a stitch in TIME viii : & a little more

ALI-
an exceptional needlewoman.

with a large canvas,photographed by Tony Vaccaro

with McQueen, Ali MacGraw threading the needle

a hat by hand, Ali MacGraw in LOVE Story

 & in an elaborate crochet cap-stylin at the Academy Awards in '71.

(had to have made that!)

So-I've said ALI was my idyllic beauty as a 10 year old. I think my Mother complimented me-saying I reminded her of ALI. No doubt it was my full intense brow at the time. Thanks Mom, it made an impression-and besides she was nice-I thought. I've not changed my mind about that, she loved intensely-still has her own intense authentic style & is a crazy animal lover-she's an activist in fact. 

ALI is still stitching-she's created a pattern with Marion Foale yarns to benefit the Wildlife Emergency Relief Fund-here's the KIT.

does anyone knit? make mine 090- Dark Olive

I think it will go perfectly with my winter coats here

though this 060-Dark Red might be nice for a change.

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a Love Story

Sort of-

It is truly winter here in the Old North State right now-30's high- 20's-the low-and that was a warm up from nights last week. There has been one good Snow this month and there was ICE on Friday along with that phrase that forever warms my heart-"a wintery mix." Again tonight & tomorrow the counties along the northern borders will likely get another dousing of ice with a bit of snow.

a word I was conditioned to -SNOW- from my days in school. I never went to school a day I wouldn't have preferred to be home sleeping late-snow covering the ground- or as a child running in and out of the house-boots on, socks on-boots off-socks off.
quickly followed by coat on-toboggan on...

As a fashionable 10 year old, I took my cues from actress Ali MacGraw’s wardrobe in the movie, Love Story. 
Remember Jenny’s pea coat? 

 Pea Coat originating from the Dutch or West Frisian word "pijjekker," pij refers to a coarse kind of twilled blue cloth with a nap on one side.

I had a navy one. My brother wore my dad's Navy issue to bits-I never could get my hands on it!

A very few changes fashion wise-for one thing now I look forward to getting out a vintage loden duffel coat for the coldest days-its very heavy-very warm-one that I purchased on ebay about 15 years ago. 

The duffel coat was made popular by Sir Bernard “Monty” Montgomery during the war-and I think mine is from the very same era-and it's mint-minus about 60 or 40 years.

 Monty in huge Duffle Coat above & below (linked)

  

I purchased a Burberry plaid pea coat about 10 years ago & I love that one even more than the basic navy one

But- recently I've had a hankering for basic.

 

Hey-does anyone wear a toboggan anymore? 

I do, Oliver-
I do.

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to those who would hear...

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"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. 

Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away."  Henry David Thoreau

Vanessa Bell's cupboard at Charleston

one of my anthems as a 10ish year old. was it prophetic-as the person I've become? my losses at love-perhaps? but mostly I take it as the person I am today-still listening to a "Different Drum."

Composed by Mike Nesmith (of Monkees fame) in 1966 and performed the following year by the Stone Poneys and Linda Ronstadt.

 Keep to the beat : LIZ, JT, and a young Tennessee.

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a different drum

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Following the drum, a nation's call to arms led by- oft times a child-answered by women following their men.
It's no wonder women wanted to wear a man's regimentals.

Philipe Mercier's The Young Drummer Boy, 18th c.

in 1982

Drummer "boy" straps, brass buttons, capes and what all- run through fashion's timeline-just as war runs through History's. Great military details gave women's clothing much needed panache-stepping away from the frills and fripperies that would smother any mistress. There was WAR to be fought-multiples- in each and every century & the military mode of dress for women moved along with the times.
Queens dressed to rally and hail her armies.

Catherine the Great wearing the uniform of her Preobrazhenskii regiment

painted by Vigilius Eriksen, 1762.

This Reynolds portrait was first seen at the Royal Academy's Somerset House in 1780. The costume- adapted from military uniform-specifically the Lady's husband-Sir Richard Worsley's Hampshire Militia uniform-became the fashion during England's war with the colonies.

