Art and Literature

Art embraces, art graces, art speaks volumes of our personal emotional beliefs. Imagine a tomorrow without it and we would all fade into an unexpressed colorless reality. Now imagine our everyday without music, literature and poetry published through print or on the Internet ... Even the art expressed through hipster poetry slams. What would reward our curiosity for fulfillment and entertain our soul if literature was no longer and the expressed beauty of art wasn't prolific anymore.

"The scream" Edward Munch, painting location Oslo Norway

Now imagine a recent nightmare filled dream for me, one without the things that matter most to me. Can you? Imagine my unexplained preoccupation with my constantly writing poetry. It often wakes me from a sound sleep and demands that it be expressed, sparing no excuses, needing no sleep, nor food. A driving force in me I honestly can not explain, it flows and I continue to go with it. 

"The Scream" lithograph version 1895

Now think about the appreciation and wonderment of artisans beauty from the past and in the perceived future. Well I woke in an absolute cold sweat and an emotional flatness of an existence that showed me what would be if self expression was ever oppressed. This nightmare of all art and literature vanishing was the inspiration for this post which will feature some new additions of art and adding more rustic charm in our row-home.

"Personality is everything in art and poetry"

~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"Art and Literature are two things I think my life would be drastically deprived of trying to exist without - an absolute nightmarish reality"

~Vera~

Recently John and I purchased through an on line auction a vintage oil painting by the 20th century artist CH Wilton. French post Impressionism, an original oil, paper and fabric collage painted in the 60's. Titled French beggar in the Street.

It is rare when one of CH Wilton's original collage oils from his French Beggar series goes up for sale. This oil painting spoke to me to be included in our tiny but beloved wine related corner in our Dining Room. Imagine our jubilation when we won it! Expecting to pay the auction estimate of upwards of 400 dollars and we surprisingly won the bid for 200.00. Seriously!

The closeups show the Plaid fabric patch and the signature

A decision was made by us to pop it out of its frame and to float it displayed on a shelf/ledge that would hang over our antique French riddling rack from the Champagne region in France.  I hold a strong heartfelt bond and belief in filling our home with family, friends and laughter. Wine always factors in with meals, often prepared in anticipation of a shared evening with guests. I've been adding many more rustic touches to our row-home, they just seem to belong and embrace me at this point of my life. 

Our rustic refined wine corner of our Dining room. 

We decided to go with a salvaged rustic wood shelf/ledge in Black Walnut. I custom ordered a pronounced raw edge salvaged wood from Pennsylvania. Hand crafted in a one of a kind special piece from a very friendly/easy to work with craftsman on etsy named Reclaim to Fame. All sources will be found under the last photo of this post. I was charged 80.00 and 20 dollars shipping and this magnificent beauty is what we now enjoy adding rustic natural beauty in our Dining Room. 

Top view is the salvaged Black Walnut.

A blogger friend in Hamburg Germany, Méa, blogs about her amazing transformations in her 100 year old home and about the Cartapesta art she creates. Méa's Vintage has over the past year become a blogger friend who creates from her heart and shares her beliefs and dreams.

This is a second purchase of her Cartapesta art pieces for me. The first piece was a Believe banner - perhaps one of the most magical words in our language, or so I believe!

The photos are of her gift wrap, truly art in itself. From the pretty Jeanne D'Arc wrapping paper to her hand made orchid flowers crafted in her magical hands in raw silk to her hand torn and frayed white ribbon and this cool rustic hemp that I haven't been able to find in America. So what was inside.... 

Well inside was a specular winged heart I ordered from Méa.  With a rhinestone dotting the letter i on the word étoile (star) it winks and blinks as you past by. This has a special meaning to me. It reminds me of a star I purchased in memory of my son.

I took copper wire (which will eventually develop a soft patina) and artfully twisted and hung it from our gallery wire display in our Living room which display's both John's and my Black and White photography. Below are our ledges with antique artifacts, centuries old Buddhas, Monks and carved wooden art. We live in an 1,800 square foot row home surrounded with art in a very approachable casual way. Méa's flying heart lovingly hangs between the photographs.

