JEWELRY: custom men's pendant

a custom pendant with message stamping for my friend Mark's birthday.

STUFF: Santa Maria di Novella

One of my favorite products is the rose water from Santa Maria Novella. It's an amazing place to visit if you are ever in Florence, Italy. A little more about its history below excerpted from Smithsonian magazine.

But as home to one of the world's oldest pharmacies, Santa Maria Novella boasts an attraction no other church in Italy can match. Dominican monks began concocting herbal remedies here in the 13th century, in the time of Giotto and Dante. Today, the Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella still sells traditional elixirs, along with more contemporary skin-care products, oils and perfumes.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/heaven-scent.html?c=y&page=1

http://www.lafcony.com/smn/index.php

TRAVEL: Joshua Tree

This is a flowering Joshua Tree in Joshua Tree National Park, they bloom in the spring like any other plant and is a site to be seen. I love being in the desert, it's such a unique sensation with just the colors of brown earth and blue sky as far as the eye can see and the strange shaped cacti and vegetation compared to the green Northeast.
The Joshua Tree, the largest of the yuccas, grows only in the Mojave Desert. Natural stands of this picturesque, spike-leafed evergreen grow nowhere else in the world. Its height varies from 15-40 feet with a diameter of 1-3 feet. Originally thought to be members of the Agave (Century Plant) Family, the Joshua Tree and other yuccas have been reclassified as members of the Lily (Liliaceae) Family.

STUFF: C magazine

California style/a great read if you are suffering from the winter blahs/refreshing fashion editorials/great alternative to superpowers CONDE NAST/HEARST
http://www.magazinec.com/

STUFF: lip balms

lip balm obsession/latest purchase Korres.

STUFF: suite303 sexy sugar scrub

My friend April's first product/handmade/all natural/smells amazing/skin so soft/
212.633.1011/www.suite303.com

NYC

All these images were taken in NYC.

FRIEND: Donald Lawrence

I recently ran into another old friend, Donald Lawrence, amazing stylist and all around stylish man about town;)
See his amazing portfolio here under NY ARTISTS:

http://www.opusbeauty.com/

NYC: Norman Rockwell at Brooklyn Museum

During the holidays I stopped by the Brooklyn Museum to see the show NORMAN ROCKWELL: BEHIND THE CAMERA. Great studies of small town America at a more prosperous and optimistic time.
The Brooklyn Museum is also a great venue and one of my favorite museums,it's small,not crowded,old school and not too glitzy unlike other NYC museums that have been recently renovated to draw larger crowds. I understand the economics of this philosophy but sometimes things are just better smaller and low key and I'm not sure the cost of expansion will prove profitable in the long term.
See the official release for the show below:
NORMAN ROCKWELL: BEHIND THE CAMERA November 19, 2010–April 10, 2011 Robert E. Blum Gallery, 1st Floor

Beginning in the late 1930s, Norman Rockwell adopted photography as a tool to bring his illustration ideas to life in studio sessions. Working as a director, Rockwell carefully staged his photographs, selecting props and locations, choosing his models, and orchestrating every detail. He created an abundance of photographs for each new subject, sometimes capturing complete compositions and other times combining separate pictures of individual elements. These photographs were the focus of a recently completed two-year project at the Norman Rockwell Museum that preserved and digitized almost 20,000 negatives. For the first time, Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera presents these study photographs alongside his paintings, drawings, and related tear sheets to offer a fascinating look at the artist’s working process.

Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera has been organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in collaboration with guest curator Ron Schick.

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/norman_rockwell/

STUFF: old crucibles

A crucible is a container that can be heated to extremely high temperatures to melt gold/silver/metals. These two pieces probably date back to the gold rush out west. I bought them from a guy(rock hound???) selling odds and ends out of his trailer/mobile home in Arizona. The piece marked 7, on the right, is a great example of early pioneer pottery since it was probably made out of local clay. The green glaze is probably from a metal that overflowed and then oxidized, perhaps copper???

ART: Lynda Churilla

My friend, Lynda Churilla, will be showing her latest work at the Robin Rice Gallery in the West Village, her first solo show opening 1/12/11. Gorgeous images, check them out here:
http://art.1stdibs.com/art_gallery.php?gid=robin-rice-gallery-fine-photography&showID=127#

JEWELRY: victorian bracelets

Victorian bracelets from my own collection.
I have been collecting Victorian jewelry since I started working after college and buy whatever catches my eye. This led to my interest in silver/goldsmithing, enabling me to fabricate my own designs/ideas.

JEWELRY: amazing blue turquoise

Huge turquoise from the American southwest mines. The colors are just amazing ranging from the palest blues to blue-green and every shade in between. Most of these turquoise mines are located in Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico and have cool names like Cripple Creek, Pilot Moutain, Darling Darlene, and Sleeping Beauty.