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On the corner of a street in Milan that I will never be able to find again I came across a wall full of scissors. From nose hair cutters, to lace scissors it was very ‘cool’ to say the least. My favourite scissors of this collection happened to be a thread cutter (see below). I am still wondering if I made the right decision to leave the shop without it.
Jeremy and I spent two days in Milan – I had to show him a bit of Italy and because it was so close, we went. What we did not realise was that the first two days of the new year are celebrated with huge 50% off sales and there were queues outside shops that I dare not even dream of entering around the block. Sadly, as a tourist, we also discovered that to see most of the sights (like the Last Supper) you need to book well in advance. Our sight seeing in Milan consisted of the Duomo, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and people (including their fashion).
I really liked this water feature with paper water lily lights and origami birds.
In Basel, Switzerland the ironwork of gates and even the street lights captivated me.
Europe is wonderful because it is so different (from South Africa that is). One cannot explain what it is like to see artworks that you have learnt about in books, to see buildings that are older than your mind can comprehend and to experience a way of life that is not orientated around your car. It is refreshing and in that, inspirational. However, there are the obvious design inspirations that I could not pull myself away from. For one, I was completely blown away by all the amazing lights that I saw: standing lamps, desk lamps, ceiling lights. How adorable are these animal lights?
My favourite light from this collection is the fish.
Whilst traipsing through the back streets of Kalk Bay taking photographs of the Coffee Travel Bags Jeremy noticed this peculiar tree on an empty plot (of which there are not many in Kalk Bay).
Jeremy, having read Victoria Finlay’s book ‘Travels Through the Painbox‘ several times (I have only managed it a few times) identified it from a sketch as a Dragon Tree. Realizing the odds of this are extremely unlikely we went up to inspect it. Sure enough, from swollen pork-sausage like branches a crimson red sap oozed (hence the name “dragon’s blood tree”).
This red sap is what makes this tree special. Stradivarius used dragon’s blood resin (which is said to be a mixture of turpentine and dragons blood sap) to give his violins their amazing color (something which was a mystery for years). The colour of this lacquer has been described as ‘little lumps deeper in colour than a barbuncle, clear as crystal and fiery as a ruby’ and to find it harder than ‘…droping the city as hard as Digoengens had to grope for an honest man in a much less knavish town than London‘.
One has to wonder what on earth this tree is doing in Kalk Bay when they are naturally found in Northern Africa, Southern Asia and on the mountainous areas of the Canary Islands. After a few days of searching in vain for information about the Dragon Blood Tree that is in Kalk Bay I am left to my imagination: perhaps the Cape Malay people brought a seed or a small plant and planted it, Or if it was a sailor fromm a distant island stopping over in the tiny harbor who gave it away… We will most likely never know.
The thing about the Tree in Kalk bay is that it is huge - the trunk branches every time the tree flowers and this doesn’t happen once a year either – so this tree could be well over 200 years old. It think it is amazing that so little is known about this very unusual tree in the middle of Kalk Bay.
To see more pictures of this tree visit my flickr set.
These metal drawers remind me of my wooden library ones. I wonder what their original purpose was. I love the green stars.
Packed high up to the ceiling were these cardboard rolls. From far they looked like a giant honey comb.
The book shelves that were filled with brown paper folded and bound books were beautiful. I love how each one is different, how they are each stacked to be the same but yet are not and I love that the writing on them is all jargon to me. It adds to the wonder of whats inside.
Photographs from the Chief Directorate of Mapping and Survey.
One of my favourite things about my ‘job’ (in inverted commas becuase Wren isn’t really a job), is finding new places that I would probably otherwise never have known about. The Chief Directorate of Mapping and Survey in Woodstock is my most recent find. I realise that this probably does not sound very exciting but I got to go into the archival rooms and open draw upon draw and discover maps from years ago and to be honest, being in such an ‘old world’ space was somewhat special.
When I first went there I asked for the maps they no longer needed. They showed me this HUGE pile but quickly added that they could not give them to me. For months I have been writing letters to various people explaining what I hoped to do with them and finally I was given permission to collect them. The maps will be going to the Hope Factory to be made into gift bags for Wren.
I searched for a beautiful set of wooden architecture drawers (as it is seemingly becoming my life long goal and dream to find one) but sadly they all seem to have been replaced with these grey metal ones (above). However there is something inspirational in the starkness and assembled line-up of these grey drawers.
There were also rows of old books. Lined up at the end of the grey drawers this space felt like I gone back in time with its wooden shelves and hand bound books.
