Have you seen this site, INTELLIGENT----CLASHING? If you have, you're most likely addicted, like I am. Image blogs are a dime a dozen, and it's not often that I become obsessed, enamoured and clickity click. I like what Rhiannon does with the site - it's warm and earthy and kind, and full of image that I have never seen before - her selections for us equally so. These make me want to share a cup of Rooibos tea with her...
Broadway Market
Broadway Market in London Fields is one of my most favourite places to be in the world. The small street market is lined with beautiful shops and cafés and a couple of really good pubs. Highlights for me are: the freshly fried garlic mushroom and parsley sandwich; Donlon Books; buying strawberries and cream sweets from glass jars at Brewode’s Cornucopia; vintage clothes stalls; picking up the best ever chocolate brownies or lemon drizzle cake; and young/old/beautiful/aggressively trendy people-watching. We don't live in London, but if we did I'd go every single Saturday.
Rooibos Tea
Made in a pot, poured into a tea cup (no saucer) and sweetened with honey from a squeezy bottle (preferably in the form of a bear).
Ree Morton
I only discovered Ree Morton fairly recently when browsing the book selection on Ooga Booga, where I ordered The Mating Habits of Lines. I've since bought the publication which accompanied the major exhibition of her work at the Generali Foundation in Vienna last year, and am consistently very excited by her work. Intelligent reflection sophistically expressed through bows and pattern and colour. Wonder.
Children's Creativity
When I spend time with the children of my friends and family, drawing, painting or making I am always inspired by their creativity. Their mark-making is the best I've ever seen, the way they from faces, scribble, combine colour and collage, making stories as they draw. Bella (who is 5) makes amazing pictures with stickers and drawing combined, whenever I'm drawing with her I feel I should be taking notes! And another little girl I know - Aida (4) - likes to make beautiful compositions with flowers, twigs and feathers with painted and drawn elements. These are the really good things in life.
The Hatch
The Hatch, a pop-up installation and architectural eatery, was designed by Studio TooGood for London Design Festival 2009. I never went but everytime I look at images of it I feel a mix of excitement, longing, contentment and envy (at not having created it myself!). It is perfection in my eyes. The colourful giant building blocks covered in Formica were inspired by 20th Century art and architecture, visitors sat on and amongst these sculptural elements and could build with smaller scale blocks themselves. The egg-themed food bar, designed by Arabeschi di Latte also had an element of interactivity, as diners choose from a selection of egg-based dishes and were given a "kit" with which to prepare it. Oh and the eggs were hand painted!! - like I said - perfection.
Baking Cakes
I find cake-baking immeasurably calming. Weighing out the ingredients, mixing, folding, whisking, icing, even (especially) greasing and lining the baking-tin. I also like eating cakes. A lot. And that's why I don't bake as often as I'd like to. Is there some charity I could bake for or something? (I already bake for this: http://www.olsenorsen.org).
Vintage Collier Campbell
I really want someone to write a book about this design duo - two sisters who have worked together since the 60s on the most amazing repeated pattern designs I know. Not so keen on their contemporary output, it's the stuff from the 70s and 80s I adore - designs such as Bauhaus, Cote D'azur and Derebend which were produced for Liberty. I've been collecting their fabrics for a few years now, but would love to know more about them and their work.
Growing Cut Flowers
I love having cut flowers in the house, and especially by my bed at all times, but am underwhelmed by the selection of flowers available to buy where I live. So now I'm growing sweet-peas, pom-pom dahlias, cornflowers, black sweet williams and I've just ordered these shaggy-headed chrysanthemums. I can't wait to make wild arrangements for our home with combinations of these flowers.
Charleston House
I feel I've known about this place all my life, there doesn't seem to be a time when it hasn't been in my consciousness. Laura Ashley produced a collection of fabric designs taken from the house in the early 80s when I was a young child, and by my early teens I was reading Virginia Woolf and looking repeatedly at images of the house where her sister Vanessa Bell lived. Such a huge part of my visual development, it's hard to put into words just what it is about this place I love so much. It is something around the celebratory juxtaposition of pattern, the handmade, the painted decoration. Making sits at the very heart of this home and visiting it is like pilgrimage for me.
Moroccan Rag Rugs
I was in Liberty of London recently and despite being really very tired, was drawn up the stairs to the top floor where a selection of these Boucherouite rugs were hung over the banisters. I completely fell in love/lust and want one most keenly.
My Other Room Blog
I love this blog by Anette (http://myotherroom.blogspot.com/), a costume designer who lives in Berlin with her partner and their daughter. There is a stillness about it which must be created through the particular qualities of Anette's photography and writing, because her life looks busy and full. Perhaps it's because this "other room" is the one in which she reflects and wonders. She notices, records and shares the small details of her life and passions and I always feel enriched after a visit there. Aware as I am of the stalker-like quality of this statement - nevertheless, I feel convinced we would be (should be) the best of friends!
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