Thursday, April 26, 2012

Time for Abitare

L. Serbin grabbing an Abitare for inspiration.  Sweater, hand knitted by Suzanne de la Torre, hair, lightly tousled with gray rubber hair band, gilded eye shadow cream Tom Ford , Calvin Klein t-shirt from Costco and Jo Malone Nectarine Blossom & Honey Cologne. What do you mean you can't see my gilded eye shadow? Gawd!

Abitare 360 March of 1997.  This was bought before Serbin Studio had begun in 1998.  It was Paulo Sanza a native of Italia and my co-worker at Orcutt Winslow who inspired me to start a subscription.

My collection of late 90's Abitare are like old friends with ripped covers, ads for insanely small colorful kitchens and heroic design that respects Italian buildings of antiquity.  The graphic layout is always tasteful.  The best way to scan is keeping one focus in mind. Say for instance, you just flip through looking for stairs. 
My favorite projects are the ones that take place in ancient chapels in the countryside.

All this fancy design to get a toilet at the entry? Can you get over the Roman brick work! Madness!  I am batting my gold eyelids over the thinness of those bricks.


It rained for 5 minutes and the sun is going to win again soon.  No cat scratching posts were decapitated for the photo shoot. My library of Abitare is really high. 

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Sunlight No. 2

This Sunlight inspiration started after I snapped this exterior door heading out the of the stair exit at the almost complete Center for the Arts project I have been overseeing for the last 8 months. The yellow looks delightful against the terra cotta.  The garbage can is not bad either. Ok the yellow electrical cord is not too shabby either.

My cacti are blooming.


A little customizing on this Sunlight scalloped stationary. I was inspired by the Center for the Arts color palette when I purchased this.  The cowgirl text is Burgundy against the Sunlight. Oh that is bliss!  


Apparently, my cat Tiger prefers Goldie Locks.


I consider this dress designed by Angela Kelly worn by Queen Elizabeth II to be true Sunlight.  She wears it well to the wedding of the Century.  The heels are great too.  Don't you think she could have rocked burgundy on the handbag? 

I have been looking for my Farrow & Ball, The Art of Color by Coleman for many search and rescue attempts. I have a photographic memory.  When I am working on a project I need to be able to find my books due to the fact that they are the file cabinets of images stuck in my membrane. Well I finally found this book this morning which had fell behind the entertainment center.  

Look at the Sunlight door frame! All the interior doors and frames will be Sunlight.  Glenn is the electrician with Gaylor and he is the best that's why I save him for second to last.


I want this Sunlight Louis Vuitton bag.  I peeked in the Vuitton Boutique in downtown Washington State looking for it. This sharp guy told me there are 4 in the world! Of course!

Hands up in the AIR if you like Sunlight!

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Castles in the Air

My adventure in Seattle with Rick Shepherd's Prius happened a few weeks ago.  I used my Iphone for navigating my way to 4 destinations. 

Nook is wedged in the University of Washington District between fast food, vintage dress shops,  and charming 19th century housing.  It was too bad the vintage dress shop was closed while I had to wait 15 minutes in the freezing cold for this biscuit haven to open.  This place just closes down after they run out of fresh steaming hot sconies.  I actually had the biscuits and sausage gravy.  I knew I needed fuel for my full day.

Fuel, a hip little coffee house in the Montlake District was next on my list.  Jan Shepherd, writer and publisher of  New England Crafts Connoisseur recommended that I check this place out since it was one of the many places that were hosting 2012 NCECA Ceramics Conference. I bought the cream mug with the high tiny handle. It has an image of a kid in a Spider man costume with a set of moose headed parents.  It is cool as yellow highlighting. 

Seattle Public Library, Architect of Record, Rem Koolhaas
After chatting with Hollis L. Engley, and his friendly family I polished off my iced cafe Americano.  I sped from my most perfect parallel parking job and drove to the Seattle Public Library.  This was a tip from my dear friend Khanh Le.  This building that replaced the original 18th century public library sits proudly in the center of the downtown core.  It is hands down, COOL!  It is a beautiful structural sculpture really. It is so different from the straight up and down buildings it has for neighbors. It commands your attention. 

The inside does seem a bit tortured when it comes to finding your way around.  I spent an hour armed with my Iphone and ear buds to find my way to the single dead end catwalk at the highest point.  The security guards were curious indeed.  For a sunny day in Seattle, there were quite a few people reading books under a powder blue steel and glass canopy.

Circulation paths were delineated in red for stairs and chartreuse for escalators.  By the end of the tour I was a bit disappointed with the disconnected circulation system. It looks cool but if there was a fire I wouldn't want to be on the 6th floor looking for the wayfinding arrows so I could find the next flight of stairs.  The buildings circulation system should be intuitive not dependent on signage for finding the exit stairs.


This is the floor to really get cozy and read some Little Women that has 1200 some odd pages. I will never be one to read a book on an electronic device.  Wow. That is so not true. I am actually reading Little Women on my Ipad to Eva every night.  We started about two years ago. 

Gold and purple clouds lay on the hilltops, and rising high into the ruddy light were silvery white peaks that shone like the airy spires of some Celestial City.  Chapter Thirteen, Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

Choice building materials. 

The couchy thing is located in the stacks on the side lines.  Mrs. Who and Mrs. Whatsit are sitting there.  Can you see them?
  
Chartreuse is so yesterday?



   My final stop was the Fairmont Hotel which serves high tea in the afternoon.  I thought the finger sandwhiches passed up the ones at The Ritz Carlton in Phoenix.  No offense Jeffrey Hattrick

Any trip worth going on begins and ends with biscuits.  

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Sunlight

Rubber bands are cool.

Yes, I am going to have the scupper painted. Now stop it!

Standing on top of the North Addition roof top you can get a great view.

The Dream Team: Ying Xiong, Tom Byrne, Stephen Bunyard , Ran Ethington and Willey Wipff
  
The City of Phoenix Center for the Arts project is looking miniature to me now.  Drywall is the skin that is now covering most of the interior structure. Wearing a hard hat is still the protocol with construction crews banging away on top of high scaffolding.      

Center for the Arts Interior Finish Palette Sample Board, Serbin Studio


The interior finishes have evolved with the input from Joseph Benesh, director for the Center for the Arts.  Benesh has pushed for the fun in this project.  He asked for more accent colors so I delivered.   The palette was previously ruled by purple, gray and terra cotta.  I interjected two crossover colors Beaujolais Pantone 18-2027 and Sunlight Pantone 13-0822. 

Sunlight is a yellow that is the perfect background for any color.  Sunlight is also a complimentary color to purple. Sunlight wakes this whole color board up with happiness!  The Beaujolais is the burgundy color that interjects a bit of richness.  

Crossovers, Nature's Most Versatile Colors, Leatrice Eiseman

Crossover is a term that is used in one of my favorite reads of all time, More Alive with Color by Leatrice Eiseman. If you want to find out what colors make you look incredible read this book. You could also ask me over for tea and I can help you out too.