Sunday, May 20, 2012

Moving for Art's Sake


Moving. What can one say about the disorder of boxes, Sharpies, packing tape, and broken glass? Not too much, Olive says rather grumpily. Yet, in the interests of positive thinking - it is the May long weekend, after all, and how can one complain when the pond outside is rippling deliciously, and the birch tree waving with such languidness - Olive has decided to turn the upset of a change of address into an inducement for a fresh decorating spree!

The first order of business must be art on the walls. I'm so sorry, says Olive, but I can't go in for the mass-produced Ikea variety, as snobbish as that sounds. No, I'm not aiming for a Renoir, but some real paint, or at least a limited edition print would be most welcome.

With that in mind, I was enchanted by British wildlife artist Eileen Turner, featured in the March issue of British Country Living. If Olive had been born a lady of the manor (is it too late?), she would have been of the kind that had ever animal on her estate lovingly painted, and Turner would have been just the sort Olive would have hired. Luckily, she sells prints of some of her most popular work in an online shop, so there is no need to despair that one has been born without a title.

Don't you love "Listening Ears?"(Those two boxers above are "March Hares.")


What hangs on your walls, dear readers, to seduce you as the light changes?

Explore more of Eileen Turner here.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012


"The world's favorite season is the spring.
All things seem possible in May."
-  Edwin Way Teale



Thursday, April 19, 2012

Read With Me



You must all know by now that Olive is, first and foremost and forever, a reader. Raised on a diet of Nancy Drew and Anne Shirley, tremulously stepping into adulthood with the help of Jane Eyre and Bertie Wooster (disparate, she knows), and flowering (hopefully) under the watchful eye of dear Hemingway, Chandler, and Fitzgerald (where to stop?), there is a good reason Olive owns seven pairs of glasses.

Thus, it was probably inevitable that the Olive tree should spring a new branch. Indeed, it is with great pleasure, and not a little bit of parental pride, that Olive is pleased to present... Olive Reads! Here she shall continue those "genial voyages of imagination and elegance," but with a more literary bent. Please do pop over for a visit! There is a special place reserved for original visitors to the Olive universe, those fellow travelers just like yourself.

With a nose soon to pop back in her book,
Olive


Friday, April 13, 2012

Pin Me!



I've always been a bit flummoxed over what to do with the plethora of images I find online everyday. It's all well and good to keep a file on your desktop of glorious editorial photos, vintage images, and shopping inspiration, but rather pointless if you can't readily see them.

So Olive say "hurrah" to the chaps at Pinterest! At last someplace to organize, share, and discover even more pictures to set the heart racing. See if my images do the same for you here, and then share your pinterest board with me!

PS. Well Friday already? It's always a funny week when Monday is a holiday. What special plans do you have for the weekend? Speaking of inspirational images, I am finishing up this wonderful hardcover book on art in Paris between the wars. Highly recommended, and sure to get you twitching for a paintbrush, or maybe even a trip to the art gallery.


Saturday, September 24, 2011

This is What You Shall Do



This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

An Olive Aside: Have you read Leaves of Grass? I am just delving into its rich celebration of life. (Perhaps too much of a celebration for its nineteenth-century readers, who balked at its language of the body and sexual love). It's readily available online, so you have no excuse not to at least take a glance.


Happy weekending!

Images found here.

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