modern house by shirley inbar

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Walks

The last weeks have been walking weeks. Days of exploring different places far away and around where I live. It began earlier in Berlin, Germany and now it has taken me from the shoreline of Long Island Sound to Brooklyn, from Croton Dam to my back yard. I enjoy these walks and now I even try to walk to shops which I thought before beyond reach. Sometimes I have a friend with me, but often I enjoy it all by myself. It takes me from a few minutes to sometimes a few hours.

Walking is not so common around here. The world is set up for driving, there are only a few sidewalks where I live and I have a feeling most people think of it as a sport...which I do not!

I'd rather see myself in the tradition of Goethe and Schiller, H.D.Thoreau, William Wordsworth or the Alcott's for whom walking was, apart from necessity, a way to feel nature and source of inspiration, meditation and romantic love. 

I remember long Sunday walks with my parents and sisters, through summer warm valleys, along rivers, snow laden fields or cool forests. Walking was natural and not something we thought of as a chore.

My children miss this almost entirely. They consider it boring. Or - after sports (!) and homework are too tired to go on walks. 

Walking lets me think, I can sort ideas, make plans, I dream and of course I can stop and watch. Something I love to do! I watch nature, animals, my fellow humans, I walk through the largest picture book and it does not tire me in the least.

I love the water. 

                                                                

And the light.

I watch crumbling houses and smart cats.

The power of water.

Old trees and older stone walls make me feel young and childlike.

But the sky lets me breath and makes me hopeful.

I am grounded.

Just read this:

                                    The immeasurable height

Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,

The stationary blast of waterfalls,

And everywhere along the hollow rent

Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,

The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,

The rocks that muttered close to our ears,

Black drizzling crags that spoke by the wayside

As if a voice were in them, the sick sight

And giddy prospect of a raving stream,

The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens,

Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light -

Were all like workings of the mind, the features

Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree,

Characters of great apocalypse,

The types and symbols of eternity,

Of first and last, and midst, and without end.

  Prelude(1805), vi, 556 -72

William Wordsworth.


No need for anything more! There is no distance between his feelings and mine, there is a bridge of time, I wander back and forth two hundred and six years!






All images by V.Zlotkowski

dana tanamachi. custom chalk lettering artist. brooklyn.

danatamachi.com

Days are passing

Detail of a Eugene Grasset poster, 1892

The days are passing much faster then I always anticipate, my niece has come and gone, birthdays were celebrated this June and suddenly it's almost July! 

As I write this so many thoughts are going through my mind. I wish I had a little more time to follow them to make sense of my observations and feelings. To make sense of where I am heading.

One of those trains of thoughts has been dedicated for a long time now towards writing this blog, which has taken on a life of its own.

My intentions were 'simple' in the beginnings : To write about design and lifestyle.

Now I realize it has become a diary of sorts, a place where I am more and more aware of the importance of being an individual instead an observer and commentator of common design ideas.

Over the last months it has started to bother me to paste and copy images from magazines, 

homes I have seen or of the achievements of designers everywhere. It leaves me more dissatisfied, because I miss my own creativity.

I am not sure why this is. Perhaps I have become aware of the repetitive nature and although I am fully aware of things out there new and exciting, they begin to feel like one and the same.

Inside of me is a rebel buried and this one does not let me sit quietly. I am not able to suppress this feeling nor to ignore it any longer. It sits and nags me. Since I fully realized its there I have not been able to enjoy writing about decor, design other then my personal 

musings on life, house and garden.

I have a feeling this blog will need to be re-invented. I absolutely love following all your dedicated blogs on design, but for me it somewhat has run its curse.

I while ago I would have never believed to admit to the fact that I am slightly bored by daily reflections on the latest trends, chairs or wallpaper. My love for great design is undiminished, it's just that I might not write about it anymore as I used to.  

The last thing I want to come across is as a horrible snob. 

The strength of our blog writing lies in the fact that we all believe in the power and meaning of our messages we are sending out and I want desperately to keep it honest.

Slowly my blog has moved into something else, way more towards reflections on my own life, the style I try to evoke or my ideas I feel worth sharing with you. It has less and less to do with me reflecting on other designers or design products. 

It also has become more about writing.

The experience of writing this blog has - so to speak - sharpened my pencil and my thoughts are flowing out, but more often in different direction as I intended for this blog. 

Has this something to do with my age? Or possibly my many times broken career as an artist? I haven't painted in years, yet I still feel like a painter. The writings lined up in my head have not been really conceived, but the thoughts are sitting unwritten and I feel it's time to begin a different journey.

Maybe it will lead to something new. It feels exciting, but maybe it will lead to nowhere.

I am afraid to jinx it....

I am a little afraid.

So if you are willing to spare here and there a moment to follow me on this new adventure into possibly writing and my reflection on life and (of course) my occasional departure into the design world and dispatches from my garden I invite you to come along.

