DIY Update

Hi bloggies! It's been a while, I know; we've been really busy trying to make our new house a home. When last I blogged, The Irishman and his brother had been ripping apart the place to paint the lionshare of it bright white. Now complete, we're really pleased at how much cleaner and brighter it looks. We're ready to start hanging art on the walls to really make it our own.You can see above the lovely light coming in from the back garden; it's pretty fabulous as a space, I must say.After the painting marathon, we spent a lot of time in the garden fighting back some of the wilds. We have lots of fascinating fruit plants invading our garden from neighboring patios; a fig tree and passionfruit and grape vines are all dropping their produce into our yard. Unfortunately, I think they're all ornamental so rather than try to keep it all, we hacked most of it away. Now the space is bigger, brighter and cleaner (sense a theme here?).Finally, the biggest excitement for a while happened last night when we bought a kitchen table. We were toying with going for a mid-century modern pieces like this vintage Ercol number below.

The Irishman wasn't really feeling the vibe, though, and I think for something like this to work, you have to build a world of mid-century around it otherwise it would feel out of place. Being so characteristic it would drive the whole aesthetic of the ground floor of the house, and since we weren't going to develop a completely new style overnight we decided to go with one of our original ideas: a vintage farmhouse table.Friends, do you know how expensive an old farmhouse table can be?Answer: as expensive as you want it to be! We found some new ones on Not on the High Street for into the £1000s; the prices for used/reclaimed wood tables aren't much better on Ebay or in antique shops, and those can sometimes have gaps in the planks and uneven surfaces that aren't exactly practical. We were considering just going for it and buying a new table until The Irishman found a listing for a table for sale in Stoke Newington on Gumtree for £225 plus a bench for £75. Last night we went around to look at it, bargained the poor man down to £275 and took the table home in the back of our Streetcar. You can see it, hosting my lovely autumn sunflowers, in the photo at the top.So we're on track, slowly but surely; this weekend we're headed to the New Forest to see some friends and planning on stopping into some vintage and antique shops along the way. Our next focus is bedside tables – I'll keep you posted on the search.

The DIY Begins

This was my bedroom last Sunday. That's my lovely new bed and amazing mattress, covered in plastic sheeting to protect it as we repainted the bedroom.

We've well and truly moved into our house, and have been in for nearly four weeks. But our quick turn-around move meant that we didn't actually have the luxury of doing things when we first got into the house that we originally wanted to do, like paint the entire house a base coat of white, get it professionally cleaned, etc. Only now are we really getting into the depths of making it our own.

While my friend was visiting last week, The Irishman had time to start prepping the bedroom for painting and we managed to get most of it done last Sunday. This week, he has a week of holiday before he starts a new job and his brother is over from Dublin to help him tackle the rest of the house. Though the entire place smells of paint fumes, already it looks brighter, cleaner, and more of a blank slate for us to make our own.

Hopefully by this weekend the guys will have most of the house done, save for the bathroom (already a lovely Farrow & Ball shade of blue), the loft (which was very recently painted and doesn't need any work), and the kitchen (which is such a disaster that we're toying with just leaving it until we're ready to rip it apart and replace it). 

After the initial white-wash, I plan on tackling the bedroom as the first room we decorate. I'm starting to build pinboards on Pinterest of colours, textures, textiles, and furniture, and we're excited to design  a restful and calm space we both enjoy.

Ola from Barcelona

Ola everyone from sunny, lovely Barcelona. I got here Tuesday night for three days at the MuseumNext conference, discussing museums and digital technology. The Irishman arrives this evening, and we'll stay the weekend exploring and eating all things Catalan.

Of course there will be a full-on report when I return, but you may have to wait a while as 12 hours after I return to the UK I have to get on a plane to Doha again. You may think this life is glamorous (I thought it would be) but actually it's just tiring and requires a lot of strategic laundering of clothes.

