things i’m looking at and smiling at and making notes about:

you would never guess that sparky hasn’t been to montevideo.

geninne’s hand carved stamp collection is adorable.

wanting to live in betsy walton world: catpower, indoors for winter, & red balloons.

viewing matchmaker makes me happy.

elly is my new favorite blog find.

building a forest sounds nice.

a wonderful queen of spades

i’ve been making little “crush” lists like these for months, but it never occurred to me to make it visual until today. funny how pictures make things much more interesting!
+++++

1 sufjan stevens – can i ever get enough of his sweet angelic voice? (never!) i will be patient for his 50 states album project gets around to washington state. i will.

2 patisseries ~ i love going to the nearest pastry shop! pointing to the prettiest little treats that are all innocently lined up behind the glass cases before going into a pretty green box is almost as delightful as savoring them back at home.

3 cosa fina jewelry ~ raw quartz ring just a bit out of my spending style, but the designs from this collection are amazing. amazing.

4 iglesia atlantida ~ the hyperbolic walls of this church in atlantida, uruguay wave with their feminine curving reinforced brick, aren’t the shadows wonderful?

5 ss scales ~ i can’t get this mobile from polli out of my mind. the delicate play with light from those tiny pierced holes is what gets me, what a perfect thing to hang in the corner of the studio.

6 handcrafted candlesticks ~ bought from ENIIXII, en dos por dos, at a local feira, where i must have stood for an eternity trying to decide what to take with me! these will pack up nice in my suitcase. (shoot me an email if you want more info on the artist!)

7 matilda – i’ve been revisiting the dahl classic with max, it’s so funny to see his astonished reaction with the story! i think everyone needs a miss honey in their childhood.

i am being taunted by a storm right now. i should be waking up, at five forty six ay em, but i haven’t even fallen asleep yet. the thunder is threatening and violent…i feel like i need to stay awake just in case it follows through with any of its threats! i lay on my pillow here, aware that my brows are doing that furrow thing that they have been doing a lot lately when i am lost in concentration. i try to let it go, but it comes back, helping me think and focus. i give way to the possibility of a deep crease that will inevitably follow. and listen to the voice of nature in the sky just outside my window. sounds like she has been really suppressed and needs to say something.

i’ve just realized that storms like this seem to hit only at night here in uruguay. some thunderclaps sounds like enormous sheets of metal being shaken and rolled like a heavy rug overhead. the rumbling is held in the air for minutes, decibels of sound unsettling without that final crescendo. rain is crashing onto the concrete so loudly, i almost go to the bathroom to see if someone is turning on all the faucets on full blast. but there is no one.

so at this dark hour, i write. for comfort. to wear me out. eventually, my mind will also give way to my worn out eyes, as i had given way to sleep in the late afternoon of yesterday, sunday, (still feeling like today) where i immediately returned to this incredible book. and just finished it minutes ago…i’m not ready to fall asleep again and lose the bittersweet afterglow from the story in my own vivid dreams.

it’s the kind of book that has me thinking more seriously about writing again. it’s been a long time desire for me, i always go back to it, i have several ideas, i begin them in my mind…it’s just that i’m not sure exactly how to approach them. i’ve never done it before.

maybe the best way is just by starting.

the storm has let up now. the sound of the water spilling out over the roof is quite soothing actually. reminds me of those fountains that imitate a little waterfall in stores. manufactured nature, contained, producing just the right amount of white noise to relax modern stresses in the comfort of home or office. without the roaring thunderstorm to prelude it. i think i prefer having to wait for the soothing ending, the one i’m in.

i want to leave you with some lovely things:

+ half egg cup pod chair
+ abby’s discovery of portland’s byways
+ maurice and scotty
+ momster’s polaroids
+ liquid sky arts wrapping
+ my dream bed
+ r. chunn’s alla prima painting of a baby brownie
+ moonblood’s tough tshirts
+ migration by patrick leger

endnotes…now i’ll be away for a while! xo

a photo i took from a very moving exhibit i saw in my first few weeks here, art dealing with the disappeared/los desaparecidos. art born of the need to tell.

the little artists create: art craziest nation, visit the whole mini-exhibition here.

the urban curators tell the public they overlook common areas in providence, rhode island by hanging museum quality gold frames around “decaying spaces” bringing them to a level of high art. they force us, no, encourage us, to reconsider our prior conceptions of beauty and worth. what do you think? inherent aesthetic or cultural value? an alternative to today’s excessive design?

