Rather adore it when a client one-ups me naturally. So quintessentially Canadian (did we not grow up chewing and sucking honeycomb - of course we did), so poetically genius, I’ve no idea how I missed the work of Aganetha Dyck.
And while my client’s piece rests within a perspex box I unwittingly conjure the phantom scent and salivate at THAT aspect of Dyck’s exhibitions.
So I’m at the finishers today vetting some paintworks. It’s a new trade my friend Kari drags me to and we need to go to his spray-booth to see how things are progressing. I try to stay focused on the task at hand but, as is often the case, I’m having another of those Saatchi moments and all I can think of is ‘if we put Perspex boxes round all these things………!!!’ Well you know how it goes. It’s just all so picturesque!!!
The chicest rubbish bin I’ve EVER seen.
The chicest BRICK I’ve ever seen….
The chicest VENTS I’ve ever seen.
and certainly the CHICEST cassette player I have EEEEVER seen….and it works too!! I didn’t bother to ask why everything is WHITE….I just smiled approvingly.
Before tinned Salmond swims further up-stream dragging the lowlands in his tubby wake and you need ID cards to cross Hadrian’s Wall, use as your passport to that maybe-new country up North this stunning book, THE SCOTTISH COUNTRY HOUSE, written by the king of Scottish scholars James Knox and superbly photographed by another monarch of the lens, James Fennell.
You’ll find ten private, and for the most-part heretofore unseen, homes….palaces is nearer the mark… their astonishing grandeur of gilding and porcelain and portraits mingled with below-stairs vignettes and snapshots from family albums, (though sadly not one of Lord Stair’s house, where congealing food used to be left on a wheezy hot-plate all day, covered with an old eiderdown), to say nothing of facades and gardens and landscapes. Among the most fascinating is The House of the Binns, the seat of the Dalzells ( a.k.a Dalziels), to which family Diana Vreeland was related….looking at these pics, you’ll suss where she got much of her pizzazz.
Beds and boots in The Binns
Bannisters in Bowhill
Arcades at Arniston
Forebeans at Foulis
Dishes at Dumfries
I am about to take you under. 20,000 leagues under. Tracey Emin is in on the act….with her ‘She lay down….’ exhibition in Margate she had in the summer.
…..it seems there is a primordial brine in the air…
Harvey Nichols was in on the act….with these headpieces….
How I longed to stuff one in my purse……but I gave up shoplifting age 12, when caught stealing my first pack of gum. Clearly the criminal life was not for me.
These were sort of quick and clever with none of the elan of a Janine Janet but still….I thought fun!
Sunlight through Venetian blinds: evocative of the total exhilaration I felt as child when I woke up to this promising sight!
And no detective’s bureau is complete without dim light through shutters, often with swirling smoke from a cigarette faintly suggested in the slashes of light…
Or marvel in the negative occurrence: shadows cast by the shutters of a grand palazzo in Venice. ..
The allure is best enjoyed when printed on fabric in New-mown Green, and used on an ottoman it in an orangery inspired entrance hall, like we did for this client in New Orleans!
Or do as Colette and have a dress made of it!
The possibilities are endless……
We have been printing it on wallpaper exclusively (for the moment!) for our clients as seen here in Pomegranate Red. All of our NH Design fabrics can be viewed on our website and are available exclusively through Turnell &Gigon in Europe and Claremont in the United States, and Primavera in Canada.
