumbled upon this image by one of my favorite local photographers, winky lewis
the photos i took early this morning of the frosted bits of frozen flora & fauna outside my house seemed to compliment beautifully the shot i took of winkys enormous photo mounted over a gorgeous couch. ( its hard to tell the scale but its BIG, wonderfully so)

( when looking for winkys website i found this great designsponge post on her very inspiring family home. click HERE.)
all i can say for those feeling a bit oppressed by winter is get out there, have an adventure and find the MAGIC in it, its there.....

Friday 8 February 2013

L E S O I S E A U X







































P E A F O W L 
should be the name of this post. ( that encompassses peacocks & peahens)
 i began with a few images of white swans in canals in france and the netherlands ( hence the title : les oiseaux, french for birds) and ended up here.
my inspiration started with this big nor' easter white - out snow storm which led me to images of white swans....and then to bird swarms in the dunes of wassenaar, NL and then to these peacocks in marfa. hmmm...i know, seems a bit strange  but its the process of going over ones photographs and getting re-inspired by them.
these peacocks live on a quasi-ranch on the outskirts of town with a posse of chickens and outdoor cats. they tend to wander and also have been attacked by neighboring dogs. they stick to themselves, can endure quite cold temps and love to roost. whenever we drove up to our friends house, they were inevitably  perched on top of their pickup or cadillac ( which my car obsessed husband insist they buy second hand)

i spent an entire winter trying to sneak up  and capture a great photograph of these beatiful creatures but they were always so ellusive and fast. finally, i did get the one shot of the peacock in flight off of the old caddilac. it was my "coup d'etat." i think after that i gave up....