Summer Sashays On By

Hope your Summer has had just a little bit of.......

ALL

of

this.

And

I hope

it had.  CAKE.

Because what would summer be without cake?

THINKING OF YOU.

(Been busy with - still! - painting commissions and: that California garden.  I'm learning so much!)

Photos above mostly via SabonHome, Home&Garden

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?

It's Spring! It's Spring! Isn't It? Oh YES. It is.

Just came back from two weeks of sunshine and mild temps in London.  Of all places.

Came back to a garden full of artichokes

and orchids.

Our California drought is OVER officially.  (Yay!)

How is Spring going where you are?  All pics above, Jo Chambers of Studio Legohead via Print and Pattern.   More L.A. and London pics soon!

Summoning.......

It's been a hectic fall for this blogger.

 (My favorite dim sum spot in London - Jia)

I've had builders doing some small improvements around my house and garden.  I've been in need of small comforts.........amidst the occasional chaos.

There has been a momentous election.  Which I have distracted myself from with fashion.  (Whatever works, huh?)

I had a big birthday - and this girl, who was last year's birthday gift is finally settling in with us vs., fighting, biting, swiping and not being able to share a room with our other girl.

 (Matt Mattus' amazing chrysanth'- see more here)

Since fall is planting season in L.A. I am still putting things in and tending to them.

(Camilla Engman link here)

This painting seems to sum up what many are feeling about the U.S.'s new President.

And many are pondering what we can do about it.  I thought seriously of buying this little boat and just......sailing away.  But it's terribly little, isn't it?  I couldn't go far and - Mr. Paradis doesn't swim.  But it does seem a metaphor for a present moment?

It's hard to be lighthearted somedays.

We returned to Crystal Cove for Thanksgiving and found this offering.

 (pic: Christopher Lane for the Guardian)

In case you didn't know already, these are two guys I really like.

Despite all this, life goes one.  Particularly in the burgeoning, busting out and booming L.A. arts district.  Which has provided me a message to you for our new December weekend.  With 2017 barely a month a way now.

I've been absent from this space lately but one thing never changes.  Love is love.  And you guys are part of it.  Hugs and kisses from L.A.

Two Travelling Birds - I Want to Be Them When I Grow Up

How do you make romance last a little bit longer

and love a lot larger?

Find something that you and your special one can both be passionate about

 AND GO DO IT!

together.

Like these two do.

Discovering TOGETHER.

Indulging in some kind of play - 

like this large-scale kind that is called travel.....

Is, according to science, a wonderful way

to prolong your own life and that of your loved ones.

Engaging in new explorations - (and what's old, as if it's the first time you've ever seen it)

is a healthy, happy way to be in the world.  If only we ALL could ALWAYS be

TWO TRAVELLING BIRDS

minus the carbon footprint, of course!

How was your Thanksgiving?