Ah the French…
Every now & again my lovely mom pops by with a wondrous french publication in her hands called Marie Claire Idees….
I don’t often get a moment to sit and peruse happily, but the past week what with all my technology quitting on me I sat down and consumed a few and in the process, stumbled upon this wondrous lady.
It got me all excited about little “somewhat pointless” craft projects… stitching little stars out of pretty fabrics for little-girl wands, making floral wreaths from magical findings… and then I chastised myself a little for being tempted by pure pleasure and not being original. The problem with this lush internet world we live in is that we’re merging all our styles and perhaps stifling ourselves and our originality? What do you guys think? hmmmm…
The other day I heard this great chat where the writer being interviewed said that:
He continued to explain that “if you see a beautiful person you want to draw them, and if you see a beautiful drawing you want to put it on your wall or you want to take a photograph of it. It’s definitely been [his] experience with music [he’s] loved and books [he’s] loved” that “they inspire in us the desire to make more of them.”
This idea made me feel a little more comfortable with my need to replicate and perhaps my lack of originality. Maybe I wasn’t so much unoriginal as much as following the pursuit of beauty-creation. When we see something beautiful it is natural that we want to make more of it to surround ourselves with that beauty… isn’t it? We surround ourselves with those things, words, people, items we find beautiful.
Mr V & I often have a discussion where he argues that the pursuit of all designery items or furniture or ‘things’ is completely shallow and meaningless which is true in one sense, but I like to argue that it’s not true in another. We surround ourselves with beautiful things because it enhances our creative space and environment… we surround ourselves with beauty to feel that the world is more beautiful - is that really a crime?
Whenever I get on one of these ‘needing to make something with no function’ quests I often chastise myself, as none of these things can pay the bill and somehow TERRIBLY, when things don’t have a function, I manage to guilt myself out of doing them… feeling I should be working at getting clients or working on Spoonful… and the other day I thought how silly all these self-guilt-trips and justifications were.
Really, we have one life. And if we allowed ourselves and were able to see it as, as simple as a life of replicating the beauty we see, then it does have a simple pure function. Beauty something to be enjoyed by all who set their eyes upon it and therefore is not as selfish as initially perceived. It is something for the inner-workings of the soul… something for our eyes and hands and in another manner it spreads the word of that beauty.
I see this beauty and in replicating it, I allow more to see it and experience that lush simple pleasure of visual enjoyment.
Shallow, maybe, simple, definitely, but something I’m going to do…? You betcha.
thea.
xx
for the visionaries
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(via Love / Magic. Roald Dahl.)
with glittering eyes…hmmmmmm…
*thea tries to make her eyes twinkle*
thea.
xx
heat wave here with no camera - sigh.
I want to be this eli.
will fill you in when the heat dies a little i promise. j u s t t o o h o t. . .
thea.
xx
by the amazing Luci everett of course :)
Hello lovelies! Got my computer back online today and so was swamped with Spoonful orders, admin jobs and letters pretty much all day *big email sigh* Anyone figured out how to avoid emails altogether yet? I would love you forever if you knew it…
Now, if I owe you one, an email that is, I’m working my way down the list and I promise I will get there!!!
I also didn’t have a phone today which was, to be honest, liberating. I recommend a PHONE-FREE friday for all!!!!! No one calls! You got so much more done! Aaaaaah - the irony of technology helping us to be ‘more productive’.
How was everyone’s week? I’m all confused after the public holiday yesterday. It’s strange to have one week day and then a weekend - hehe. But no complaints here!
thea.
xx
HAPPY Australia Day! Yipppeeeeee!
So another year has gone by, and DESPITE the rainiest crappiest summer in 50 years (INCLUDING the summer i choose to host an outdoor wedding!) Australia… I still love you more than ever. Your golden shores, your endless horizons, your happy relaxed people, (your terrible service, your sticky bizarre weather-changes) and your wondrous perspective on what’s important in life. A home that I can be passionate about & proud of. :)
I know I know it’s all a bit vomitational all this patriotism but I can never hold it in on Australia Day, it brings it out of me! How magical it is to be in a safe and friendly place :)
Confession: I got VERY excited (okay embarrassingly nerdily excited) when for Twinings brought out an ‘Australian Afternoon Tea’ STOP IT! Of course I bought it and enjoyed it thoroughly :) I think it should become part of their permanent collection… we could drink it if homesick or in need of a bit of aussie comfort with our vegemite - lol
To overseas friends, DO come by and pay us a visit :) and to locals, hello neighbors :)
Usually I take a whole batch of photos to share with you guys; but, I’m afraid, as the camera is in hospital, you will have to imagine the vast cruise ship with a 5-story long Australian flag cast along it… the little happy bobbing boats covered in multicoloured bunting, flapping in the breeze, the flags painted on happy cheeks and the insane random bursts of rain throughout the day (the weather has lost it! I swear ;)
happy days though :)
thea.
xx
a little butterfly hut today for you lovely visionaries…
Can you smell the sweet floating air along the ocean breeze down here?
