Another lovely company found at Maison et Objects

Lodish  were at ‘M et O’ and they produce many different kinds of interior products.

Lodish cushion

More cushions

I love this fun coat stand that looks like enormous knitting needles.

Olika

Another gem from Maison et Objects plus the Hermes shop

I particularly like hot colours and Lisa Corti from Milan does them splendidly wwe.lisacorti.com

Day bed and Cushions from Lisa Corti

Hermes have purchased and restored a derelict Art Deco swimming pool and turned it into a splendid emporium, just don’t purchase a cup of tea there unless you are feeling very wealthy.

view down the stair rail

Maison et Objects in Paris

I have spent the last couple of days with   a french friend going round the largest  interiors show in the world. It has  everything and anything for the home. One particularly exciting and excentric company is called ibrides. They create trays and furniture with metamorphosed animals www.ibride.fr

rabbit tray

Front of hidden book shelves

In complete contrast to this elegant french ware,is Artlantique  rustic tables and chairs made from old fishermen’s boats.

enormous spoons

Tables

David Hockney RA: A bigger picture

It’s on, it’s brilliant and worth all the hype.

Ok I admit it, I love David Hockney’s work and always have.  It evolves and grows with him, he isn’t stuck in the twentieth century but has embraced  new technology and made it his own. You cannot help but be excited by the works as you enter the galleries the paintings are large and being mostly landscapes are very green. This is not just any green but a bright, pulsating, verdant lushness that surrounds the viewer. There is a great deal of sunshine, egg yolk and corn yellow in the works as well. The feel is Fauvist, or impressionistic.

Well you have had my emotional response to  this exhibition and now for what its curators say about it.

David HockneyThe Road across the Wolds, 1997Oil on canvas121.9 x 152.4 cmCourtesy of Mrs Margaret Silver© David Hockney Photo credit: Steve Oliver

The exhibition addresses the various approaches that Hockney has taken towards the depiction of landscape through out his career. His exploration of space is traced from work dating to his time as a student, through his photo collages of the 1980′s and Grand Canyon paintings of the late 1990′s to recent paintings of East Yorkshire.

The exhibition reveals the artist’s emotional engagement with the landscape he knew in his youth, as, in a series of galleries each dedicated to a particular motif or vista he examines daily variations in light, weather conditions cycles of growth and decay and the changing seasons.

The exhibition culminates in the largest of the Royal Academy’s galleries, with the immersive work ‘ The arrival of Spring in Woldgate East Yorkshire in 2011′. Hockney’s glorious homage to nature is dominated by a painting on 32 canvases, surrounded by over fifty large-scale ipad  drawings printed on paper, which chronicle the advancing season in breathtaking detail. Hockney has found the ultimate subject for a bigger picture.

David Hockney

A Closer Winter Tunnel, February–March, 2006

Oil on six canvases

182.9 x 365.8 cm overall

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. Purchased with funds provided by

Geoff and Vicki Ainsworth, the Florence and William Crosby Bequest and the

Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation, 2007

© David Hockney / Collection of Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Photo credit: Richard Schmidt

Exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London in collaboration with

the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao and the Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Armenia some important anniversaries

1,650th anniversary of the birth of Mesrop Mashtots, inventor of the Armenian alphabet (c.362-440) The Armenian alphabet is widely known by Armenian speakers (in Armenia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Georgia, Lebanon, etc.) as well as by polyglots and linguists for its long history and originality.

300th anniversary of the birth of Sayat-Nova (Harutyun (Arutin) Sayatyan), poet and musician (c.1712-1795) (Armenia, with the support of Georgia) Sayat-Nova (1712 or 1717-1795), traditional musician and poet, wrote poems in various languages, which he sang accompanied by a musical instrument. His verse is renowned throughout the Caucasus. His musical and poetic genius represent the height of the art of minstrelsy.

500th anniversary of the first printed Armenian book (1512) This printing of the first Armenian book has undeniably contributed to the documentary heritage of mankind, transmitting collective memory to future generations. It therefore can be considered as part of the Memory of the World.

Tags: Armenia

HOME a new homesware and interiors show

“Home”  is a spin off exhibition attached to Top Drawer, the show where retailers buy for their shops.  This show is focused on  interiors and   a variety of design companies were exhibiting. The overall standard was incredibly high, and there were lots of established names such as Alessi, Marimeko, Conran,  as well as many  new ones.

The company who started as WW2, creating brands for customers such as The transport Museum, after their considerable success with the colour range ‘Pantone’ , have re branded themselves as Whitbread Wilkinson W2 Products ltd. I love their new range based on the images from Eames House of Cards. Here are a couple of pictures of the original cards being put to use building towers.

