Monday Dose of Inspiration: Mas de Pancho

from Pancho Tolchinsky's Folk Project

from the Sweet Gray Days project

from the 30km Away project

From the Feels Like Home project.
all photos courtesy of Pancho Tolchinsky

Hard to know where to start talking about why the photos of Pancho Tolchinsky inspire. Born in Mexico to an Argentine family, raised in Israel, he and his wife, artist Catalina Estrada, (originally from Medillín, Colombia), now live in Barcelona.

I'm thinking his background can partly explain the expansive world view I look at in each still moment in his photos, and somewhere in the magnificent, saturated colors and the beautiful mundane objects found in his projects from travels around the world, in each quiet moment he shouts a louder message of places and people and corners not often exposed, a melancholy with respectful purpose, the poetry of small far-off places and their private concerns. The impact of each sometimes difficult, always hopeful aspect of the everyday life of his subjects shines through in the things he notices with his camera. It's the unsentimental truth each of us carries in our navigation through our lives. His are photos that ask questions, that invite us to ask questions, photos that linger in memories, and are ones you can't forget.
Mas de todo...More of everything...

See his current projects and commercial work here. Own some here.

Sweet Gifts

Hello all... My name is Maria and I have a home design blog called vintage simple that I started not too long ago... I met Deb like we all do in this world of blogs, exchanging an email here and a comment there, also not too long ago.

When Deb asked me to do a guest post while she was away, I was initially of course deeply flattered - and shortly thereafter downright panicked. How would I come up with something cool to post on this awesome blog of hers, that was true to both my style and hers..?

I found the answer to that question via sweet imperfection. Since Deb was giving me a gift by extending this invitation, I decided to give her a gift back through the work of a wonderful photographer, whose pictures feed the interiors of my dreams.

We know Deb has been searching for some calm by reinventing her studio, so I thought additional calm was in order. So here it goes, the gift of a place for everything and everything in its place, giving us the extra elbowroom we need, both in our lives and minds...


The gift of a clear mind and the added capacity for creativity that comes along with it...


The gift of vintage finds, waiting to tell us stories that we will retell in our own words...


The gift of color, like the beautiful cobalt blue of the bottles on this window ledge...


And, finally, the gift of a little bit of rock and roll, so like Deb, I think.


(images: sweet imperfection)

Monday Dose: The Icelandic Poppy and Disorder

A close-up view of the "Icelandic (Arctic) Poppy"

I'm not sure whether I am more inspired by microscopic looks at things, the magnification of that thing, where you can see beyond the outside of what you think you see and get to the heart of what makes a thing a thing, deep below the surface...or this excited description of the "Icelandic (Arctic) Poppy" from UK site, "A Flower Garden of Macroscopic Delights" by Brian Johnston (Canada) (deb's new favorite site). Please read:

"Many plants have buds in which the enclosed petals are neatly packed. This is most definitely not the case with the arctic poppy! The extremely crinkled appearance of the fully open blooms (below) is due to the fact that the petals have been packed in a totally disorganized fashion within the bud, an example of which can be seen above. This crinkled appearance is however, not a detriment, but an attractive and interesting trait."
-Brian Johnson

I hereby declare this week "Disorganized and Crinkly Appearance Week" where-to-fore a disorganized and crinkly appearance for humans is no longer a detriment, but an attractive and interesting trait.
Wishing you many more inspirations for the week...

Monday Dose of I: Aya Brackett & Earth Week

food

portraits

life

(all of the above by Aya Brackett)

I've been sitting in front of Aya Brackett's photography for an hour. There is such a quiet earthy calm that washes over me when I look at her work, a sense that there's no need for drama, that life is beautiful and it's as right there in front of us as we make it. Here's to a good start to this (down-to) earth week.

oxo, me