Just a Painting

Sometimes all it takes is a painting to bring life and vibrancy to a room. See more here.

Easter on the Brain

I've always felt that purple is the colour of Easter. This week, everywhere I look, I see purple. I think the internet is sending me subliminal signals to anticipate Easter. I have no speacial plans for Easter yet but my friends are coming to visit and I have to get planning. Anyhoo, here's what interested me this week:

The pretty bag by Kate Spade, Japan which I feel sells far prettier stuff than Kate Spade, New York.

The story of this Australian artist who is 105 years old. It's never too late to pick up a hobby. Loongkoonan started at the age of 90.

I have hair envy and am actually thinking of getting some unusual colour in my hair and I love the matt nail polish too. I am all over pinterest looking for a new hair style.

This origami-looking thing is wall art from Acanthe.

The colurful room was shot by Nicolas Mathues for Elle Decoration which is not the same as Elle Decor.

Finally, Christies advises on signed jewellery, which of course is more valuable that unsigned jewellery. It's a great read if you are thinking about starting a jewellery collection.

Artist I'm Loving: Raqib Shaw

London-based, Kashmir origin. He paints with a porcupine quill brush. Something about his work makes me want to recite William Blake: Tiger, tiger burning bright, In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye... It's fanstasy, illusory, hallucinatory. Obviously, I can't afford it. But I love it! More here.

What I'm Reading: Zadie Smith

 I have been missing in action, it's true. I hope I get some down time to blog more this week. And, when I actually do have some free time, I am going to be reading the novels of Zadie Smith. I am starting with On Beauty:

''On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars-on both sides of the Atlantic-serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political. Full of dead-on wit and relentlessly funny, this tour de force confirms Zadie Smith's reputation as a major literary talent. "

Zadie, orginally named "Sadie" is half Jamaican, half Brit and is now professor in the creative writing programme at New York University. I want to dive into the world of her work for a number of reasons. Something she said resonates with me. "Not being able to write in the first person was very much about ...self-disgust or anxiety about saying ‘I'...It did seem to me, when I was a kid and also now that I’m a grown-up writer, that a lot of male writers have a certainty that I have never been able to have. I kept on thinking I would grow into it, but I’m never sure I’m doing the right thing." What sticks with me is that it is true that men feel assured about their place in this world, in any profession, in any social setting.  And a writer at T Magazine says the same "[T]he authority a male writer assumes doesn’t originate in himself but in the structure of society, which he inherits like a mantle". True, no? 

Anyway, as a woman with her feet straddling different societies and cultures---and having to raise a daughter who will no doubt do the same---I want to see what Zadie Smith has to say about it all.

The Male Brain

If you ask me what I think about most men on a given day the picture above sums it up. This is in my stairway at home in Vilnius. As I go up and down the stairs, going about my daily life, I am constantly reassured that us girls have it covered because of this picture. Just a little whimsy as you head into a distressing weekend. Donald Trump is the president of a country.

Bag Lady

I am on route to Belize and going through airports. What's the deal with everyone walking around New York City with a Michael Kors bag or its knock-off? Everyone is advertising Michael Kors for free. I do not carry handbags with the labels slathered all over it! I buy a bag because it can hold my kitchen sink and a few utensils and because it is stylish, strong, durable or makes some aesthetic statement. I do not do free label-advertising. But I am a bag lady. I have purposely not included names/designers above. Because for me it is not about labels. Buy what you can afford and what you like. Forget labels.

Kitchen Dreams

Who doesn't want a kitchen set in the middle of a garden housed in an orangerie! Gah! Kitchen dreams! This is the only image I can find of this kitchen. It's done by Perene. As you know, the well-to-do, do not Ikea for kitchen ( yes, Ikea is a verb in this post). So I am assuming that Perene is where they go.

19th Century Hysteria!

2017 is the year when most attitudes towards women, their mental state, right to self-determination and their penchant for self-sabotage will come under close scrutiny---yes, I did say self-sabotage. I feel sorry for the Americans but mostly for their women and just hope these types of attitudes which brand women as "crazy", "evil", "power-hungry" and heaven forbid "ambitious" do not spread.  We'll be regressing to a time when women were diagnosed with "Hysteria"--controlled by our womb and uterus, a mental anguish, irrationality or outright madness attributed to our sexual  and reproductive organs. Such a diagnosis is laughable now and it should have been laughable then. Same for today-- the things we women are allowing to happen are so ginornmously antiquated, they are simply laughable. There is great temptation to sleep until it's over. But I hope you don't and I hope you do all you can in whichever corner of the world you are to let them feel the strength, intellect and determination of a woman. 2017.