Welcome to the New Year

And while we're on the subject of color my trendspotter friends - the Pantone color of the year Marsala -

Check out this very inspiring link to see Marsala interpreted in flowers -

 http://botanicalbrouhaha.com/?p=11653

The Color Purple

 

We're doing a reset at the store.  The Christmas is all tucked away and we're cleaning and tidying and organizing.  I'm going through zillions of catalogs looking for something that catches my eye. And lo and behold this color purple in the Spicher catalog started talking to me.

And so a wall, just a little wall, was painted purple at Passionflower.

Happy designer emoticon here with a special thank you to the guy at Miller Paint who did the paint match for me.

Back in the Swing of Things

 Hello dear reader, was it weeks ago I promised you more blog posts?  I fear it was.  I have been a derelict blog poster as of late.  Here's why:  I've been drawing.  My inner twelve year old is going wild with her colored pencils.  For a while there all I wanted to do was draw.  Never mind the glorious weather or the need to socialize or clean the kitchen or take a bike ride.  Well I did manage to eat  and still go to the store and do a little work  in the midst of it all.  And all this drawing has taught me a thing or two - one is that practice, while it may not make perfect, really does make you better at something - really sustained, day after day practice.  And that over time, the mere accumulation of said practice becomes something larger than the sum of it's parts.  And that has all made me very happy. And all that happiness tends to spill over.

   So, it's May Day , and I'm turning over a new leaf or maybe more like bursting through some spring soil, and I'm back blogging and I've got lots to show because it's funny how inspiration in one part of my life (the drawing) spills over into another (the store) and  the the seasons they are a changing chez Passionflower and we' ve got lots of fun new merch coming in everyday. Pretty excited to show you what we've got.  But in the meantime, I'll say a Happy May Day to All - I'm off to draw.  And since it's May Day, I think I'll draw outside!  Let the summer begin!

Pantone Color of the Year looks good in the Pacific Northwest

 Thank you style gods that be, Pantone has selected their 2013 color of the year and it is  green!!!!  (Hello favorite all time color)...and not just any green, a deep rich, green with a lot of blue....a jewel tone..emerald they call it.  I say enough with this honeysuckle and tangerine (pantone's colors for the last two years).  We are not 14 and not all of us live in Miami.  Don't get me wrong, I love a pop of pink and tangerine first came to my attention as a trendsetting color when I saw John Derian wearing a pair of orange boiled wool pants at NYIGF.  (Seriously, the first time I met John Derian, before I knew who he was, and when he really was a small NYC manufacturer, he was wearing those pants and I remember thinking, "Now who is that unassuming guy over there in those fabulous pants - ?")...it's not that I don't think orange and pink (read tangerine and honeysuckle) have their place, it's just that manufacturers look at those Pantone predictions and start making everything in those colorways and, frankly, those colors don't really fly too well in the grey and moody Northwest.  So yeah to emerald!!!!

all images courtesy pantone

Seeing Red

On my trip to New York, at the gift show, and around town, I saw a lot of red that I liked.

And  some, not so much. I'll take a vintage leather trunk over this anyday. 

My Team

A great big shout out, to my graphic designer, Cathy Simard who has been doing great work for me all these many years at Passionflower. She knows me, she knows the store, I trust her to give me her honest opinion, no holding back, and I pretty much don't know what I would have done without her.

Latest creation from Cathy - a little Passionflower postcard .

An Unexpected Surprise

And heres' another fun perk of going through computer files of old photos - I see photos of things I never took because some of the shots are coming off the store camera which the whole staff uses. 

Love, love, loved these shots of our porcelain egg containers which we like to use for flower arrangements. This would fall under the basic rubric of letting your kitchen goods do double duty as flower vases and containers.    Muffin tins could be fun to use as well.

Can't really quite tell you how delighted I was to see this photo.  It just makes me happy.

