Monday, January 25, 2010

vintage bookplate

A little more from the vintage paper fair:


This bookplate is from 1925. It's a lovely block print mounted on a thick matte paper. It struck me as being both dark and beautiful.

Friday, January 15, 2010

an unruly love for ampersands.

If I'd been waiting all my life to meet the right cutting board, this would be The One:


Things like this, from House Industries, seriously challenge my inner minimalist. The large cutting board is a little over my budget, and the small one is currently out of stock, but I think I'd enjoy chopping up things more if they were on an ampersand.

According to Wikipedia, an ampersand is a logogram, representing the word "and." Wikipedia goes on to say that the etymology of the word "is a corruption" of the phrase "and per se and." I like that: a corruption. I know I'm not the only person who loves this beautiful logogram, which reminds me, sometimes, of treble clefs in sheet music. There's also an ampersandland group on Flickr:


 



I even have an ampersand tee:


If there were a logogram for 'or' I might be in trouble. I guess that's what I like about the ampersand - there are no decisions; it's so inclusive.

Happy Friday.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

inspiration: yellow like the sun.

Winter must be getting to me because I am craving yellow. I've chosen (as in: folded the corners of catalog pages) a new yellow rug for the kitchen and yellow chairs, which my husband has yet to see. No doubt he will veto these choices, so in the meantime there are yellow tulips, which have been cheery in the dull, bleak mid-winter light.

I love the combination of film, sunlight, and flowers. The light and blooms remind me of Vermeer (although, to be clear, I'm drawing no comparison between myself and Vermeer), who seemed to rely heavily on natural light in otherwise dark and conceivably cold rooms:


Vermeer seems like a wintertime painter for some reason.


I think these pears want to be poached. Here's a recipe for making poached pears.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

hal lutsky's vintage paper fair

I've started out the new year with some very old paper. Hal Lutsky's Vintage Paper Fair was held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park this past weekend. The fair returns three times a year to Golden Gate Park, and also travels to Concord and the Los Angeles-area.

Not knowing what to expect, a friend and I went down to the Hall of Flowers to check out the fair. Primarily, it seems, it's a place to buy or sell vintage postcards and photos, booklets, posters, and other paper ephemera. You could easily spend all day looking through bins of sorted and categorized images, which really appealed to the writer in me. It's a great way to do period or location research, and also, in general, to find inspiration.

Here's some of what I took home, including my very favorite at the top: