DEUX: The Friend List Grows!

Also definitely on the friend list: Amy Sedaris. Oh, Amy Sedaris. If Jess and I could nervously, and admiringly babble incomprehensible nonsense at anyone, it would be Amy Sedaris.
As I've said before, I've been taking this interior design class at SAIC and as an example of an extreme interior, my instructor projected an image of Ms. Sedaris, in her living room surrounded by fake cakes, hanging bats and a painted bust of a horse (among other animal portraits). When the image came up, projected onto the white, art school wall, it was like a vibrant fake ham and bats explosion. My instructor indicated that, as designers, we (as he chuckled) needed to prepare ourselves for people such as Amy Sedaris, and that there were people out there with varying tastes. Oh, but sweet baby jebus, her taste is aMAZing! If only there were more like her. I am in-love with her brains.

In an interview with New York Magazine, she said that she collects "things on a whim and worry later about how they fit my décor. For many people, this wouldn’t be a big problem. But without any preplanning, why don’t you try and figure out where the antique wax medical model of syphilis goes—above the table with the taxidermy duck or next to the papier-mâché Cyclops? Hmmm … And now you begin to understand my world."

And on that note, my lovelies, I give you the great interior designing brains of Amy Sedaris.



And a parting shot, just for you, of Amy Sedaris, in diapers and prosthetics, of course.

You're My Baby (Video Design Board)

Just came back from a meeting to organize ideas and solidify dates for creating a Tiger Cry video! If all goes according to plan (which it will with Heather Bodie and her amazing talents) we'll have a video ready for our big album release party this July!

I'm getting really excited to start creating the set and materials for the space, and I can't wait to see what the lovely Geneviève Garcia creates both in her costume design and choreography!

In wickedly uncontrollable anticipation, here is the start of the video design board:








Coming soon...

To DIY Dye For

I have a fabric dyeing project in the works. I'm going to use a technique involving mason jars and powdered Rit. The effect is an ethereal constellation of color and form. I think with a muted pallet, it could make for a lovely "grown up" tie dye look. Here is a tutorial on jar dyeing. And here is my inspiration board:






Fourth photo via fotoforest
All others via julia. - pure at heart

I'll post pictures of the results, but only if they're pretty.

Eye heart u, Wary Meyers.

My passion for interior design was recently stoked by a crafty lil' book by Wary Meyers, a husband and wife duo made up of Linda Wary and John Meyers, called Tossed and Found. These lovely people not only bust-it-up in the interior design world (see top photo), but they are also magicians with objects that have been lost amongst the midst of American rubbish. They uncover these objects, love them properly and then polish them up for repurposed renewal (see their lights above made from plastic planters)!


An aside (and a little photo for you): in our teen years, and on into college and beyond, Jess and I would seek out some truly awesome and terrifying thrift stores for finds that had long since been lost to mainstream retail. My favorite of these finds was a road trip to the North Carolina coast from east Tennessee: a taxidermied lamp made from three deer hooves. Yes, it's completely disturbing to think of what may have become of the fourth hoof, but I can whole-heartedly say that I do appreciate the three that I have. And this lamp is the cornerstone of my design ideals, and the touchstone of my house.

At any rate, I'm super inspired by Wary Meyers' ideas and creations, and I'm geeked to head out to Wolff's Flea Market very soon to find hidden treasures for repurposing! Will it ever become sun-shiny here in Chicago? I'll settle for a rain-less day and some weather above 55 degrees.

Dear Summertime,

Please come soon. I would like to plant things before June. Also, I miss you.

Your friend,
Nicolette

Spring has sprung and so am I.

“Spring has sprung and so am I.”

~John Prakapas

Oh, sweet Jebus, spring has finally arrived and I can finally plant all the greenery that I’ve been lusting for all the torturous winter long!

Yesterday, after my beekeeping class at Garfield Park Conservatory where I picked up some veggie seedlings, I trudged around the muddy, freezing and drizzly grounds of Gethsemane Gardens to gather the makings of some of my new projects: a twilight (or moon) garden AND a shade garden emulating the woodland foliage of Michigan (I made a little inspiration piece that I dug up in Mom's backyard (see the saucer planting)! These plants actually start to shine in the evening. Now I won't have to worry about missing out on my garden just because the sun sets! My inspiration came from a lovely book by Lia Leendertz called Twilight Garden. Nerd Alert: this winter I categorized my prospective plants on an Excel spreadsheet and plotted out the winners on graph paper in the shape of my back porch. Nerd.

Michigan in a saucer!!!

The whole gang (below)!

Now, if only the temperature would become warmer so that my threshed-up fingers could plant...sigh. Right now it's 43 degrees. Soon, my babies, soon!

Yep. She's on the friend list.

Nicolette and I have this thing we like to call "the friend list". This isn't so much about our actual real life friends as the women and men we don't know but admire. It's unlikely that either of us will end up being friends with any of these people for many reasons. Chief among them the fact that we can't seem to keep it together on the rare occasions we get to meet "listers". Seriously. It's not pretty. So, in the interest of maintaining a thin veneer of self respect and keeping the number of restraining orders to a minimum, we keep a list and admire from afar.
Easily near the top of this list would be our hero Tina Fey. I started listening to her new book Bossypants today and within the first five minutes I was laughing so hard, I cried. It's really convenient when someone from the list writes a memoir. It let's us feel closer to our "friend" and yet remain at a distance where we can't make asses of ourselves in front of them. No-one gets hurt. We can remain creepy.

P.S. Tina is the narrator of the audiobook (natch). I can't say for sure, but I think this makes it a little awesomer than the paper version.

P.P.S. Yes, awesomer is a word.