heather chontos

Join me elsewhere

2011-12-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, I have decidedly spread myself too thin! I now have many different blogs going and can not keep up with them, so I am going to stop adding to this one at all and maintain my two main blogs which are www.heatherchontos.com and my inspiration image blog for my new venture "milkfarmroad.com"which is on tumblr, www.heatherchontos.tumblr.com
I am on twitter at chontos studio where all of my updates continuously show up. Come and subscribe to heatherchontos.com or follow me on twitter for all my latest updates and images.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Show at Sawkille and The Whale returns

2011-11-01T21:53:00.000-07:00

So finally we had the opening event at Sawkille where the amazing artisan furniture design work of Jonah Meyer and my painting were placed together beautifully.I made a new Whale, he is 12' long and 5 ' high, with the great help of my father. He built all these amazing wooden boards on stretchers for me to paint on forthe show and over a weekend I made some huge new pieces in their garage in upstate new york, listening to a crackly radio station of the greatest hits from the 90's. It was inspiring, at least to hurry and finish so I could stop listening to the music.
Anyhow, here are some photos of the night and the work!

New work available in limited edition prints, FINALLY!

2011-09-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I know that I might be the worst blogger in the world, but I have been quite busy making new work and traveling for shoots this last year. I re-designed heatherchontos.com and am starting "milk farm road" which will be an interior design consultancy and online shop!
so.. now just in time for the holidays I have found a great printer and have created limited edition prints of 21 pieces. They will be 16 x 20 and the prices will range from $175 to $400.
I will be setting up an online shop on my website and this blog the first week of October. There will only be 10 prints made of each painting and they will be numbered and signed.
Here is a sneak preview at what some of the work will be. Some of it has not been seen before, hope you like it!

thanks for a lovely dinner

2011-08-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

I had dinner at romans last night with my dear friend Dimity Jones, a talented mother and a designer and a designated foodie with amazing taste.
I just wanted to post her blog up on here because she is amazing and so is her work. Check it out.
We had an incredible meal and I sat by candlelight and held my iphone over our plates and bowl to give a little extra light so she could shoot everything we ate, keep your eyes posted for some grilled squid salad and bucatini al sarde on her blog, that was our dinner at "Romans" my favorite restaurant in Brooklyn!!!!

New work showing in Montana

2011-05-30T21:30:00.000-07:00

I am happy to say that I will be showing some work in Montana this week, in two places! I will be showing in Missoula and Bozeman at two very different, but fabulous locations! In Missoula they do first fridays of each month and it is an art walk through downtown at all the local businesses and my friend Rhea owns a great training studio and we are hanging the work there. It is such a great space! I will be hanging huge canvases there...
And then in Bozeman I will be showing lots of smaller works on paper at an old mill. It is a beautiful space too. You can read more about the "Miscal Gallery" which has its first opening friday and I am proud to be their first previewed artist.
Check out the link and here is some of the work..

A gallery of work

2011-03-28T07:02:00.000-07:00

This past year I have painted and drawn on a variety of surfaces, collaged with candy wrappers and antique flash cards, and sewn paper and fabric together to make huge paintings.
Here are some of my favorites

just some normal every day stuff

2011-03-18T15:55:00.000-07:00

I am in a small town in Michigan shooting with Country Living this week and back home Sunday. I miss my little family and was thinking that I would share some photos I have been taking of them over the last few months here. My two beautiful daughters could be the most amazing works of art I have ever taken part in creating adn I am just lucky to have such an amazing boyfriend I am back home sunday night and will be getting back to work on some new paintings or should I say finishing some new paintings, but for now, some gorgeous faces, afterall they are a huge part of my inspiration to make things in general.

New work in my little far away house

2011-03-10T11:21:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, I have been terrible at keeping up at this. I thought I would have so much more time on my hands to keep this going once I moved, but in actuality I am so much busier travelling back and forth between here and whatever coastline I am attending on a given week, that I have been terrible.
But I have been working, painting and drawing, throwing a lot of things away, but keeping a few. I have two fresh canvases in front of me as we speak that are blank and ready for me, and I can't wait to get started, but my little one Zana has whooping cough and can't stop coughing and I have training this afternoon so it might have to wait until later when I have a glass of wine in hand the humidifier is going full blast for the cough and I have re-heated the Indian food I made last night as a repeat for dinner again...

