WHAT'S A NICE VACATION AFTER WORKING IN SAN FRANCISCO?

NORTH CAROLINA - OF COURSE !!

A few days after my return from the San Francisco projects, my husband and I headed over to the mountains of North Carolina, one of our most FAVORITE places to be. Our first stop was Asheville, to re-visit the Biltmore Estate, during their annual Festival of Flowers. If you haven't been to the Biltmore lately, it's worth a trip. They've added a whole new section called Antler Hill Village, with outdoor activities, and you can visit their farm and winery as well. Next time we go, we are going to make it a 2-day pass, since there is so much to see. The second day is really a bargain. Check it out on http://www.biltmore.com/

Also an enhancement to your next visit:  watch the new British Masterpiece Classic: Downton Abbey, a 2010 seven part series on aristocratic and servant life.  This made the Biltmore come alive for us!

The gardens were wonderful, as usual, and we hit this beautiful section just in time to take advantage of the dramatic lighting on these outdoor sculptures. After we had walked down to the lake and back, the light had totally changed, and I was so glad I had snapped these photos at the perfect time. It was a gorgeous cool day in mid-May, with Carolina Blue sky.

One of the most impressive things going on at the Biltmore, from the interior designer's perspective, is the current work in historic preservation. There is now a section on the second floor of the main house that details the process for restoring some of the previously closed off rooms. Some of these rooms are now open on the tour, and others are currently undergoing transformation , to be opened in the near future.

This educational area on the second floor is worth reading every line in each of the kiosks. They have written explanations, films showing the processes, and actual examples of the materials that you can see, and in some cases feel. For example: learn how they discover what the wallpaper looked like in the original room, and then how they track down the company in France that can re-create that original pattern. Watch how the French artists hand color the paper, and hand block the designs. Another example: learn the same information regarding the handmade velvet fabric that covers the walls in Mrs. Vanderbilt's room at the front of the house, where she bore her children; and feel the velvet. See how they restore the old furniture and porcelain. Allow at least a whole hour for this section of the house. It's fascinating to trace the magnificent work they are doing. Also be sure to watch the film by the descendants of the Vanderbilts. This is a family home that they are sharing with us all. It's a great privilege to visit!!

Also, if you are interested in high quality fabrics from different periods, be sure to check out this site:
http://www.rentmeister-manufaktur.de/       This family owned business produces exquisite fabrics to order, and his client list includes european nobility, movie stars, the latest Harry Potter film, and ordinary people like us!..........

After our wonderful visit to the Biltmore, and a few quiet days at Chetola in Blowing Rock, we returned to interior design in Cary, refreshed by the beauty of the North Carolina mountains!

The MAGIC of WINDOW TREATMENTS

There are many beautiful things in the manufactured universe, and FABRIC

is certainly one of the most magical. I have always loved fabric. I first recall being entranced by it as a child, when I discovered a bolt of vintage silk in my mom's closet. She had brought it with her from England. It was a delicious red color, and I could imagine a rajah's trappings to go with it. When I was twelve, my parents enrolled me in a sewing class at the local Singer store and I got to select the fabric and pattern for a dress (black and white checked gingham!) that I made myself (with zipper!). I was hooked. I loved walking the aisles of fabric stores wherever I could find them, and made many of my own clothes. I even made my wedding dress - an exquisite, simple, elegant Vogue pattern.






When I enrolled in the Interior Architecture and Design curriculum at Northwestern University, I discovered all the magic of interior fabrics. The showrooms at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago begcame my regular haunts! Rows and rows of fabrics and trims - surely this is Heaven!

Window Treatments are one of the most creative ways to enjoy beautiful fabrics. With the perfect balance of shape, color and texture, each treatment is a canvas, and that is exactly how I approach designing a window treatment.

Also wonderful to consider in your "window treatment canvas" is how the outside light plays into the mix. Different times of day produce different light effects, both in color and shadow, and the results can be thrilling, when you walk into a space and see the light dancing on your wall or floor through the pattern of your fabric or shutters.