This speaks to me of dreams and poetry lines dreamed up on little strolls along scented lanes… mmm… camera off to hospital, computer almost home, and phone well… don’t get me started…
thea.
xx
Greetings lovely Visionaries !
I’ve been suffering with the challenges of broken technology over here…. *overwhelmingly big sighs* broken cameras… returned cameras… MORE BROKEN cameras… wiped memory cards… lost whole days of shooting… broken phones… and now broken computers - nooooooooooooo!!! Even my computer is off to hospital this week! What did I do???
Quick quick before they take it away from me, here is a sneak peek at what’s been happening. As you may have gathered by these images I have discovered an obsession with Hydrangeas…. yes, in all their breeds, colours, shapes & sizes… I’m enjoying admiring them… aren’t these top ones pretty? All delicate and lacey…
It all started when I went for a little stroll in search of inspiration for making stafanas for a friend’s wedding… My friend *hello friend* asked me to hand-make some for her and so I collected some hydrangea flowers to inspire me and sat very happily for hours with a great mini-series, white clay and my happy hands & voila… the flowers are all clay and the rest is beaded. It was actually really fun, I’d love an excuse to make more - hehe
Anyway, so if there are no images for a while - you know why and no me too boooooo hooohooohoohooo (I’m crying on the outside, never mind the inside :)
A much tried by technology…
thea.
xx
I so often post about beautiful landscapes here at visionary HQ. And I guess it’s not really surprising; me being a land lover at heart. I’m one of those unfortunates who commonly experience motion sickness, and so, the earth, and my feet planted soundly on it, is often a place of relief and physical comfort for me - I feel at home on ground and love to roam, appreciate and admire…
So, when I was pretty blown away by these seascapes/underwater images of Jellyfish taken by Alexander Semenov…. (they’re so lyrical dramatic and beautiful don’t you think?) I was a little surprised at myself.
I commonly associate sea pictures with Sunday afternoons of my childhood. (I never liked Sundays as the next day I had to go back to school and leave behind me the freedom and creative potential of the weekend - *sigh*) Anyhow, in South Africa during the 80’s I remember Sunday afternoons at home were always filled with ocean/fishy documentaries on the television. Programming had run out for the week and if you switched on the box, there they’d be…. the predictable, tedious floating schools of fish… the seemingly endless droaning narrative, the unblinking sharks… can you tell I was a fan? hehe
Anyway, those memories slowly fading and sundays gelling deliciously now with creative Mondays, (now that I no longer have school or a job I loathe) I’m slowly beginning to see fish and their visual world in a new light… these beauties a clear case for the oceans wonders hidden beneath the surface…
yes. I do like them. yes. :)
Do you?
thea.
xx
Another quote for today…
by Jane Fonda hilariously, but interesting nonetheless - she says -
“Everything you have in life can be taken from you except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.
This is what determines the quality of the life we’ve lived — not whether we’ve been rich or poor, famous or unknown, healthy or suffering. What determines our quality of life is how we relate to these realities, what kind of meaning we assign them, what kind of attitude we cling to about them, what state of mind we allow them to trigger.”
hmmmmmmm…
thea.
xx
P.S. Image by Katarina 2353
Something beautiful & heartwarming to end the week? Yes?!
My mom sent me an email containing these whimisical love-stuffed images created by the illustrator Ronald Searle who has just passed away.
He created the drawings (in the 70s) for his wife Monica, while she suffered from a rare and virulent form of cancer. They depict the old house the couple had bought in the South of France pre-cancer and then restored for the next 5 years… Each time she underwent a treatment, she would have a drawing, ‘to cheer every dreaded chemotherapy session and evoke the blissful future ahead’…
Mrs Searle survived. As do the drawings as a symbol of love and gentle affection.
*happy sighs*
& Happy Friday Visionaries!
thea.
xx
