.interior inspiration = chalkboards.

PHOTO CREDIT: Desire to Inspire; Flickr; Living Etc.

Unfortunately I have to idea who took them, they were in my inspiration folders from way back and never thought of labelling each file.

Love, love, LOVE chalkboard walls.
You can draw/write/scribble whatever you want and wipe it all off at the end of the day or if you’d like, leave it on for months. It’s edgy, artsy, simple and fun. Both chalkboard walls and black walls. I have complete wall envy.
I wish my landlady would let me paint my walls. For the meantime, I will helping my little brother paint his walls black in his new flat tomorrow. This will keep me happy for a while, I think. I may have to think of options for  to convince my landlady to reconsider.

.my feet .

This morning, my feet found themselves on familiar grounds.

My feet remembered walking through this journey twelve years ago.

My feet stood firmly but supported my knees as they began to buckle beneath me.

This morning, I watched my baby brothers feet walk down a platform receiving his high school awards and tomorrow night his feet will be walking towards his future after his graduation.

His feet will be taking him on endless journeys through his next step of his life.

….. and my feet will be walking right next to his with every step he takes.

.the wedding.

I think I have a valid reason for not blogging.

see, my partner in crime, my cousin, my best friend has been busy getting married. And I have been been busy helping her relive the happy moments her and her husband shared the night they said “I do”. Her eyes sparkled all day. A smile rested on her lips every minute. He paced. He smiled and knew he would fall in love with her all over again as she walked down the stairs. It’s the happiest I’ve ever seen them.

I cried. I bawled my eyes out when she walked down those stairs, and as the photographer, I didn’t photograph some of the moments clearly. But somehow, no matter how blurry some photos were, the emotion that these two shared in this intimate celebration was still captured.

So this is for you two. With all my love.

❤

. shadows and light .

Sometimes shadows appear and you almost miss them. But when you catch them, you don’t want to look away.

“An empty space is marked off with plain wood and plain walls, so that the light drawn into it forms shadows within emptiness. There is nothing more. And yet when we gaze into the darkness that gathers behind the crossbeam, around the flower vase beneath the shelves, though we know perfectly well it is a mere shadow, we are overcome with the feeling that in this small corner of the atmosphere there reins complete and utter silence; that here in the darkness immutable tranquility holds sway.”

Junichiro Tanizaki

                ‘in praise of shadows’ 1933

. sketchbook diaries - Jackie Laryea

Look at these sketches.

Yes. SKETCHES. and these are all from the pages of her sketchbook. Oh my.

Jackie Laryea’s  talent makes my heart flutter
I need to start. I’ve been talking about getting started for weeks now but I have nothing. My pages are still blank. My canvases are still white. I really don’t know what it is. I don’t know how to get these fingers drawing, it seems that they are frozen, stiff with no intention of grasping any sort of tool.
I guess I will just continue to look through my inspiration folders. Maybe one day soon, the ‘sketchbook diaries’ entry will be from pages of mine.

. it is about living .

Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.

| Agnes De Mille | 

. because i love amsterdam .

On my computer, I have a ‘because’ folder. These are all my files of things I like, just simply ‘because’ I like them. So I thought I would extend it out onto my blog, after all this blog is a collection of all the things I like, love and get inspired by. Why not share it? After all, it may inspire someone else.

I fall in love with a lot of cities but Amsterdam embraced me back.

Its beautiful, it’s serene, it’s creative, it’s crazy.

Coffee shops line every alley, art galleries trace the outskirts of the main strip,  bikes and trams configure every road and then the network of canals that outline these streets bring some sort of calmness to the city, even in the red light district. Every time I went, I closed my eyes and pictured myself living there. I would travel through the city on a bike, with a basket on the front of course, whisk through every canal and know every shortcut of the city. With my eyes closed, I could paint my life in anyway I wanted in that city and I would dream away on how it could have been there, and in a way, I’m glad that it’s all I have. Sometimes memories, photographs and  dreams  are a little bit better than reality. 

 

Some of my favourite memories were made in this city.

. a single step .

. tomorrow is a new day .

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

—  Ralph Waldo Emerson

.he always makes everything okay.

There are days when things don’t fall into place. And there are days when nothing seems right. A cloud seems to hover over you and your shoulders are heavy with a load that you don’t have enough words to explain the depth of it. These days make me want to curl up in my bed and sleep the whole day.
Then he snaps me out of my numbness. He screams for attention, his extremely loud voice echoes the whole house.  His breathless laughter, his unknown babble, his little footsteps trotting around the wooden floors…. they make anyone want to get out of bed. How can you even resist this little boy’s charisma? He is my little boy. The one little person who takes a hold of my heart and wraps his tiny little hands around it to make everything okay.

And then I just smile, get out of bed and remember know that I am truly loved.

. unexpected mornings .

. interior inspiration (Glen Proebstel) .

Glen Proebstel caught my eye today.

Just look at his use of textures, his details, his fabrics and his style. He makes imperfection beautiful.
He makes me just want to strip off all the paint from my walls, exposing it from its ‘semi-gloss’ disguise down to the bare concrete and embrace the beauty of the rugged paneling.

He makes me want to sand off the shiny finish from the wood panels on my floor to view the rough raw material that wood offers.

Damn, shame this house isn’t mine.

Oh, and the antique suitcase in the last photo… love ❤ .

.art inspiration = gabriel moreno.

His delicate lines make me want to pull my sketchbook right out from behind all this clutter.

The hint of colour in between his depth of black and white makes me want to grab all my unused pencils and abandoned paint tubes.

The tone of the blacks and highlights of whites make me want to draw. Make me want to paint.
Man, these empty canvases sitting beside me at my desk need to be filled. I MUST find my inspiration soon.

Gabriel Moreno could have possibly given me a head start.

. mantra .

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

— Mahatma Gandhi

. round and round we go…

I laughed until my belly hurt on this one Thursday evening.

We drank champagne and we ate caviar. We spoke endlessly. We even danced on a pole. One person I have known for years. The others have been in my life for five minutes, five minutes that have been an absolute pleasure.

On this one Thursday evening, I felt like me again. I felt like my heart was smiling with pure emotion. I felt like my feet were firmly planted on the ground, maybe a bit wobbly from the vodka, but definitely grounded.

Did I mention I laughed until my belly hurt?  I haven’t done this is a long time.