Here are some new pieces though, they are not as colorful as they usually are, but I like them that way for now....

the alphabet

2011-01-04T13:13:00.000-08:00

here are some sketches and random works on papers to begin an alphabet series.... some of these were collaborations with Herb. Let's just say that my part is the messy part and his is the cleaner part. We have different styles.... I am going to do an alphabet series on paper first and then work them into larger canvases. I am also very into the black on black and grey on grey which will go into the" black, white and blank series " I am forever working on
a....b.... c...d..........................

Lost in the Mountains and domestic bliss

2011-01-04T12:21:00.000-08:00

It has been quite some time since I last said or showed anything here. Happy New Year to everyone, I am pretty sure it will be a great one!
So I made the move to Montana, in Missoula and have been working head down on this very small farm house that sits on a nice chunk of land at the base of a mountain in "the Rattlesnake Canyon". we have a creek running through the yard, that of course is frozen solid right now and buried under many, many inches even feet of snow. It is cold and wintery and beautiful and bright. I am very much in love with my most wonderful boyfriend Herb and my two daughters are happy to be exploring a different life in a world of outdoor bliss. There have been trips to hotsprings, cross country skiing, snow tubing, tons of cooking experiments and winter marshmallow roasting on the dock at the cabin on the lake. It is nice to feel like my life is changing in a way that I can have a more even distribution of focus between family, love, work and just doing new things.
In a few weeks I will be showing pictures of the inside of the house, but here is a photo of it from the outside, "our little house".

And then there is work, new work.

works on paper mostly, new canvases are in process. I will be working in San Francisco next week and am hoping to have some great things to show you from there, but promise to be back in the saddle sharing what I am making and doing more often.

two new paintings

2010-08-23T19:40:00.000-07:00

I have finally had some time to make some new works on canvas. I was struggling a bit with some of the smaller sized ones, but I made two that I really liked. it is a new color scheme on one of them. They are both very light and airy, a new thing for me...
off to Montana again, loving it...

new discoveries

2010-08-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

I recently went to a clients house to look at some artwork and was stunned and thrilled to see this beautiful work on paper hanging on the wall. The colors were rich and saturated. The lines were rough and edgy, but the solid shapes were strong and full of purpose.
I was given the artists name and some links and have been researching him. His work is beautiful. he died a few years ago, but his work can be seen all over the place, but most especially at a museum dedicated to him in Spain. The link is above.
Here are some of my favorites. I was very excited to come across this art, it really is so beautiful!

friends and art in Montana

2010-07-27T19:28:00.000-07:00

As everyone knows, I have been spending a lot of time out west this last year and have fallen in love with Montana as a very beautiful place. I have also made some amazing friends who are both lovely people as well as talented, I am always in awe of people who can paint realistically and Mark Gibson is one of them. His sense of light and texture with oil paints is incredible to me. He has a great sense of detail and dedication to his subject, as well as an impeccable sense of humor! His wife Lisa, whom I adore is quite talented on many fronts fro P.R. to managing a family, also makes jewelry, which I love. I don't have tons of images for her work, but hope to get some more up soon. Together with their two gorgeous children Josie and Cal, they are quite the family. They are always working on new projects so check them out from time to time...

"black, white and blank"

2010-07-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

I mentioned before that I was working on some sketch books whilst in Montana. I had planned to work on more but the kids took over most of the day and then there was a lot of wine and grilling to be done in the evening. I had a few lovely days in the sun where I was able to do some drawing and painting and I like the simplicity of it. There are few colors and the bright white against the creamy almost yellowed paper is just gorgeous to me, but the white lines on the dark blue gray forms of paint are my new favorite things to make.

I have a few projects in the works right now and after I send of Kodie to summer camp tomorrow and finish my shoot early this week I will be getting back to work on some of these things.

