blogging – Page 3 – Ivy & Ironstone

Sometimes it’s the bits and pieces and not the “big picture” that capture my attention. Here are a few things that caught my eye this week.

An artist to watch

This past Sunday Steve and I headed downtown to meet some friends at the Millennium Art Show (which was really an excuse to catch up, walk around bit and then grab something to eat.) This was a small show but with some really interesting pieces and I’m sorry I didn’t spend more time seriously looking at the works displayed. Hmmm, perhaps we were chatting more than looking? However, I did enjoy re-discovering Daniel Lai.

This piece by Daniel Lai is called “Teach a Man to Fish.”

Lai is a Tennessee artist who enjoys sculpting and repurposing books into the most amazing pieces of art. I first saw his work at the Wells Gallery at the Sanctuary on Kiawah Island. His work is so distinctive that I immediately recognized him at the show on Sunday. He says he started playing with books as a bored student, then was encouraged to re-purpose some of a friend’s books. I’m charmed by his imagination, the many ways he uses books and pages, those wonderful clay figures and the little extras, like the fishing pole. I think his work is both whimsical and provocative. What about you?

I captured the images, above, of his work from screen shots on You Tube. I wanted to share a few more images of his work and my photos just didn’t do it justice.

Three links to visit

I have been known do lots of blog-reading and coffee-drinking in the morning. Last week I was giving myself a real break after several especially busy days. And here’s the fun, my email inbox was full of links to some great blog posts.

Karianne at Thistlewoodfarms always has a fun take on life (she’s also a wonderful photographer and shares amazing DIY projects). She did a great post on 5-minute cleaning tips. I loved this, because she mentioned the messes that you (or at least I) forget about (like Cheerios in the silverware drawer). I also love the idea of limiting cleaning chores to 5 minutes. Click here for her tips, and if you have a 5-minute tip, please share!

This is just a sample of Jackye Lanham’s work that I found on the web.

Joni Webb at Cote de Texas did yet another of her beautiful, well-researched and illustrated posts, this time on designer Jackye Lanham and her home in Charleston, SC. First, Ms. Lanham does beautiful work: elegant, traditional rooms, minus the do-not-touch museum look. You would like to live in her rooms and her Charleston house, well, just take a look at the post! This is pure eye-candy. Pour a cup of coffee and just enjoy. (Joni’s posts are always a mini-course in art, architecture and design. She did a remarkable post on the real homes and rooms behind The Crown.)

Finally, Elizabeth at Blue and White Home, has a wonderfully clean, easy, mostly-traditional-but-sometimes-modern aesthetic (she’s also a Chicago designer, yay!). One of her recent posts turns that look onto some floral arrangements she made from blooms in her parent’s Vermont garden. They are simple, unpretentious, infinitely doable and most of all really pretty. It’s one thing to go to the store for a few bunches of flowers and greenery (we all do it all the time), but quite another to create such pretty pieces from what we have growing in the yard. Check them out.

The “stars” in my garden

My garden has a few spectacular successes this year, as well as a few failures. I don’t know if it’s the weather or, more likely, my not-so-green thumb. However, I walk the garden daily, sometimes taking pictures, often cutting some blooms to bring inside, pulling assorted weeds and dead-heading spent flowers. Not surprisingly, the stars of this year’s garden are the daylilies, and these purple coneflowers that are popping up everywhere. Take a look:

I hope you’re finding some “fun stuff” in your inbox and enjoying these July days!

Thanks for reading and see you next time!

I have recently come to a de-cluttering decision: I am keeping all of my books.

We have a lot of books at our house — on shelves, in cabinets, piled on side tables and chairs. Sometimes they even migrate to the floor. In the past I have agreed with my husband (who has actually bought a number of these books) that some books must go. However, I am an English major, a one-time English teacher, a writer and editor, and a devoted reader. My book collection is what it is. And it is part of me.

I have been known to cull popular beach reading from the shelves along with outdated textbooks, as well as some musty, frankly moldy books from the basement. (Mold, after all, is contagious — it just spreads from book to book!) But, absent certain specific conditions, I am keeping my books.

I never fail to find a “forgotten treasure” when I take the time to empty a shelf and dust it and the books.

And my books include some of my mother’s and father’s books. I’ve moved them around with me for decades, and I’m not giving them up now either. I recently opened one that included an inscription to my mother from a co-worker. The book must have been a gift; finding the inscription was a gift to me, like having Mom back however briefly to talk about what we were reading. (And the best reason ever to start inscribing gift books to the recipient, at least with a date and the occasion.)

Although I have an e-reader and also read on my iPad, for the most part I continue to read traditional books, words printed on paper. That’s a bit old-school and contributes to my clutter issues, but I can’t stop. I dog-ear the pages, the spines get funky from leaving them face down, opened to the current page. Most of them bear coffee stains and the occasional smudge from snacking while reading. (Although, I am very careful with borrowed books!) I am never offended by these violations. I make my books my own.

A love of books and reading is a gift. One of my fondest childhood memories is of spending summer afternoons, sprawled on the floor, reading a book. Or reading late into the night, because the book was just too good to put down. Or going to the library to find something new. When my son and daughter were in elementary school, the PTA had a program that allowed each child to choose a book on their birthday to add to their home library. Despite the fact that Doug & Mags had lots of books at home, they were glowing on the days they came home with a new birthday book.

Remember how Marie-Laure LeBlanc treasured her Braille copy of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in All the Light We Cannot See? She read it again and again.

Don’t you just love how good you feel about making the right decision?

My love/hate thing with FaceBook

I have been thinking about “when FaceBook was fun.” I don’t spend a lot of time on FB; lately even less. Remember when it was just vacation pics, new babies and funny things you saw on the way to the office?

FaceBook is more work today. That’s not all bad. After all, one post launched the Women’s March in January. Pretty powerful stuff. It set so much in motion.

This — social media — is now a primary way to acquire and manage information. But for me it treads a very fine line. I’m a little tired of getting yelled at in all caps, “READ THIS” and “DO THIS NOW” although surely those posters find it important. And the language and name calling…yikes! What would your mother say about the language you used in that comment?

Most of all I wonder if we can really sum up the complexity of various issues in one post? Should we even try? There are so many conversations we need to be having, so much news to sort out, so many sources to evaluate. Can we just leave it to FaceBook (or another social media site) where we can say what we want, hit post and walk away? What merits a greater effort? Social media has its role, but I don’t think it ever replaces traditional communications (though many might disagree).

Finally, it’s been a year…

It’s been a year since I wrote “Ivy and Ironstone is the name of this blog because neither ‘Antique Silver & Zinnias’ nor ‘Hostas & Transferware’ had the alliterative cachet of ‘Ivy & Ironstone,’ and I am a writer at heart.” That was the introduction to my first post, and like so many bloggers, I am loving every minute of this occasional conversation with my readers and friends. I have even made new friends via the blog, certainly one of the best reasons ever to celebrate a year of blogging.

Thank you so much for joining me, for your thoughtful comments, for sharing my posts with your friends. I can’t wait to see what’s ahead.

See you next time!