Do you remember some time ago now, I wrote about an architecture & design firm called tacklebox? It is an innovative company based in New York, founded by my friend & architect Jeremy Barbour. If you recall, he designed the saipua showroom in Brooklyn, NY, creating a fabulous space made from recycled silver barn wood (read my post and view the gorgeous photos of the space here).

Last year, Jeremy came out to Australia for a special secretive research mission for melbourne-based skin care range aesop, and over a lovely lunch in Paddington, here in Sydney, he revealed to me a little about what he was up to and what he wanted to create. I was captivated, and could not wait to see the project unfold and revealed to the public. A few months ago, the spaces in New York were opened: one in grand central station, another on Elizabeth St in the Nolita, and the other in Greenwich Village, University Place. Take a look…

Aesop Nolita, Elizabeth St, New York, photos by Gianluca Fellini.

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Aesop Grand Central Kiosk, in Grand Central station, photos by Juliana Sohn.

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Aesop University Place, Greenwich Village, photos by Juliana Sohn. (particularly loving the store’s sink which was salvaged from Bethlehem Steel’s 140-year-old plant in Pennsylvania).

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The concept was to use the New York Times newsprint as a material within the foundations. The aesop Grand Central Kiosk for example, is constructed of 1,800 reclaimed newspapers from the New York Times. The aesop range sit on a tiered mass of stacked and bound newsprint while loosely hanging papers form a canopy above. For the Nolita store, 2800 New York Times newspapers were hand-torn into 400,000 strips which were then stacked to create “a soft, felt-like surface held within a continuous oak wrapper”.

“Just as oak is commonly used to store and age wine and spirits, so too will the newspaper age, turning a light tan, thus marking the passing of time. In this way, the history of Aesop North America will be recorded within the very walls of this first store.”

The newsprint, stacked and pressed, ready to be used.

As you know, I’ve been loving the use of recycled paper as a material lately, perhaps it has something to do with the onslaught of technology, and the growing, ill feeling of living within a paperless society. Preserving and maintaining the use of paper in our world seems imperative, and I love how imaginative people are toward its many uses these days.

Congratulations Jeremy on completing yet another stunning set of spaces using recycled material and furnishings – you’re an inspiration to us all, I can’t wait to see what you create next! And a big thank you for sharing your projects here in the (blog)house.

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Thank you for all the support & well wishes that have poured in over the weekend, you guys are truly wonderful. Something else I’ve wanted to share for some time are these 3 lovely features in 3 of my new favourite independent magazines. First off is the beautiful spread in the latest Anthology magazine. It features never-before-seen photographs of our petit bateau vert (little green houseboat) in Amsterdam. I took these images last year and saved them especially for this article. Above is an image of our tiny boat loungeroom. Last year, Romain spent the year composing his first guitar album, and that exact setting was his office! Meanwhile, I sat at the desk just 2 metres away writing and editing images for My Heart Wanders – it was a special year that we will always cherish, and was the perfect ending to our 3 years of life in Amsterdam on the houseboat.

Below is an image of the bed, covered in a mosquito net during summer, and a view of the living room space, looking down from the kitchen…

It’s a really special feature written by Anh-Minh Le, with lots of info about what life was like living on the boat. This image below is also from the article, and is one of my all-time favourite photographs from inside the boat. Over the course of a year or so I’d taped flower stems to one of the walls and watched them strike their natural, deceased pose. The muted shades, textures and unique characteristics captured my imagination each time I gazed at the wall. The little Dutch sailing boat I found at a market that Leslie and I visited, and I made the sail from scraps of linen, tea stained cotton and lace…

I’m in the midst of recreating another wall like this here in my new home in Sydney, I’ll be sure to show you once it’s complete.

The next sweet feature is in the latest issue (issue 10) of Canadian-based magazine, Uppercase. This one is written by lovely Christine Chitnis, who you may recall was also a recent guest in the (blog)house (here are her fab posts on life in New England). In this article Christine captured my thoughts, ideas, ideals, and ambitions in the most elegant of ways, and included one of my intimate poems from My Heart Wanders . I hope you can find yourself a copy of this issue, there are loads more great articles “for the creative and curious”…

And the third sweet piece is in the newest issue of peppermint magazine, an Australian-based publication focused on sustainable style. It’s a terrific mag filled with eco-minded articles, products and fashion trends. In this article, written by Frances Frangenheim, I talk about my ‘natural’ tendencies, all that inspires me, and my sustainable goals in life and work…

Just before My Heart Wanders was launched here in Australia in April, I decided to get some publicity portraits done by Olga Bennett. Although I was nervous and awkward in front of the camera, Olga managed to grab some great, relaxed images, many of which have since been featured in editorial pieces around the world. I want to thank Olga especially for letting me use these images for publicity. Please visit her fab blog here, and to see more of her photography, please click here.