Birds of a Feather

 We had a customer who raised birds and she used to bring us all these amazing feathers.....(come to think of it we've had a few customers who brought us feathers, one woman had a flock of wild turkeys and always brought these crazy big beautiful turkey feathers)

 They'd come all packed together and I would cherry pick and high grade and divide the feathers  into little packets for various uses..... every time she came in , my heart would skip a beat waiting to see what she brought us.  And then she moved out of town .....

And I notice I miss her feathers, especially around now when we find ourselves doing lots of work for proms....But I am grateful for all the awesome customers we've had over the years who have brought us so many fun things to play with.

The Amanita Mushroom Makes a Magical Wreath

Ha!  I'd never seen this one before -a holiday wreath made from the red and white amanita muscaria mushroom via Studio 391 Gallery in Mendocino.....Apparently , some are claiming Christmas traditions as harking back to Siberian shamans, high on amanita  flying through the woods with their reindeer spirits.  Or something like that....you can read about it here..   Or go here and scroll to the end where you will find this theory completely refuted.  Whatever the truth, there is something magical about coming upon these fungus in the woods (it's only happened to me a few times while out picking chanterelles up in the Mt Hood National Forest) and I love how they are celebrated here in this wreath.  (P.S.  They look fun in a wreath but don't ever try to eat them)......

There's Something About Tillandsias.....

How is it that tillandsias in all their earthy, organic, tropical strangeness can look so good with everything?  Even something frilly and romantic and victorian like this all glass box?

Click here to see something else we've done with tillandsias....and here and here and here too ! Oh here too.
Okay I just can't get enough of them....And we have a great selection right now.

Join Me on A Mexican Art Making Adventure

I am so pleased and excited to let you know about this trip I'm putting together with Jill Cardinal....You may remember Jill is a mixed media collage artist who has been offering classes at Oregon Art Supply......A few months ago Jill came to me and proposed that we offer a journal making  trip to Mexico and after much dreaming and visioning,  I am happy to tell you , our plan is finally hatching.  Now we just need fellow adventurers like you to join us.  The thought of making art for eight days in Mexico with a group of like minded folks sounds a little bit like heaven to me.  If it does to you, click here to find out more details.....And any help you might give us in spreading the word would be greatly appreciated.  P.S.  Not only will we make great art, eat fantastic food , and see amazing sites , I also promise to share with you two of my favorite shopping places in Oaxaca!!

New Favorite Color......

Another comment on the Country Living cover.....there were those amongst us at Passionflower who had some harsh words to say about the toile covered pumpkin, but I paid them no heed....it was actually the mustard colored quilt pattern on the white pumpkin that caught my eye.  Call it golden, call it amber, call it mustard or "moutard" if you will, but I am seeing this color everywhere and liking what I see especially when I see it backed up with white.

                                             
                                                                                                        

  Star witness number one to my new love affair with mustard, this beautiful backstrap loom woven runner I brought back from Teotitlan de Valle in Oaxaca.....to me it's a timeless piece with a great folk arty vibe..... and it lightens up the whole room while still being very mellow.                                                                                                             

Back from Mexico....

 

Having landed back from a great trip to Oaxaca, I still don't feel like I  have both my feet on the ground..... like part of me is still there......and part of me all gearing up for fall and the holidays at the store....

The photos are of some of my favorite masks from the wall outside my room where I stayed at the most highly recommended, dear reader if you ever were to find yourself in Oaxaca, Casa Colonial 

 So I'm transitioning from the sunny skies of Mexico to the damp Northwest autumnal cloud.....

And thinking about how much I would like to go to Oaxaca sometime for Dios de los Muertos.....

A Procession Like Few Others.....

I have been to New York, Paris, Cairo and some places in between but few have had the cultural depth and complexity of Oaxaca.

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Here's a procession in Teotitlan de Valle, a prosperous weaving village a short drive from Oaxaca City.  The unmarried young women parade through the town.  They're preceeded and followed by surprisingly excellent marching bands, and then there are men in beautiful dance costumes, a clown or two, large balloons, and lots of noise and firecrackers.  You can see they are each wearing beautiful cochineal dyed, handwoven skirts.

