Tag: Design

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Crafts Style Wrought Iron Tree Gate

House gate with ginkgo shaped leaf pattern

Our landscape architect friend, Rick Griffin, says that the best way to add personality to a house is by doing something a bit special at the entrance. I like visiting Shrewsbury – I’ve written about it before – but of all the wonderful places there, the one I’d most like to receive an invite to is this private house. I know nothing at all about the people who live there, but by looking at their gate (plus a few peeks over their garden wall) I’ve formed an impression about them.  Continue reading “Crafts Style Wrought Iron Tree Gate”

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At The St Louis City Museum of Fun

View through a screen at St Louis City Museum

The weekly photo challenge asks us to share something that is layered, with depth, density or texture. My first choice is a view through a mesh screen into a cafe in St Louis’s City Museum. It’s not really called the City Museum of Fun, but it’s a play house for all ages, and a bewilderingly fertile gathering of inspiration and creativity.

How many galleries can you think of that hold family sleepovers – i.e. can persuade whole families to spend that much time in a museum? The longer I was there, the more I felt like my head was going to explode with impressions.

A pair of retro robots

In the midst of the madness, the repose of these retro robots completely captured my heart – although I’d have felt a bit worried if the closest one had started shaking that cocktail shaker. Continue reading “At The St Louis City Museum of Fun”

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Delta: The House Of Blues

Delta doorway

The fabled Mississippi Delta is a small, alluvial flood plain between Memphis Tennessee and Vicksburg Mississippi – the home of the blues and rock and roll. Unlike your average river delta (note the small ‘d’) it’s not at the junction between a river and the sea.

The House Of Blues is Orlando’s tribute to the Delta. This door is flanked by the crossroads at Clarksdale, immortalised in several songs, and a map where the Delta appears as a soil-coloured triangle. The path of the Mississippi River is indicated by a gap in the artwork, letting us see through to the wooden boards.

The house of blues

Continue reading “Delta: The House Of Blues”

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Pattern

When I was a nipper, Mama and Papa (Mum’s parents) lived nearby in a stone-clad end of terrace house with high ceilings and an unusual, wrap-around layout. My little sister and I spent lots of time there. Mama and Papa patiently entertained us with family games such as marbles, “Ey up, milady!” and “Kings”; tended and groomed us to keep us presentable; fed us with pies and other homely dishes; and gave us small treats or chastisements as our conduct decreed.

Mama liked patterns. She knitted. She had patterned wallpaper, but then everyone did – it was well before the days when minimalist, Scandinavian style would throw a magnolia coloured spanner in the works of a thriving wallpaper industry by making neutrality the only safe way to go. Continue reading “Pattern”