In other news, I’ve managed to update the stockists page for my books, click here to view. My friend Heidi said she saw big stacks of both Paris: Made by Hand and Amsterdam: Made by Hand in the Seattle Anthropologie store, which is wonderful news. So from what I’ve heard, Anthropologie now stock both these books throughout their USA stores  – thanks Anthro!

I also heard that My Heart Wanders was nowhere to be seen for a while in Europe and the UK, and apparently it was because there was no stock left, which is also terrific news. But even better is that another print run has been completed and sent to stores in Europe, the UK, and restocked throughout Australia.

As many of you have become aware, the book won’t officially be released in the US until Spring (April/May) 2012. But I have something special in mind for those of you who would love to receive the book for Christmas – I’ll post about this next week.

Have a beautiful week mes amis.

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Do you remember a while ago I talked about Victoria’s exhibition in London, called Other People’s Houses? (click here to read my original post about it). Although I’m months behind I wanted to show you some of the photographs I submitted for the exhibition which you can now view in full, online.

I took these photographs back in April when we had just moved into our new abode, relocating from Amsterdam to Sydney. Of course this new abode is very different to the little green houseboat, and it’s taken quite a while to get used to, but we are slowly settling in, and slowly getting into the swing of life in Sydney. A lot has changed inside the house since I took these images: for one we’re not sleeping on the lounge room floor anymore (as seen in the above photo) and two, all the boxes from Amsterdam have been unpacked.

“peeking through the kitchen window” and “it still wanders”

“memories and boxes” and “hallway of sunlight”

Over time I’ll show you more snippets as I progress in making this house a home, but for now, I hope you like these photographs.  I love – for those who own a copy of my book, My Heart Wanders will already know – creating double exposures, so for this project I chose to combine two or more images within several of the photographs as my heart and thoughts were very much  in two places at the time – Amsterdam and Sydney. So you’ll see some images have soft exposures of the Amsterdam winter combined with ‘real time’ stills of my surrounding interiors.

“the green wall”

“the worlds we create” and “the chair”

For more information about the images and the exhibition, please click here, and if you are interested in purchasing any of the images you can contact Victoria directly, details are here. There are 10 exhibitors in total, so be sure to check out all of their images too – it’s like peeking through people’s windows at night, but all over the world at the same time. Fascinating.

“temporary office”

I realise my posting has slowed dramatically over the past few months. There is much I’d like to share with you, and I hope to be able to catch up over time. Thank you so much for your patience, support and loyality mes chers amis.

xx

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If you live in, near, or around Norway, I hope you can get your hands on a copy of the latest issue of Elle Decoration Norge (formally known as Elle Interiør) because there is a story in there that I think you might really like, full of never-before-seen images of my life on the houseboat. The photographs were taken by me and friend & fellow photographer David Finato, with the full page portrait by Riitta Sourander.

Thank you Elle Decoration.

x

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There is a fabulous article in the april issue of australian country style magazine about artists Nicola Hensel and John Turier’s weatherboard cottage. Have you seen it? I’m enamoured…

This is a home with heart, filled with treasures found, foraged, and made by hand. Incredible art line the walls, vintage rugs are strewn across the floors, and an old piano is played everyday. Nicola’s niece once said that the house was like a giant cubby. I think that’s rather wonderful…

The full story is delightful, if you can get a copy of the april issue, you’ll love it. You can also see more photos and read a bit more about Nicola and John online right here. The photographs are by Sharyn Cairns, who I recently had the pleasure of working with, more about that amazing experience in a post to come.

I’m inspired.

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+photography by sharyn cairns, and styling: geraldine munoz for country style magazine.

+for more information about Nicola Hensel’s art, visit the Jan Murphy gallery here.

+to see some of John Turier’s sculptures, click here.

