C'est Inspiré is simply that - what is inspiring. Where the words end, images continue to speak. Seeing all that is around us, we seek some aspect of something that is life enhancing... something that you would like to be reminded of - to revisit. Something to capture and bring into your world, not leave behind... . That is why I take a camera everywhere; have spent countless hours organizing images in scrapbooks and pouring over them later to revisit the place, the people, the memory.

So, C'est Inspiré may be a single photo - or it may be 50, it may mean one thing to me, another to you - the meaning isn't important. Did it inspire? Did it make you smile? Did it bring back a pleasant memory? One or all of the above will do.

During a brief period of his life, the legendary art historian Bernard Berenson kept diaries where he wrote about how to see - and what he saw. These diaries were published under the title The Passionate Sightseer and edited by Raymund Mortimer.

Anyone, anywhere, anytime can be a passionate sightseer - just look.

Flower Diary : Off To Class…

Flower class that is, at The Little Flower School in Brooklyn run by Nicolette Owen and Sarah Ryhanen. Both ladies separately run their own floral design businesses, but they come together from time to time to teach a small group of ten people.  Now, I could tell you what I learned, but then you wouldn’t take the class, and we want Nicolette and Sarah to be around for a LONG time because their work is breathtaking.

In the style of a Dutch still life, fruits, flowers, branches, grasses, and petals ready to drop, they are voluptuous and sultry in a come hither type of way.  The combinations of material are what give  their arrangements that natural, just gathered from the  garden and the woods – kind of feeling.

After seeing some of  Nicolette’s work in, Veranda magazine I decided to track her down to do the  flowers for a gala I was co-chairing for the  Bone Marrow Foundation last spring. Coincidentally, Kara Minogue, the Event Consultant hired to manage the event knew of Nicolette….synchronicity!  It was a beautiful event with her touch.


Our class on Sunday was called THE BEST OF AUTUMN….and it was a perfect autumn day to boot.  For more information on the school, See little-flower-school.blogspot.com.

In addition to experimenting and making an arrangement, I came away with two flowers that will get added to my household MUST HAVES…

Pieter B…a caramel colored rose that has a faded cast to the outer petals, and Putumayo Carnation, a delicious butter cream frosting color, eggnog, whipped butter color…Heaven!

As my new fabric collection for Fabricut has a carnation print in it, my discovery of this new pale variety was fortuitous.

The class was a great mix of New York women….magazine editors, fashion stylists, attorneys, real estate brokers, and an event planner.

Different professions, a common interest – flowers – a common goal –

To create beauty.


October 21, 2011

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