A Peek into a Spring NEST: Berkeley and San Francisco

Living Etc., the UK decorating magazine says that "Nest" is #19 of "the 50 hottest interior shops

in the world".  THE WORLD!!!!

I had only known the Berkeley store to date, and conveniently (says Mr. Paradis),  on past visits to 

the Bay area,  I had arrived at the Berkeley 4th St. store only after closing time.  The original, Fillmore St. store, I had never visited, and did not know at all.

HAPPILY.  Such was not the case on the occasion of my latest visits.......

TO BOTH THE STORES -  Berkeley on a Monday,  AND the

Fillmore St. store on a Tuesday.  (After a long and informative walk from the Union Square

neighborhood.  Through Nob Hill.)  If you were a woman after my own heart, you might have been

making mental negotiations like mine: "I DO need new car because after all, I live in L.A.!

(Where a car is a MUST. ) BUT,  if I DID NOT BUY A NEW CAR,  but I tried instead to keep the old one going and bought the entire contents of at least one, if not BOTH of these Nest stores......(with the money I'd "save")

could I make myself the HAPPIEST PERSON ON EARTH FOREVER  and 

never need to leave home????"  "It seems very possible", a person like me might persuade herself, "because the Nest stores would provide everything

I have ever, could ever, want or need?"

Would you feel like a Chinese person or an Egyptian, knowing that you could die happy

with everything you'd ever need in your afterlife as well?  The way I do in this magical place?

Is that what heaven would feel like?  That you'd been transported to somewhere utterly wonderful and not wish to ever leave again?  "They" say that heaven is as simple as that.  And through millennia we've been inclined to believe it.  

That there is a heaven.  So perfect, so pleasing, yes, small, perhaps but infinitely varied and pleasure-able.  That heaven for me must surely be NEST.

Diversionary Tactiles

Hello from your phantom blogger.

It is insanely gorgeous (and a little hot) in Los Angeles these days.

And I have been mostly silent and absent during a month of mostly bad news day after day.

It's a little bit of hyperbole for someone in such a comfortable situation as myself to say that I feel

sometimes like I'm living on a knife's edge.

But uncertainty and threat and change is on our doorsteps....which seems to make retreat frivolous

and shameful.  But let me suggest that the "thread", both fragile yet enduring, of the traditions and making all illustrated here provide profound comfort in their constancy.  We as humans persist in the activities illustrated here.  And meditating on the necessary mindfulness that goes into these makings

suggests solutions, resolution and solace if only in the day to day fabric of our lives.

All pics above variously happened upon via the following Facebook pages:

https://www.facebook.com/LondonEmbroiderySchool/

https://www.facebook.com/fashionandtextilemuseum/

https://www.facebook.com/SilkDamaskConsulting

https://www.facebook.com/rit.maes.37?hc_ref=NEWSFEED

Other good textile pages:

https://www.facebook.com/Flavigny.Algranate/?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/SelvedgeMag

It's a great year for creativity in fashion, I've been thinking.  

As the old Chinese proverb goes:  "In every crisis, opportunity".

This is what is also understood as "disruption."  I'm grabbing hold of the good bits.

Carrie Reichardt - Chiswick Renegade

On a quiet suburban byway, Carrie Reichardt

renegade mosaic artist, feminist, disrupter

makes serious statements

 using fabulously fun vernacular....of hippie flowers

Day of the Dead skulls.....

slogans of resistance

and Londoners' traditional favorite form of transport.

She was wearing the proverbial pink pussycat hat before it ever even became a "Thing".

She practices what she preaches.

And speaks not just for herself but for all of us.  Could we all be a little more like her?  Why not?

Website and pics of her other wonderful projects here and here .

Further Flora - Ceramic Art in Blooming Form

Frequent visitors to this site may already know of my love of flowers.

 (Vanessa Hogge at Cockpit Arts Studio, London via This is Colossal)

How much more could I love them if they never died?

But persisted with me?

In a more robust form?  I first fell in love with ceramic flowers 

placed at French gravesites.  

What can be a more striking visual dialogue between fragility and durability

 (Zemer Peled here)

than this medium, in this form?  With these results?

And what about the wonderings that these manifestations of precision and consideration

of observation and complexity evoke?  Beyond the dream and romance

that has, and always has been, the lore and allure

(Molly Hatch also via This is Colossal)

of flowers?  Blooming Marvelous these pieces are!  Am I wrong?

In Case You Missed It - Josef Frank at London's Fashion and Textile Museum

This show continues until May 7, 2017 at London's Fashion and Textile Museum.

If you're close and you love color - and the voluptuousness of nature - don't miss it!

Some of you may know that I have lived in Hawaii part of my life.

In fact, I started my life there and this exuberant version of color and nature is actually a

necessity of life for me.  Like food and love and sunshine.

How though, I had to wonder, did a man whose life was spent in mostly cold and colorless places

develop such a happy affinity with vivid and vigorous forms and tones

and chromatic harmonies that have stood the test of time?   And who stands out - from arguably

thousands of other artists engaged in the textile and homewares industries - because of the liveliness of his designs.

The museum also showcases a series of watercolors - mostly still lifes - that Frank did during his

travels - summer holidays off from his work at Svenkst Tenn and gorgeous renderings in watercolor

of his fabric patterns.  In which you are able to see just that little bit more of the artist's hand.

It's a delightful show.  If you haven't, catch it if you can.  If you can't there's more about Frank and his work here, and here, here, here.