The Flowering Quince shrubs (Chaenomeles speciosa ‘Toyo-Nishiki’) are the first to show obvious signs of spring. For almost ten years, these two had been in a dark back corner of my front garden where the expanding tree canopies had completely blocked out the sun. Since their transplantation during my front garden’s makeover two years ago, they have recovered and are currently thriving in their new spot next to the sidewalk. Now anyone passing can easily see and enjoy these two showoffs.
“Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.” As one of the most, if not the only, influential design films ever created, Auntie Mame is long overdue for a spot on this blog. In a Wall Street Journal story a few years ago, Jonathan Adler was quoted as saying “Watching Auntie Mame is a right of passage for every aspiring interior decorator.” It’s a bona fide cult classic among us design aficionados.
Art director Malcolm Bert and set decorator George James Hopkins created six types of décor—Chinese, Twenties Modern, Postmodern Neoclassical, English, Danish Modern, and East Indian—to parallel the plot’s story lines. And every one of them is a feast for the eyes. Out of a total of 291 captured stills, I chose 115 to showcase here. To see them all, click on the link below. Once there, you have the option to click on any image and start a manual slideshow of the large scale versions of all 115 stills.
never to be yourself and yet always — that is the problem
a project by (wo)manorial
February 8 — March 1
The Reading Room will host an exhibition presented by the collective (wo)manorial from February 8 through March 1, with an opening reception on Saturday, February 8 from 6 to 9 pm. The title never to be yourself and yet always — that is the problem is taken from Virginia Woolf’s The Modern Essay. The group exhibition addresses those endless doubts and beliefs, searches and frustrations, manipulations and attempts to be honest with art and with ourselves, questioning the freedom that gives pleasure but also uncertainty.
(wo)manorial, founded by Jessica Iannuzzi Garcia and Haley Kattner Allen, is an online platform that addresses issues of contemporary femininity. Since its inception, the collective has produced six exhibitions and featured the work of over 75 artists. Garcia and Allen are joined by guest curators Lilia Kudelia of The Dallas Contemporary and independent curator Daria Prydybailo as well as LauraLee Brott, Courtney Brown, Rebecca Carter, Gabriela Ochoa, Alison Starr, Tori Whitehead.
from their facebook page: “As a collective of artists, creatives, and thinkers who contemplate the ever-changing concept of the feminine, we identify with being human before any political group. As (wo)manorialists, of course we are feminist, but identify with that after our femininity. (wo)manorial provides a global space with which to create, communicate, and document an ever-shifting notion of femininity. Our work shares our experience.”