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Archive for Beauty – Page 3

The Shape of Design

I get a lot of email communications, and most of them are fairly easy to delete, but one I almost always pay attention to is Very Short List, because it's full of really cool things and it's delivered in a concise and nicely laid out format.

Design-bookThe lastest issue of vsl featured this beautiful book by Frank Chimero. I'm probably the ideal target audience for an hook like this and I followed the link to find an elegant little website dedicated to the book, with a wonderful design sensibility, fancifully illustrated chapter headings, and a great story at its core.

Chimero raised the money to write the book through a campaign on Kickstarter. The disarmingly simple video he created to sell his idea to potential funders (who gave him a total of $112,159 towards the project) talks about the book being not only for designers, but for everyone who makes things. He says that's all of us, and that "The Future is Something You Make".

There's a video of him presenting at the 2011 Build Conference in Belfast, which is not short but what I watched of it was compelling and if the topic thrills you like it does me, it's probably well worth watching.

Of course I ordered the book (which is offered in both print and digital format), so I'll let you know if it's as great as his promotions for it are. I know I'm excited to find out!

A Cutting Garden

sparrieshoop
I've always drempt of having a cutting garden.. and now I have one! Somewhere along the way to realizing this dream, I began collecting rose bushes. I started last year with one Gertrude Jeykell bush – an old fashioned double pink rose with a truly divine scent – and when it went crazy this Spring, all covered with blooms, I too went crazy and bought myself several more David Austin old rose varietals.

I couldn't find more Gertrude Jeykells – I would fill my entire garden with that rose if I could – but I did find "Hot Cocoa" – a gorgeous rich red-brown rose that I first saw in Sally Robertson's glorious bread and breakfast garden (even if you don't have a patch of ground, Sally can paint a garden for your walls), and Sparrieshoop (the generous climber you see in this photo – it's also a cutting rose!), Benjamin Britten, and Scarborough Fair. All of them smell wonderful and fill a vase beautifully! These roses are magic – they're casting a spell that makes me want to just hang out in the garden all the time!

The Beauty That is Right in Front of You

This quote by Neal Stephenson comes to me sometimes when the evening news is too full of murder and greed, or my heart stumbles too close to the edge of despair:

"Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways."

As if in response to the need Stephenson identified, Christóbal Vila's 3.75 minutes of healing beauty balm, reminding us that indeed beauty is all around us if only we have eyes to see it:

from my home to yours…

 

Christmas-window
May the Light and Love of this season grow in our hearts and expand out to embrace all that exists. May we walk in Beauty, all of us, as we celebrate the holidays and step into this new year.