exhibition booth with an edge.

(well,...i've been busy,..and haven't told you all what i've been up to!)

not so long ago, a friend of mine, who is also a fabulous photographer asked me to come on board and style a booth at a photography exhibition for him.

james bennett

check him out.  his work is lovely.

i had a limited budget, and a couple of days to come up with something that would suit his style of photography and also his personality.

masculine/edgy/industrial/on trend/and eye catching!

booths at exhibitions are so incredibly dull.

you can walk from one to the other and barely notice the difference.

not this booth.

i came up with a really simple colour palette that would work with the black walls of the booth.  

vintage industrial brown - including glass, wood and cow hide

soft pink magnolia blooms

white industrial lighting feature

so very simple.

very effective.

first i mocked it up at home in front of a black wall to make sure that design wise it worked.

the bare bulb cluster worked beautifully with the sculptural magnolia branches.

vintage industrial stools with a pop of colour were both masculine and visually interesting.

by hanging vintage frames over sections of photographs, your eye is drawn 'to the drama'.  you can use a method like this at home to add dimension and visual interest.

gorgeous photographer, james.  a bit easy on the eye too! ha!

clusters of brown apothecary bottles are striking without being overwhelming. 

a vignette of daphne, books and vintage cameras.

the round bulb worked well with james' gorgeous, sculptural image.

so.

there you go.

an exhibition booth with a bit of personality.

jane xx

queen of the roadside

i thought that i would go for the trifecta today!

three in three.

it seems that my friends have coined me with the name 'queen of the roadside'.

and it's not got anything to do with owning an alfa romeo!

i love hard rubbish collection week.

adore it.

it is incredible what people chuck out.  along with the stained, crusty old mattresses (really?  you really had them in your house up until this week!? ewww!) there are some amazing treasures.

exhibit one:  a perfectly amazing vintage push bike.  i happened to have a wicker basket that i bought on recent travels. 

gorgeous!

but, it's exhibit two that made my heart race.

everyone has seen these amazing creatures, yes?

look at these.

original.

side. of. the. road.

A butterfly chair, also known as a BKF chair, is a style of chair featuring a folding frame and a large cloth sling hung from the frames highest points.

The BKF chair was designed by the argentinian architect jorge ferrari hardoy in 1938 in argentina.

1938!

 hardoy along with partners, antonio bonet and juan kurchan  (hence bfk chair) developed the chair in 1938 for an apartment building they designed in buenos aires. on july 24, 1940, the chair was shown at the 3rd Salon de artistas decoradores exhibition where it was discovered by the museum of modern art. at the request of MoMA design director edgar kaufmann jr., hardoy sent 3 pre-production chairs to new york. one is in the MoMA collection and one is at the

frank lloyd wright house fallingwater, but no one knows where the third chair went. 

the bfk was named as one of the best efforts of modern chair design.

(courtesy bfk)

side. of. the. road. folks!

so, i went to birdsall leather in mascot (sydney) and bought a couple of creamy coloured cowhides and some leather rope. 

trying to find a pattern online was near impossible, so with some dodgy measurements, and an idea as to how it *should* look, i began cutting the leather.

hours later.

so comfortable!

i also made a couple of black canvas slip covers for everyday usage.

side. of. the. road.

do the gutter crawl.  you could hit pay dirt.

jane xx

*trying to get 2 bfk chair frames into the back of an alfa romeo station wagon with 2 small boys already inside is a difficult, difficult task.  however, there was no way in hell that i was leaving them behind!*

i have a crush..

2 posts in 2 days.

that is surely a personal best in recent times!

i just had to pop in though and tell you about a recent crush.

as you can see,..my blog has had a bit of a makeover.  not too sure whether i will stick with it, cause at heart i am a fickle, fickle being.

however,

i am madly in love with the fabric on the background.

shibori.

not too long ago, through sibella court, i came across a wee company dying fabulous fabrics in the traditional japanese way.

check out their website,..it's gorgeous!

look at their divine projects.

this is a meeting space @ macquarie bank

shibori stage drapes in the beresford hotel

collaboration with mr.jason grant.

gorgeous.

basically,With shibori the dyer works in concert with the materials, not in an effort to overcome their limitations, but to allow them full expression. An element of the unexpected is always present. All the variables attendant upon shaping the cloth and all the influences that control the events in the dye vat or pot serve to remove some of the shibori process from human control. An analogy is that of a potter firing a wood-burning kiln. All the technical conditions have been met, but what happens in the kiln may be a miracle or a disaster. Chance and accident also give life to the shibori process, and this contributes to its special magic and strongest appeal

Shibori is a Japanese term. Shibori comes from the verb root “shiboru” - to wring squeeze or press, and would be used to describe wringing out the washing or a floor cloth.

The emphasis is upon the action performed on the cloth.

Tie-dye is the popular name for shibori in the Western world. However this term does not fully describe the great diversity of techniques which have been developed or the degree of skill and knowledge required to execute them. 

(courtesy of shibori webpage)

lovin'.

then, a week or so ago, i came across a website selling vintage shibori haori (kimono jackets) direct from japan!  

for less than fifty clams, i had, delivered to my door, a divine vintage shibori haori.

kimono flea market

so there you go.

shibori.

my current crush.

jane xx

life and other interesting things,...

hello lovely friends!

firstly,..i miss you all!  I will try and pop in here a little more often,.. 

promise.

so,.  

there have been quite a lot of interesting things happening in my wee corner of the globe recently.

the first being that country style magazine is coming, in 2 weeks time, to photograph our little black house in the country for a story in their magazine! 

so, so, so excited!

the second thing is that a book that i have been writing and styling has picqued the interest of a literary agent, and also some publishers.

yep.

a book!

styled and written by me!

does it get any more exciting than that?

2 things i can cross off my bucket list in one week.

champagne is being popped!

be back soon with more exciting news.

jane xx