Wow! I can’t wait until next year when ACT and I visit my family and friends in Australia. If only to stay in one of Andre’s Mews, in Melbourne.
A boutique hotel-apartment-mews in (my old neighborhood) Melbourne’s Richmond, Andre’s Mews not only looks lush, but has a wonderful story behind its existence. A few handfuls of individually designed apartments, built by the owner’s daughter over 8 years to fulfill his dream. It’s really worth checking out their ‘About Us‘ page and reading the full story. Full of love and character, this place is like something I’d love to create some day.
The picture below is of the 2 bedroom apartment, The Ellen done in a “sophisticated French city” style, but each room is individually designed, so there’s sure to be one you’ll love too! All apartments have a courtyard or terrace, internet connection, plasma TV, air-con and heating, and are walking distance to local shopping and the best Vietnamese food in the city.
I haven’t written here for a while. Much of the summer I’ve been away on holiday, plus I’ve changed jobs (the 9-6ish kind that pays the bills), moved house, started dogsitting little miss Winnie (the pug), AND am about to move my lovely fella into the house too – eep! not 100% about that last bit as he sits beside me singing along to TV ads as I write – !!!
One of the most pleasurable parts of the above is the furnishing of our lovely new home – on my meager (but thankfully existent) public service wage!
So here’s how it’s looking now – obviously much more to be done, and crap iPhone photos… but you get the idea.
Lounge area
The stairway (pictured) and bathroom are what I have my sights set on now. I’m thinking some kind of messy display of pictures hung in the stairs; a mixture of photos, art, fabric patterns and random bits. Any sugguestions/inspiration? send them my way!
I’ve bought a sofa from Ikea that I plan to replace the covers with some gorgeous Designers Guild slipcovers from Bemz, some Eames chair knock-offs from bluesuntree, the new table from made.com I wrote about a while ago – which I’ve promptly fallen in love with!
I can’t help but be inspired by my previous home, the Garden Flat (designed by the one and only miss Dinon). But now that I’m hooked on interior design, the design blogs out there have been amazing inspiration – especially these ones out of the U.S. – and most especially this one Copy Cat Chic. Perfect for resourceful, penniless public service worker bees like me.
This bathroom is going to be my starting point – love the grey, dark wood and white towels. Fresh!
Since moving into the mews house, I’m all about interior design and homewares. My bank holiday weekend is even going to be spent exploring the first steps of reupholstering furniture (must find a beautiful chair to start with!).
My inspiration has come from many places – mostly tips from my lovely friend Katie (check out her blog here) and from various hotels from around the world… namely the Firmdale Group ones.
Kit Kemp is the genius behind the Firmdale hotels, and I find them lush. All clashing prints and beautiful lighting, and so much attention to detail. Opening today is a new exhibition space at the Contemporary Applied Arts Gallery in London, of which Kemp has designed a room to illustrate the vast possibilities of commissioning art and craft for the home environment and how it can transform a room.
Not too long now and I’ll be moving into the Bermondsey mews house. It’s unfurnished – yes! – which means I’m now going a bit nuts in the summer sales & on eBay to buy furniture and homewares. The best purchase so far? This gorgeous Designer’s Guild fabric footstool for a sweet £100 on eBay. Nice!
Right. So I don’t usually talk work on here, but I am aware of the guidelines for communication and talking about the BBC in public, so here goes. I’ve been working in Audio & Music Interactive for the last six months, it’s been such a fascinating experience, I felt I had to write about some of it. Soon I’ll be producing an internal “knees up” event and the plan is to do something around the theme Innovation.
Preaching innovation to a bunch of very talented interactive producers is going to be a tough one. The stuff they create each and every day is about the most innovative stuff out there – to name a few – the new Radio 1 Chart, Glastonbury website, and Big Mexican Wave (a much nicer way to celebrate the World Cup than those stupid Vuvuzela things – yes, I’m on that team).
Some things that have crossed my path while doing research have reminded me just how much more I’ve got to learn – and that’s exciting. I’ve seen some very cool stuff like this walk, IDEO, Engine, or this great talk by David Byrne over on the TED website. These might not form part of our final event, but it’s good to see so many possibilities. I hope to report back later on how it went and what else we discovered along the way.
p.s. I’ve been listening to these great mixes by the healing arts while researching… checkit.