But here are some pages to view from my new book "black, white and blank".

the cover of the book

and then what...

brunch and tea towels

2010-07-10T12:41:00.000-07:00

So we went for brunch at Pam and Jim's place this morning which was super delicious (thank you Pam!) and Pam who is an awesome stylist had this amazing tea towel with this yellow cross hatch pattern on it that is probably my favorite color yellow and so I looked it up to copy her and buy the same thing! This place is amazing, they make really beautiful stuff. The illustrations on everything are really great and simple and the colors are lovely. Here is the link, can't wait to get my stuff in the mail!

Back in NY for a few weeks

2010-07-09T20:41:00.000-07:00

I arrived back to NY 2 nights ago and it was quite a shock to the system. I went straight back into shooting the next day and that was fun, but a challenge to get my head around since I have just been surrounded by nothing but natural beauty and loud children for 3 weeks in Montana.
We saw so much and it was great inspiration for some sketches. I am heading to bed, but tomorrow I will post the new work I made when I was there this time. There were some drunken collaborations with myself and Herb, we aim to make more in a few weeks, maybe not at 3 a.m. this time...

Here is a photo from a bacteria mat in a hot spring in Yellowstone that I just love. I am working on a cnavas right now that is inspired by these formations, the colors and forms are beautiful

Fabulous New agent BrumlConlon

2010-06-30T18:25:00.000-07:00

So I am so new that I am not up on the site yet, but am very happy to announce that I have signed with Bruml Conlon and am very proud and excited to be represented amongst some very talented people. Jean and KAthy are two amazing women and I am happy for this new joining of forces...

In Montana again...

2010-06-29T15:54:00.000-07:00

There have been at least 6 days where I have had no internet connection nor have a I had phone service out here in Montana. We were in Yellowstone and Big Sky surrounded by Mountains, Horses, Blue Sky and Bears apparently. I have seen more BEars of all sorts in the last few days than I care to see again. it was a truly amazing experience and totally frightening at the same time. It is all so beautiful and detoxifying for the brain. I find myself withe clearer thoughts and visuals as we walk around just looking at all this nature. The kids are having an amazing time and we are all in love with this other world out here.
There are these rich pools from the hot springs that calcify and create layers of white and colors of aqua and pale pink or bright orange. I feel some inspiration from these forms and will be making some small works on paper based on these. For now I will not be attaching images, but soon, very soon. I am still soaking it all in, little by little at a much slower pace.

The Whale

2010-06-11T08:43:00.000-07:00

I think it looks like a whale... this new painting and the name fits because it is 10 feet square! I did it, finally, the big mother of a painting that has now had 3 lives!
1st life... As a set for a shoot with Brian Doben on teh Knot, thank you for letting me keep the canvases, the picture are amazing!
2nd life: a very subtle serene painting that got re-worked by myself, Herb, Chris and his gorgeous boyfriend (always forget his name, his face is too cute). After my little opening a few weeks ago the painitng got out of hand and the painting that was transformed into a drunken purge of creativity. I feel in the paint and broke my ass, went to bed and woke up with quite a mess to resolve. I am happy to have such a story to tell though...
3rd life: so now "The Whale" it is a reworking of the canvas with oil paint in thick layers to cover up what lies beneath, but there are a few windows in "the whale" where you can see parts of what happened. I like that there is history in these layers, lets see what happens next!

painted jars

2010-06-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

I bought these beautiful hand painted vessels from Stand up comedywww.shopstandingup.us
by this artist Stephanie Dearmond. I love her work and these are my new favorite objects as well as my darling little Zana's. She can not keep her hands off of them she loves them so much she wants to bang them together like tambourines, needless to say they have gone to the shelf that is totally out of reach now.

paper stacks

2010-06-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

So now that I am close to the Pratt art store I am in heaven! Their paper section has ben exceptionally pleasing with its large scale thick white watercolor papers, but now I found on a shelf all messed about, a stack of the this pastel paper that has a gritty, sandy texture on it, with the perfect white border. I just bught every piece they had and then ordered some more.
I absolutely love it and have been having a lot of fun working on it. It is also easy to care in rolls on my bike down Myrtle avenue which is very important, canvases not so much...