House of cards from Grace Bonney on Design Sponge Website

Eames house of cards from the blog 'Killed by Craft'

Here are a selection of the products based on the images above.

mugs and tray

Table Mats

There were so many new and exciting products it is very difficult to pick out just a few.  The work of Lindsey Lang who has been chosen by many Interiors journalists had a clean subtle geometric collection of kitchen ware. www.lindseylang.co.uk

Lindsey Lang kitchen ware

I think I loved everything that The New English produce and wish I had capacious pockets to afford it all. Very innovative ceramic designs  including Barbara Chandlers ‘Love London’ Range. www.thenewenglish.co.uk

Nelson

Barbara Chandler porcelain boxes

Just as I was leaving the exhibition  I was lucky enough to  meet the trio of  innovative and inspired people who have set up Heart and Home Magazine. I took a  poor photo of them, but in my defence the quality of the light was very bad.  I would also like to add they are all much better looking than my photo might otherwise suggest.

The Heart and Home Magazine team

The Indiscipline of Painting international abstraction from 1960 to now

Today sees the opening of  The exhibition ‘The Indiscipline of Painting’ . It is curated by Daniel Sturgis in collaboration with the Mead Gallery and Tate St.Ives. It considers how abstraction has remained a site of urgent, relevant and critical enquiry for generations of artists and demonstrates the ways in which  the history and legacy of abstract painting continues to inspire artists working today.

I am spending too much time on twitter but it is such fun. One of my favourites is Shaun Usher who has a web site called ‘Letters of Note’ and it is what it says on the tin. Just letters that people have sent to one another throughout history. http://www.lettersofnote.com The one today that I am reposting is  very funny! As a last note my lovely new assistant Antonia Attwood, Pom, ripped her pyjamas and made herself a pencil case from the fabric

Pyjama Pencil case

Found this on the beautiful blog sight ‘ A Creative Mint’

Christmas re styled

Leslie Shewring, who made this collage has one of the most beautiful blogs on the sphere.  http://acreativemint.typepad.com/ She is an architect and interior  designer  by training but appears to be able to turn her skills to any medium. She  creates pretty pages and makes beautiful images for Holly Becker’s Decor8 blog.

Currently I am still in D.I.Y mode and so havn’t got much of interest visually to put on to my blog unless you want to see another shower cubicle. The publishers  Quadrille are running a competition on pinterest to win some  of their lovely books and Dylon are running a ‘name that colour’ competition. If you havn’t discovered Pinterest do join as it  is such a great way of collecting tear sheets on the internet.

Made the front cover and made a fruit bowl from a washing machine door.

The floppy bunny from the shirt off his back has made the cover of  “SEW HIP” magazine.  He looks delightful and I hope readers will love him.

OH SEW HIP !!!

The Page staring Bunny

We are still on a mad D.I.Y kick. Our washing machine was leaking all over the floor. Trying to pull it away from the wall by the door S.O. (significant other) broke the door at it’s hinges.

O.K. it was very old. We had to rush out and replace it with another. So I decided to recycle the door. I wish I could say this was an original idea of mine, but I first saw this in a shop by the British Museum about fifteen years ago and since then hoped I would have the opportuntiy to make the same.

You will need a washing machine door with the glass intact

Turn the door upside down and unscrew with a cross head screw driver

This is what you get when it's taken apart.

Give the bowl a good clean, dry it and then add fruit.

Tags: Sew Hip, The Shirt off his back, washing machine

Colour in art quilts

Devon Red by Elizabeth Brimalow

Colour in art quilts  by Janet Twinn. When this book arrived I didn’t even give it a second glance as I  disliked the cover, a bit too grungy for me. But as they say, never judge a book by its cover.  The work inside the book is completely another matter and is of the highest quality with the work of quilting superstars such as Pauline Burbridge, who incidentally works with a monotone palette these days.

Fabric Col by Mary Fogg.

The book makes  connections between how and why colours work and how different makers respond to them. Janet Twinn describes her own working methods with dyes and paints without being prescriptive. As she says in her conclusion

‘ I believe that everyone given time and practise, will be able to find their own  ‘colour’ voice. Making  quilts is like any other art-based activity; it is a never-ending journey, rich in anticipation, often fraught with disappointment, but full of excitement.

yin and yang Bethan Ash (Wales)

Quilts are multi-layered both in the way they are structured and in the meanings they hold and convey. Hung on walls they appear flat, but they are also ‘objects’ that can be draped and folded, disrupting and fragmenting their surface design and transforming themselves into sculpture.’