Anyways, I'm missing the best heatwave to hit the UK in months so I'm going to go enjoy the heat here while I can. Have lovely weekends everyone! x

The surge of inspiration in Kings Cross

Image from Flickr courtesy of roeyahram

Many of you will know Kings Cross as most people do: a grubby train station with an overcrowded tube station attached next to the Eurostar terminal where trains take you to Paris. But Kings Cross is changing, fast. My office is in Kings Cross and while I still see a few of the prostitutes and drug addicts that once made the neighborhood infamous, the regeneration of the area is bringing so much more color and life to the area. Before working here, I lived around the corner (flat number 2 of 3 since living in London) and I've witnessed such a change in attitude, inhabitants, and atmosphere.

I had about a gazillion errands to run yesterday and skipped eating in my building's restaurant to use my lunch hour to hit a post office, Boots, and Tescos. On my way back to the office, I made a quick detour to grab a sandwich on the go in the St Pancras International terminal. This is actually a guilty pleasure of mine because nothing is more thrilling and inspiring than to stroll through that building pretending to be off on a glorious European weekend – I especially love the ceiling inside the terminal, so lofting and geometric! And there is a Le Pain Quotidien, which I associate much more with New York than Paris, and I was a little big homesick for New York yesterday so a baguette sandwich was more comforting than just lunch.

I took the canal route back to my office, which lead me up King's Boulevard – a brand new street with a brand new postcode of N1C. The Kings Cross development is so big that the city had to create a new postal code for it! I strolled up past Eat Street (sort of sad that I had a baguette in my hand and couldn't get any tacos), taking in the sight of the new Central St Martins art school building in a converted warehouse (so cool), and crossed over to The Guardian building to access the canal towpath back towards Caledonian Road. 

And for my whole journey, my heart swelled with pride and love for all of the art students exploring and examining the world. They were all there, alone and in pairs or in small groups, with their cameras and their sketchbooks, their overpriced coffee cups and ridiculous quiffs, talking loudly and earnestly about their hopes, dreams, projects, loves, and everything in between. It took me back to my own formative years at Syracuse, floating around in my own gritty urban bubble of art and design, scheming, creating, exploring, and learning. It was such a precious and wonderful time in my life that to see it being played out again along the Regents Canal in London lifted my spirits and reminded me just why I have the job I have now, and how I got to be here.

They should name one of the new streets in the Kings Cross development Memory Lane, N1C.

London Design Festival & Serpentine Gallery

This is a bit of a retrospective post on the London Design Festival. I have a kind of a love-hate relationship with LDF; as I work in the design/branding/marketing field, this should be the zenith, the penultimate week of my professional diary, jampacked with talks, openings, receptions, mingling, networking, and inspiration. And it is... and it isn't. For a few reasons, LDF doesn't quite live up to my expectations:

1. "Design" doesn't mean graphic or communication design in this situation; while there are events that incorporate print and corporate design applications, the vast majority of the events are around product, furniture, and interiors design.

2. Most of the events are pay-in, or small gallery events. For the record, despite being a cheapskate, I don't mind paying in to events if I feel that I will get something out of them. But I attended Tent London last year specifically for Tent Digital and I was vastly disappointed. There were only 2 digital exhibits, both lacking in content and explantation. The £15 I paid to be inspired was wasted. As for the gallery events, I've found that most are small galleries with only a few items on display and I personally feel awkward walking in, examining a £2,000 chair, thanking the gallery owner and departing. Over and over and over again.

3. I find London Design Festival to be ironically difficult to navigate. There are so MANY events that it's hard to figure out when the ones you want to see are on, find out when speaker events are taking place (and more importantly, when the tickets go on sale!), and generally plan your week. So I missed out on a lot, especially the Google Design Lectures and Perspectives at St Pauls Cathedral. 

Thus, every year I run around town trying to lap up whatever I can with short notice. I know I should just put it in my diary for early September next year and plan it properly, but a festival by it's nature shouldn't require tons of forward planning. Anyway, rant over.

Today I strolled down to The Illy Galleria, a pop-up installation, gallery and coffee shop that started in New York and has since traveled to Milan, Trieste, Istanbul and Berlin. It's located in a design showroom on Roseberry Avenue, EC1 (near Farringdon tube station) and unfortunately, it was closed (you know, that old "nothing is open on Sunday" chestnut). Luckily the Galleria remains in situ until 16 October so there is still time to check it out. I had a peak in the window and I must say it looks really cool.