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Victoria came up with another brilliant idea for an exhibition (remember the last one?). This one is called other people’s houses: a photographic exploration of the places we choose to live.  I was invited to be one of the exhibitors, along with the original 1010 group, “reuniting to explore feelings of displacement, intimacy and voyeurism through photographs of the places we choose to live”. I took photographs of intimate moments in my new home.

other people’s houses will be exhibited at the CAMP, 70-74 City Rd, London, from May 5 – May 18. To go along to the opening night (which I think is going to be awesome fun!), you can rsvp here.

Again, with the wiggling of the nose… being in two places at once would be a welcomed bit of magic this coming month.

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Did you know that anthropologie in London (Kings Road)have a beautiful gallery space? And did you know that my friend Leslie – who is responsible for sending me that fabulous bag featured in my last post – has an exhibition of her wares in there right now? It’s times like these that I wish I could wiggle my nose and pop up just in front of that window, spending the afternoon wondering through the gallery, being inspired all the while…

I’ve known about the gallery exhibition for some time now as Leslie has been working on creating pieces for it for the last 6 months. And I’ve also been lucky enough to see all these pieces during the making of, so seeing these photos of the space all set up is super special…

If you are in London, I do hope you can find some time to go and visit the gallery to see all the amazing things made by swarm. The exhibition will be up until May 10th. In the meantime, you can also visit the anthroplogie online gallery which features more individual swarm pieces, with information and images on each creation.

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All  photos are courtesy of Anthropologie, London.

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Conversation, with Leslie Oschmann from Swarm…

…Conversation, page 2…

A few months ago I had the good fortune of being asked to photograph my dear friend Leslie’s home in Amsterdam for the newest issue of Anthology. For those who don’t know, Anthology is the new kid on the block in the shelter and lifestyle print magazine world. The first issue launched at the end of last year with a whopping online ovation, and a great marketing campaign announcing that ‘print is not dead’…

the cover for the first issue of Anthology, “The Slow Life”

The other day, I received a copy each of the first two issues and I’m rapt to report that this magazine deserves all the applause it has received since its inception.  Founded by Meg Mateo Ilasco (author of the wonderful Craft, Inc & Crafting a Meaningful Home books) and the ever-lovely Anh-Minh Le, Anthology cleverly fills the gap that has been so needed in this market – a lifestyle mag about real people in real homes, sharing their lives and inspiration in an open,  pared back, intelligent, and untainted-by-heavy-advertising way. The layouts are beautiful, crisp and simple, the paper quality and texture is lovely, the “shopkeeper’s picks” are thoughtful & unique, and the home stories are modern, content-rich & refreshing. There are some really interesting ‘in every issue’ pieces, like the ‘making the magazine’ spread which, in issue no. 2 features illustrations depicting quirky behind the scenes tidbits  (story locations, sightings during the production, ‘drinks consumed on set’).  Also in issue no. 2, “Where the Past meets the Present”, there is a knock out visual travelogue by Jen Siska who uses both high and low-fi cameras to showcase Palm Springs. The results are stunning…

a sneak peek at jen siska’s palm springs visual travelogue

A big congratulations to Meg and Anh-Minh for creating a beautiful publication. It’s an honour to be a contributor, here’s cheers to print being alive and kicking!

xx

PS yes that was my first exclamation mark in weeks. (!!)
PPS preview both issues online right here. You can order Anthology online, and for a worldwide stockists list, click here.

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A few months ago, friend and photographer Alan Jensen stopped by to snap some pretty pics of my floating home for Spaces, a fabulous mook by frankie mag. Yesterday, the mook arrived in the mail and I have to tell you, it is gorgeous. If you love peeking inside people’s creative spaces and private homes around the world, then you will adore this 256 page publication. Me and my home are featured on page 194-199, nestled in between illustrator Anja Mulder’s super cute Groningen apartment, and interior designers John Loeke & Jason Oliver Nixon’s charming Hobart, New York home. You can buy a copy online here, or find it in your local store (australia state & worldwide stockists list here). For Amsterdammers, Spaces is sold at Restored which is one of the lovely handmade boutiques/ateliers featured in Amsterdam: Made by Hand.

Thank you frankie for wanting me to be part of your fab mook, and thank you Al for taking great, summery photographs of my home.

xx

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I must say, there is really nothing quite like receiving a magazine as beautiful as this one once a month, delivered straight to my little boat door all the way on the other side of the world. No matter how much more sophisticated technology gets, and how much more interior inspiration there is popping up on the internet, printed visual stories are still so. much. better.

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