 And they were each carrying a beautifully decorated santos figure on their heads.  This was in no way a show for the tourists......except for a tall, white haired, gringo with a very long camera lens, we saw no other tourists....this was a community celebration that harks back to traditions that have existed since before people can remember      - something that I'm not really sure why, but watching an event like this always instill in me a feeling of deep peace and hope for the world........

P.S.  I realize these recent posts from Mexico are a little off base from the world of Passionflower but all work and no play makes us all dull people and besides I thought it might be fun for you to see the kinds of things that I feel inspired by.

What I Brought Back from New York International Gift Fair

Here's some cards I picked up on my little jaunt through the aisles of Javitz Center.  Clockwise from top left:  1) Look for some great pillows from coral and tusk ( plus what might be my favorite heart  card ever) coming soon to Passionflower.  2)  Brooklyn clothing designer pipsqueak-chapeau -  unfortunately
we don't carry her line, I just always bring back one of her cards for Becky.  3) And finally Rhode Island based glassmaker, LBK Studio whose work we are expecting in October.
Her work was my favorite thing I saw at the show.  And no I didn't buy the wasps nests embedded with glass but to get a little sneak peek of what I did get click  here . 

City Girl or Country Girl

That's what someone asked me recently. Was I a city girl or a country girl. Well I'm a little bit of both and sometimes it's hard to choose. Loving my journaling class I'm taking with Jill Cardinal at Oregon Art Supply.

Things I Love

Well it's so shabby that it's not chic....just call this post the opposite of trendspotting....but even though I wouldn't want to sit here, or snuggle up and read a book, or pet my cat, I could stare at this burlap chair for hours.....it's the refined and the rustic living side by side that works for me.

There's a lot to be said for slowing down and doing nothing more than basking in the pure pleasure of just looking at something. I guess that's one thing I'm trying to make happen at the store.

A Little Experiment

A wreath of butterfly wings.....I want to pin them on and use small signs and text and not exactly sure what else.

It's not quite what I'm looking for plus it's completely fragile and impractical.....

Nonetheless, I think I'll keep working on it.

Easter Egg Containers.....

Ceramic egg cartons...they'll hold a dozen eggs.....love, love, double love them. They look cute in the fridge. But they weren't selling so well in the store. I decided to do something to show them off a little bit.

Here's my little montage of spring flowers in shades of pink.

I'll tell you a little secret. The tip of green fern was the last thing I added and I think it brought it all to life.

It was really pretty. And since Becky is now in love with her new i phone, she had to take a picture using her hipstamatic app. Which seems to be the go to app which has enchanted one creative person after another. I can see why.

Pretty nice photo, dontcha think? Thanks for that Becky.
And click here, should you like to get that hipstamatic app for yourself.

The Amazing World of Flowering Grasses

You know those blogs where people write about their imaginary closets and show you pictures of all the clothes they would like to have in them? Well this is about my imaginary art collection and all the work I would like to have in it. ( Of course there would also have to be the imaginary amazing building to house the collection and all the imaginary time in the world to enjoy it.) These prints by a childhood friend of mine would definitely have a room or two in said building.

Matilda Essig lives in the American Southwest and has been working on restoring native grass habitat on her property. Simultaneously she's been making these large scale giclee prints - almost three by four feet- of the various grasses on her land.

...There's just so much to love here. We don't usually think of grasses as having flowers. And beautiful ones at that. Plus these images allow us to contemplate a world that's hard to see.
And they make me think so much about grasses and how much they give to us ......mostly all of our grains like rice and corn and wheat are grasses....and about wind polllination....I can almost see the wind blowing these grasses about...oh and about so many other things too.......Click here to go to her site Matilda Essig dot com and see more of her work.....and click here to read the article about her art and restoration experiences.

All images courtesy and copyright Matilda Essig.