Sir Joshua Reynolds portrait of Lady Worsley, 1776

Who knows when someone got the wild idea to set a drum on its ear-and make it a smart looking table? No doubt there is a history.
I imagine some war weary soldier- a Captain perhaps- stretching out his limbs one evening-looking about for a hassock-and finding only a drum.
A Star is Born...

 James Tissot's Captain Frederick Gustavus Burnaby, 1870.

 Belgian Side Drum,1850- 1900.

here

tables at 1st dibs

Cecil Beaton lived at Ashcombe, a property set deep amongst the Wiltshire Downs, for seven years during the 1930s. This chair was made by Beaton for his own bedroom, to complement the circus murals that were painted on a wet Sunday afternoon by his friends, many of whom were starlets and darlings of the 1930s. As Beaton describes in his memoirs, the room was decorated in the most outrageous of colours, with each of his friends responsible for different panels, featuring 'circus performers, baroque emblems, barley-sugar poles and flowered mirrors'. from Richard Buckle's Self Portrait with Friends, The Selected Diaries of Cecil Beaton, 1926-1974

Chairs from 1st Dibs in the Beaton style &

below a Child's version attributed to Beaton at Tod Donobedian

Beaton's Bedroom and his gang of artists-standing around one of his drum tables with a little drummer lass.

Not to be out done in the bedroom-Beaton used drums as end tables in his Studio. It's a room that is as viable today as any within the pages of World of Interiors.

How spiffing is this etsy piece from Artisanworks Inc.? Vintage 1920-30's Ludwig snare drum on custom steambent Art Nouveau style stand. HERE

Queen Louise of Prussia in her Hussar inspired riding habit,

 painted by Friedrich Wilhelm Ternite, in 1809, and again in 1810.

Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatina in the uniforms of their respective regiments, 

the Voznesenskiye Ulahns and the Elisavetgradsky Hussars, July 13th, 1913.

Following the drum, always a hearing a different drummer, with his mind on war, Rex Whistler painted the young Laura Ridley in the regimentals of the Northumberland Hussars, 1940.

from the book, In Search of Rex Whistler

Anatole Demidoff, age 7,  portrait by Robert Lefevre,1820.

Military dress has returned-seen everywhere-couture, fashion in the street-and worn best so & often by French Vogue's editor Emmanuelle Alt. I've got a sense she sees it quite literally as her modern uniform-with skinny oh so skinny jeans in black or white.

I've my own cape that I grab to wear when the weather is cold. I love the military lines-and I've always-always heard the beat of a different drum-

and usually I follow.

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in a gallery with Miguel Flores-Vianna

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One can be instructed in society, One is inspired only in solitude. Goethe

A glimpse into the photography of Miguel Flores-Vianna takes Us on a journey-to observe -oft times we are asked to come quietly. In my experience- photographers are reluctant to "explain" there work and there's a reason. The beauty of photographs-or paintings is multitudinous-
but along with their Beauty we as observers are asked to see for ourselves.

 MVF in Berlin

True solitude is a din of birdsong, seething leaves, whirling colors, 
or a clamor of tracks in the snow. Edward Hoagland

 MVF in Sweden

The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's. Shelley

MFV in Marseilles

I haven't delved into these photographs of Miguel's with him-but  I see Beauty-and I see a reverence for Solitude. I believe we can never know ourselves without knowing Solitude-some might call it Isolation-whatever it is-it is required. An invitation to have Miguel share some of his work-or observations, it's no surprise he preferred to introduce little augury to English painter. After looking at the paintings of one Algernon Newton-I immediately see their Beauty and see what Miguel saw in them-and what he sees in his Lens.

Here is Miguel's story of  how he saw Algernon Newton.
Observe.




I have been spending a lot of time by myself in a small cottage in Sussex. Although I am an hour train ride away from Central London, the cottage feels as far away from anything urban as I could possibly imagine. Once a week I overnight in London, mainly to see friends. Early last December I was on one of those weekly visits having lunch with a chum at a restaurant off Piccadilly. I had agreed to go with her after lunch to Bond Street around the corner,to pick up a gift-although I was of two minds about it: I wanted to get back to Sussex before the commuting crowd invaded all trains bound out of town.

