Betsy Dorman: the Kara Walker of animal silhouettes, perhaps...

Reyer Stolk, 1945 (seen first by me here, and then in various places, such as here.)

Love the above Dutch picture book madly (but aren't prepared to search through vintage dealers for a copy)? Try Betsy Dorman's fascinating, beautiful take on animal silhouettes, found in Besty, her Etsy shop. She manages to be both unsentimental and yet sympathetic, even affectionate, towards her subjects. Check out her porcupine. Not exactly a pretty guy. I revel in the courage of it.


And, "S" is for Sloth.
Few animal silhouettes are observant and witty enough for anyone to dare class them as portraits (e.g., these, which are pretty stock), but hers do actually make it as portraits. Each profile, each face, has its own look, its own particular, watchful, attentive gaze beyond the frame.

I also find it deeply impressive that BD's sloth, and several of her other silhouettes, manage, successfully, to toe that ambitious, elusive line between abstraction and absolute specificity.Poster, $60, Besty.

Good, no? Let's be honest; we're talking so damn fine.

fortnum & mason green, grapefruit, and the nubbly black of an avocado skin....

just discovered the inspiration boards at snippet & ink. damn does that girl have an eye.

she picked the gorgeous image above, by photographer arjan benning, for this one.

fiiiigaro! figaro figaro figaro!

Spotted a beautiful vintage car in pristine condition on the street near Victoria station today, and just had to take a closer look.

Turned out to be a Nissan Figaro. Not currently available in the US, but oh! the possibilities!


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Come to think of it, it's been a lucky 24 hours. Was out walking with my husband in Picadilly, yesterday evening, after work, and it was drizzling and cool and there were masses of crowds as usual but all was fairly calm because of the rain and the dusk. Suddenly I grabbed my husband's arm and whispered: LOOK! It's SOAMES! It was. He was out and about with his wife, looking just dashing. Went up to him, a bit starstruck. He didn't expect it, and was pleased. Mmm... So was I.

wallpaper for a summer guest

So it's really properly summer, isn't it? I'm in London and it doesn't feel that way-- it's grey here today and cool, and the helicopters are circling overhead of Buckingham Palace because apparently Sarkozy is in town.

I'll be posting off and on this summer, and if you're willing and able to read an "occasional blog" as I now think of Silk Felt Soil, do join me from time to time...!

Here is a little treat:

Honestly, cannot tell you how much I adore this Lulu DK wallpaper that I spotted on interior designer Elizabeth Martin's website-- it's called "Sunshine" and it looks insanely gorgeous in red, shown here. Can't you just imagine a guest bedroom by the sea done up in it? Really strong, yes, but the hand-drawn feel of it softens it and makes it playful.

Thornwillow letterpress is so good you'll hang up the phone on your husband too

I was talking on the phone to my husband late last night (he's in business school in Philadelphia right now), and absentmindedly clicking through sites for decorative papers at the same time. Clicking onto Thornwillow, I suddenly stopped, unable to talk. I started to stutter. "Oh my! oh my!" I gasped. "I'm looking at a letterpress online that is really good. No: I mean, Really Good! Let's talk later! Bye!"

Check out a sampling of the custom monograms they offer-- almost as nuanced and as unusual as those offered by Leontine Linens...



The great thing about Thornwillow Press (other than the fact that Cynthia Kling, the woman who gave Domino the name "Domino," has praised them to the high heavens in Vanity Fair's July 2009 ed, I discovered today) is that they balance a lot of tricky extremes.

a) They do the "Letterpress Is Posh" thing oh so effortlessly... (love that lion like nobody's business)

b) They do the wry, tongue-in-cheek, ironic, "Letterpress can be Naughty" thing well too....(love their "spanking babies" set of note cards)...


c) & then, best of all, they do lots of OTHER things too-- charming things that are actually charming, (vs the too-gooey, the too-treacly, the too-sweet). I guess the best way to describe Thornwillow is that they seem to have been designed by someone who lives in a Sempé cartoon, and whose life is half-lived in tails, giving toasts--


and the other half, lived at the circus--


or in dreamy, teetering castles of books, shared with friends, in the air.

Holiday Shopping under $100: What about a Papered Photo Album from Venice?

Not very often do I come across artisanship that makes me catch my breath. Paolo Olbi's work is decorative and baroque without in any way pandering to sentimental stereotypes of what classical Italian design is. To me, this is modern design. It is fresh, crisp, interesting, wild and fierce. I am stunned. What gorgeous, agile work.

Photo Albums and Journals by the Venetian designer and paper artist, Paolo Olbi, available here.

If only Blue Note Records had limited edition prints....

Found these, and others, over at an incredible Japanese website while researching images for the poet Major Jackson's favorite poetry covers. Click over and you'll find a treasure trove of Blue Note album covers, and others. Just an incredible resource. I'm dazzled, and longing for images big enough to frame.

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naomi leff

ode to naomi leff...
ode to dark walls and creamy vaulted ceilings...
ode to great huge vats of flowers as a masculine room's feminine flounce...

in search of lost time

the new york times magazine had a stunning, clever editorial on men's watches this past sunday, titled "in search of lost time"... this one, with the dinosaur and the little "leaves" of goldleaf was beautiful... and i loved the tomahawk one too...




this is by way of saying that i am myself in search of lost time... finishing up a manuscript, and will return to silk felt soil in the summer.

xx p

Strike! Strike! er.... Ork! Ork!

I know it's looking like I've left the scene, everyone, but really my absence from silk felt soil has been carefully and ethically considered: in solidarity with my fellow writers in Los Angeles and New York, I have been on strike from sfs.