One of my goals for twenty ten is to do something very adult – I’m going to buy a piece of art for myself. It’s going to have a ltd. edition number on it, something like 10/30. It’s also going to be from Jeremy, the lovely man behind The Jacky Winter Group, which represents Australian illustrators.
James Gulliver Hancock
James Gulliver Hancock is the favourite so far – you may have seen his work in BusinessWeek Magazine, Nylon Magazine, Simon&Schuster, Allen&Unwin, Island Records, Herman Miller, Sony/BMG, Ivy League Records, The Breast Cancer Foundation, and the Sydney Opera House, to name a few.
I’ve already purchased a print of his for a friend a while back, but I find his illustrations so beautiful, the lines are so amazingly detailed and colours are fantastic – I want one for myself.
Take a look at the full roster of Jacky Winter illustrators here or read the Jacky Winter Peter Peter blog , it’s like porn for those of you interested in the latest illustration gossip and amazing images.
I got the 2009 calendar free with a copy of Grafik mag and love it – it’s like my version of the ‘me wall’ that American professionals have in their offices (you know, they have these walls with snapshots of themselves with famous or admired people they’ve met).
Mine is the Crispin Finn wall calendar of travel, concerts, parties and other good times – if I look at it and realise there isn’t anything coming up or I haven’t put anything on it for awhile, it’s a reminder to myself to get out there and enjoy life. It’s the first thing friends look at when they see my bedroom, it’s such a great starting point for conversation if a new friend comes over to the flat and sees something up there they like too.
I ended up in the basement of EastGallery this afternoon, on the promise of a slideshow of travel photos accompanied by music. Seeing as it was in a gallery on Brick Lane in east London, I figured I was safe from any kind of experience like those of my childhood – Dad with the slide projector (ours had a remote control clicker, attached by a long lead) and one of my sorry siblings bashing out a tune on the piano.
SO – this was nothing like that. It was actually quite amazing! Thanasis Lomef Zacharopoulos (aka Lomef) has travelled the world with a camera and the eye of an artist, capturing some amazing moments in some spectacular places. And as we watched a selection of snaps roll across the screen, his merry band played some great music to accompany (including, a human beatbox by way of loop pedal!). I left inspired to travel more and take photos. Now who wants to get me that Canon G10 for xmas?
You can buy his book, 11×11, by clicking the image above.
I was… umm… still watching Care Bears and my favorite toy was my Cabbage Patch doll. In 1985, James Reitano was getting busy painting walls in and around his hometown of Santa Cruz, CA.
This semi-autobiographical graphic novel (try saying that five times fast!) is set in a Cali beach town, the protagonist is a graffiti artist whose constant run-ins with anti-graffiti locals, cops and rival crews sees him getting into mischief at an unstoppable rate. But it also recalls the characters and art influences of a 80s street art scene, that, if you trace it forward to today, probably has something to do with the artwork on your t-shirt, skateboard or favorite CD.
James Reitano is a wonderfully talented artist and animator & is one of those people who does what he does because he truly loves it. He started out as a graphic designer for Santa Cruz Skateboards, spent a short time with the corporate behemoths in LA, then went freelance in animation, graphic & web design under his studio, TFU Studios. His productions include Madvillain – ‘All Caps’, Cut Chemist ‘Spat’, Quasimoto ‘Bullyshit’, an ad for HP/Serena Williams that was shown in Times Square NYC, and many more that you can view on his TFU Studios YouTube page.
Katie and I stumbled across the Michele Varian store in Crosby St, NYC on our visit there in September. We ended up getting some glass grapes that now feature in the GF lounge room wall of books and they look great!
I thought Michele Varian was one of those cool one-off mom & pop homeware and gift stores but after a little research, it seems it’s the brainchild of one fair lady from Detroit, who originally started off making pillowcases. She’s now slowly taking over the USA – there’s over 25 stores that stock her bits and you can even get things in Heals in the UK. Well there you go.
Apart from the fancy grapes, I noticed the enthusiasm for Edison light bulbs in the store, which I’d never really seen before. They create quite an amazing effect in their yellow flickering goodness! I found a lighting store around the corner and bought one (at $19.95 each – most expensive light bulb ever!) so now just waiting until I find the right lamp to put it in.
