Between the Covers: A Good Look






Cover shot
 

Hey Good Looking

The recently published, W: The First 40 Years,  chronicles the Who, What and Wow of the fashion magazine's first four decades.  Begun as a large-format bi-weekly publication that sought to capture the latest scoop in fashion and in the lives of the fashionable, today it is a monthly magazine that fuses fashion, fame and art.  More than just a collection of arresting images, the book includes essays that chart the evolution of contemporary culture as captured and created by the publication.  This is a book that is worth a second look.

Cover shot via Chapters/Indigo;

Top image from www.Wmagazine.com with text overlay

Between the Covers: A Good Read

A good read just waiting for you to tuck in

A good read is sometimes hard to come by, but not if you pick up The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany begins her life's work at 72 by acclaimed poet Molly Peacock.  

A Life's Work

 

Mary Granville Pendarves Delany (1700 -1788) was born of a long line of royalist supporters who were in serve to the crown.  She was a friend of George Frideric Handel's, an occasional dinner partner of Jonathon Swift's, and a life-long friend and companion of Margaret Cavendish Bentinck, the Duchess of Portland.  She was also a wife, two times: once arranged at the tender age of  seventeen to a sixty-one-year-old drunk; a second time married at age forty-three to the love of her life, Patrick Delany.  A fashion connoisseur, a keen observer of nature and an artist, she began her life's work -- the creation of nearly 1000 botanically accurate cut-paper flower collages -- at age 72! 

A Wash, a Snip, a Swirl

A wash of colour, a snip of paper and a swirl of glue combined countless times until 985 astonishingly detailed flower mosaicks (a term Mary ascribed to them) took root and bloomed.  But the book isn't just a biography of Mary Delany and how she came to her life's work; it's a swirl, a flourish, a collage of the author's, Molly Peacock, own life beautifully juxtaposed and interwoven with Mary's, lived nearly three-hundred years ago.  Illustrated with thirty-five full-colour plates, the writing is poetic and engaging, saucy and bold.  Including tidbits 

Cover shot

on fashion, gossip, court life, and politics, it explores the nature of creativity and what it means to have lived a good life.

Today, most of Mary's creations are housed in the British Museum and can be viewed upon request.



Passiflora laurifolia, Bay Leaved (Passion flower) by Mary Delany, August 1777,
from the collection of the British Museum.



 

 

 

 

 Top photo D. Sleziak

Book cover via Chapters/Indigo;  Ilustration via the British Museum.

Simple Pleasure



Morning walk in a landscape wrapped in fog

evokes mystery, serenity and calm;

there is no other place I'd rather be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo: D. Sleziak



View Finder

Liberty of London ceramic tile window display 

Imagine...

 

the prettiest scrap of antique Belgian lace from the collection of the Victoria and Albert museum morphing into a visually delicate yet graphically appealing window shade, or...   

 

a classic photographic series becoming the striking border for your deeply coloured, contemporary furnished dining space, or...

 

a text written by the Royal patron of Portuguese exploration, Henry the Navigator, becoming the paper that backs the bookcases in your nautically

theme library, or...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                             

a most beautifully painted Chinoiserie panel         

rendered as a black and white mural gracing

the cupboard in your sitting room...

 

 

 

 

Imagine this and so much more. And then, turn your vision into reality.

 

 

Discover...

A 19th Century Mary Hillier photograph canvas rests on a sideboard
 

Surface View, a British-based firm with an on-line playground that links collections with curators (their wording for you) and blows the possibilities wide open -- any image can be produced in any number of formats, from ceramic tiles and wall decals to mounted prints, epic posters, lampshades and wall murals. Your role is to bring the two together.

 

Explore...

 

and browse the collections of places like the National Portrait Gallery, the Ashmolean Museum, the Royal Horticultural Society and the National Maritime Museum plus other image repositories like the Getty Images Gallery as well as works by contemporary designers and artists.  Select your image and your product and voila, your classic car wall decal will be on its way in no time.  Employing a workshop of skilled craftsmen who digitally re-master images from original sources, they combine cutting-edge technology with old-world care and responsible environmental practises.  So, for that one-of-a-kind accent piece that will set your rooms off from all others, set Surface View within your sight.

 

All images via Surface View