peggy dembicer’s reproduction of the classic 1970s candyland board game, utilizing an estimated 100,000 seed beads.

i was packing up jewelry orders in my studio the other day and i just thought they looked so pretty in their deep velvet boxes and mint colored satin ribbon…i think this wrapping part may be a favorite element of creating handmade things.

and allow me to give a little shout out to gabbie of miss evil kitty, for asking to interview me!

ps, i’m so glad to rekindle some travel lust in some of you, just let me know if you make it down south and i’ll take you to lunch. (after a long siesta, of course.)

crumbling sidewalks, bohemian buildings, modern and chic boutiques everywhere you go, the perfect mix of old and new. the feeling of being surrounded with people, the creative revival, that smile passing by a copy of big ben or the washington monument. i loved the feeling of being right in the heart of a vibrant cultural center. and if you love design, in any form, this is the place to be.

while out eating dinner (if you can stay awake that late) other languages drift to your table to give you a feel of being anywhere in the world. ambiance, cafe culture and good food is everywhere, it’s a food writer’s paradise here. as you pound the city streets, or take the inexpensive taxis to where ever you need to go, the people watching never slows because porteños (port city nickname) make it a point to dress up beautifully, even to go out for some groceries.

the crisis of 2001 makes this place so affordable, it’s almost too good to be true and i predict it can’t last long. it’s a city (like montevideo) with a rich past and i left feeling a very optimistic second wind. every time we enjoyed a decadent meal or entered a museum, we were pleasantly surprised with how little we had to take out of our wallets.

so as promised, here are some grand highlights of our trip:

+ taking some photos and wandering very slowly through recoleta cemetary where orphan cats wandered around and the mausoleums were packed in like a miniature city. some elaborate and decaying, some sleek and recently built, decorated with marble angels and flowers, crosses and time. evita‘s was not the prettiest, but the most popular on site.

+ walking across the footbridge, puente de la mujer, designed by the spanish architect santiago calatrava was stunning lit up at night with the background of music from various nightclubs and restaurants at puerto madero.

+ visiting the botanical gardens and japanese gardens (one of the largest in the world) was so peaceful. people just out resting and enjoying nature, walking, reading the paper, enjoying life. i love that in such a bustling city, there are miles of green parks that are beautifully kept up and though there are many people there, you never feel a crowd.

+ eating at la biela, where we discovered delicious lemonade brought to you in a tall glass to add sugar and seltzer water as you like it. later we found out that this is one of the most popular cafes in the city, but we just stumbled on it after walking around.

+ shopping. i came away with a gorgeous bag from a leather boutique called prune. i recommend jewelry from condimentos in palermo, honduras 4874 and the craft market in la boca has some really great original pieces. i also loved exploring the total eye candy that is papelera palermo. for window shopping, you get argentina’s version of my favorite anthropologie at rapsodia, and i regret not purchasing a frilly dress at ayres. oh, and i passed by the coolest shoe shop i’ve ever seen called mishka (wish they had a website, drool!)

+ el ateneo. the grandest bookstore you’ll ever see, it houses books in what used to be a giant beautiful theater. you can read in the balconies, the bottom floor has an excellent children’s section, and then even have something sweet in the cafe that sits on the stage. (thanks to vero for introducing the place to me)

+ visiting the outdoor markets, sprawled out artisan goods underneath tents stretching over grassy hills forever. we acquired a few more unique mate gourds and monkey obsessed max was sitting on m’s shoulders when i spied a handmade puppet stand. i showed him a tiny mono finger puppet, and the very first thing he did was hug it! you could spend an entire day at these, just browsing.

+ the bright, bold colored la boca was obviously geared more towards tourists with the buses lined up in the masses and the street tango dancers wanting to pose with you. we stayed briefly, but long enough to get our name inscribed in a silver mate. (see a little video of the artist at work here.)

+ seeing the giant gum trees near the avenida alvear district, the 5th ave of BA, where posh hotels and ritzy boutiques such as louis vuitton and cartier are aoming the old and new architecture. it was pretty to walk through, though we didn’t stop in any of these shops because i preferred looking at native talent designers. i did love seeing the ladies who lunch out and about here, i wondered what their stories were.

+ did you know that the butterfly chair was invented in argentina by three architects? calma chicha had some beautiful leather versions and great rugs and wallets and pretty bags of mate.

+ taking max to spend an entire afternoon at the children’s museum, it’s the best on that i have ever been to! i could have taken him back the very next day. he also loved the planetarium where we watched the comets under the dome of the night sky.

