recent reads

Been reading a fair amount ... complete with staying up late to finish books ... and it's been quite  a while since I'd done that.  So thought I'd share what's been keeping me up late at night and what's been fueling my current surge in inspiration.

Janisse Ray is a recent discovery.  Pretty much loving everything I've found, Wild Card Quilt because it resonated deeply and The Seed Underground for deepening my resolve to support local food ... but they're all pretty wonderful.  She writes of the north Florida and south Georgia landscape of my childhood and it's been helping gain a new perspective on my own history.

I used to read everything by Isabel Allende and then I didn't.  I found Maya's Notebook on the new bookshelf at the library and devoured it straight away.  Might need to do some backtracking and see what I've missed over the last few years.

Just finished Sabina Berman's  - Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World, another library find.  It's written in the voice of an autistic savant.  No idea how accurate it might be, but the book was an absolute delight and I blew through it way too fast.

Just started The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna van Praag and it's looking to be a good one ... magic and mystery in a lovely setting.  Thanks to my beloved librarian husband for snagging this one while he was cataloging it.  Gotta love a spouse that knows my reading habits so well.

These are all looking like books with some redeeming value.  I haven't read any flat out tripe in a bit, but I will say I'll be at the head of the line when the final book of the All Souls Trilogy comes out.  I've never read any other vampire silliness, but love how Deborah Harkness throws in lots of historical detail ... tripe with a wee bit of redeeming value.

Okay, now back to work for this little peep.

ciao for now

 love and gratitude and light filled blessings ...

l i g a - kvk

p.s.  it's the middle of May and the heat is on ... what up wit dat?

an aspiring eccentric's reading list

Mansuetude got me to thinking about this whole eccentricity thing.  I've been pondering the idea a bit and I came up with a couple of clues regarding my aspirations.

A good one came last night as I finished reading Seth Godin's We Are All Weird, the very last sentence in the book kind of summed up my motivations, "... someone brave enough to choose precisely what it is they want." 

Then I decided to see what the on-line dictionary had to say.  I like both of these:

1.deviating from the recognized or customary character, practice, etc.; irregular; erratic; peculiar; odd: eccentric conduct; an eccentric person.

2.Geometry . not having the same center; not concentric: used especially of two circles or spheres at least one of which contains the centers of both.

So  maybe it's not so much being eccentric as just being my own person, being brave enough to follow my own vision, to not compromise my values or aesthetic voice.  Lately I've been getting a lot of encouragement from the printed page ... lots. This got me to thinking about my personal library.

 

Like most artists, I am a total visual junky and Pinterest is turning into a daily fix, but first and foremost, I am a book addict.  I cannot see me switching to one of those electronic thingies anytime soon ... just don't see the point in them.  Second, I take great pride in my library ... I've got some real treasures and, color me surprised, there's a bunch of juicy tomes that I thought would be fun to share with other aspiring eccentrics.  

Here are some of my favorites, an aspiring eccentric's reading list ...

There's the navel gazing section.   These are pretty good.

But the way to really judge how much I like a book is by the neon fringe of stickies.  Ignore Everybody has a slew, but the hardcover hides them.  I really love this book!

The one with the most stickies is The War of Art ... a really good book.  He's got a new one (Do the Work) that's pretty much the same thing, just hardcover and more the "pithy purls to ponder" format. 

There's the clothing and fashion section, alternative to contemporary ...

... I just found this one - it's chock full of clothing and design in general - I'm looking forward to a thorough perusal ... I love Japanese and German design!

then there's a big home/style section ...

... and anything by Sibella Court is sure to end up on my shelf.  These are such beautiful publications ... useless on a Kindle.

And the last category is jewelry inspiration.  It's always fun to see what the avant garde is up to and these are two good ones ...

But I'd much rather look to the past and these are full of good visual juice ...

I know I've shared some of these in the past, but it was fun to pull them out from a slightly different perspective.  Unfortunately, most are not going to show up on any local bookseller's shelf.  I've tried to show the names and authors in the images, but if anyone wants more details on one or another, let me know and I'll send you the full 411 .

Okay, off to do some more pondering and fix dinner.  Thanks again, Mansuetude for the nudge.

l i g a - kvk

in the studio

Woke up feeling a bit out of sorts and have been struggling to get things done.  I've made tea and showered and got the tumbler going and fired a new batch of sterling pmc and picked flowers for a couple of small arrangements and downloaded some new tunes and checked email and checked a couple of blogs and switched tumblers from steel to finishing and made some more tea and then took a few photos to chronicle my scattered thoughts.  Looks like maybe I have been getting things done, just not in any order.

So here I am doing a blog post, like that's really on my official to-do list ... trust me, it's not.  But I'm going to make a serious effort to hunker down after I finish here and there's a couple of things I was pretty excited about and I'll be better able to focus when I'm done ... really.

I just plunked these new sterling pmc components into the tumbler.  It was tempting to leave them as is, but the Angel Wing is a special order, so traditional finishing it will be.  It's about 4" long and I tucked in a tiny raw white sapphire at the top - not sure why, it just seemed like the thing to do.  It kind of takes my breath away ..........

And I've been thinking about this shape for weeks.  Inspired by another shell I picked up on the beach in St Augustine.  They're about 3" long and quite narrow.  Also, sterling pmc allows me to work very thin - really loving that.  Can't wait to see where they'll go .............

In my morning's agitated state, I couldn't decide what I wanted to listen to.  A favorite song popped up on one of my Pandora stations and I realized that was it.  So of course, I had to download what I could find and have had this song on repeat for the last couple of hours ... Ulrich Schnauss, Stars.



You can get more of an idea about my widespread focus (or lack thereof) by my current stack of reading material...

I'm a huge fan of Sibella Court and have been dying to get my hands on her new book, The Stylists Guide to NYC.  To order from Sibella from Australia, it was going to cost a small fortune.  There was one or two from Amazon sellers for even more astronomical sums.  Then I happened to check one day and there was one in the UK for $28 - I snagged it.  Of course if I'd waited 6 weeks there's a bunch of US Amazon sellers that have them for $24.  Oh well, I'm still a happy camper aside from the fact I really haven't had time to do a thorough perusal.  It's a great format, designed and set up for use ...

... and the pages are dark and lush and full of tantalizing little details - ABC Carpet and Home, one of my top five places to hit next time we're in NY ...

So what I'm really supposed to be doing is this ...

... a nice big wholesale order.  If I don't get my distracted self to work pretty soon, I may be working nights for the next couple of days.

Okay, I'm better now ... so back to it for this little peep. 

l i g a - kvk