Then I headed over to the V&A. The V&A was the LDF Hub, as evidenced by this fabulous wood spiral sculpture at the museum's main entrance.

Inside there were mostly events for kids and families, though there were a few workshops on learning how to design. The final Google Design Lecture was also underway, focused on digital design, and there was a digital design workshop as well. Again, most events had pre-registration so you couldn't just jump in, but the museum did have mini-exhibits scattered throughout the building. I stumbled upon the Outset display after viewing the Jameel Prize, and was pleased to find some really provocative furniture. But again, I would have loved to see/attend some of the lectures on IP, design's impact on economic recovery and the overview of London Underground signage.

Anyway. I was pleased as always to visit my favorite London museum and to at least see some of the fabulous events taking place. But since the lines for the new exhibit "Power of Making" were out of control and I didn't have the intellectual energy for Postmodernism, I decided to trot up to Hyde Park to visit the Serpentine Pavilion.

I've wanted to see the Pavilion for the last 3 years and clearly never got my butt over there to experience them, so I'm very proud of myself for not missing it for the fourth year in a row. The Serpentine Pavilion is a temporary modern architectural installation that is erected each summer for a few months. This year's structure is by Peter Zumthor and features a cloister-like garden.

So I spent a leisurely hour reading, enjoying the flowers with a cappucino in the open air, away from the busy Knightsbridge streets. Despite not having ingested quite as much "design" as I wanted, I think in the end I had a very fulfilling and inspirational Sunday.

PS: If you, like me, are gutted that you missed out, the Perspectives installation in St Paul's Cathedral is up through the end of the year – unfortunately, you have to pay in to see it.

Celebrate British Wool Week

If you've been out and about in town recently, you may have seen shopfronts declaring their support for the second annual Wool Week. The celebration of our favorite textile is a project of The Campaign for Wool, sponsored by HRM Prince Charles, with the objective of promoting and championing British grown wool through British commerce. It seems that the highlight of this year's event is an exhibition on Pall Mall called Wool Modern showcasing innovative ways of using wool in the 21st century, and big shops like Liberty and Jaeger are also getting in on the fun.

I first found out about Wool Week through fashion mags (of course) as big British fashion names like Vivienne Westwood (swoon) are supporting the cause with one-off items that Harvey Nichols will auction on eBay to raise money. I am SO in for that tartan bag!!!!

But Liberty also informed me, through their crafts e-newsletter Sew Liberty, that Rowan Yarns are also in on the action for the second year with a special line of knitting wool made from British sheep breeds – and specially designed free British patterns. If The Irishman will let me, I really want to knit the unionjack cushion cover.

So crafty expats out there, embrace the start of the UK winter with some British yarn and fashion. You can sign up to support the Campaign for Wool here.

Shareworthy: Anthology magazine

For those of you who fondly remember that lovely home/design/fashion/lifestyle dream mag Blueprint and cried at its demise, I'd like to share what I think might be a worthy replacement:

Anthology is a lovely mag with a lovely blog, full of design inspiration. I haven't seen a full issue yet, as you can't buy them on the newsstand in the UK but they do let those of us living in the UK subscribe at what is what I think a not-too-bad-rate! It seems to be distributed in the US through every design-girl's mecca, Anthropologie.

Anyone seen the mag? Hold it? Taste it? Love it? I've subscribed to the blog and when I'm in the US I'm definitely going to pick up a copy from Anthro and give it a good peruse.

Printmaking workshop

Yesterday was printmaking day! After months of trying to get a spot in Print Club, right around New Years I finally snagged a space in their Saturday workshop to stretch some long-dormant creative muscles. I was really excited for this, because the last time I did any sort of printmaking was in 2002 during my study abroad in Florence. Helpfully, that summer I actually did do photo-emulsion screenprinting so the workshop was more of a sorely-need refresher course. 

The day started at 11am in their workshop in Dalston: 

10 of us were treated to a little overview of printmaking through the ages, and then had a tour of the studio. Then we got to work prepping our images, coating our screens, and then exposing them. After lunch we got to work printing and each left with about 6 good A4 prints. Here's mine - I made this design specifically to join a small collection of London-centric art and paraphenalia I'm amassing.