I cannot promise how entertaining it might be and I am fully aware that I run a huge risk of boring you all to the point of no return, but I would love to have you come along with me!

This summer we will be in South Carolina, we love the beach, the heat and Savannah, GA close by.

I will practice writing and hope to learn to be precise, to collect impressions and to tell you how I feel....

I hope you all enjoy these coming months, I am wishing you a wonderful new season, wherever you are!

XX

Victoria

kalmar museum of modern art.

dezeen.com

allure nightclub. abu dhabi marina.

thecoolhunter.net

mizukagami water mirrors by rikako nagashim and hideto hyoudou

liquid-like mizukagami water mirrors designed by ad agency expert rikako nagashim and acrylic-designer hideto hyoudou.

chictip.com

nyc. manhattan in motion.

vimeo.com

omonia bakery. bluarch.

contemporist.com

pulp chair.

new chair that makes a nod to the Panton S chair.

design-milk.com

'antigone'. a story by predrag pajdic.

a photography story told by predrag pajdic. shot in ferrara, italy. model is antigone gitana.

yatzer.com

hotel sezz. st tropez.

livingwithwhite.com

henry krokatsis.

Chandelier Nossa Senhora do Monte Serrat, 2008. Smoke from votive candles on paper.

yatzer.com

Having a break ...almost over!

Bedroom

It has been ages since I posted....6 months ago? Nothing is really happening with the house as normal life just continues on. My bedroom is still work in progress, managed to buy the butler style tables for the bedroom and lamps to complete the look. I have also been busy looking at the goodies on Etsy as the Aussie dollar is so high at the moment. The cushion you see was an Etsy buy and just perfect for the style I was after for my bed.

I have been buying the most amazing little paintings from another etsy store but still have to find the perfect frames...always work in progress. Anyhoo, just wanted to let you know I am still here in blogland.

Mrs B

house in a church.

chictip.com

Storm front

The tree in spring

After the latest string of hot days last night's rainstorm was overdue, but again it took the perhaps most severe toll on our garden. The last of the old maple trees which stood there already for 50 years when we moved here about 10 years ago will have to come down today! We had it cabled a few years back, but a large crack did never heal and a few strong winds yesterday was all it took to break it apart!
Coincidentally it was also the birthday of two of our sons, boys 10 years apart, one 21, the other 11! ( : )) )

Roses from the garden and a giant 'burger' cake for the birthday boys!

The youngest son's impromptu garden party came to an abrupt  halt after we heard the cracking of the tree after the first strong winds. 
A frantic call to our tree guy confirmed the diagnosis and now the man are up there, removing branch by branch. How easy it is to reduce a tall tree to shredded wood after 60 + years of growth....
I can hear the shredder now as I write.

We will leave the last remaining large piece, unable to part with it completely, but it might buy us only a year or two more. It's sentimental, but the character of the garden and the house will be so changed, we can't bear it yet!
You must think by now that this is not a design blog at all, I am talking too much of gardens and trees. But as I understand it, it is all part of the larger picture, the frame to our lives and lifestyle.
Garden design has become of more and more interest and I feel my attention shifting, especially in the summer month!
Still the lasting impressions of our visit last week to one of Europe's most amazing gardens at Sanssouci left me again with the urge to plant and to leave a mark for future generations, more then I can perhaps leave with my interiors. 

250 year old copper beech tree at Sanssouci

A fruit tree, spreading across the ground.

Trees last so much longer!
The small land we have will hold more memories one day for our kids. At least that's what I hope for. And if it should get sold eventually, others may enjoy some large trees one day, then planted long ago, spending much needed shade in future summers.
Often I have thought about the people who build the home we live in, when our neighborhood was developed, right in the years after the Second World War.
They planted azaleas and rhododendrons, which are so large now and gorgeous, Japanese maples and magnolias, and perhaps the old trees which have shaded our house until recently where left from the natural environments, grown wild before the land was sold! 
I thanked them silently many times!
There were forests here and a small pickle farm, where our elementary school now stands since the 50's only a few hundred yards from our house.
We have changed the front face of the house and walk way, planted already a few young trees there, but now with the fall of the last giants we will have to rethink the garden plans again!

 
I know, perhaps some will say just roll with the punches, you will get used to it, but for us living with our garden is as essential as for others the kitchen renovation....

It's a summer of changes and although I mourn the loss of this big part of the last old tree I am hopeful that new plantings will be done by us with enough foresight to bring joy to us and many more in future years. And perhaps this last one standing will survive a few more withering storms!


I have been writing other posts from my "tree - house", one you might enjoy you can find here!
I guess I am a tree woman and I don't mind that image a bit!




xx
Victoria



All pictures by V.Zlotkowski

the termite pavilion at pestival

a solid timber pavilion inspired by Namibian termite mounds. installed outside the Royal Festval Hall in London as part of insect-inspired festival Pestival.

dezeen.com