+ seeing the old sitcom ALF dubbed in spanish back at our chic apartment, remember that show?

+ discovering the foil wrapped white alfajores made by havana, divine to every last gushing dulce de leche bite.

+ ok, i’m sure i’m leaving something out, but i think you may have an idea of how much fun our first trip to BA was! as an afterthought…i have to mention that one of the main highlights for my husband was the lomo, the argentine meat and steaks. you can’t visit argentina and not try it!

wow.

what do you do when you have so much to share, that it just about inhibits you from doing so? this past week was filled with great food, shopping, site seeing, architecture, city walking, bookstores…oh my! and i’ve just begun.

so i think the first thing that i feel like i need to put down, before anything else, is how much i loved visiting buenos aires this past week. before we even arrived, i had a feeling of excitement about the city, and i even wanted to start out there with our move to south america. but i’m so glad that i didn’t, because now i know i would have never left it to get to know beloved uruguay and all its quirky charm and beauty.

i was pretty filled with anticipation riding the three hour buquebus (super fast ferry ride) across the rio, and when we arrived and jumped in that first taxi, i felt so elated. there is just this feeling there! for the first few days there i couldn’t put my finger on it. and i was nervous that m wouldn’t feel as strongly as i did (he the the logic to my whims) so i tried not to bring it up, keeping my excitement for the butterfly place inside (ok, i only said how much i loved it several times a day) i gobbled up that giddiness and beamed to myself, but then i began to recognize this sense of arrival…of being able to just BE and stop planning and thinking ahead of where we would go next.

we have lived in a lot of places since being married. and with each move, i always felt like a visitor. that new girl. in that brief stop on the map to where we were really going to end up. i was patient. i was observant of other ways of living. (hello? culture shock with moving to the south!?) i found that even if a city or town felt lackluster and dim at first, i could be truly happy just about anywhere. beauty is to be found in all places, big or small, if you know how to look for it.

that being said, i had forgotten what it was like to touch ground to a place that blankets me with a feeling of belonging. it is so hard to describe! i can try to tell you by what it feels like to NOT have that feeling: you are always listening to a background of nagging, in the recesses of thought, that you are missing out on something, somewhere. that you are wasting time “here” when you could be there.

and i so desperately want to know, does anyone else feel this way? am i too restless? do my artistic tendencies effect my environment, or the other way around? i’ve been to a lot of places, is it really so rare to find that special one? why does an outside environment determine how you live, so much? is it because of what is available shapes you? and even in what it lacks? is it a part of growing up, moving away from home, and creating your own home? someone, please enlighten me on this situation!

so now zip the picture over to about three days into our stay at buenos aires, sitting in the chic apartment we rented, me looking up at m and figuring it out. “i know what it is! i haven’t felt this way about a city….since living at home in seattle!” (it has been nine years since i left, minus a brief return) that’s saying a LOT friends. i know that everyone, no matter where they are from, are biased to loving their hometown. but if you have been to seattle, if you know what the northwest looks like, feels like…then maybe you know how significantly i love this city in south america. and how i finally have a sense of place. yes, i think i could move there. and i think i am already counting the days.

whew, i think this is just about enough for today. i have more that i want to share about my trip, so i think i will highlight my favorite parts.

i also have a few topics that i have had to put off because of my travel, and with the shop opening. topics that seems really important to expose, unravel, discuss. i feel anxious to put it out there…hope i don’t get too serious now.

“jewelry has to have a concept behind it. one sees the piece with a physical and emotional understanding. to me, jewelry has to touch people’s hearts.” ~quoted from antonio bernardo, a brazilian jewerly designer who i just discovered this morning. on his personal style, he says, “if there is a root, the tree can have more branches, more flowers.” i love that last bit..describes my feelings about personal growth here, so perfectly.

i really want to thank you all, for your kind letters, links and mentions, and your incredible reaction to my first collection. (psst, have you seen poppytalk’s new etsy pick of the day?)

so yes, i’m content that the story struck a chord with all of you. i wasn’t expecting everything to sell out so quickly, it just feels good to have it off the ground and it’s exciting to have my thoughts already slouching towards the next series. i’m already sketching…

it’s roaring hot here. i just returned from the most fantastic week long trip to buenos aires, argentina. whoa, what a city. i miss it already! i’ll be sharing more about the things i saw next week. today i’m catching up your emails, resting and unwinding from non-stop fun.