After completing the workshop, I am now eligible to purchase a membership to the studio so I can go work on whatever projects I want. I'm not sure I'm ready for that, but it's nice to have the option. Despite the cold and all of the downtime (I forgot how methodical printmaking can be!), I really enjoyed being back in the shop with ink under my fingernails. Anyone interested in learning to screenprint should definitely check out Print Club London - it's welcoming, open, and a good way to spend a Saturday.

A la mode

So! This past week was London Fashion Week, ending today, running simultaneously alongside the London Design Festival - basically meaning the entire city (well, at least East London) has been overrun with people wearing fantastic outfits in chic locations looking at beautiful things. I'll be attending a few London Design Festival events, including Tent London and the AppLounge and Hel Yes!, a Finnish pop-up restaurant. I've also already dragged The Irishman down to Trafalgar Square to check out the Outrace robots painting with light. Here's a photo I snapped over the weekend of the robots arms:

As for fashion, well - I'm not on trend (OT) enough to go to the shows but let me tell you it is fall and therefore the shops are all crammed chockablocka with A/W collections. Capes, sweaters, trousers, boots ... I'm totally overwhelmed with excitement and am lusting after quite a lot of items. I recently was awarded a small bonus from work and have some cash with which to treat myself, and I'm tempted nearly daily to blow it on the high street in Uniqlo or French Connection (just look at this cape!). But instead I've decided to invest in something wonderful, and I've found an out-of-season bag from Vivienne Westwood in a classic shape that I have been dreaming about for a week now.



Swoon.

In other fashion news though, I've been spotting a totally retro 90s fashion icon making a big return here in London: the Doc Marten 8-hole boot.



On my bike ride in, I noticed no less than four girls wearing them. Thing is, they're like fashion now - we're not talking about grunge girls, more fashionistas. Seeing these ladies wearing them confidently as a fashion statement made me really wish I still had my trusty old 8-holes, though I'd had them for so long and wore them so far down that they were actually a health hazard in any sort of inclement weather. I remember sliding around the streets of NYC in them and nearly biting the pavement far too many times - and THAT is why I don't even try to go to any sort of Fashion Week events.

Get thee to the Barbican

I had a special treat on Friday when one of my colleagues took me and my team to The Barbican for lunch. For non-Londoners, The Barbican is a 1960s-era housing complex in between Clerkenwell and The City. It's regarded as one of the UK's most successful urban communities, and a testament to poured concrete architecture, but it's also damn ugly. I've walked, run, rode, driven past it thousands of times and vaguely thought about how there is a cinema and theatre inside, but ended up reestablishing just how cold and forbidding it looks. So when a colleague suggested our team head over there to get lunch and see an exhibit, I was curious as to what just lay inside the imposing towers.

Well! The Barbican is totally worth the inevitability that you will get lost while wandering through its lanes. It is a massive housing complex that has a cultural center inside, with art galleries, cinema, theatre, restaurants, bars, and just really cool spaces. There is a man-made lake with a terrace where you can sit and gaze on St Giles church. The whole experience reminded me of the old Tomorrow Land in Disney World, but with a much better end result.

And the exhibit? Totally awesome. John Bock is mental - I loved his creation of pod living spaces and a transportable home that takes the Clampetts overburdened vehicle to the next imaginary level. His attention to detail in decorating his living spaces and fashioning living basics made the whole exhibit more of anthropological extrapolation than a work of art, though he apparently enters his pods at certain points in the day and interacts with the audience which I would love to see.

So if you find yourself in The City and fancy a cup of coffee and some culture, wander to the Barbican. I guarantee that you'll find it both amazing and (literally) impossible to escape.

Clerkenwell is the place to be

This week has been Clerkenwell Design Week, three days of open studios, events, lectures, and even live music in Clerkenwell Green! For those of you who missed last weekend's Craft Central Open House, the designers and crafters have set up tents in St John's Square selling some of their fabulous wares.