The photo on the left and right is of our French 1972 Citroën Pallas DS. My personal decorating style? Who knows ... Perhaps just a total admiration and appreciation of our small worlds amazing artisans. I live in the historic city of Philadelphia and try to embrace the natural colors of bricks and stone that I feel add warmth and comfort in our home. 

On Top the wired glass front cabinet in our kitchen sits two antique vintage olive oil jars, I asked Rosemary from Villabarnes if she could create a couple of her gorgeous full of patina, cut from salvaged vintage metal tags. One for in our kitchen to read Olive Oil in Italian since the olive oil jar is from Italy. Gorgeous patina and adds charm.

Olio d' Olivia, it measures 2x4. John took picture hanger wire and twisted knots through the holes to hang it. 

In our Living room sitting on top our African Paduak exotic wood shelves on the exposed brick wall is one of our vintage olive jars (this is a vintage one from the 80's, far from antique). I added faux olive branches from Decor Steals. A tag custom made by Rosemary with the words Ramo d'olivio (olive branch) is displayed. Thank you Rosemary for adding rustic charm and beauty inside our home. I am fortunate to own many of Rosemary's creative pieces.

Rosemary hand cuts these from salvaged metal and hand polishes the edges to be smooth. 

Upstairs in our sitting/reading room we've hung a Pen and Ink drawing of Venice over the mantel. A late Summer change in the rooms art.

On the mantel is our other Material Culture find from our hunt I wrote about last post. A long necked handmade pottery vessel. 

A close up - reminds me of a balloon! 

I had John downsize the two Black and White photographs of our son Chris that had hung over the mantel.  It was time ... Sunday August 23 was his Birthday and the 2nd Birthday without him. The photos still hang in our sitting/reading room. I like their new smaller version in the frames placement so much better.

As an avid reader I'm always looking for a reading escape to provide a imaginary adventure. Besides all my collected over the years decorating and design books that I peruse are books that fill my imagination with intrigue and spine tingling suspense. "Lightening" is a new read for me of an older Dean Koontz book. It made and stayed on The New York Times best sellers list years ago. All I can say is WOW. I just finished the book, WOW! WOW! WOW! I guess you can tell I enjoyed it.

"She was fascinated with words. To her, words were things of beauty, each like a magical powder or potion that could be combined with other words to create powerful spells."

~Dean Koontz, from the book "Lightning"~

This is John's latest book he is absorbed in....

Remember when I talked about the "R" word (retirement) for John? Well it's moving in that direction and we have always talked about going to the Grand Prix in Monaco. Looks like we are going to celebrate John's retirement with a race. Seems kind of symbolic of life to me. The years speed by ever so quickly and you hope and pray you win in the end.

As I always do I will leave you with my poetry. See you in a few weeks, enjoy and linger in the last weeks of Summer. For soon it will fade into shorter days and crisper evenings filled with lasting precious memories. Philadelphia is still daily hitting the 90's in temps so we truly are enjoying an Indian Summer.

xx,

Vera

The allure of fashion, art and beautification in furnishing our homes leaves one constantly aware of style and guess what - you are not alone.

Styles change and simply evolve while you heighten your appreciation of your own personal flair and to designers this is a fact well known.

Enhancing ones personal dwelling for comfort and satisfaction of being "au courant" seems to be an ongoing, never ending activity.

I know personally for many years it's inspired my decisions in striving for personal artful expression and is my own proclivity. 

Recently I've gone through a period of clarity in understanding exactly what I long for in embellishing our home for soulful reward.

I reflect back to changes and renovations we have done, perhaps simply because we had overtime become bored.

Now after many years I fully understand that dwelling at home is about relaxing and soothing our concerns while finding a heartfelt peaceful embrace.

Living in a space that reflects not only your spirit of adventure, but also your souls discovery during a journey of living that comforts with blessed grace.

© Vera

Sources:

Measvintage.blogspot.com

Villabarnes.com

Reclaimtofame1 on etsy

Materialculture.com