"C'mon, I will drive to Waterloo Station afterwards," she enticed me.

It was only after three in the afternoon, but daylight was almost gone when we left the restaurant. Walking to the shop, I got an inner confirmation that I have become a country bumpkin. I was entranced by the lights of the shops, the street Christmas decorations, all the passerbys wrapped in cashmere and furs. I simply could not believe my eyes and I was charmed! 

Once on Bond Street, because the street is so narrow, the explosion of all those visual stimulants was potentiated by the hundreds. It was as though I had never been to a big city before. I made my poor friend stop at almost every shop window, my excuse to look at the merch, but mainly to see the lights and people inside, this country bumpkin did not want to miss a beat. 
And that is how I came across Algernon Newton.

His name was on a gallery poster announcing an exhibition. 
Have you ever heard of him? I didn't have a clue who he was either, but something in that poster made me say, as we walked by, "Let's go in."

I have never heard of the gallery before either - which, now, makes me feel ashamed, later you will see why.

First things first: the name Algernon. 
I had only come across it in literature - Wilde, Fleming, but had never met or heard of a living person actually called Algernon so I was intrigued. And of course, I had never heard of Algernon Newton (1880-1968). As we climbed the stairs to the gallery's second floor to see the exhibit, I was still sparkly eyed by all the outside stimulation and was not prepared for what I was about to discover. I have always been a fan of the work of the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershoi (1864 - 1916), the master of those muted, haunted Nordic interiors. Hammershoi was the first person that came to mind when I first set my eyes on the canvases by Newton exposed in the gallery. His vision, like Hammershoi's, is of the everyday life, what we see all the time and do not notice, of the silent moment, of the anonymous. But unlike his Danish counterpart, Newton's world is far larger, they are not rooms, but cityscapes and "vedute" of the country side, but just as devoid of the noise of human life, eerily subsisting as if on air, still air. 
I was captivated.

The quiet in the gallery dimmed my Christmas fizz and I found that looking at his work was centering. I won't say more about it, I am not an expert and to continue would bring out my personal views more than I would like. But I would ask you to see what else you can find about my new friend Algernon as I think he has real talent. 

Later I did some research and I found out that the name Algernon means "one who wears a mustache", it first appears in France at the beginning of the first millennium: a lonely name I presume as, at that time, the French did not like facial hair on themselves . And how appropriate for the creator of my new favourite canvases as they are such a mirror of loneliness.

And, yes the gallery... Daniel Katz Gallery.  
I asked friends about it and everybody rhapsodized about its namesake owner, mainly a sculpture dealer, one of the majors in the world who, surprise, amongst other achievements, made Hammershoi fashionable in London. (text by Miguel FLores-Vianna)

Obvious- Newton had great admiration for Canaletto, and was often referred to as the "Canaletto of the canals." For all his personal disappointments-you must read of those on your own-his brush caresses even the most somber of scenes-not so much a lonely artist-rather an artist observing his world alone-in Solitude.

 MFV

Miguel observes his world with the same acute eye-no mere passerby-much as Canaletto and Newton did- one where man overlooks what the artist must forever contemplate.




LINKS:

Miguel FLores-Vianna Photography

MVF's New Old World

Daniel Katz Gallery
13 Old Bond Street
London W1S 4SX

The Telegraph on Algernon Newton at the Daniel Katz Gallery here
The paintings of Algernon Newton  here & here



(all works by Miguel Flores-Vianna and images of the Algernon Newton paintings courtesy of Miguel FLores-Vianna)



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heart felt

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 friend & teacher
as a child-I was fixated on Helen Keller.
She became my first hero.
It started with a gift from my Grandmother Bess-a book of Keller's axioms that I still find inspiring.

 "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart."

Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, 1894 from the Perkins School for the Blind Archive.

there are many stories and photographs about both women on the American Foundation for the Blind here

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being Bacon

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Sir Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban was a true Renaissance genius-noted and quoted-and often cited as the creator of Empiricism.

The word "empiric" derives from the Greek word ἐμπειρία, translating to the Latin experientia, from which is derived the word "experience" and "experiment". The term was used of the Empiric school of ancient Greek medical practitioners, who rejected the doctrines of the (Dogmatic school), preferring to rely on the observation of "phenomena".

A man after my own heart, Bacon's , There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion-guides this blog since its inception-and it reflects my belief that we must make our own judgements about what Beauty is and challenge even that. The old saying-Beauty is in the eye of the beholder-gives the beholder freedom to seek Beauty in ways-and in byways that others ignore.
Think about Beauty before someone thinks about it for you.


Bacon has a multitude of things he thought about-here are a few of My Favourites-and you will be surprised at some of the words attributed to our philosopher.

Beggars should not be choosers.

Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est- Meditationes Sacrae 1597

 Knowledge is Power

All is not gold that glisters.

Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them; and wise men use them. 

Men believe what they prefer.

 The best part of beauty is that which a picture cannot express.

 For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. 

 all the Bacon-you ever need is here
&  here

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the gospel according to Miles

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 Miles Redd portrait Courtesy of Cameron Krone 

it's a Big book- THE BIG BOOK OF CHIC-but more likely it will be henceforth known as the Book of Miles, the gospel according to Miles.

it has captured the design world and led many to recommit themselves...to beautiful rooms,
heavy on the traditional,
light in mood
& steeped in CHIC.

holy smokes-
it's BIG!
 & BEAUTIFUL.
 & CHIC.

to my regret, I did not get my Big Book til this month.
the first batch went like Manna- from heaven.
parties & book signings had devotees flocking to meet MILES and get THE BIG BOOK OF CHIC so I had to wait.
Miles said he was waiting for more copies too-I felt better.

I told you it was BIG.
TALL: 13+ inches.
HEAVY: 6+ pounds.
& every page full of inspiration.

VENERATE

"Honor your Father and your Mother."

Miles had me at the dedication. "For my mother and father. Who gave me this wonderful life."

Accompanying this dedication is a beautiful photograph of Miles' parents exiting the church after their wedding. All of the fabulous photographs in this story are from Assouline-and since this photograph was not included-Here are my parents just after they were married.

"The joys of parents are secret, and so are their grieves and fears." Francis Bacon

 You see-Miles and I agree about family. I couldn't have said that better myself. When Miles and I met last year we immediately hit if off. Not just our Southern roots-but something about how those roots go deep and connect us to our families. Today, Miles shares a gorgeous townhouse in New York with his sister-her husband and their son.

A tradition past in the South-families maintaining a house where they live together-happily-harmoniously- and yes, for many necessity-but not even this can dampening spirits nor limiting a capacity for living with CHIC! It's also a longstanding tradition in Europe. Miles is a family guy-& that's a lot of what we chattered about for most of the evening.

SAINTHOOD

Along with Family, Miles venerates the Masters of our Universe-Sargent, Richard Avedon, Rene Gruau,Cecil Beaton, Nancy Mitford, Truman Capote, Horst-they're all there-making repeated cameos  in the book.

"Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety." Francis Bacon

 INSIDE CHIC

Pauline de Rothschild-the color in her Chateau Mouton Library

 Syrie Maugham's certain inexplicable "je ne sais quoi"

DIVINE MAXIMS

I'm a Believer. 
Sir Francis' always guides my little augury stories-and ideas.

Who Can Argue with HJ?

DEVOTION

 "Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability." Sir Francis Bacon

Miles' devoted followers will revel in the collection of his design work set against a backdrop of  people, personalities, celebrities and quotations that have inspired his life & work. His choices-to no surprise are just what we expect-
& Love.
It is all in THE BIG BOOK OF CHIC.

all photographs used with permission from Assouline
photography for the book by Paul Costello.

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