I work in Clerkenwell and consider it my home away from home. I highly recommend everyone wander its hidden alleyways and enjoy its pubs and cafes. Definitely check out the Three Kings for a really good pint, and J+A Cafe for some amazing food. And as, literally, the creative heart of London, you'll see tons of fabulous fashions and cool kids loping around.

Clerkenwell Design Week is on through tomorrow, Thursday 27 May 2010.

Spotted share

I just wanted to share something super beautiful with you guys. Photographer Brian has captured the lovely seaside of southern England here, besides other gorgeous shots of England in general and London specifically. If you love the UK, you'll love his photos.

I found him through Tea for Joy which is pretty much one the most beautiful blogs around.

Liberty Prints

Yesterday the Irishman and I went to town to pick up a few necessities for our upcoming mega holiday (my brother has already called me out for calling it a 'holiday' and not a 'vacation'). These included the new Apple OS for him (necessity is open to interpretation here) and bronzer for me (gotta fake the tan before I get it). We were over by Regents Street, and when we passed by Liberty I just had to take a spin through my favorite store.

It just so happens that Liberty has a mini exhibition of their prints displayed on the fourth floor called Liberty Prints Charming. Liberty printed fabric is renowned for its iconic floral graphics, and fashion and interior designers alike have long found inspiration through them. Naturally, Liberty should celebrate this high-style heritage, and is doing so with a lovely meandering display of Liberty print EVERYTHING - upholstery, clothes, accessories, hats, scarves, books, pens, teapots - and short curated exhibits of famous collaborations: Alexander McQueen, Comme des Garçons, Vivienne Westwood, and Chloe to name a few.

Because the Irishman was with me and has little patience for impromptu museum trips, let alone museums about clothes, we didn't stay long, but one doesn't need to stay long; the exhibit is more about celebration than learning, and everyone in London should take a quick spin around Liberty's top floor to remind themselves what a cultural gem and national treasure Liberty really is.

Monkey: Journey to the West

Friday night, the Irishman took me on a secret date. He listened to all the hints I dropped about wanting to see Monkey: Journey to the West, a Chinese opera realized and designed by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett of Gorillaz fame, so escorted me to the O2 in Greenwich for a performance.

The show was amazing. It was equal parts opera, acrobat, martial art, video, and installation. The mixture of art forms was really innovative and exciting, and it was the kind of show you didn't want to end.

The story of Monkey is a Chinese folktale about a cheeky monkey who redeems himself by escorting a young pilgrim on a voyage to the holy land after angering the gods. He and a few other pilgrims encounter challenges and characters along the way. When they reach their destination, they achieve enlightenment and are made into gods themselves.

My favorite part of the show was the costumes: a horse character wore a bobbling rump with a saddle and tail, an undersea creature had layers of colored fabric swishing around, and warriors wore sweeping capes over boots and leggings.

Even the venue was designed, with a Chinese theme; situated in a circus tent next to the O2 center, the entryway had red lanterns hanging from the support beams and drawings of the characters hanging on the wall. There was a bar and restaurant, and you could get foot and back massages while you waited for the show to start.

The only thing that was disappointing was the O2 itself. The O2 is a big convention center that was built for the millenium, and subsequently made into a shopping and entertainment venue. Inside there is pretty much any store you'd want, tons of restaurants, and even a ski slope. But the thing is, it's designed to look like a street outside, with brick walkways and street lamps. The whole thing is disconcerting, but it was worth the trip through the weird twilight-zone of a shopping center to get to see Monkey.

Sunday on Brick Lane

This week was London Design Festival, so today I hopped on my bike and headed to Brick Lane for the biggest event of the whole thing - Tent London at the Truman Brewery. Unfortunately, I didn't get in... because I forgot to register online and it was £10 to enter. It's the end of the month, and that means I'm broke until we get paid on Friday. Meh. I was super disappointed, but the following things made up for it:

1. I was photographed in the Brick Lane market by The Guardian for having a cute outfit and accessories - my "Thank You" canvas tote bag and my bike! And to think, I didn't even shower this morning!

2. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, so every crazy/hipster/scenester was out in full force and the people watching was amazing;

3. There is a Sunday Up-market in another part of the Brewery and it was full of yummy food stalls so I got 6 mini spring rolls for £1!