Bluetan

2010-05-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

So I moved into th new loft over by Brooklyn Navy Yard and I am out walking with the girls one lovely spring evening. I stumble upon this amazing space filled with great artwork and it is across the street from my house.
These guys are amazing artists and super nice people on top of it. They came to my little dinky opening in tribeca even though they had to go to another 5 events that evening. Thanks guys. They had one the next night but I could not attend due to the fact that I slipped in oil paint the night before in my 3 inch heels and broke my ASS! I am not kidding, it is somewhat embarrassing.
Anyhow here are some of my favorite works, check them out, I hope we will get the chance to show together in september.
Cheers

in a paper bag

2010-05-18T19:01:00.000-07:00

I find great comfort in the littlest things. I love the brown paper from brown paper lunch sacs. I used them when I was kid. I packed them myself full of peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches , apples and whatever else was available that day. It is a completely impractical material for such a lunch, the grape jelly would always seep through, Anyhow, I have been working on these new paintings and using a lot of brown paper from paper bags. I love it as a material mixed with the texture of paint.
There will be 6 new works all together at the end of htis month not including my largest 10' x 10' which I will photograph tomorrow. I hope these upcoming shows are properous in many ways. I am hoping to continue this work and be more frequently painting. It brings me great joy to do so...
here is a new one finished today

New work in the new space

2010-05-15T20:04:00.000-07:00

So I have been busy getting the new space in order, shooting a few things for magazines including one thing to be featured on the ipad ! Publishing going live for the ipad is a whole new thing and a new world for me and many others I presume.
I have also been preparing for a small show in NY and a group show in Chicago. It is all very exciting, but chaotic to say the least. Nevermind that I have the preteen thing going on here with Kodie and the terrible 2's with Zana. I am ready for a break for sure!
Anyhow here are a few new things and a few snapshots of parts of the space. I love it here, I love working here especially. It is a nice space where we can all move free and open throughout. The girls run wild and love it and I am working on that huge canvas 10' x10', I am in heaven. I have been making things and just enjoying a new feeling of home.

an invitation

2010-05-12T08:52:00.000-07:00

So I am having a little party/opening at a great studio in NYC where I shoot sometimes. We are going to hang my new work for a night/ There are more shows coming over the summer more in NY and one in Chicago as well as LA so this is more like a preview, but if you are around the area, stop by for a glass of wine.

A new interview

2010-05-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

Here is a lovely new interview that has come out on the papercrane about me and my work. Dee Clements an awesome writer and painter has worked wiht me on this piece. I am very grateful for all the positive feedback and compliments to support me as I try to build my world back together in my life as a painter!
Thank you

My Apologies

2010-05-03T10:29:00.000-07:00

So we made it! We moved into our new amazing space and we are all exhausted. I have been so busy sorting it all out and shooting everyday that I have been lagging behind on my blogging duties. I will be back on track by the end of this week. I have some amazing pictures to share of new work and the new space I can't wait to get painting in!

MATILDE!

2010-04-26T19:04:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share with you an amazing woman, friend, photographer and just a force of life. I recently had the pleasure of meeting Matilda http://www.matildemontanari.com and we have become fast friends. Her and her partner Andrea are the lovliest people I have met in New York in years.
I will be working with her a bit before their return to Italy, to live in Bologna. I hope to also be showing with her at the end of May in a small exhibit. More to come soon, working on some new paintings...

paper and paper

2010-04-20T19:49:00.000-07:00

I know I have been quite bad with the posts recently but work has been crazy and then I had a little accident which has put a minor spanner in the works for me. Lets just say bikes and cars don't work together very well.
Anyhow, I have this new work that I did with Pernille Pederson www.ehmanagement.com
we were just mucking around with idea and materials and this is what came out of it. It is a beautiful collection of photographs that we created. I am so excited to put them up here!
The move is over in less than 2 weeks and then things will be easier and my oldest daughter turns 11 this friday and I am wallowing in my own self pity that I am YES, I am get getting old.....

away in Big Sky Country

2010-04-14T12:13:00.000-07:00

I have been away in Montana again. It was tremendously beautiful and inspiring to be there again. The sky is big and beautiful and the mountains tower over everything not crushing but rather expanding the feeling of space and your ability to breathe freely. It is a magical place and the people there are lovely and full of bright energy and great humor.

