Hidden In France

How to look at simple things and realize they are beautiful

Nadia, the amazing talent behind the blog La Porte Rouge is speaking about Hidden in Paris today in a fun interview in the doubtful case you're not sick of hearing me talk about my novel yet. Oh and by the way, Hidden in Paris is a novel set in Paris.  No shit! you say... but I needed to write this sentence to improve my google searches.  Full disclosure, haha. 

But this gives me a great chance to talk about Nadia.

No need to tell you how I became mesmerized by all things Nadia.  All I need is to show you her pictures.

Okay, I'm in chatty mood, so let me illustrate the pictures (all stolen from her blog) by telling you a few words about her.

And if you ever doubt that friendships can be started on the internet, you can see that we go way back.  I think it all started with this post.

Nadia has been a source of inspiration to me not only because of her stunning artistic eye but because of her poetic spirit and the rawness of her emotions.  And because she make everything, even the simplest things so beautiful that she forces me to reexamine how I look at simple things. After I read her blog I am always reminded to look closer, not to rush by, to appreciate light, and texture, and color.

We've all gotten pretty good at rushing.  But another thing we have become exceedlingly good at is protecting ourselves from the world, either by not caring too much or by developing a think skin.

Nadia has not developed a thick skin.  

I find that marvelous. Of course I am not in her skin so who is to say if this is a blessing or a curse, but the way I see it, as we manage to numb ourselves from the painful things in life, we also end up numbing ourselves from its joys.

You don't get to be selective about self-numbing.

The last two mosaics are pictures taken when Nadia was part of a food styling trip in the Dordogne region of France with the famous Aran of Canelle et Vanille.  I have NEVER lusted more for a trip to France than I did about that one, which you can read about here, here , and here

So what do you think?  Should we make ourselves less or more vulnerable? And what do we have to lose or gain by being vulnerable?

An (almost) white interior

No less than a post a day this week.  And I don't know how that's possible because i've been busy, taking on the writing of one, two, three and now five articles as I work on two screenplays.  The saying is " if you want something done, give it to a busy person to do. Damn right.

I could not resist posting these images.  I think I've posted them before. They have Hidden in France written all over it. The images were photographs by Bjarni b Jacobsen, but I want to know who the stylist is, because she or he makes my heart sings. *** update: here she is! her name is Kira, this is her house (except for the last picture on the right which remains a mystery) her website is full of awesome rugs and objects, check it out: kira-cph.com.

Via room service (in the exact order i'm ashamed to say) and another source I just lost, rats.

 ... 1 hour later...  Dementia is upon me.  Now I know I've posted these images before.  Double rats.

Let's be fair to blogging

Some of you have pointed out that I'm posting less.  Once or twice a week as opposed to five times a week.  And I'm leaving and receiving less comments too.  I don't know why readership and subscriptions aren't declining, not yet, I don't get why, something about momentum, web crawlers and a little thing called googling perhaps.

But see, things have changed:

I walk an hour a day now. I used to spend that hour blogging.

 

I'm writing a new novel, spending two hours a day on it.  I used to spend those two hours blogging.

 

My son is a Junior in high school and I'm educating myself on colleges and getting into college, and godforbid financing college.  Like everything else, once I begin researching a subject, i get lost in it. Same time last year I was getting lost in blogging.

 

I am self publishing my first novel.  That takes time away from blogging.

 

Blogging was truly a branch on the road I took almost by accident.  Blogging was the most enriching of experience ...what was?  Still is!  But it's when I blog too much that I need to worry, because that means I'm not doing other things.

 

Could I be doing all these things, could I be this energetic and productive, this optimistic had I not been blogging in the first place?  No way.  It was blogging that inspired me esthetically.  It was blogging that calmed my nerves and assuaged my self doubts.  It was blogging that introduced me to a world of imperfect, fearful, fearless, funny, sad, tender, fierce, creative, inspired, talented, honest women.  I didn't know there were so many of us out there :-)

 

Beside, I think that there is such thing as posting too much. You got to be a bit selective in what you say or show or it all becomes a blur.

 

Thanks to the incomparable blog the style files I finally know who is the photography of my dream kitchen (above) Those images all by  Magnus Selander

Tomorrow

On pins and needles.  

Tomorrow is the day when I should know if we're going East or staying West for the summer.  Each possibility  presents its own sets of challenges and confusion.  Maybe some fun too along the way. One is far more lucrative. I'm hoping/fearing one and dreading/finding comfort in the other. Neither involve my own work, by the way, which is highly portable.  

We'll see. We'll see.  

Meanwhile I found one more amazing photographer on Flikr.  Whatever Sas from the Netherlands' technique is, I just love her vision. This is her blog here so you can say hello.

Look at all this:

This is a nail biting sort of week.  My sixteen year old has his driver's test on Friday.  My ten year old is running for school president (not my idea I assure you.)  This might not be the week to quit chocolate.

