Today's post features Lulu and Daisy. They are two cuddly lambs who live at O'Day Farm Studio where Renn (pictured above) and I went to shoot these photos. Renn is my trusty and talented photographer and the sheep farm/art studio belongs to Renn's mother, Mary and her husband Patrick. It's a beautiful spot with outbuildings that double as art studios, rambling gardens, spotless and well built barns, green paddocks, rolling farmland, and sheep. We loaded up a bunch of furniture and accessories, enlisted a son (Nick, also pictured above) to model, and drove the forty minutes out there because, why not? How often does one get a chance to frolic with lambs? It was a delightful day that convinced me I am right to dream about someday raising sheep and making feta. Here are some outtakes I thought you would enjoy, since spring is blowing coyly in our ear these days.
Read moreKool and the Gang and Lindsey Vonn
I've been skiing nearly my whole life and have never felt comfortable in the bumps. Once I took a fancy class on how to ski moguls from a French guy named Claude. He asked me what I wanted to learn. I said I want to look like Lindsey Vonn. He told me to plant my poles, point my boobs downhill, suck in my stomach, and keep my weight forward. I said, "Don't you mean boots? Point my boots downhill?" "No Madame," he said, making hand gestures to explain, "your boobs. Eez not what you Americans say? Or teats?"
Read moreHappy for Sadness
This weekend marks one year since Finder Not Keeper opened for business. I thought about an image of a birthday cake or a champagne bottle, but if I am being completely honest, the real impetus to open a shop came from watching my children leave home. Thus, the image above.
Today's Post is About Loneliness
When my oldest child left for college, I really struggled. I cried without warning, and had trouble sleeping. It felt like the loss of my identity as a mother. I'm quite ashamed to admit this even now, because it was such a first-world problem, to be sad about the natural progression that everyone wants for their children. How shallow and selfish.
Read moreThe Goldfinch
I am on vacation this week and rereading my favorite book of 2014: Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. Please, for the love of all things good, promise me you'll read it someday soon.
It is the story of kid named Theo who goes to a museum with his mother to see her favorite painting, The Goldfinch. There is a bombing, his mother is killed, and somehow, he emerges from the wreckage with the painting. A nutty premise but consider the photo below of a terrorist bombing of the Islamic Art Center in Cairo, Egypt one year ago. Nothing in this book is a stretch.
Read moreIs This Ugly?
I think it's ugly. Is it the Pepto-Bismol wall color, or the hideous burnt umber tones in the wood? Either way, this composition did not start out ugly. Under the studio lights, it looked really pretty. The rods and cones of my retina told my brain that the colors complemented each other. I believed my brain and patted myself on the back for assembling a visual lovefest of vivid pastels.
But a camera lens is not an eyeball and through my photographer's camera lens, the pink wall went from a soft blush to something more like salmon. The antique tea table, which is a rich brown, turned burnt orange. And through the camera lens, I saw that the sleek decanter and cordial glasses didn't suit the polychrome plates.
Read moreLetter to My Online Sisterhood
Have you heard of the new twist on Valentine's Day? It's called Galentine's Day, where women get together with their besties for a no-pressure night of female bonding on or around February 14th. Leslie Snope started the trend a few seasons back on "Parks and Recreation," and it is gaining traction. Did you hear that, Hallmark? We love an opportunity to acknowledge the value of our gal pals and we especially love doing it on the day that society says is for romance.
Galentine's Day may usurp my love of Halloween, as holidays go. Since launching Finder Not Keeper, I have found an enormous wellspring of support from other women. It seems to happen very naturally. Which I did not expect. A mistake on my part to underestimate the power of women who share.
Read moreDr. Van de Velde's Valentine
"This book will state many things which would otherwise remain unsaid."
How's that for a hint at what scandalous ideas lie within the pages of this remarkable book? Its author, Dr. Th. H. Van de Velde, a Dutch physician and gynecologist, was not exaggerating.
