Art + Inspiration

A Field of Carpets and a Lover's Eye

Oof it’s a crazy stretch of time, innit? So much uncertainty and chaos and violence. And while it’s important to remain open to what’s happening in the world around us, it’s just as important to counter the challenges with beauty and inspiration. And so, I give you this week’s list. Enjoy!

• As if we needed another reason to hop on over to Paris: The National Library of France’s Oval Room.

• The carpet fields in the Mediterranean Turkish province of Antalya are a beautiful sight.

  

  Turkish rugs prior to the dyes being softened by the sun

• Adam Hillman takes mesmerising still life photographs of intricately patterned objects.

• Naomi Shihab Nye tells it like it is.

• Anuradha Bhaumick is an Indian-born textile artist whose work explores everyday objects with a painterly flair.

• Apparently one can still visit Angelo Orsoni’s Color Library in Venice, home to all manner of smalti, or colored glass, used in mosaic tile and more.

• This photo of Lilian Gish and John Gielgud in a 1945 Broadway production of Hamlet makes me want to time travel.

• I’m a sucker for an artist who turns trash into something beautiful, fun, useful and in the case of Argentina’s Guillermo Galetti, educational.

• The Villa Emanuel Laurens has been restored to its former grandeur. Here’s a photo shoot from before the redo.

  

• Byzantine Bembe, mosaic artist Manny Vega’s show at the Museum of the City of New York, pays homage to the city’s Puerto Rican and Latinx population.

• Were you aware that Lover’s Eye jewelry was having a major renaissance? Interesting story from the Times from several years back.

  

  A “lover's eye” on a brooch surrounded by split pearls, from about 1790.

• I had the pleasure of sitting next to Mitzi Gaynor at a big Hollywood party years ago, and she was as charming as you might imagine. RIP to a swell dame.

I hope you feel a bit of balance, and ready to enjoy the weekend. Wishing you a great October 19th. —Chris