HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. NELSON MANDELA

[Mandela, 1937] Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. [Maya Angelou] Enjoy, Nancy

WOW FACTOR: COCO CHANEL BY LITA CABELLUT

Beautiful portrait of Coco Chanel on large canvas by Spanish Artist LITA CABELLUT. She highlights the black and the white which are essential colours that relate to Coco Chanel’s work, this has become the sign of French elegance. Cabellut has mastered her own technique with the brush as she prepares a surface which cracks, this creates a visual strength of the piece. She is considered as a painter with a unique pictorial language, using a contemporary variation on the fresco-technique and her expressive pallet. At the age of 13, after a visit at the Prado-museum, she got enthusiastic about the old Spanish- and Dutch Court-master-painters. Consequently, she started to take classical paint-techniques-classes taught for times a week by an old master painter. On the age of 17, Cabellut had her first exhibition at the Town Hall of Masnou, Barcelona. Enjoy, Nancy

STYLE ICON : FRIDA KAHLO

The Film ‘FRIDA’ (2002) unique visual language takes us into the life of Mexican painter FRIDA KAHLO de Rivera (1907-1954). The Mexican painter suffered lifelong health problems. This life full of pain and drama, partly due to a accident and also a volatile marriage with famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera, she expresses in her paintings. Mexican cultural and Amerindian cultural traditions are also important in Kahlo’s work, which has been sometimes characterized as Naïve art or folk art. Her work has also been described as "surrealist". She is perhaps best know for her 55 self-portraits.

[Selfportrait]

Kahlo : "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.”

[Frida in New York]
At the age of six, Frida developed polio, which caused her right leg to appear much thinner than the other, which she disguised by wearing long, colorful skirts. She often wore native Mexican clothing with bright colors and primitive style as an expression of her solidarity with the indigenous people of her nation. Actrice Salma Hayek wore over fifty costumes to become Frida. To get the unique ‘Frida look’, stylist Julie Weiss purchased some of the pieces from street vendors in Mexico City. “FRIDA” was nominated with six Academy Awards, one for best costume design.

[exquisite illustration of Julie Weiss]

[Selma Hayek]

[picture of Frida]

The movie also reminds us that art is best enjoyed when it moves, breathes and is painted on a giant canvas. Art and their creators are also often a big inspiration in the World of Fashion.

Jean Paul Gaultier collection : “Homage To Frida Kahlo”, 1998

[Picture Vogue Germany, 1998]

Enjoy,
Nancy

Happy chic with Jonathan Adler

“Make your own – Personal style means having a space that’s comfy but filled with stuff that has meaning to you. It should hold things created and inspired by passionate people. Personal style should make you happy and happiness is chic.” Is one of designer Jonathan Adlers Design tips.

Jonathan Adler, A potter by trade, and well-known for his "happy chic" approach to home furnishings and interior design, developed a unique style that mixes modernist forms with bold colours and "groovy" graphics.

In his Soho studio, Jonathan and his team design and sculpt every prototype. Adler connected with Aid to Artisans, a non-profit organization that connects designers in America with artisans in developing countries to promote fair trade. The skilled artisans at the workshop in Peru make molds from the prototypes and then hand craft each piece from high-fired stoneware or porcelain, which peeks through the sheer white glaze. Each unique piece has a lifespan because only so many of each are made.

Fans of Jonathan Adler with a little hipster flair will enjoy the Utopia collection, a playfully chic universe of vases, vessels and objects. I know I do. The collection is inspired by mid-twentieth-century Scandinavian ceramics. Adlers Man/Woman Vase features a man's face on one side and a woman's face on the other.

Enjoy,
Nancy