"I show you here the way to Ideal Marriage. You know the honeymoon of rapture. It is all too short, and soon you decline into that morass of disillusion and depression, which is all you know of marriage. But the Bridal Honeymoon should blossom in the perfect flower of ideal marriage. May this book help you to attain such happiness."
Read moreJunk with Spunk
This is a boring business-y post, so if you find marketing discussions to be dull, skip down to the part about going to hell (second-to-last paragraph). Marketing can suck, so I'm right there with you. It is so uncomfortable to "pitch"Finder Not Keeper to anyone who is not my mother or who hasn't shown me ample amounts of social media love BECAUSE I NEVER KNOW WHAT THE HELL TO SAY.
First off, who am I? An antique dealer? Sort of. An artist? Not really. A decorator? I don't think so.
The only thing I know for sure is that I am a shopkeeper. Who sells antiques, art, and decor. This makes no sense.
Read moreFlowers Follow Fire: Carolyne Roehm's Bloom After Disaster
Collage by Nicholas Ballesteros
When I was in college dreaming of New York and a job in fashion, I followed the career of a young woman who seemed to burst onto the couture stage like a fleet-footed ibex. This was the 1980s of banking deregulation, Arnold Scaasi's red dresses for Nancy Reagan, Ivan Boesky, Malcolm Forbes 70th birthday party in Morocco, Leona Helmsley, The Bonfire of the Vanities, and more cocaine than Jonah Hill ever imagined. The particular young woman I admired, Carolyne Roehm, came from Kirksville, Missouri, and in the fashion pages, her face looked midwestern fresh. She worked for years for Oscar de la Renta, and both were purported to have beautiful manners.
Read moreThe Doctor's Dedicatory Bowl
The woman in line ahead of me asked the woman in line behind me a question: "Who owned this place?" I stepped aside so the answer could be conveyed: "A physician by the name of Emmett or Bennett or Barnett," came the response. The first woman exclaimed, "Oh! Well if it's Dr. Emmett, I'll be darned because he was my doctor!"
Inside the condo, I saw that Dr. Emmett/Bennett/Barnett had a penchant for travel to exotic locales. He collected wonderful artifacts from the South Seas, the Orient, Africa, and Australia. I grabbed a couple of inlaid mosaic tables that looked like they came from Morocco.
Read moreHeavenly Bogotá for the Holidays
Instead of packages under the tree, this year we decided to take our children along with their grandfather to visit Colombia, their grandfather's homeland. It was a dream vacation. The kids met the South American branch of the family and they embraced us with enthusiasm and warmth. At our first event, great aunts and uncles literally pulled us into conga lines of dancing. From then on, it was one big bouncy lovefest. We are all glowing.
Our first day, we joined pilgrims and tourists making the steep trek up to Monserrate (10,341 ft.) where Christmas Day services were held in the lovely open air Catholic church. Many Colombians wept as they ascended towards the peak.
Read moreMessy Year Means New Goals
What a tumultuous year. I launched a blog and opened a shop. One of the initial decisions I had to make was whether to work out of my home or occupy a space. I realized our house -- not large but with interesting architectural detail -- is a great photographic backdrop. And the rent can't be beat.
More importantly, when I live with these objects and mix them into everyday life, I often see them in a new light. They show themselves capable of evolving in a modern way. It is much easier to form collections with items I've gotten to know and love on a personal level. When it comes time to shoot them, they are content in this space, and it shows through in the photographs. Weird, huh?
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Crab Legs and My Christmas Tantrum
Merry Christmas from The Bubble Joy! When you are a child, Christmas is magical. When you are a parent, Christmas is magical. But for those who are neither, Christmas can be tricky. It requires more effort to capture the spirit of the season. This, my husband and I learned together during our first Christmas back in our salad days. And the manner in which we learned this lesson inspired a collection in the shop.
Side note: I come across quite badly in this story. My mother-in-law, who recently started subscribing to this blog, is going to read this post and then spend the afternoon whispering to herself, "I knew it. I knew it!"
Read moreSanta and His Reindeer Need a Shave
This was our holiday card last year -- a reincarnation of the days, sixteen years earlier, when my sons actually did what I asked. By which I mean they donned antlers and Irish knit sweaters and lined up by age.
We took the original photo the year that we moved to Wisconsin. The boys loved how deer, foxes, even coyotes would meander through our woods and the idea of dressing up as reindeer delighted their innocent little imaginations.
They don't really do what I tell them anymore. Because at this point, what can I tell them that will be heard? To match their socks? Those days of parenting are over.
Read moreText Message on a Plate?
I love text as art and so do a lot of people these days. Mottos as fashion statements or design elements are everywhere -- on pillows, t-shirts, phone cases, as tattoos, in wall collages, on babies' onesies. Maybe these cheeky catchphrases resonate because we regularly condense our communication. We put a lot of heart and soul into tweets, texts, snaps, etc. Does this mean that we glorify the shallowness of slogans? Probably. So, to celebrate the glorification of throwaway sentiments, I'm here to show you how to make your own creed to adorn any pretty little thing. It's fun and easy and yes, it peels right off. It's temporary, which I suppose means that it is shallow.
Read moreA Holiday Table Wisconsin-Style
When I was in the sixth grade, I wrote a play called "A Thanksgiving to Remember." My wonderful teacher, Mr. Hombaker, agreed to stage it for the parents of Room 117. The plot was an eleven-year-old's version of Little House on the Prairie meets The Waltons, with plenty of woolen clothing, blizzards, meagre rations, and general misery on the plains. I don't know how to describe how horrible this play was. Truthfully, the only action that took place involved the characters setting the table, speaking a few lines like, "sure hope Pa's oxen team blah blah blah" and then clearing the table. Plates on. Plates off. Plates on. Plates off. I remember overhearing some first-grader in the front row groan to his mom, "Not the dishes again!"
My fascination with a well laid table has not abated since.
Read moreOur Video! Of Pond Frogs, Pizza, and Passing Years
Happy Thanksgiving Friends! I have for your Black Friday enjoyment a little ditty of a video for Finder Not Keeper. If you enjoy it, I hope you "like" it and share it. After watching, scroll down below for a few fun tidbits about the making of "Shelf Life."
Read moreThanksgiving with Two Lovebirds and Three Roasted Birds
I talked to my parents on the phone this morning and my mother had just returned from the grocery store where she had purchased a turkey for Thanksgiving. She is such a pro, she calls them ‘birds’. She usually roasts three birds, so why she came home with only one was a mystery to me. Evidently, the grocery store is running a turkey promotion limited to one turkey per customer per day. She will be going back tomorrow and the day after for two more birds. I said that was a lot of gas and time and trouble to save ten cents a pound.
I could hear her shrug over the phone. “What else do I have to do?” she joked.
Read moreIntroducing Minnie and her Scottie Friends
This is a photo of Minnie the Doorstop Scotty. Minnie is short for Minerva, as in Miss Minerva McGonnagal, the esteemed professor at Hogwart's. My cast iron Minnie is antique and heavy, making her an excellent protectorate of the young wizards and witches of Gryffindor House.
In actuality, I named my Minnie after a living Minnie here in Milwaukee. She is a dear dog with a wavy coat, short legs, and a sweet disposition. I have always coveted her.
Read moreMy Personal Shopper in South America
My husband is half South American and half American South. He grew up on fried chicken and iced tea in a midcentury modern home filled with Colombian art and textiles. His ladylike mother speaks in a soft southern voice while his father's thick accent and debonair manner always remind me of that lovable Latin, Ricky Ricardo.
Recently, my husband's work requires him to travel to South America. It is a valuable opportunity for his career while also providing him a way to see the land of his ancestors and reconnect with the Colombian branch of the family tree. But most importantly, it is a chance for him to shop!
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