I have a wonderful workroom that I have used for years. I specialize in very individual treatments, and this seamstress has all the background and skills to help me put my ideas together in the most practical form for the client. I am an artist, and I treat each project as a canvas specific to that client. I don't have any standard treatments. I start each treatment with an in-depth discussion with you to find out what you need and what you love. And then we work to narrow the field to those solutions that are right for you (including your budget). If you do want a "standard treatment" (simple pinch pleats, for instance), we have no problem executing it. But I love to put in a little detail that distinguishes your treatment from anyone else's...

I don't have a particular period. I love all interior design! I do traditional through contemporary based on the client's preferences. Clients usually come to me because they have specific needs and desires. My task is to coordinate all the elements that you love and fuse them into a cohesive whole. Creating a beautiful, individual project canvas is what I love to do!

All the above treatments were designed by me. Check out my new Window Treatment Slideshow to see more. These are not professional photos (I took most of them myself), but you can still get the idea! See the Slideshow link in the column to the right, just under my website url.

DIMENSION RETURNS TO THE WOODS - HOORAY!!!!!!

Important notice: Dimension is returning to the woods. It happens in NC in September every year, and is one of my favorite times. After enduring the heat of August, and the flat landscape of everything green, dimension begins to appear. How does it happen? Take a look outside, and view it as a canvas: one tree begins to turn, and all of a sudden, everything is no longer flat.

Then as leaves slowly begin to drop, deeper areas of the woods come into view. Even if it’s still mostly green, you can see into the woods, and the shadows give depth to your canvas.

Try it. In this photo from Blowing Rock, the shadows around the tree trunks add the dimension. If you put your fingers over the green and dark tree trunk area at the left, and imagine that section of the photo to be orange, like the rest of the picture, you find that the dimension on that side of the photo goes flat.

You can see it also in marshy areas, where the water plants grow in clumps around each other. What was a solid sheet of green in August begins to have layers of brown and varying shades of fall, which add depth to the view. All of a sudden there is perspective in your picture, which was missing in August. This photo is from Moses Cone Park near Blowing Rock, but there is an even better example of layering of color right here in Cary at Crabtree Park. The section of Aviation Parkway that crosses Crabtree Lake is one of my FAVORITE places to view the changing seasons. Unfortunately, it is not an easy place to take a photo, because of the heavy traffic and lack of road shoulder. But next time you head to the airport, keep your eyes open as you cross the lake, and see what the season is doing.

What does this have to do with Interior Design? It’s an interesting thing to contemplate. In the case of the woods: by REMOVING something, you create dimension. In your spaces, where you may have a solid sheet of “things” too crowded to enjoy, a careful editing can reveal a balance and beauty of form that is nurturing and inspiring. In the cases of Moses Cone Park and Crabtree Lake: proper contrast and color balance add a perspective that makes a space seem bigger.

Dimension is an important quality of Life. It adds spontaneity to our spirit, and joy to our days! It keeps us fresh and ready for the next unfoldment of beauty, whether it be in our children’s artwork, our parents’ wisdom, our own sense of service, or our physical surroundings. All that perfection and beauty comes from the same Place, and is Life’s gift to us!

NEW YORK! NEW YORK!!!

WHAT A WONDERFUL TOWN!!!

I attended an ASID CEU last spring by Liesbet Trappenburg, entitled "You Are Not Your Job". An outstanding speaker, she counselled us "artists" to do something that replenishes your "creative well". So when the opportunity came up for me to spend a few days in NYC while my son was there on business, I grabbed it!!