Beauty for the week-end

This has been an adrenaline-filled week.  Things are good, though.  Things are shaping up.  Anyone here beside me needs a break from thinking, rehashing and basically driving myself nut with inconsequential things that won't even matter an hour from now? 

Who else in the room needs to CHILL?

Here are gorgeous and soothing images by Janne Peters styled by Maria Grossmann via the delicious Hiccupings. 

By the way, have you ever smelled a magnolia flower?  Is it me or is it entirely odorless?  How can they make perfume out of odorless things?  Is this a vast conspiracy by perfume conglomerates?  Is the joke on US? Have we been manipulated?... Oh, ouch, my brain hurts now... Chill, I say.  Chill.

Elsewhere

Is where i'd like to be today.  Images by Debbie Treloar.

Via the lovely hiccupings. 

A house in brasil

The BEST week-end!  Home alone, watching reruns of The Matrix and Shindler's list ( ahem...and the Wedding Planner and New York housewives.. and much much worse...) Eating takeout exclusively while sill in my jammies at 3 in the afternoon.  Silence. Bad hygiene. Peace. Reading on the patio uninterrupted. No cooking, no cleaning, no f... 

Someone's idea of a lousy week-end can be someone else's eldorado.  

Speaking of Eldorado.  I was love struck my these images, this house, this color in a Brazilian house found in Sunrise Hossegor, the sunniest French blog of them all.  isn't this one amazing, and amazingly photographed house?  By Nathalie Krag via Tavern.

By the way.. I cancelled my Adsense account, so why is it on???

Quaterbacks, quartermaine, whatever.

Oh my mouth!  My moughff...  It feels like it's been manhandled a bit much.  Like there was a mini football game in there, with a mini army of quarterbacks kicking and wrestling and pulling gum all over the place.  Can you believe that another cavity was found.  I have 4 more to go, or once a month for the rest of my life. 

Just a few princess pictures to start this wednesday prettily.  I think these have to be Carolyn Quartermaine's house, and if not, a place she designed.  The photographer is Martin Morrell. I found all this via Desire to Inspire.

I'm meeting guess who today? She and I can commiserate about her hair, my hair,  my teeth and her mean botox lady.

100 passerines

I am absolutely stunned by the beauty of Matthew Studebaker's photography.  I want to spend a year with him, if he'll let me.  Together we would travel the world and photograph birdies. 

At first I thought those were not real birds, that's how unbelievable they are.  How does he get each bird to pose on just the right branch, with just the right background.  I guess it's magic.

You can purchase prints here.

This is the flickr page.

This is how adorable he looks. (and now I think he might not let me go with him.)

Have a great week end

Beautiful Frieda Maria

I realize that trying to find soul-feeding meaning in the economic crisis is pretty incendiary. I'm not done trying but let's focus on something else for five minutes. 

I just discovered via the beautiful French blog NäbeFabric, the  stunning photography of Frieda Maria.  In this world of ravenous consumption, isn't it comforting to see that minimalism, recycling and finding beauty in details is still possible? Oh noooo, I tricked you.  Here i go AGAIN?

Camille Soulayrol

I have been meaning to post those images by French stylist Camille Soulayrol, but I forgot where I saw them first.  I know it was one of your blogs.

Apparently I am not entirely ready to post holiday colors yet.  I'm still blogging like it's Easter 2007.

Maybe it's because I'm nostalgic of that time of insouciance back in the days.  Do you remember two winters ago when the big news in the papers (and the collective fear in our hearts) was ... bird flu.

Mystery photographer

I saved these images but can't remember the photographer.  Who can help?  I think she is French, or has a French name, and I'm pretty sure I posted some of her work before.  My mind is drawing a complete blank and it's driving me nuts.  

The winner gets.... all the glory.

Maria Grossmann love

Maria Grossman's work fascinates me.  She is a stylist who combines rare objects with mundane ones in such ways that everyday objects need to be seen differently from then on.  

This is a series that i find  delightful: it's called 'be in bloom' beautifully photographed by  Janne Peters  (Desire to Inspire talks about Janne Peters here.) For more images I posted about Maria Grossmann earlier this month.

...and to think I was clueless enough to throw away my old dish-washing scrubs.

 

Nicolas Mathéus

Remember Nicolas Mathéus, the brilliant French photographer I was just telling you about? Here are my favorite pictures borrowed from his portfolio. I figured he needed his own post.

I'd nap there!

Gorgeous floor, but better not come home drunk on a moonless night.

Amazing concrete table.

James Merrell photography

Was i injust to James Merrell yesterday when i mourned the loss of Gilles de Chabaneix. Let me make amend.

Tricia Guild and James Merrell collaborated on at least two books:

but his work is in so many more.

Here are pictures from James merrell's portfolio that i find beautiful.

here she is again

And here it is again, the object of my lust.