Chipmunk Chips for Sam!

Went to the Tate Modern yesterday to see the Street Art exhibit and the Cy Twombly retrospective. Both were amazing, but so was this packet of crisps in the snack shop. Sam and I share a love of all things small rodents, so this is for him!

Spice packaging for Rietje!

Waitrose's house brand spices... using the alphabet for coding. Sorry about the light setting... the colors are much more rich in person.

Guided tour of my new flat

I know this is the moment you've all been waiting for... a guided tour, in pictures, of my new apartment. I took these at 10AM, so there is great light - so much so, infact, that a lot of the photos are a bit washed out. The decor is rental chic; clean, sophisticated cream shades with bursts of color. Please note that the sheets on my bed are NOT the wonderful luxury organic cotton, but a second set that I got that are just ordinary Egyptian cotton (very nice as well). If you look closely, though, you'll see the luxury duvet cover draped over the door to the lounge, as that is the preferred British method for drying large linens. Click here, and enjoy!

Apple iPhone hits London

So, last Friday the Apple iPhone launched. Every hipster/techno-geek lined up for it, as evidenced by this photograph of the O2 store in my neighborhood – I snapped it at 9:05AM on my way to work. I thought I would be in that line, waiting like a fool, but I found myself on July 8th, the day you could start placing order for the phone, still unconvinced. Even though its half the price, and even though it's lighter, has 3G, etc, etc, I'm still not sure it's the best deal. I really want one - having GPS and a Google Maps at your fingertips in a city as big as London would be amazing - but I'm JUST NOT SURE. Plus, here in the UK, you're locked into an 18-month contract for about £35 per month, and I know there are better deals to be had. I'm thinking I might wait even until Christmas to buy one in the States, and have it unlocked. Stay tuned.

China Design Now

Last night, I went to China. To be specific, I went to the V&A for their French Connection sponsored Last Friday party - this time spotlighting the China Design Now exhibit. Every last Friday of the month, the V&A stays open late (with an cash bar and DJs) for themed parties in conjunction with their major exhibits. Last night's theme was Beijing, so my friend and I went to see, be seen, see the exhibit, and have a tasty sausage roll and overpriced glass of white wine.

The party was a bit meh - somehow we missed the Chinese punk band playing their first show outside of China - but the exhibit was worth the £8 entry. Visitors travel through the exhibit starting in Shenzhen, a newly formed city producing cutting edge graphic design, to Shanghai, arbiter of fashion and Chinese cultural heritage, and end up in Beijing, capital of architecture and progress. The exhibit is interesting for the sole fact that the forms of design chosen to represent each city reinforce the cities' role in China's current cultural zeitgeist. Shenzhen didn't exist as an urban center until relatively recently, and that graphic design, a mutable, disposable, and extremely current form of graphic representation, was chosen as its "product" is notable; Shenzhen hasn't been around long enough to produce something substantial. Shanghai, on the other hand, is touted as China's oldest city and is represented by fashion, which consistently references traditional Chinese culture and influences. Shanghai kind of gets the raw end of the deal in the exhibit, with not a lot of substantive pieces holding up the narrative, but I suspect that Shanghai itself is a much more complex urban center and perhaps produces more notable design than either Shenzhen or Beijing. Beijing, host of the summer Olympics this year, is represented solely by provocative and important architectural commissions. I found the Beijing section particularly relevant, because architectural progress is a statement of both financial and political power; just as dictators and generals had statues commissioned to celebrate their victories, today's regimes build important new buildings to show the world that they are indeed in control and here to stay.

One thing I would have liked to see, or read, more of is the influence, or impact, of the Marxist regime on the production of design. There were a few instances were censorship was noted, or dissent, but there was no discussion of how design was developed, or produced, or how the government's reacted to design that challenged the status quo. Design is not inherently political, nor is it incendiary, but it is a vehicle of communication, and underneath the clever visual puns and rendering is very often a strong opinion. In a closed society such as China, where individualism has only recently been allowed to flourish, there must be a rich legacy of designers using their medium for their messages - and accompanying legacy of how those messages were disseminated and received.