Carolina Botanicals series in bronze

Bronze pieces featuring original designs of pine, ginko, lichen, fern, bamboo cast in light and dark bronze.

Beatrix Ost:

From the Blog "Advanced Style"

Beatrix Ost:

I recently interviewed writer and artist Beatrix Ost for my upcoming book. I won't give away all her secrets just yet, but I wanted to share one her favorite quotes. Beatrix believes that style begins with food.For her, eating well is key in maintaining a creative life. As she likes to say, "In your body is a good place to be."

Herb's (my dear hubby) bungalow restoration in West Asheville

242 Virginia Ave ...Asheville   Completed renovation.

 This floor is heart pine, but was painted with grey porch paint. Imagine our delight at finding this treasure underneath the old paint.  Frame in foreground and along porch edge  is for the screened in porch that will happen next week.

 Herb at the front door, color is off here, they are much more muted.

 Side view of house

Work in progress. Vinyl siding removed, cedar shingles added to all dormers.

Millwork around window, elbow brackets, drip boards all restored to original detail.

Yes indeed!

Santana, India Arie, YoYo Ma

While my guitar gently weeps

Chicago Tribune article Think Hats for Spring

Think Hats for Spring

Think hats for spring

If you want to be noticed, a knockout hat cannot fail.

April 14, 2011|By Ellen Warren | Tribune senior correspondent

• 

Bill Hogan/Tribune photo

•  

Spring flowers. Easter season. The royal wedding. That's three good reasons that you might be thinking
about hats.

But here's the best reason of all: Put one on and you're a standout.

We spend so much time debating what to wear: the perfect dress, the shoes, the just-right earrings, the purse. And yet we completely forget that the quick and easy way to get noticed is a knockout hat.

"People would be amazed at the impact," says Davyne Dial, an Asheville, N.C., hat designer and passionate hat proponent.

"If you're the only one wearing a hat, all eyes are going to go to you. … Most everybody starts liking that attention," says Susan Lee, who designs hats in San Diego for the Sur La Tete label.

Think about the photos you've seen of Kate Middleton, Prince William's bride-to-be. Many of the most memorable are the ones where she's wearing some fetching feathery headgear, perched at a jaunty angle.

Ads by And while you might not recall too many 

details about Barack Obama's inauguration, the hat that Aretha Franklin wore when she performed that day is pretty hard to forget. See what I mean?

Hats don't need to be expensive. They don't really even need to be hats per se. A clip-on feather, known as a fascinator, can do the job for just a few bucks at accessory chains like Claire's, claires.com. At this time of year, department stores have lots of colorful options for under $100. Add a pin-on blossom to a skinny brim fedora from Target and you've got an Easter bonnet.

And never underestimate the power of a little face veiling. "Veils are wonderful. Veils can suggest a lot of wonderful things," says Dial. "They can be modest, virginal-looking, but a cocktail hat can have a very mysterious, flirtatious look. Veils are not worn nearly enough."

Still not convinced you're a hat person? Dial offers this: "Men love you in a hat. They'll practically kiss your feet."

shopellen@tribune.com

Hat tips:

*Headwear is an outfit game-changer and guaranteed attention-getter.

*Show some attitude: angle it jauntily.

*Frugal flowers and feathers from craft shops give basic hats a luxe, new look.

*Don't let your hat wear you: Big, dramatic brims better on curvy, tall women.

*Proportion is key. Petite? Consider a cloche.

*Buy a yard of net at a fabric store and you've got an alluring veil.

Follow @ellenwarreninfo on Twitter

"Oh Mary" live at Le Petit Theatre / Theresa Andersson

Sunrise in the mountains

Sunrise in Asheville, NC

Taken with my iPhone

3/12/2011

Albert Einstein on Life and Love
Sometimes, in relentless efforts to find the person we love we fail to recognize and appreciate the people who love us. We miss out so many beautiful things simply because we allow ourselves to be enslaved by our own selfish concerns. Go for the man of deeds and not for the man of words for you will find rewarding happiness not with the man you love but the man who loves you more. The best lovers are those capable of loving from a distance far enough to allow the person to grow, but never too far to feel the love deep within your being. To let go of someone doesn’t mean you have to stop loving, It only means that you allow that person to find her own happiness without expecting her to come back. Letting go is not just setting the other person free, but it is also setting yourself free from all bitterness, hatred, and anger that you keep in your heart. Do not let the bitterness eat away your strength and weaken your faith, and never allow pain to dishearten you, but rather let yourself grow with wisdom in bearing it. You may find a peace in just loving someone from a distance not expecting anything in return. But be careful, for this can sustain life but never can give enough room for us to grow. We can all survive with just beautiful memories of the past but real peace and happiness come only with open acceptance of what reality is today. There comes a time in our lives when we chance upon someone so nice and soon becomes a part of our everyday lives and eventually consumes our thoughts and actions. The sad part of it is when we begin to realize that this person feels nothing more for us than just a friendship, we start our desperate attempt to get noticed and be closer but in the end our efforts are still rewarded and we end up being sorry for ourselves. You don’t have to forget someone you love. What you need to learn is how to accept the verdict of reality without being bitter or sorry for yourself. Believe me, you would be better off giving that dedication and love to someone more deserving. Don’t let your heart run your life, be sensible and let your mind speak for itself. Listen not only to your feelings but to reason as well. Always remember that if you lose someone today, it means that someone better is coming tomorrow. If you lose love that doesn’t mean that you failed in love. Cry if you have to, but make it sure that the tears wash away the hurt and bitterness that the past has left you. Let go of yesterday and love will find its way back to you. And when it does, pray that it may be the love hat will stay and last a lifetime. There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other through everything is a miracle.
There is no mistake so painful that love cannot forgive. no past so bitter that love cannot accept.
And no love so little that we cannot start all over with.