I will be moving in a few weeks to a new space in Brooklyn. It is a beautiful old loft in Ft/Green/Brooklyn Navy Yard area. It is in an old chocolate factory. I can not wait to get in there and get working on some new huge paintings. The space is wide open with big windows and big old wooden beams. Check it out! I will be posting some pictures of Montana later today as for now I am actually on my flight home and need to see my beautiful girls. I have missed them a lot these last few days.

those were the days in London

2010-04-05T19:23:00.000-07:00

I am cleaning through my piles and boxes of paper and I came across some photos of an opening night for one of the shows I did in London at "egg". This place was so amazing, developed by Maureen Dougherty, one of the most amazing women I have ever known, it was an old dairy in 3 seperate buildings. It was on Kinnerton street in Knightsbridge. So beautiful and stylish. I felt very lucky to be a part of what was going on there. The parties were famous! we would be out all night in the street, the amazing chefs from the river cafe would come and cook for everyone on the cobblestone streets where we were all dancing and drinking wine. Everyone was quite fabulous! So Maureen gave me many opportunities to create things for the shop, but then she gave me the entire building at 69 Kinnerton and here are a few shots. I even made the aprons for the girls working the show for me. They were sewn by me and then painted and there were branches twisted into the fabric like a nest. It was so much fun! I miss those days. We need to bring that sentiment back!

new friends xx

2010-04-03T15:45:00.000-07:00

So as I had said in the beginning of all of this, the blogging world is a new venture for me and one that I really frowned upon unknowingly! I now quite enjoy the interaction with people here and the art community that is out there. There are so many amazing talented people out there and I have recently had the pleasure of meeting them out there on the big old interweb!
I got a shout out from the awesome blog " Tell You Today" by Genevieve Dellinger an awesome DJ and amazing creator, designer and inspiration! her personal work is here : http://genevievedellinger.com/ and the blog above is awesome you should sign up for sure. Here are a few pictures from her recent posts and her own website. I am looking forward to working with her in the near future!!

lovely springtime

2010-04-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

I have been riding my bike all over Brooklyn with my girls this week it has been so lovely. The magnolia trees are blossoming adn they smell divine! I wish magnolia stuck around longer, they die so quickly.
I have been working a painting for someone this week which I just finished friday and am excited to give to her monday. I hope she loves it as much a I do.
Here are 2 new paintings I worked on the other day, smaller works on paper. I found this amazing grey paper which I always love to draw and paint all over in white. it is nice to see the white lines pop out on a darker paper. I think that color combination and contrast is beautiful!

jar design inspiration

2010-03-29T19:38:00.000-07:00

I love these products. I found them in London many years ago, but then visited many of their shops in Australia, the best being in Melbourne. They smell amazing and are beautiful with their brown glass bottles. The packaging design is superb. I was looking through a booklet I grabbed when I was there and founf these images and they gave me inspiration for some new jar drawings, so beautiful.....

non typeface

2010-03-29T19:28:00.000-07:00

I have been going through all my books that I have made and found this old book of type I made for Art Director and amazing director Stephen Baillie. I was illustrating a lot at the time and he was creative director for SURFACE magazine and he would give me little projects! He told me to go home and make a bunch of type, do treatments etc. This was like my art school since I never went, all these people giving ways to practice and pressing upon me the art of experimentation. I liked his influence and his work is incredible. I have no idea where he is now, but if this reaches you Stephen would love to catch up one of these days.....
Here are some pages from my book called "TYPO"

My agent would take this book to meetings and people would of course have many comments to make like "it's great" or " it's shit" or "wow, she's angry" I thought that was silly...

Back from Montana

2010-03-23T20:51:00.000-07:00

The Big Beautiful Blue open sky of Montana was in full force these past few days. I have not been there for nearly 20 years and I fell in love with it all over again. It was an amazing few days and I am so grateful to have had that time there with someone who I think is quite amazing. Thank you.
So it is back to work now... I am going to finish that huge canvas this week (I Hope).
But here are some new pieces featured last week in my interview with "Sight Unseen". They did a lovely invitation for me to make some work for them and it was really good fun. I tried out some new stuff like stitching paper together on my sewing machine. I like what happened with it all, here is some of it...

a big thank you

2010-03-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

to design sponge for such a lovely feature on my home and my work, as well al the compliments and comments that people have made! I have had an amazing response from everyone and I am very grateful.
I will be organizing myself over the next few days to present an inventory of the work that is for sale and also a price list. I do not have a gallery. it is just little old me and I sell from my home where I have the work hung or stored in my little itty bitty studio.
I am completing a new series of stitched and painted works on paper and canvas that will be monumentally huge in size. it will be another week or so before they are able to be seen as I am checkin out thursday to go on a little vacation to Montana...

here are two of my favorite collages..

