Windows on Another World

So yes, the Paradis family were in Blighty again, this Xmas.

(Dolce and Gabbana, Bond Street)

It was blustery, and we slept quite late most days.

(The Conran Shop, South Kensington)

So we spent much of our time in the dark.  Or inside.

(Butcher Shop, Fulham Road)

Even though the London was churning with Italian (!) tourists, the dark made it peaceful, intimate, cozy.

Christmas week has changed so much over the years.  London used to shut down completely and even those who had gone off to family homes/heaps for the Christmas and Boxing Day often used to hole up in rented cottages with their "chums" until the New Year, or well into it, depending on the day the holiday fell.  This year London was bustling. Why? Because of the sales?  The economy?

The museums were the highlight for us this year.  In every way possible.  More on that soon!

OK, so what's your plan for 2014?!  Anybody want to share?

Happy New Year!

Hi Guys!

(via Guardian Eyewitness photo series, sorry no photographer credit)

Just sticking my nose out to say Happy New Year!  I'm having a slow start to it all - cuz bRRRRRR! staying under the covers seems so sensible and tempting at the moment.  And it's already looking like a very busy start to the year.  

More very soon from this part of the world.  Hope everybody had a wonderful holiday and got rested and refreshed!

xoxo

Happy Christmas!

(via Homelife)

Thinking of You. 

Yule Love

Happy Christmas toYule!

(yes I do mean "you - all"!)

Looking forward to 2014 with Yule too!

Christmas Cheer

what are you doing to make this Xmas special

at your house?

any projects in mind?

i must say

that this is my favorite time of the year to cook.

 have i mentioned that these snowflakes inspired much of my whole year's worth of paper cuts?

oh i do love a xmas sugar cookie!

and i've always loved these icy votives.

anything nikole herriott does is inspiring.

i swore last christmas that i would make pink pinecones this year.

but i did not.  YET.  (not these icy lights either.)

when you make cookies, how many do you eat yourself?

are they irresistible or what?

whatever you make, i hope it fills you with wonder and cheer.

 cause that's what the season is all about.   HAPPY MAKING!!!! 

OK Paper Cutting

Just to share a little of the paper cuts I've been playing with the past year.

 (Rice paper on rag.)

 The light is much better in my new studio for taking pictures.  Looking at these I'm actually preferring the colored paper ones.  I've been very much inspired by folk-art and old textiles.

 (Kraft paper on rag)

I've always loved paper and collage.

 ("Gasps of flame in the green of night....the Pomegranates are in flower" - D.H. Lawrence)

I started with folding the paper in half to save time.  But it creates some weird effects - all I can see at the center of the above piece is a Samba-Queen kind of figure with headdress and folkloric breasts, breasts, breasts!  (You too?)  Not quite what I was aiming for.  I will probably collage over those body parts.

So I have to think ahead a bit more before proceeding with my cutting.  So far they have been free form explorations with never any grand design in mind.

 (all the rest of these are acid free drawing paper on rag grounds)

I have enjoyed the challenge of this work.  My worrying brain turns off and I really only have to worry about line and pattern.  It's like meditating.

 ("A tree there is that ..... staring fury - and the blind lush leaf may know not.... grief "- W.B. Yeats)

I'm not sure I have quite conquered the medium, or settled on final

 ("oh sweet spontaneous earth thou answerest them only with spring" - e.e. cummings)

"principles".   

But  I'm enjoying using scraps of poems embedded in them.  (And hoping noone comes after me for copyright infringement!)  Cuz we need poetry in our lives, don't we?

 ("I see long reefs of violets in beryl covered fens so dim, a gold-watered pactolus frets" - G.M. Hopkins.)

It's been a wonderful, strange trip! 

("Your thighs are apple trees whose blossoms touch the sky" - W.C. Williams)

And yes I do love 60's psychedelic art!  Can you tell?

This is the last real post I'm going to do before the holidays.  I've automated just a couple seasonal ones for the next two weeks.  Meanwhile I, and I'm guessing you, will be concentrating on making preparations for the holiday and spending as much time as possible with loved ones near and far.

I want to wish you a really lovely warm and safe holiday and a very HAPPY NEW YEAR.  Thanks so much for visiting here and sharing so much of yourselves both at Passage Paradis and as well "chez vous" wherever that might be in the real, or cyber world.  

You are all so wonderfully talented and lovely company!

See you in 2014!  xoxoxo

Atwater Crossing - the Latest Thing on the East Side of L.A.

You might be surprised if I told you

that this space exists in the tiny little locality

that I posted about here.  Atwater Village.

If you didn't know it already, Atwater Village is "up and coming" benefitting from it's proximity to Silver Lake and hosting delicious bakeries like Proof, but with still relatively lower real estate values.  Though Atwater Crossing is located right next to the Metrolink Railroad tracks, it's important that it's still on the "right side" of those tracks.  It is a peaceful place for a coffee or drinks MOST OF THE TIME.  But sometimes, so not much!

Atwater Crossing started as a scruffy outpost of low-rent artist spaces pioneered by Los Feliz' Blue Rooster art supply store (which was also featured in this post.)

And now it's gone terribly groovy and hipsterish with those million dollar architect-y green design condos massed across the street.  (Top picture.)  Generally, the long time Silver Lake residents are not so sure that this is glamorizing of the old environs is quite the best thing.  Mlle Paradis, one of those "new-to-the-hoods" is disinclined to criticize or question, since Atwater Crossing is so convenient to her new studio space and the Verdugo Bar both in Glassell Park.   Mostly the Paradis family will be appreciating a new place to have a drink in the California sunshine.

So what do you think?  If you like to be in the know, now you are!

Just don't blink when rolling down Casitas Street, cuz it's entirely possible that you could miss it.