I have always loved NY. I actually lived there from the age of 1-6 months, but of course I don't remember anything. We lived not far from Central Park, when my dad was studying voice. He had a Pavorotti style voice, and his lessons were in Carnegie Hall. Before I was born, he and my mom travelled all over the US doing a road show for the musical "Allegro." But he decided that NYC was no place to raise a family, so we moved to Dallas when I was an infant, and then later we moved back to Louisiana to be near all our wonderful Cajun family. That's where we opened our family store, Pieces of Eight. (see August 09 post)

So back to NY: My first visit was when I was 15 years old, to attend the opening of a Broadway play that my parents had invested in. (My dad had a successful producer friend from his NY musical days.) Being raised in Louisiana (I actually lived on a bayou!), I was in awe when I hit the streets of NYC. Such creativity everywhere you looked! We were staying in the St. Regis Hotel, and I met my first artist in the elevator. A thin man with a moustache and an ocelot on a leash entered the elevator, and the attendant addressed him as "El Capitan." I learned afterward that his name was Salvador Dali, and he lived in the hotel. It wasn't until I went to college and became a member of the Art Institute in Chicago, that I began to fully comprehend the place that Dali holds in modern art.

When I was 18, I visited again for another play opening. This time it was Eugene O'Neill's "More Stately Mansions", and starred Ingrid Bergman in her comeback role in the US. Again I was smitten with the creativity of NYC. I was into my first year of Northwestern University's Interior Architecture and Design curriculum, and my eyes had been opened to the wonders of my field. And NYC is a magnet for creativity.

I didn't get back to NY for many years after that, but in the 1990s we took our children up to see "Annie Get Your Gun," with Bernadette Peters. Then in the late 1990s, I went twice with my mom. We visited her old friends, who took us to dinner at Windows on the World (at the top of the WTC, destroyed in 9/11), and also to Tavern on the Green, a restaurant located in Central Park. We visited the Metropolitan Museum, and the Cloisters Museum; she had a portrait done of me by a street artist in Central Park. That was an artsy visit!

So I jumped at the chance to go back this August, and spend some time museum-hopping and visiting with my son! And it was perfect from start to finish....

Monday I spent the afternoon at MoMA. There is a spectacular exhibit of works of Ron Arad through Oct 19. See it now before it moves to Paris! If you can't get to NY, check it out on line at http://www.moma.org/ And here are my favorites from his work:

This wonderful thing is a model for the Zion Square outdoor sculpture that Ron Arad designed in 2006 in Jerusalem. It is a study in light and shadow, and the exhibit features a light arm travelling across the piece from side to side, showing the different patterns that the sunlight produces as it crosses the sky from morning to night. I am a huge fan of sunlight patterns in interior design. I will do another blog on that later, with some examples from my work, and other places. Use nature whenever you can!!

This is one of Ron's unique lighting designs. There were several in the exhibit, but I especially loved the simplicity and contrast of this one. It hangs about 8' long.

After viewing the Arad exhibit, I showed my son the painting and sculpture galleries of the permanent collection, with all my favorites, including Pollack, Picasso, Mondrian, Klimt, Rauschenberg, Matisse, Monet, Stella, Brancusi, Kline, DeKooning, Rothko - too many to count!! It was overwhelming and wonderful!! You can view much of the permanent collection on line also, if you can't get to NY.

I had recently watched a netflix movie - "The Impressionists", a BBC production about the lives of all those courageous artists that broke from tradition and set the stage for the acceptance of modern art. This really enriched my experience at the museums here in NY. I recommend the movie to anyone looking for a deeper historical view.

We also visited the Architecture and Design floor at MoMA. It was especially meaningful to me to find in the "What Was Good Design?" exhibit, objects that I had purchased in the 70s to sell at Pieces of Eight. Here are a few of them:

PLIA FOLDING CHAIR

AND PLATONE FOLDING

DESK (Castelli-Italy)

WASSILY CHAIR -

Classic mid-century modern

by Marcel Breuer

CLASSIC VIGNELLI DESIGN 1964 - STACKING MELAMINE DINNERWARE by Heller, now available again for purchase in the MoMA gift store.

DEDALO UMBRELLA STAND

And finally, with only a few minutes before closing, we dashed into the Architecture Room, with breathtaking models of contemporary architectural masterpieces, including FLW's "Falling Water." I have always been drawn to models. Perhaps it's from my childhood days as a doll house designer!!

That's Day 1 of my trip to New York!

Check back later for posts on Day 2 and Day 3!