Giant paper flowers by Tiffanie Turner

I often check out the blog This Is Colossal, where you are pretty much guaranteed at least one blog post (you tend to click about in interesting old posts and loose all track of time) about something that makes you drop your jaw in wonder or go "Oh, this is the loveliest thing I ever saw!" In that last category I think I will put this lady, a San Fransisco based artist, architect and crafty paper magician: Tiffanie Turner. She makes painstakingly precise and real looking but oversized flowers in crêpe paper. It takes her from 30 to 80 hours to complete a single flower, and they are around three feet or one meter in diameter!

She says: "My work in paper stems from my background as an architect, particularly my interest in how things are made and the use of repetitive elements, along with my lifelong obsession with flowers and botanical drawings. The exploration of scale plays heavily into everything I do, and the organized chaos and rhythms in nature make the heads of flowers an excellent case study for me".

I love that there are people out there, doing something like this.

Here is her blog, and here is her website Papel SF.

And I just discovered, on her website, that she makes workshops as well! So if you are anywhere near San Fransisco, you may want to go on an Easter Egg Piñata Workshop on March 21st!
Read about it here....

And her easter eggs are just beautiful, of course!

The Isamu Nogushi Museum in New York

The other day I picked this print up at the frame shop, and I immediately had to dive into my (yet not quite sorted) folder of images from our US-trip last year. See, I bought the print (brilliant red ink on almost transparent washi paper) in a very special place....

On a sunny day in June, I left my family to their own devices, and hopped on the subway to go visit a place in my own slow company: The Isamu Nogushi Museum in Long Island City - just a few stops from bustling Manhattan, but an oasis of quiet and beauty. The Japanese-American artist Isamu Nogushi designed the place himself, and it is created as a place where he would sum up his life's work in a small, intimate exhibition building and sculpture garden. There is so much to say about both Nogushi himself, and the exquisite museum space he created - I will lead those curious for more on to these sources:

Wikipedia on Isamu Nogushi

About the museum and the museum garden

It landed on my top ten list (I think, actually!) of breathtakingly beautiful architecture, I have had the good fortune to see, here or there. Seen as a whole, because you could not remove one sculpture or pine tree from the garden, or anything. It is perfect. Everything in balance, and warm, welcoming, sensual and approachable in every detail. Just wow.

On the last image you see his characteristic initials, on a stone fountain in the garden. 

The practicalities: Take the yellow N/W subway line and get off at the Broadway stop. It's a nice half hour walk from there, and you may want to check out the Socrates Sculpture Park, or other interesting things in this rather cozy and very down to earth neighborhood.

The museum has a café (and a really nice shop selling - among other things - the lovely Akari lamps) - BUT if you are hungry, I have one really hot tip for you. I had lunch in this diner on my way to the museum, and it was just the best eggplant parmigiana sandwich with an ice cold Coke on the side, I have ever had!

The Bel Aire Diner is on the corner of Broadway and 21st Street. Much recommended!

Leah Jackson - another new Instagram find

Spring feels possible and though days are a bit gloomy around here, I insist on looking at the world through my rainbow colored glasses. Color to me is like vitamins - I mean that very literally - and that's that. I get my daily fix here and there, as I mentioned the other day.

Here is another new Instagram treasure of mine: Australian ceramicist Leah Jackson. She is into that whole Memphis style speckle / dot / confetti patterning I love so much, and which makes such a big comeback these days.

Her website is here - and here at Mr Kitly, you can buy her pretty handmade ceramics.

She does it her way, and it is impossible not to get a bit spring crazy about it all. It is like candy, Easter eggs and the first flowers of the season. Enjoy!

Structure Minerals - a daily dose of color

The mood has been grey around here lately, but this morning we were blessed with an unusually sunny and beautifully clear morning. It was hard not to feel a bit spring delirious. As it happened, I was walking my friend's dog, so I really got the full benefit of the few hours of brilliant sunlight, otherwise I might have just hurried home. Now I am at my desk working, and the sky is back to overcast dull blah.

I am desperate for color and light now, and to treat myself to some dreamy escapism, I have begun to follow some more exotic feeds on Instagram, rather than the endless cups of expensive coffee, house plants and children's rooms with quirky vintage wallpaper. I am looking for weird and wonderful now.

These guys I have been following for some time, and practically every day I am rewarded with beautiful shots of a rainbow extravaganza of minerals and precious stones.

They are Matt and Ashley from Minneapolis, and they have an Etsy shop called Structure Minerals.

And here they are on Instagram. Such a feast for the eyes!

From Ouch! to vintage skiing

Exactly a week ago I did something with my back, nothing much, I hardly remember the specific thing, but the result was days of almost crawling around, bent over in pain. I actually got so desperate, that I went and saw a chiropractor for the first time in my life, and he twisted and pushed me around, and massaged my lower spine with a small wooden instrument of torture.

And then he prescribed ibuprofen, weird little back exercises and lying face down on the floor with a bag of frozen peas on my back several times a day.

And I am so thankful it all helped, and very very happy about that, because today we are leaving for our annual skiing trip to Sweden, and that is the highlight of winter, as far as I am concerned, and I just love love LOVE it.

I made a post about it last year, and the whole thing just gives me a wild surge of fresh energy. The snow, the light, the stillness, the beauty of the mountains. The physical strain of cross country skiing, that leaves you utterly exhausted every day - but next day you just get up and do the whole thing over again. And the food, the wine and the good company. The happy kids. 

And the way that you wear practically the same clothes and no makeup for a week. You hardly comb your hair and you look a complete mess, but with rosy cheeks and stars in your eyes. It totally works for me, happinesswise.

Of course it wasn't always like that. So, let's enjoy some stylish skiing of yesteryear!

That guy in the leopard fur, huh? Have you ever seen anything like that? Cannot source the image, alas, but in a note it says 1927, and I found it on this blog, where you'll se many more great ones / the dad with his kid in a rucksack is from the twenties, and from Norways National Archives / the row of girls are American, and from 1925 / the last, pretty girl is in traditional Arlberg attire from Austria, and the photo is from 1935.

Lets round this one up with none other that Rita Hayworth and Ingrid Bergman, both looking their finest in the slopes. Thus inspired, I feel that perhaps I will comb my hair, after all. Make a bit of an effort, you know.

The photos are collected over a long period from tumblr and elsewhere, and I have no credits for them. Please let me know if you have!