Busy beautiful weekend

2010-03-07T10:21:00.000-08:00

So this week was intensely full of things to finish, deadlines and chores galore, but we had a lot of fun friday onwards... It is still continuing as we speak, as it a very special persons 2 nd birthday today, Lily Gallagher and we have major party plans for that. Happy Birthday Lily!
But otherwise where do I start. Friday night Kodie and I built a tent in the dining room. I used fabric remnants that I had been sewing all week and these 8 foot birch-wood poles. We had a dinner party saturday and some of us, (mostly the kids and I) ate inside it. It was like a pow wow with wine, beer and tacos, awesome! The lighting inside the tent was supplied by my old assistant now on his way to stealing my jobs, Christopher white of www.whiteslate.com He will be selling them soon and they are stunningly beautiful.

So that is the tent. The other thing that happened was that I got this amazing surprise email from Kostas Anagnopolous , this write who I adore. His writing is magical to me. His first book "Daydream" is the one I have and I have quoted it here on my blog. Anyhow, it turns out we have a mutual friend and she has informed him that I had featured a small snippet of his writing here and I guess he was pleased to see it. i got a lovely email and I am getting a copy of one of his new books "Various Sex Acts" in the mail! He is doing a reading this week in NYC and I will be going to meet him, which I am thrilled about! If you have a chance you should check it out too! He is genius.

Here is another excerpt

"Water under the bridge

Comfort tucked in there too

Releasing an ambient Glow

Like an antique hearing aid

In the form of a shell

Witness the pink sun. the woman and child walking beside it

As though they were closing the chapter in the history book

How we got here is our business

But we did and now what

I'd like to come up for air"

SO the last thing we did all weekend was a test shoot with my incredible friend and favorite photographer John Kernick. I cmae up with this idea to do a shoot where we make the object or the notion of an object out of itself in multiples, we made a book out of books, a teapot, out of tea bags, and a can of paint out of cans of paint, we did a few varieties, they will be up on y site in myportfolio soon, but for now here is a peek!

my work space

2010-02-28T19:01:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures I took of my little work den, I love it, I really love my little space in Brooklyn where I can get it all done...

WHAT I MADE THIS WEEK

2010-02-28T08:37:00.000-08:00

I said before I did alot of artwork, but I made some other cool stuff. Here are a few of the things. I made these dipped painted old bottles and I dipped the flowers too in the leftover black paint. I dipped tons of stuff actually, I went a little buck wild! And I made this woven seat cover so the hard back of the chair is not harsh. I made it from old towels and shorts and fabrics so it is totally eco friendly! then there is my newwly painted black table and my flourescent flatware sprayed and dipped and the crazy cutting board I remade...
Amd the bottle are recycled too. I feel so green...

sunday morning

2010-02-28T07:54:00.000-08:00

First chance I have gotten to write anything as of lately. There have been cancelled flights to LA, Snow Days off school and children just running wild everywhere in my home. Though I managed to finish painting my furniture and make some new art.

For now as I am figuring out what I like if I like anything that I have done this weekend, here are some illustrations I founf in my drawer that I have not had around for a while...

Design Sponge shout out

2010-02-25T09:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.designspongeonline.com/2010/02/heather-chontos-behind-the-scenes-letterpress.html

Today design Sponge featured some of my styling work, and keep your eyes open there because soon there will be a feature with pics of my apartment and more paintings...
Thanks Design Sponge!

I love Bloom

2010-02-23T08:43:00.000-08:00

I love Bloom, why do we not make magazines like this every time, the quality is amazing. I know that the print industry is suffering so enormously, but why sacrifice quality, this is an amazing publication and has been an inspiration to me for many many years. Here are few bits I love!

empty jar

2010-02-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

A very dear friend made the most amazing pickles I have ever had and I was only able to open the jar a week ago and they are now sadly gone, this is my tribute the best pickles I have ever had.
Thanks Herb! make more

Check out Sabine Tress I love this work

2010-02-20T14:59:00.000-08:00

Since I have started doing this blog thing doors information doors have opened up and I am discovering all these amazing artists. My absolute favorite of the week is Sabine. Really lovely work.

