Murton and Mariscal

While we're on the subject of fun in design and art, take a look at designer Javier Mariscal's and potter Kim Murton's works. The works of both pack a wallup in their strong graphic imagery and their intense manipulation of color and pattern.

Javier Mariscal Villa Julia Playhouse via DeZeen

Kim Murton Plate

Javier Mariscal Nido Play Cave at Gizmodo

Kim Murton, The Egg Thief

Javier Mariscal and PePe Cortes Armchair via Artnet

Kim Murton, Poof

Javier Mariscal Task Light via Homelife

Kim Murton Plate

Javier Mariscal Julian Child's Chair via Unica Home

Kim Murton Critters

Memphis, Kansas and Hoyer

Rebecca Hoyer, Eminent Domain

From Rietveld to Memphis, Karim Rashid to Droog, design has a permission be fun, cartoonish and simultaneously respected. We've known about Kansas painter Rebecca Hoyer's paintings for a few years now and experience the same giddy feeling when we visit her site to glimpse her latest work as we do seeing a Peter Shire bowl or a De Lucchi sofa in person. Hoyer's landscape and floral geometries are saturated in color and alive with motion. In Ms. Hoyer's paintings, scale and color adjacencies are skillfully manipulated to successfully stylize what we see and interact with daily- still recognizable, but somehow new. Aesthetic fun is underrated and hard to come by, see Hoyer's Deco, Cubist, Post Modern- inspired paintings for yourself:

George J. Sowden, D'Antibes Cabinet via Liveauctioneers

Rebecca Hoyer, 14th Street, Manhattan

Martine Bedin, Super Lamp

Rebecca Hoyer, Stream

Lido sofa by Michele De Lucchi for Memphis via Domus

Rebecca Hoyer, The Barn

Peter Shire bowl at Wright

Rebecca Hoyer, Amaryllis

Nathalie Du Pasquier bowl for Objects for the Electronics Age at Bonhams

Rebecca Hoyer, Cosmos

Planter for Esprit de Corps via Liveauctioneers

Don Freeman

We've fallen in love with the photography of Don Freeman. Mr. Freeman's adjacencies and palette tell an aesthetic narrative about beauty and desire, sensuous surface and purity of form. We've coupled his photographs with two interior shots that are equally inspirational.

Linen and wood via Remodelista

Don Freeman, Curtain 1

Don Freeman, Vessel 6

Chris Dyson in Spitalfields via Remodelista

Don Freeman, Curtain

Don Freeman, Vessels 5

Around New Hampshire

When we're home in New Hampshire, our senses are filled with the most beautiful, sweetest smelling and peaceful-sounding stimuli. This weekend was no different. We took a car ride here and there, taking a break from our chores and letting the paint dry (we're painting the guest house). While we can't bring you the latter sensations, here's what we saw:

An 18th century house given new life- moved to a beautiful setting and faithfully restored

The observed being observed

A stop at a farm stand before a storm

On our friend Dave's barn- a find becomes sculpture

The fog rolls in on the Cold River

Our neighbor stops for a visit- Wellies in our mudroom

Dark Doings

We love the intimacy of a dark room- white rooms with loads of windows seem to be in vogue these days, but there is something to be said for cozy. Ilse Crawford's Olde Bell Hotel is the perfect example of shadowy chic.

At the Olde Bell, an intimate nook by Ilse Crawford

The screen door to our guest house in New Hampshire, the abstraction of wear

Black country kitchen via Remodelista

Jan Wittenberg still life via The Linosaurus

Meeting room at The Olde Bell

Another screen door on our house- we love the layering of colors

Modernism....Naturally

Guariche Kite Lamp via 1stdibs

There is something so beautiful about great modernist, biomorphic works...a bird's wing, the legs of a cricket, the bill of a duck- all fodder for inspiration.

Ruth Duckworth, Untitled at The Renwick Gallery

Patrick Naggar chair at Ralph Pucci

Ruth Duckworth sculpture at Long Beach Museum of Art

Chair (hence the "cricket legs" reference above) via doorsixteen

Sarus Desk Lamp by David Weeks

Ruth Duckworth porcelain object

Peonies

Not much has grown in our New Hampshire gardens, since we know nothing about gardening and can't seem to differentiate between the weeds and the flowers. Aside from a few Lily of the Valley, a peony has produced three blooms and we couldn't have been more thrilled....here's what they looked like a week after cutting, the blossom waning: