love for live: E. M. Forster

Friday Update:

Also wanted to mention that last week I was lucky enough to have a cup of tea with Pamela of the blog "From the House of Edward", who was enjoying a brief interlude in Los Angeles. It's always lovely to meet fellow bloggers in person and discover that they are just as fabulous as you thought they were. She is stylish and charming and the owner of the absolutely most FLAWLESS skin I've ever laid eyes on. And talk about a love of Scotland that rivals mine -- she and her husband have a possible retirement plan there!

Thursday Update:

Just spoke to Santy at the Santa Monica Museum of Art who kindly sent me some better photos of the two pieces I entered. Check their website in June for "Incognito Revealed": an unmasking of all the artists who participated and their works.

(For those of you who asked about size, both pieces are 8" by 10".)

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Now that the INCOGNITO show is over and all the artists are finally able to acknowledge their work, I'm so happy to finally get a chance to show you what I've been up to lately, embroidery-wise.

Check it out below (or click HERE):

Note: Apologies for the semi-dark footage of my new embroidery pieces -- I shoot everything with my iPhone 4 because I love the moody edge it imparts, but getting sharp details has at times been difficult. Good things lie ahead, though: I am saving up for a Canon 5D Mark 2 digital camera with video capabilities that will take "The Domestic Explorer" webisodes to a whole new level of clarity -- so be patient a bit longer!

xx/Lisa

"Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect...and human love will be seen at its height. "

~ E. M. Forster, "Howards End"

The circle is an unbroken connection, the purest shape in nature. Mathematicians consider it a perfect symbol of infinity. Philosophers, artists, and religious leaders believe it to be a metaphor for love and the idealization of unity.

This past Saturday, my son and his best friend begged me to take them to Target and buy them the new cult accessory for Hollywood second-graders, colorful rubber bands shaped like animals, food and other objects.

They each grabbed an assortment of packs.

"Do you really need that many?" I asked. "Mom, yessss," Luca insisted. "Because then we can trade them with our friends. That's the whole point."

Only connect.

Later that day, I noticed that the climbing rose I've been endlessly cajoling to wrap itself around my guest room window has finally succeeded in embracing itself.

Only connect.

Halos of meaning popped up everywhere. In my dining room, my new terrarium became a thriving example of Emersonian self-reliance.

In my guest room curtains, the ever-widening circles on Martyn Lawrence Bullard's "Marrakech" fabric were an homage to beauty expanding outward.

(Martyn Lawrence Bullard "Marrakech" fabric)

Reading an article on artist Ann Carrington in The Guardian, a vintage sculpture in her fireplace became a powerful talisman for the connection between heart and hearth.

In the book "Bright Young Things: London" an antique convex mirror provided a glimpse of infinity echoed in circles of patterned wallpaper.

(Photograph by Jonathan Becker)

Leafing through an old House and Garden magazine yielded multiple treasures: a spread on Oberto Gili's house in Tuscany with this heavenly window frame....