This woman is amazing!

2010-02-20T14:51:00.000-08:00

Thanks Britt for showing me or re-introducing me to her site! It is so funny because when I was a teenager and I was home for the summer from BArcelona, I worked at Modern Age in SOHO. It was a funriture design showroom. I was only there for a few months, but I felt quite flush and well I would shop in the area even though I really could not afford anything.
I went into this woman's shop and she had all these amazing clothes made of silk, they were all works of art and I wanted one so bad, so I bought one! It was the most expensive item of clothing I had ever bought at that time, it was $195 which jsut blew my mind! I had that shopping high that day, I remember how exciting it was. And anyways, now here she is and wow her breadth of work is just awe inspiring.

my mouth is full of feathers

2010-02-20T10:47:00.000-08:00

and my head is full of marbles and no I am not hungover.

Ok so this post is rather large with a lot of images. I took photos of a book that I pulled out last night, a book I made almost 8 years ago. It was a color forecasting and idea book for Issey Miyake that I made in London and well I just fell in love with it again. I am going to make a new book now. I have made many in between but this is my absolute favorite.

street styling

2010-02-18T18:54:00.000-08:00

I think someone is trying to copy me and steal my job!!! This looks like something I would build on set, but this is someone's trash. I am not sure what to make of that?? Though it has given me an idea for a story......

cement floor

2010-02-18T08:44:00.000-08:00

I took this picture when I was shooting at Alison and Jamie's studio (Allison Attenborough and Jamie Kimm. amazing food stylist and chef's) I love it! It's a painted flaw in the cement floor.

paint it black

2010-02-18T08:16:00.000-08:00

So I just got back from the hardware store where I bought matte almost (not quite) jet black paint to repaint some of my furniture. It has been drawn all over and needs to be re-surfaced in a wipe capable paint. So I am painting my dining table and a cabinet black, I think it will look amazing when it's done.
I am very into painting all things black at the moment or flourescent colors. It reminds me of when I was in University and I wrote my thesis on Ad Reinhardt and his black canvases. I was thinking how beautiful and serene it would be to paint this new canvas I built (the 10 footer) BLACK and have all the lines and forms on it white or flourescent. I used to paint like that all the time and then someone told me to lighten up! You can see an older piece here feature in Vogue, I don't know why I listened to whoever told me to lighten up, we all love the color Black, well if you have any sense you do....

Little helper

2010-02-17T08:14:00.000-08:00

Usually I am up at night making stuff when the girls are asleep, but I have discovered if I give little Zana a few chalk pastels she is quite happy to draw all over anything I put in front of her (including furniture). So today I was able to work a bit in the morning before work and she made some nice drawings too! It is scary how similar our work can be at times....

It was nice to work with these bright yellows and mossy-olive greens. They are beautiful colors that I wish we saw more of in interiors. Nicole Farhi did a lot with this color last season in her home collection and it was amazing. It's very old school French. Mixed with Black and hot pink it's just amazing how all the colors pop.

wet cold and slushy

2010-02-16T09:58:00.000-08:00

It's horrible outside, so I have come home to keep building my new huge canvas and work on some drawings in this little book I am making. I am adding some images from a sketchbook I made previously and some from the new one. I got some amazing paper over the weekend in beautiful chartreuse and hot pink. I am going to collage with these bits in the book if I can find my bloody glue-stick....

oil paper and water

2010-02-15T18:10:00.000-08:00

I am very fortunate to have the help and support of some amazing and talented people in my life. One is Britt Brown who made this amazing card for me. She is in incredible artist who I can't wait to collaborate with on many things! Thank you for your beautiful work. And James Gallagher and Pam Morris you guys are amazing artists, friends and parents. And Zana and Kodie you guys inspire most every drop of creativity in me! Richard Ferretti, thanks for being an amazing art director and friend. There are more of course, but for now....