;)



But I can't help myself: I must give thanks to Ork Posters for their to-die-for regional poster. (and to Lisa Congdon who spotlighted them today at d*s's guest blog). Cannot wait for the Boston one: I'm all signed up.






................... -> note: After Thanksgiving, I'll be holding a Christmas ...................blogger's swap for charity! s t a y t u n e d

one of the best things i've ever read on a blog

if i had only one example to use in explaining to a being from outer space what a blog is, i would give this post as my example.






.

lene toni kjeld: wallpaper that makes my heart go THUD THUD THUD

First..., I think I almost just passed out. Ode to Lene Toni Kjeld, she of the brilliant wallpaper that I must have! I'm so excited about the new directions towards which wallpaper has recently been heading, but I must say that this is particularly lovely, in that it feels contemporary but not in your face (gritty "toiles" and edwardian typescript "bite me" and other i'm-too-edgy-for-my-party-so-edgy-it-hurts kind of designs.)

Lene's wallpaper, on the other hand, is just unnervingly wonderful without being self-conscious or obtrusively tongue-in-cheek; I love its soft, crumbling texture, neutral metallic tones, its 21st-century nod to lace, and even fresco-- à la Timorous Beasties "Fresco" pattern... sigh. so so good.

But here's the thing. The seduction-that-is-European-artisanal- wallpaper has two significant cons, 1) price and 2) permanence. (Oh, and very possibly 3) a significant other who doesn't like wallpaper.) But does any of this deter Michelle of Armas Design? not at all! she recently suggested the genius idea of papering a large sheet of plywood (which allows us to escape 1), 2), and 3) in one go. Simple and brilliant. (Has anyone seen examples of such a thing?)

Lene...? Let's talk!

if silk felt soil had a brother... a dirt-under-the-fingernails, sandy-haired, freckled, grinning, reckless, tall and lanky, old-bike-riding and 501-wearing brother...

it would be reference library.






thanks to kelly from hoping for happy accidents for her great eye.

dong kingman, zao wou ki: mid-century poster art and illustration

Mid-century illustration and watercolor touch me on a very personal level because i grew up reading over and over again the picture books of my parents' generation (1940s-1960s), which they had saved, and loved to see me enjoying as they had. So the chaos of color and the shapes and typefaces and all of it is like coming home.

Dong Kingman is one of our great mid-century watercolorists. I hope these travel posters give you a surge of excitement as they do for me.

(The first for sale here, and the second here; or try this ebay print for a more wallet-friendly version of the 2nd.)


I love this one too, so so much, a 1968 lithograph by the abstract painter Zao Wou Ki.


DIY tip: if you enjoy this style of mid-century graphic design and illustration, try scanning an image from a children's book of the period and framing it (I'll be doing this in the next couple of weeks!). There are so many possibilities; try checking out the wonderful Flickr group, Retro Kid; or browse the Japanese site, CurioShop, for thumbnails of a truly stunning collection of mid-century illustrators and their work.





... et finalement, joyeux anniversaire à mon cher papa, et à la belle mathilde aujourd'hui!

washed out citron graphics R zo zexy

**

top image, styled by zandra pappas. i love the combination of the monochrome sexy citron print, with the traditional, slightly macho dresser, with its strong contrasts of dark wood and white marble, and the grecian ceramic lamp. anglo-ethnic-pop shouldn't work, and yet it feels so right.

bottom image, from the boston studio of elisabeth (black pearl press). i adore the overscaled "cow parsley"/ queen anne's lace print in citron, again paired with natural wood, this time in rough textures, which counterbalances the sweetness of the floral.

sartorialist... i must have been asleep

i. am. in. love.



love? yes. love.

unexpectedly dazzling: 17th century botanical drawings of magnified roots

These are 17th century botanical images of magnified sections of plant roots, from around the time, I'm assuming, of the earliest developments of magnifying instruments. Coolness of the science aside, I am imagining these as images on silk scarves, or as a series, printed on canvases. So beautiful. Reminds me a bit of this post that lena had up a while ago....

From The anatomy of plants. With an idea of a philosophical history of plants. By Nehemiah Grew, 1682. (love the name nehemiah. so old testament! up there with Obadiah for most beautiful old new england names...)


& happy friday!... xp

dutch artist worth watching: beppe kessler

I feel so lucky to be able to share with you the work of beppe kessler, a dutch artist who is fluent in so many different mediums. Her burned balsa wood brooches astonish me-- they are leopard-like, seashell-like, and yet wholly inimitable. Her commissioned work "Home" (2005) picks up the burned balsa wood motif, and turns it into something completely different-- small houses, gilded with gold leaf and color.

I love also the delicate rug that she designed on commission, and finally, this spare, perfect brooch (click "artists" to find the work).

Beppe Kessler. Wow.

dark walls: the Hotel Julien in Antwerp and Miles Redd

So in love with dark interiors these days:
This one from Miles Redd's portfolio.

& am adoring the dark panelling in Antwerp's beautiful Hotel Julien,(spotted in the Italian Elle Decor). Mmmm... love how the walls contrast with pale floors....




(.... and P.S.: still swooning over the late Vico Magistretti's oversized "Sonora" pendants... especially as a modern touch in an old world setting. In late October I had a birthday dinner with my fam in Louis's Restaurant L, and they had the Sonora lights everywhere. To be honest, Louis's could have had bare concrete and old rusty pipes and nothing else and the place would still have looked totally, gloriously glam, because of those pendants. They are too, too beautiful.)