My heart is ready for the sun

Rain art installation by Stacee Kalmanovsky. Hand-crafted drops are strung together by hundreds of strings is the inherent interactivity of such an isolation – it invites people to move through it, brushing the motionless rain into new and unplanned directions.
Despite the complexity of experience the materials are simple: fishing lines, plastic beads and a good deal of time were the core elements it took to create this. In her words: “Stacee Kalmanovsky’s work is rooted in the uncanny, suggestive, and picturesque. Her urge to invent and exaggerate is tempered by a deep dedication to the medium at hand. She believes in the conceptual process itself, from gathering information and sorting through, manipulating, and qualifying the image, to the indisposable skill to achieve the end result. Like in the alchemic process, the raw matter (sulfur = visual information) is transformed, refined, and persuaded into its purest form (gold = art).”

bookends and bright stars

TO EARTHWARD 

 Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of--was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Downhill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.

I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.

Now no joy but lacks salt,
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.

When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,

The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length. 

-Robert Frost 

 

Nebulae :: IC423 - Tear Drop Nebula   

Mark Mawson

peonies!!!

Alan Jaras

These are incredible analog images formed directly on to film without the use of a camera lens (in the same way as a photogram), of the refraction patterns of light passing through formed and shaped plastics.
So beautiful and inspiring!

train tunnel

with a genetic disposition to all things train related, I was enchanted by this train tunnel from Kleven in the  Ukraine. The Ukraine was not previously on my list of desired travel destinations, until now.

vintage vogue

I have found a literal treasure trove in 'youthquakers' blog.  Full of issues of the vogue spanning the past decades I could get lost for hours on this site.
I have copied a couple of favourites from early 70s editions of US and French Vogue below...

From 15th April 1972 - US Vogue  with  Sofia Loren on the cover, an interior moment 'The new Roman way'. Loving the earth tone colour wheel in motion!

March 1971 - Paris Vogue has a sparkle-eyed Audrey Hepburn on the cover, with some black and white gems of Viviane and Margrit Ramme by Helmut Newton.

 as well as a shoot of audrey at home!

It is amazing to consider how far fashion has come in the last 30-40 years, how style has changed and morphed through time and context, and yet how things that are truly beautiful can be maintained as inspiration through the ages.

isabel lucus for vogue australia

this shoot is one of the first in a while that has inspired and shot me with pangs of fashion and travel envy! Photographed by Max Doyle.

looking plum

1. Tan Kodi Cuff - Benah
2. & 4. Plum scarf by Acne
3. K Jacques St Tropez (which I am dubious about purchasing from net-a-porter due to the difficultly I am returning after a previous purchase/ my funny wide feet)!

Frank Magnotta

crossroads/advice of a dead-man/day of the dead

"Why don’t you tell me that ‘if the girl had been worth having, she’d have waited for you?’ No, sir, the girl really worth having won’t wait for anybody."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

After watching Woody Allen's new film Midnight in Paris I have been ironically compelled to re-read some Fitzgerald - who has given me advice - through consideration - of what lies ahead of me.  The fact that it is the 'day of the dead' is an added touch of humour in the context I find myself currently in, which I am sure will come to light and unravel in its proper time.

The film was all things I have come to expect from Allen, with a touch more lightness and *spoiller alert* time travel included. Like all of his films, they have sparked my urge to explore and travel. My holiday to Paris next year cannot come soon enough!

Speaking of roads and paths always reminds me of a Robert Frost poem that my mother taught me to read by memory when I was about 7 or 8. 'The Road Not Taken' has not only proved as a 'party piece' on several occassions (particularly where grand-parents were involved),  but once was a question on 'who wants to be a millionaire' that I was confident in announcing the answer to!

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
 

faceted treasures

Inspired by these beautiful faceted shapes in various collections at the moment.
I'm feeling this summer will uncover further realisations of the power of the triangle.
Following a conversation with an old colleague last night I have also spent the day looking through an old architectural encyclopedia researching ancient symbolism and spirituality in architectural geometeries. stay tuned.

Alexander McQueen

Eddie Borgo

Solange Azagury-Partridge

Kara Ross

madewell mine

Madewell Railway Rucksack - mine! fair, perfectly pure and true!
finally I have found the perfect backpack to wear while riding my bike. excellent.

I want a lover I don't have to love

Oh, sigh!

How many Lover dresses does it take before one can be referred to as having a full blown obsession?

First Principles

"Every human action gains in honour, in grace, in all true magnificence, by its regard to things that are to come. It is the far sight, the quiet and confident patience, that, above all other attributes, separate man from man, and near him to his Maker; and there is no action nor art, whose majesty we may not measure by this test. Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build for ever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labour and wrought substance of them, 'See! this our fathers did for us.' For, indeed, the greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor in its gold. Its glory is in its Age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity. It is in their lasting witness against men, in their quiet contrast with the transitional character of all things, in the strength which, through the lapse of seasons and times, and the decline and birth of dynasties, and the changing of the face of the earth, and of the limits of the sea, maintains its sculptured shapeliness for a time insuperable, connects forgotten and following ages with each other, and half constitutes the identity, as it concentrates the sympathy, of nations: it is in that golden stain of time, that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness of architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting as it is than that of the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted with even so much as these possess of language and of life."—John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture

s-s/s-s

I first fell in love with the label secret squirrel a couple of years ago through S.O.R coffee connections.  At the moment I am particularly excited about adding one of their beautiful silk scarfs to my scarf collection - particularly the elke digital print...  So perfect for this strange weather we are having!!

i have so many books... i think i need a book-tower!

 

This is a bookcase you can actually step into. it’s called ARK booktower and is made by Rintala Eggertsson Architects, commisioned by the V&A museum in London

New Obsession

These last couple of weeks I have been, literally, obsessed with all things Mexican.  I have been watching 'breaking bad', planning a trip to Mexico, and even have been restoring furniture with Mexican detailing!  There are so many sources of influence, I predict it will snow-ball for me into the summer.  This thought is particularly exciting for me as I had very much been intrenched in a minimalist, monocromatic aesthetic in my clothing and decor choices for the last couple of years!

Mara Hoffman had one of the most colorful collections to hit the Spring/Summer 2012 runway at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York with a definite Mexican influence.

Frida Kahlo has been a big artistic influence since I read about her in year 7 art class.

Festival of the Dead - All the colour! All the symbolism! Beauty! I hope I can one day experience this first hand.

This is a still from Breaking Bad, a couple of seasons ago. It is one of my favourite scenes.  I tried to find a still of a Mexican inspired tattoo on one of the main characters, Jesse's, back but couldn't.  I have, however, bought a Mexican students native art colouring in book online!!! More to come, I am sure!