‘MOvember’ has just finished and boy but were there were moustache’s all over the place. ‘Movember‘ is an annual, month-long celebration of the moustache, highlighting men’s health issues. If only I have found this ‘Moustache Wax’ (from MansFaceStuff on etsy) earlier. I know a handful of guys who would have had a great deal of fun moulding their moustache’s especially becuase that there is a competition for the most creative ‘MOvember’ moustache.
Various shades of purple and turquoise come from a family of molluscs called Murex. The pigment (note, not dye) is secreted by the little sea snail when physically attacked so, in a way, this prized colour shares the same kind of sad love story as the oyster and pearl. However, the sea snail gets to live after their ordeal because killing them is believed to bring bad luck.
Daniela sent me the turquoise pigment from the murex family. One packet contains a purple-blue and the other a turquoise that comes from the sea snail “murex trunculus”.
The “murex brandaris” is the most desired molluscs becuase they produce what is known as ‘royal purple’. This colour has been described by many as not being purple at all but rather as ox blood or by those who are more kind, deep fushia or dark mauve. I think this little unknown bottle of mine contains it but I am not sure.
It is interesting that my favourite colour, Indigo, and the Murex pigments are very similar: they both react to the intensity, or lack of, sunlight. They also both rely on the reaction of oxygen to produce their colour and both need a mordant or oxygen to be removed from the dyeing vat so that the colour will fix to the fabric and not run. The purple-blue that Daniela sent me is from another sea snail and when produced in the shade produces a purple-blue colour and when produced in the sunlight a sky-blue indigo colour (as you can see by Pye’s nose who smelt the dye and then lay in the sun).
My favourite secret about purple is not about it’s colour but rather smell. They say that Cleopatra wore purple, her palace was draped with it and when she sailed or went anywhere, that too was purple. I find myself day dreaming of clear green waters and perfect blue skies with a soft wind blowing this powerful Queen gently along in a purple haze. It is a lovely image.
What killed it for me was that along with the colour, the sea snail secretes a garlic ‘flavour’ with the pigment that for years could not be separated from the colour. Still today on Cleopatra’s cloth you can smell the garlic undertones even though they have lost all their colour. Where ever Cleopatra went a garlic scent lingered. Not everything royal is wonderful I would say.
When I first read Daniela’s tag ‘Jujube’ I was a bit confused. The name rung some bells but I had no idea why. Reading I now realise it is because it is also the name of a fruit, one I am sure I would have come across living in tropical Mauritius. In Burma this fruit is used to dye silk and the bark used as a cinnamon-coloured dye. aha.
Jujube is amazingly sweet-smelling and is said to make teenagers fall in love. As a result, in some places, men take a stem of the Jujube flowers and put it on their hats to attract women (ref).
I could not resist the temptation and dipped my fingers into the yummy orange-red. Without thinking I went to wash my hands only to turn them vibrant orange. I quickly grabbed a cutting of fabric to see what colour that would turn – what a glorious orange!
P.S. These photographs might appear to be hugely edited but they are not. Look at my hands and you will see that their colouring is natural. The orange is as bright as it appears.
A box arrived at my post office and opened to reveal a treasure: natural colour dyes. There is Indigo, Purple blue, Rose Fuschia, Anise and Jujube. Colour is my weakness and dyes are my dream, as many as you know. I have a collection of unknown natural dyes and mordants and even though I do not know how to use them, I love soaking in their colours. Now, thanks to my very dear friend Daniela, I have a collection of ‘named’ dyes and have decided to share some of the stories of the colours with you over the next week.
I love finding clever ways of reusing objects and I love it even more when this kind of creativity is found locally.
Katie Thompson from Cape Town ‘recreates a unique, recycled range of furniture, lighting and interior accessories, each piece infused with its own previous character but with a new function’. My favourite item of hers is a tie between the Scale Clock (above) and the Milk Bottle lights (below).
Discovered via Kimgray.
I bookmarked these pictures ages ago thinking I would try and make something similar (but this is a bit like buying fabric you like to make a dress and it sits in the cupboard for 5 years untill you decide to turn it into a cushion). I think that it is a UNBELIEVABLY briliant idea but I wouldn’t choose it for my work space. You know those moments when you are feeling less than inspired to work? Well I think that the globe would just depress me by encouraging me to imagine travelling instead. It could work the otherway and mtoivate by reminding you that work brings in money which allows you to travel. I don’t know….I still love the concept of a globe lamp irrespective.
Sometimes Africa is not that far behind the world. For example, it did not take this small business very long to get with the trend and open a Barack Obama ‘Change your look, yes we can’ hair cut salon. To see this picture close up click here.