In Praise Of A Cluttered Mind

My brain is like a rambling old wood-panelled library crammed with a life's worth of images, references and words that have seeped in and left their mark on my soul. There's no claim to any principle of organization in this strange room of collections -- the memory of a candlelit party in Brooklyn is firmly lodged next to a favorite passage from George Eliot which, in turn, is stacked on top of a vision of a midsummer's night in Iceland -- but the haphazard arrangement of all these memories is what makes it so delightful.

Random connections proliferate.

Curious relationships form.

And every impression tattooed on my mind's eye gives me an opportunity to glimpse my world through an extra rose-colored layer of meaning.

Thus, the bracing memory of an August afternoon on a Scottish field...

(Outside Stirling, Scotland, 2008)

...inspired me to tell Luca and his friend Ethan, "So what if the badminton net is broken. Who needs a net as a divider when you have a sheep?"

(Summer, Hollywood, 2009)

The vibrant image of a suzani tablecloth paired with green curtains in an old Elle Decor...

(photograph by Simon Upton)

...prompted me to experiment with the same mix of color and pattern outside.

(September, Hollywood, 2009)

The remembrance of a favorite childhood novel in which enchanted brambles were the passageway into another world...

(Original frontispiece, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett)

...motivated me to create an enchanted forest inside the walls of my house so that my son could feel inspired by the same imagery.

(May, 2009)

Lastly, the haunting image of two young English artists (Mark Gertler and Julian Morrell) "hard at it" in the drawing room of a country house...

(Photograph by Ottoline Morrell, 1923, via here)

...made me see the similarities between a quiet weekend in the English countryside and one in urban Hollywood nearly ninety years later.

(October, 2009)

The Alt-Rock Aesthete

The influences of the Bloomsbury Group appear in the most unlikely of places. Who would have thought that a former Smashing Pumpkin would commission a painstaking reproduction of hand-stenciled paisley patterns from Charleston House on the walls of his East Village apartment? Yet guitarist James Iha did just that. 

And it's glorious.

(Photograph by Joanne Chan)

I love that given Iha's sturm und drang-fueled, goth-rock musical style, his design sensibility extends toward a muted palette, antique furniture and a sedate country-house vibe.

(Photograph by Joanne Chan)

Here's a photo of the original room in Charleston House, decorated in the 1920's by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Fabulous, no? The undulating pattern of apostrophe-shaped paisleys has a soft lyricism that still feels modern today. Even the curtain panels have a indie craft sensibility to them, and despite all the patterns on patterns, the room still reflects a sense of peace and tranquility. 

( Photograph by Alen MacWeeney from 

"Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Garden.")

If you admire the lushness of those muted hues but don't fancy the idea (and cost) of having it hand-stenciled, don't despair. I think Cole and Son's "Egerton" wallpaper, seen below, shares a strong emotional resonance to the work of Grant and Bell. 

(Photograph by Max Kim-Bee)

I used it in my own bathroom and find it imparts a gentle awakening on those mornings in which my brain feels like a slightly dented gourd.

(9/6/09)

Powder Room Pastorale

As you all know, I am partial to wallpaper. Sometimes when I'm driving along Beverly Boulevard I find myself uncontrollably veering into a parking space in front of Walnut. Their gorgeous selection of patterns, colors and textures -- from companies such as Cole and Son, Allegra Hicks, Neisha Crosland, and Osborne and Little -- never fail to set my head spinning (and make driving home an especially tricky task).

But I must confess a mad and desperate love for the cheeky designs of Timorous Beasties. I used "Thistle" in my kitchen, so when my friend Claire informed me she had just hung their "London Toile" in her powder room, I grabbed my camera and raced lickety-split up the hairpin turns to her fabulous home in the Hollywood Hills.

I fell to my knees when I saw it. I know that's rather a dramatic gesture, but it felt entirely appropriate at the time.

From a distance, you expect to see twee scenes of peasants frolicking in an Arcadian garden...

but get up close and you are treated to urban idylls...

...and teenage malaise.

Other vignettes in the pattern depict a Sikh meditating on a bench, a chic mum wheeling a massive Silver Cross pram, a City businessman on a cellphone and a group of rebellious skateboarders. 

I love it because it's a triple threat: modern wallpaper that's also art that's also social commentary. (In perhaps their boldest move, there's also a man holding a gun.) It's subversive, it's unsettling and the images linger in your brain long after you've seen them. One critic recently described their work as "William Morris on acid"; another as "Damian Hirst on Ovaltine."

According to Alastair McAuley, (who, along with Paul Simmons, is one of the founder/designers), "[Some of] the imagery in the French toiles from the 18th century is actually quite shocking. They have scenes of workers womanizing, smoking and drinking. What we've done is update the imagery." 

And again from McAuley: "I guess our typical customer would be someone about our age or a little older [both were born in 1967], perhaps imbued with a punk ethos, who wants their home to express something more interesting than IKEA minimalism."

If you're curious to know more about these two fearless gents, click HERE.

Thistles and Pistols

I recently renovated my kitchen and when it came time to choose a wallpaper and fabric for my built-in banquette area, my chief desire was that it somehow conjure up a cold August day on the moors in Scotland.  

And that it be ever-so-slightly slightly rock and roll.  

This is what I ended up doing.  The wallpaper is "Thistle" from Edinburgh-based design firm Timorous Beasties and the red tartan fabric I found at F&S Fabrics here in Los Angeles.  To me, it's pastoral with a punk edge.  

I can usually be found here for at least some part of the day, along with our kittens Twiglet and Fellini who have adopted it as their between-meal haunt, and my rambunctious seven year old who is apparently conducting a long-term study on fabric wear and tear.