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.

walking home

I keep feeling surprised by autumn. It's especially colorful in the gray.

The Book According to Cindy

photos via quaint handmade

Just read this by the lovely Cindy from Quaint Handmade and loving it. My mind-boggingly talented neighbor Rachel made one via blurb I think and now Cindy has lit the fire under my ass at just the right temperature to get on this project--I want to do a Lookbook and maybe even a Bonbon how-to manual or even weirder, a seasonal inspiration compilation for the studio. Cindy you too have officially boggled my mind...

p.s. Diana from Make Workshop is offering a free bonbon-making class! Take a look at the post below my lovelies.

Classes Taught and Taken and a Giveaway

Some weeks so much happens and I fall off just a little to let it flow. The last few weeks there's been so much I want to say but not much time to reflect in the blog type way. I just wanted to share a few images from the workshop Vanessa and I took together this past weekend. We learned how to do flush stone settings, staring at tiny stones, drilling tiny holes just right, getting feedback from a really talented jewelry artist, Sayumi Yokouchi and making stuff for two days straight. It was doing-heaven.


And here's a few from the last "Assemblage Design" class yours truly taught at Make Workshop. Just look at the mad skillzes these people picked up and how much talent was exposed over those two days! I love teaching at Make, I do I do. The last Earring Workshop of the year is next week...it's just a two hour packed with fun class and I think there's still space so join me?~ sign up! It's soooo much fun truly and maybe I'll bring wine? (Look now I'm bringing out the bribes...).

*Diana from Make has just generously offered to give away one free earring workshop with moi for next Wednesday's class or a later class for next year (a $95 value!) Just leave a comment here and we'll draw the winner on Saturday night and announce on Sunday morn!

Haeckel

I was asked last week by my friend Carolina to be part of a group exhibition in Paris next March, the theme of which is collections influenced by the undersea works of Haeckel.
So this is my newest challenge, eh? I say, BRING IT!!!!

P.S. YAYYYYYY YANKEEEEES!!!!!!

My Dinner with Asya

Dinner here with last night with Asya, maker of my most favored dishes and all around lovely person. Exciting to decide which dishes to go on her, uhhh, dishes, knowing she was actually going to be seeing them in action here in their new home! Served: a butter lettuce salad with red onion and green apple in one of my favorite dishes, her green apple colored bowl and baked eggplant and zucchini hollowed out and filled with moroccan spiced rice, pine nuts, raisins and apricots. For dessert were Italian pastries from Ferrara. You only live once.

Citron Vert Vinaigrette on
Butter Lettuce, Red Onion and Green Apple Salad (inspired by Asya's Dish)
-sea salt and pepper on bottom of bowl and add
-a teaspoon of dijon mustard and the juice of one lemon
whisk until smooth and add
-a quarter cup or so of good olive oil plus if you can find it,
a tablespoon of citron vert olive oil from here. Whisk.

-Wash and dry some nice soft tasting lettuce.
Slice very thin with a knife or better yet a mandoline
-some rounds of red onion and half an apple. Put in a beautiful bowl (preferably by Gleena).
Toss with dressing and behold.

Monday Dose of Inspiration: Shirin Sahba

I am back with Monday inspirations because it's been too long and it's a great thing to have something to look forward to...so with great joy and with much longing I bring you today, this painting by Shirin Sahba.

I have been keeping it to myself for too long. I spy on it a lot. I am in love with her work, it's true: the minute and delicate details that make up whole undulating fields of sheer rich color, the beautiful modern twist on miniature painting which reminds me of the lyrical characters of the Indian ragmalah paintings that I love, and a connection to absolute joy I feel whenever I look at any one of her paintings-it's so...pure. But this one...this one. If I owned it, I'd hang a hook in every room in my house so I could take it with me from room to room.

a detail from "Catching a Flight"

Maybe it's because it's called "Catching a Flight" or because the ground consists of many little birds chattering away in anticipation or because the figures are so elegant, from the golden age of air travel, yet Shirin makes that golden age somehow seem current and ...possible. She tenderly breathes a life into her big vast worlds and I feel very much a part of it. If it's not possible for me to ever own this painting, I will always know what it's like to be very deeply in love with a work of art, not just because it seduced me, it didn't--it's because I believed it actually loved me back. And love like that doesn't come around that often...

a sketch by Shirin

*I may start a fund on the sidebar called: donate to Deb's need to have Shirin's painting so that she may feel joy and inspiration every waking minute and can thereby bring you a better more vibrant and talented Deb...any thoughts?)
** Request for Shirin to show us more moleskin drawings s'il vous plait.
***all (incredible) images by Shirin Sahba

The Most Fall

last year's pumpkins by Jim and Deb.

past tableaus

sophie's birthday party, last year

maxine and the quinces

the quintessential acorn

morning quiet

I've felt the most fall this morning because:
* I'm watching Icky look out the window for her bird friends and they seem to be gone already.

*I've been a little crazy all week with planning all of Bonbon's holiday events. We'll kick-off on Saturday November 21st right here with my annual studio holiday party--a kind of "hello new studio, hello everyone" kind of shopping party with surprise guests--more on that this week-in the meantime Save November 21st!

*Halloween yesterday and I am taking a full weekend workshop to learn how to create "Flush Stone Settings" here. The teacher is amazing. I walked home amongst lots of little pirates and bats. When I walk back to class this morning, I'll be trying to cross the NY marathon route which goes right through our neighborhood. For the first time in a very long time, I dressed as myself in nightclothes for Halloween and fell asleep watching baseball.

*Speaking of which, the Yankees are back in the World Series and while I'm not a die-hard baseball fan, I am a.) from New York and b.) I do like a game that's full of intrigue, skill, stats and superstition. Plus I find many of the players, particularly on the Phillies, easy on the eyes.

* It's almost my niece Sophie's birthday and she asked that instead of presents, all of her friends give a donation to the local animal shelter. And then she got a puppy. That kid...

Tell me about how you really know it's Fall...