NEW YEARS EVE

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* LE REVEILLON *

When we think about it, New Years Eve has always been about TIME; counting down TIME, of course, second by second, until zero and it's time to shout "Bonne Annee",  at the top of our lungs; but if we now go back in TIME, (your, my, our TIME, not Time with a capital T), when we were younger, we could not wait for New Years Eve: there were the parties with all the frantic preparations, sartorial doubts, and the BIG question: which one, most often which ones, will we go to? and at what time will we go there? and if we were the hosts, what concept or theme will we opt for? what clever idea will we come up with? (design nota bene: I hosted a Reveillon years ago, and asked everyone to come as a character of a movie, I called it "La Nuit des Etoiles" ; it was great fun and I was stunned by everyone's creativity and artistry and FYI, I was costumed as a danseuse de (French) Cancan ; eh oui...); then it became a little less about just having a crazy good time, but more about having a really great time; not just a reveller's kind of uncontrolled good time, but a time of quality and more reflective good time, albeit while having a very good time, if you still follow me; so instead of reminiscing about what was wrong with 2009 that I would like to change in the next year, and instead of making all kinds of (best laid...) plans for 2010, I am just pondering this idea of TIME, the TIME we have, the TIME gone by, the TIME it took to get us where we are, wherever that may be; and my train of thought leads me, the designer, hostess, friend, sibling, wife and mother to wondering at how much TIME it took to arrive at our Reveillon de Jour de l'An this year,  from a material, esthetic, purely practical point of view; well, let's see....

19th Century mirror
1928 house
20's chandelier
30's artwork
40's Pressed Glass
50's Jadeware plates

Midcentury Danish Candlesticks
80's tablecloth

 wine, ~1990

 Foie Gras, 2009

 hotesse, années 19.. 

It takes a century, or two

to end one year in style (well, my style)

and welcome the next;

and now,
the TIME has come to wish you all

une fascinante et apaisante
NOUVELLE  ANNEE
 merveilleusement riche en toutes sortes de découvertes 


 an extraordinarily rewarding
 NEW YEAR
   rich in all kinds of discoveries


au revoir.
 à
2010!

GLASS BEADWORK PART III

LE TRAVAIL DE PERLES DE VERRE

PART III

Furniture and sculptures

I find these two sculptures magnificent. They have a naive primitive quality to them and yet surely represent hours and hours of precise, patient, blinding work.

On the left A Mexican Huichol statue from Nuestra Tierra, on the right, an African one, made by the Bamileke tribe of Cameroon.

art from the Kuba Kingdom, Congo and on the right, Cameroon

Chair gallery Seven Continents

These chairs are African thrones and are entirely covered in intricate designs made with tiny glass beads. They would make a striking piece in an entry way with a soft spotlight shining down on them. All six pieces are the work of the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria, West Africa.

 

Patricia Griffin Brett:

Harvest Basket and Tribal Magic

This artist had crafted small baskets from glass beads and glass fruits; the smooth interiors of the bowl are perfect foils for the chunky colorful exteriors.

beaded phone...why not?

Of course this is an antique and as such can be transformed as "artistically" as the designer wishes...

images kentucky arts, lalla lydia via flickr

au revoir.

BEADWORK part II

LE TRAVAIL DES PERLES

PART II

BEADWORK

Smadar

susan golden

evolving creations

zulu ezakwantu

and the extraordinary work of Tina Koyama

egg basket

jewelry

she even uses pasta for her sculptures!

 images via google
 au revoir.

GLASS BEADS

LE TRAVAIL DES PERLES DE VERRE

PART I

GLASS BEADS

I love beads! I really love beads! Especially glass beads. I am always amazed at the amount of work that goes into making some beads. They are tiny little pieces of glass that some superb artist has melted, blown and decorated into a little wonder of a bead; and if the beads are simple, tiny pierced glass specs no larger than a grain of rice, other artists manage to knit, string, sew and basically weave them into something just as extraordinary. 

the plain color bead ready for some genius to dazzle us with.

the fascinating intricate work of a glass bead maker

Amy Kinch

Venetian beads with gold flake and color inclusions

50's beads and Venetian wonders from the yearly flea market in Barjac

France

bead like a liliputian sculpture

Murano beads; the masters

images amy kinch, stephanie sersich, normandie, fullxfull via google

au revoir.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL

A tous les auteurs de blogs
tous très inspirés et pleins de talent
et
les lecteurs et lectrices du French Eye.
tous très aimables et très indulgents

image Herge 1930's

 P.S: most words resemble English so, that no translation is needed for you bright bloggers and readers out there, I am sure.

A lundi.

THE TREE

L'ARBRE

  enfin...

au revoir.

GIFT WRAPPING WINE

EMBALLAGE CADEAU: LE VIN

A very large number of bottles change hands over the holidays; bottles of perfume, surely and bottles of wine, no doubt. So if you are the giver,  how do you wrap a bottle so as to give it the pleasing appearance of a precious gift and not that of a mundane errand at the corner wine shop? I have spotted a few possibilities of all sorts...I mean, of ALL sorts. 

The perfectly excuted delicate flower; all charm and softness

Understated elegance; no surprise but très chic

The classic user-friendly bag with photorealistic Venetian grandeur

The what-you-see-is-what-you-get box

A tad Cruella Deville; it will be remembered

The MIT-grad-wrapping: battery powered lights and clear bag. wow!

Reduce, reuse, recycle; included: a socket ready to receive a bulb and a cord ready to be plugged in; the wrapping becomes a lamp; what a great idea; a little like the Chianti bottle lamp (it was eco-friendly before the word was coined) but with a bit more style.  

images xmas mag, deco-antique, stt-swiss, vinolampara via google and JADHny

 au revoir.

THE ART OF FUROSHIKI

L'ART DU FUROSHIKI

I remember arriving in Japan years ago and noticing, as we entered our hotel, that a crowd of breathtakingly beautiful Japanese women, clad in stunning Kimonos, were holding what seemed to be folded pieces of colorful fabric containing objects of various sizes and shapes; we were told by our guide that they were attending a traditional wedding ceremony and that the presents were wrapped according to the centuries old art of Furoshiki. As I begin on my last gift wrapping journey, the memory of those beautiful packages comes back to me, and I wonder if I should be that refined this year. Tempting. Maybe next year...

The Furoshiki is a piece of fabric varying in size according to what it envelops, and used specifically to wrap an object, an article of clothing or a present.

Its use dates back to the Japanese Edo era (XVIIth century). Back then, it was used to wrap the clothes to be worn at the public baths (Furo means bath in Japanese)

To this day, the tradition is still intact in certain neighborhoods of Kyoto. The Furoshiki is a sign of Japanese refinement: wrapping something to protect it and transport it, but to do so in a magnificent fabric. The content then becomes as special as the container. To wrap an object in a pretty Furoshiki is to give importance to the object; and it's even more true when it holds a present.

Furoshiki cut in the finest Kimono crepe

A modern interpretation with a gift card, a nod to our own gifting tradition

A Furoshiki cut in Origami paper( another superb traditional Japanese Art)

A laptop cover mimicking a Furoshiki by the Japanese company Seto.

images via google

sayonara.