 Love and Life by Albert Einstein. (1879-1955)

NEW MOZART: HAHN-BIN NOMINTED BY KLAUS BIESENBACH

HAHN-BIN @ Le Poisson Rouge

Agggh! Autocorrect hell!

Best of Damn you Autocorrect!

MOMA: Curious works in the Museum’s rich collection.

Five for Friday, written by a variety of MoMA staff members, is our attempt to spotlight some of the compelling, charming, and downright curious works in the Museum’s rich collection.

The works have been selected. Handlers contracted. Opening parties and after-parties and after-after-parties arranged. It’s almost time for the cultural glitterati to come together and salute each other’s art (and, just as important, artful outfits). Yes, the Armory Show is nearly upon us!

Okay, so there are no gold statues, and no Angelina Jolie, but the Armory Show’s still a pretty big deal around these parts. New York’s foremost art fair has been held annually since 1999, but it has its roots in a show that happened almost a century ago, the Armory Show of 1913. If you took any sort of a modern art class in college, you know all about it: the show that alternately scandalized and sparked imaginations, introducing Americans to some of the most important art and artists of the modern period. (Physics and econ majors, don’t fret: the University of Virginia has a great site with a virtual tour.) Since so many of these works are now widely acclaimed as masterpieces, it’s hard to imagine how revolutionary this art looked at the time (or how reviled; Teddy Roosevelt reportedly declared, “That’s not art!”). But they’re still pretty wonderful to look at. So here, for a rainy Friday, is a look at five works in MoMA’s collection that appeared in the 1913 show (the actual works, or versions thereof).

Edward Hopper at the Whitney

If the Whitney's admirable exhibition "Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time" doesn't do much to explicate its ambitious title, it still reminds us of Hopper's stature as a majestic and quintessential American painter. Originally assembled for and shown at the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg, Germany—a kunsthalle that invites foreign guest curators to develop exhibitions—and deftly organized by Whitney curators Barbara Haskell and Sasha Nicholas, the exhibition is a clever setup to remind us of the amazing wealth of the museum's holdings. In that sense, it's a not very subtle argument in favor of the Whitney's need for the expansive new Renzo Piano facilities currently being planned for the Meatpacking District.

Josephine N. Hopper Bequest/Whitney Museum of American Art

'Woman Walking' (1906)

The exhibition's argument—that Hopper (1882-1967) and his contemporaries were rebelling against late-19th-century academic art and aristocratic portraiture in favor of a more direct confrontation with the world around them—is self-evident and hardly new to anyone who has spent time looking at American art, as is the show's uneven attempt to trace the development of American realism from 1900 to 1940.

On the other hand, the exhibition is an opportunity to gain a sense of the Whitney's origins and the development of its collection: It reminds us of the commitment founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney had to American artists in a culture that still tended to believe that all serious artistic endeavors had to come from Europe. Ironically, Robert Henri's iconic 1916 portrait of Whitney demonstrates the difficulty of severing connections with traditional concepts; the elegant young woman in a provocative Venus-like pose wears a very modern casual shirt over pants, but we're never fooled into believing that this is anything other than an updated version of a Giovanni Boldini or John Singer Sargent society portrait.
Continued here........

Now showing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art : Important Photographers

georgia o keeffe

Alfred Stieglitz, American Photography, Edward-Steichen, Flatiron, Georgia O'Keeffe, Metropolitan Museum Of Art, Modern Art, New York, Paul Strand, Photography, Portraits, Slidefullscreen, Twentieth Century, Arts News

WHO: Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Paul Strand

WHAT: 'Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand'

WHEN: November 10, 2010 - April 10, 2011

WHERE: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY USA

WHY:

Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand features three giants of 20th-century American photography whose stories are interwoven: Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Paul Strand. The groundbreaking work of these artists is revealed through a presentation of 115 photographs, drawn entirely from the Metropolitan Museum's collection. Among the highlights are: Alfred Stieglitz's famous portraits of Georgia O'Keeffe; Edward Steichen's large colored photographs of the Flatiron building; and Paul Strand's pioneering abstractions.

Fiber pot/ box

Approximately 1/2 activated carbon, then add pieces, cover with about 1.5 inches of carbon. The large piece (ginko leaf) is about 2.5 inches, all other pieces about 1.5 to 1.75 inches.  There is room for a couple more pieces...I just didn't have any more pieces prepped and well dried.

View of fiber box in kiln...ready for firing.  I fire with an open top.

January 16, 1966 On this day

A son was born....weighing 6 pounds 14 ounces and measuring 19.5 inches.  He would have been 45 today.  He died accidently in 1976.  He will always be remembered by those who knew and loved him dearly. Above is a graphic of flowers placed at the alter in his honer, St. Luke Methodist by his Dad and my former husband, Don Kleiber & Don's wonderful wife Helen, of Columbus, Ga.

Vintage black and white photography master Alfred Stieglitz

Alfred Stieglitz exhibition @ Seaport Museum NYC

Corsets

A male friend was recently lamenting the decline of real 1960's and earlier garter belts.  I was surprised to find that true corsets, with garters attached are still around.  I think I need one or two.

Snow days

Snow bound in Asheville.