Visual Essay

A visual essay on shape, color, light, entrances, concrete, paint, of images I have collected on Pinterest. It is an invaluable tool. I meet many designers who are using this site developing concepts for projects and with clients. It is so useful.

Some Orange

glass

mesh

Rothko

velvet

curtain

paint

 

 embroidery

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Some More Progress

Over the weekend and stretching into the week, ugh! I stripped, scraped, and patched then painted the bedroom in the flat. Some more progress on renovating my flat. I like hands on work, it really gives me an insight of what my poor clients have to go through when I bring a team of guys into their lives, turn everything upside down, go through hell but come out this side of heaven to a new room, clean, freshly painted, new floor, ready to bring in their treasures and make it beautiful.

Here is some more progress so far:

I like to have floors as light as possible, it is a big light reflector. Lighter floors will always make a space feel bigger, lighter and more spacious. Still much to do, the woodwork, hang curtains, pictures, shelves..... but a big sigh the heavy work was done for that room.

What's Going On In Your Head When You're Dancing?

This is the title to an exhibition of Karl Hyde's paintings and drawings at the  Bernard Jacobson Gallery on Cork Street from 17th July to 10th August.

These paintings are large, they stretch across the wall and are full of energy and vitality. There is a feeling of movement and a rapid gestural swoosh of a brush and charcoal, but standing in the space you can see there is much thought and contemplation that goes into the forms that dance across these canvasses. One can see the contrast of creating something that is rapid motion and movement but at the same time needing to think through how you want to fill that space and create a coherent expression of that moment of music and movement that is dance. Film can capture that, but the essence of film is movement. These paintings capture that moment of movement.

I was taken by the titles of the paintings, "Following The Sound Of Your Voice", "Birdlike Woman Runs a Giant Comb in through her Hair", "Your Feet Flick Fast with a mind of their own" or "On a Pink and Windy Morning" and many more. They are titles to short stories or the first line in a poem, or like a fleeting memory.

Many other images and paintings come to my mind when seeing these paintings, the colors of black white and red remind me much of contemporary Japanese calligraphy, but the more immediate image that came to my mind was the explosive sequences of Manga Anime.

Rapid, movement, gestures, fast, explosive, but pattern, rhythm, beauty, like Japanese calligraphy.

In my head when I am dancing it is the fusion of mind body and soul with music, I forget everything and exist in the moment letting my body move to the music.

See the show at the Bernard Jacobson Gallery, 6 Cork Street, London.

And More Progess

Over the weekend I had more progress on the renovations to my flat. The floor was taken up in the hallway new lime washed oak floor boards installed. But on the way to moving shelving and books a corner that was covered over with insulation decades ago was removed and what was behind it was awful; layers of old wall paper and black mold growing, yuk! My flooring project was diverted, out came the bucket of bleach and rubber gloves and got to scraping and scrubbing down the corner. Then gave it a coat of white paint. 

I understand the need for insulation, conserving energy and all that, but in an old building it often creates more problems and damages the fabric of the structure. There is a wholistic movement to renovations.  Anyway, step by step, and room by room, I am striping back to the bones of the building, exposing the concrete walls, striping and cleaning the woodwork back to the old layer of lead paint and making a clean well lighted place.

This was the corner covered in insulation, exposed and then cleaned and painted.

The new white oak flooring... the old laminate. Still have to scrape and paint the base boards / skirting, but the hall looks wider and much lighter.

 Still much to do, but loving the changes. You know, like so many, I love the industrial chic look, the images of great looking furniture and accessories in rough, worn and decayed spaces, but the idea of living in a place like that.... I just want to clean it up and make it look good.

When the painting is finished, I want to hang the pictures and make it a gallery.

Progress

A few weeks ago I shared and posted some very beautiful and intriguing photos by Ellen Silverman about the Cuban Kitchen. There were several reasons I shared those photos. One reason was I was in the midst of deconstructing the kitchen in my flat. With the tiles pulled off, the old wallpaper stripped off, the condiments, pots and pans and bowls of fruit were put elsewhere, all stripped to the bones of the building we began rebuilding.

First a wall was removed and the entrance made wider, bringing in lots more light and sense of spaciousness. As my dear friend says, more civilized.

Layers of old paint was exposed when the tiles and wall paper were removed,  with the yellow ochre paint, patches of plaster and concrete it resembled the Cuban Kitchens in the photo essay.

With progress, a new floor, walls skimmed, old surfaces and cabinets removed, it has begun to look more pleasing. Still much to do, boxing in some pipes, paint the ceiling and walls and finding new places for the essentials of daily cooking.

 Yes much more to do, but looking so much better and cleaner. I will update after I paint it.