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.
MARTHA CLAIRE MOSS 1927-1990
Recently at my house in Aspen I was looking for something in my kitchen when I ran across a package of brown paper bags. I didn’t buy them, my housekeeper Arcelia must have. For what purpose I have no idea, but in an instant, upon seeing them, I had a flashback about my mother. I wondered, how many school lunches my mom prepared when I was growing up, there were five of us. Five children, twelve years of school minus a few holidays and snow days, countless hours spent making lunch, painstakingly wrapping them in wax paper packages precisely cut and folded and writing our names in her perfect lefty penmanship.
So I pulled five bags out of that drawer and wrote our names on them, and remembered those moments when every night late or at the crack of dawn in the morning my mother was sending us off to school with our favorites. Those were the days, as my brother Jeff remembers his elementary school power lunches of two apple butter and peanut butter sandwiches, with a Hostess cherry pie and four milks. He was, after all, a growing boy – she would say.
Thank you mom.
HAPPY MOTHER”S DAY.
May 13, 2012
On April 26, 2012, Housing Works will present New York City’s most popular interior design benefit event at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea. Design on a Dime features more than 50 of the world’s top interior designers, who create unforgettable room vignettes with new merchandise, which is donated and then sold for 50 to 70 percent off retail pricing!
This year, Design on a Dime’s founding chair, interior designer James Huniford, will be joined by an incredible group of co-chairs, including:
- Charlotte Moss (Acclaimed designer and author)
- Lara Spencer (“Good Morning America” Co-Anchor, author of “I Brake for Yard Sales,” and interior designer)
- Evette Rios (craft, design and entertaining expert)
For more information go to www.housingworks.org
April 26, 2012
On March 8, I was invited to participate in a luncheon for women that was hosted by Mauboussin and Karine Ohana in honor of International Women’s Day. Eight of us spoke about the charity work that we do in our communities. I have to say, it was the most inspiring lunch I have had in recent memory. For more information click on some of these websites to see what has inspired these women to get involved.
Shulamit Katzman, Larger Than Life USA
Francine LeFrak, Same Sky
Sylvie Chantecaille, Foundation for Oceans
Dana Buchman, Promise Project
Sarah Kugleman, American Cancer Society
Ruma Bose, Book Author “Mother Theresa and Me”
Christine Dutreuil, Anne Fontaine Foundation
Karine Ohana, Ben Gurion Water & Energy Project
Charlotte Moss, The Bone Marrow Foundation
March 14, 2012
On February 14, 1962, 50 years ago today, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy gave America a Valentine, a Valentine that endures today and will continue to endure for generations to come.
Mrs. Kennedy and Charles Collingwood of CBS walked 56 million Americans through the newly refurbished White House. It was the first ever televised tour of the Presidential Mansion by a First Lady. There has not been a tour of its magnitude since.
Mrs. Kennedy wore a red bouclé suit by Chez Ninon, a model of a Marc Bohan for Christian Dior. The shape, the fit, the detail – are what we all refer to as iconic ‘Jackie style’.
The project she spearheaded, with the support of the of the Fine Arts Committee, was an enormous undertaking that required planning, networking, fundraising, arm twisting, and chutzpah. She was 31 when she took on the project, the third youngest First Lady at that time, a young mother.
With the help of Henry Dupont, Jayne Wrightsman, Rachel Lambert Mellon, and others, paintings, furniture, decorative objects, and cash began to find their way into the coffers of Mrs. Kennedy’s storage rooms. Her dream was to make Americans proud of THEIR house, making it a true expression of American history, the American presidency and the American people for everyone that passes through its doors, from foreign leaders to school children.
Her desire for authenticity, accuracy, scholarship, and a tasteful and beautiful national home for all Americans, made the White House what it is today.
February 14, 2012
