crush crush:

1> polaroid postcards from maditi photography, how absolutely perfect! did i hesitate to pick some up for future correspondence and their total framability? not one second. snatch yours up here.

2> oh be still my heart. just one of these delicate stackable bangle rings by van craeynest takes six days to create, and on top of that, jewelers aren’t even allowed to make them until they apprentice for eleven years. i love wearing gold and i have to say that there is no other bands i would find more exquisite, filled with such detail, old world charm, and just completely me. if money was no object…a girl can dream, no?

3> a suitcase full of summer frocks needs something warm to wear all of a sudden! it’s been raining non-stop and that kind of weather calls for some shopping. enter lemon & company, a uruguayan boutique that can do no wrong. i walk in, find just what i’m looking for and i’m set for autumn.

4> audio books. i’m late in this trend, i know. i resisted. i was a snob. i liked the weight of a book in my bag and hands, the scent of old pages in my grasp. but one listen while out walking and i was hooked for hours! now i can multi task like never before, educating myself while washing the dishes and hanging laundry.

5> those blingo winnings sure have been stacking up gift certificates over at amazon. what does a girl do who can only take home so much stuff? order some scented candles of course! i love archipelago botanicals tins that are easy for travel and smell so divine, burning them on a ledge in my wardrobe makes all my personal effects and shoes smell like dessert. (try the ‘madagascar,’ trust me!)

i had so much fun painting these designs while secretly pretending i was commissioned to form pieces for different personalities. perhaps these are women getting to get all dressed up for the theatre, a night at the orchestra, or perhaps a just an independent film house and their favorite cafe afterwards? hmm, yes. the coral, gold, chalcedony and quartz took on an entirely new feel in watercolor. can you guess which one you would wear?

+++++

speaking of jewels, please take a look at a siopa eile today, i’m honored to be the first the stylish irish site asked to kick off interviews with artisans, you can read it right here. browse the archives and you’ll find some inspiring window shopping geared towards seeking out the unique. i very much like the idea of a shopping portal…the very name of siopa eile is irish for ‘other shop.’ so read and enjoy!

ps. i spy some secret garden earrings all the way in oxford, england (among a delicious colored pencil pile).  and a necklace found on an uncommon grace.  anywhere else?

my boy’s toys. photo by marcus, perma-grin by jenny. meep meep.

i adore uruguay por:

• fresh fruit and vegetable stands
• the man at the panaderia who didn’t have enough change to break ours and instantly insisted that we take our little treats, some drinks, and come back tomorrow, hugging max to pieces
• two millions trees and the bright green grass
• starting the day off right with a steaming cup of yerba mate tea
• the delicious wind from the rio whipping on my face as i walk along the beach

the other day, marcus and i went out together while max was at preschool. (all in spanish, of course, and he just loves it!) after we enjoyed a nice lunch as we like to do, we strolled to a nearby gallery, located in what is considered the poshest area in montevideo. after greeting the lady who let us in (many places you have to buzz in first) she sat down and watched us take in the art.

on a whole, i wasn’t very excited about what we saw, and even a little miffed that a whole wall was dedicated with blatant copies of uruguay’s most acclaimed artist, joaquín torres garcía.

just as we were about to leave disappointed, i spied a stack of large scale paintings leaned up on a column. the owner of the gallery emerged from a back room to pull them out so that we could get a better look. one hiding in the pile revealed a grand painting of a plaza in downtown montevideo, and it was just stunning. trees and light dappling along the streets, a city bus, the buildings and cars and in the foreground, a pedestrian emerging into the composition on a bicycle. it almost looked like it could be in paris the way it was painted. we loved it.

but then a funny thing happened. leaning towards marcus, i spoke in a murmur that i was curious about the price and after a few minutes, he turned and asked the owner. $2,000 if you pay with cash, $2,300 with card, and $2,600 if you purchase in payments. he didn’t flinch or scoff or act like we were just two kids walking into his gallery (which we were.) he didn’t even hesitate. to him, we were potential buyers. this would have never happened back at home so i wonder, is it because we were foreigners, specifically, north americans? or was it because he fit true to the friendly uruguayan manner that we find so often here?

as the kind owner let us out, he casually (and seriously) added, “you’re welcome to take it home and try it out in your house.“

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throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps,
down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision. ~ ayn rand

ah, what a perfect little summer scene that sums up max’s time in the backyard, swimming in his wading pool, driving cars at the empty blue bottom of it. a little while ago his sleep was being uninterrupted nightly up with growing pains, the very kind that my 6’7″ tall husband had when he was little!

i have growing pains too, watching my little guy walk towards the inevitable. that thing called growing up. but it’s not an overnight operation. thankfully, it happens in those little baby steps. like reading words from dr.seuss books, learning to tie shoes, turning five. just where does the time go?

seriously. where? when we first came to uruguay, locals were on the brink of their summer and we had just finished off ours back in the states. packing was easy: bring current wardrobe.

so when we arrived i wondered if the super long months of one season would be too much. not so, it was perfect! and now i’m anticipating that it will make the autumn even more delicious. everywhere i see your signs of spring renewal and your longing for warmer weather…just while i’m thinking that winter is a figment of my imagination.

so just while most of your bulbs are peeking through the earth, we will retire our well worn flip flops.

i’ve been sick in bed all week, which means i’ll miss my metal class today, it’s been a riot taking direction all in spanish! (marcus is a enormous help, i love marcus.) i tease my maestra and throw out english words for her to roll over her tongue, which is great fun. she says: paar-fact…? i tell her: si, si, si, perfecto! spanlish is a crack-up.

new modest mouse!

amanda m. lynch oil paintings on ceramic, oh my gosh!!

maditi introduced me to the fantastically eccentric brooches by lea stein, i am fawning over the pale salmon fox pin…while she prefers the grumpy owls, which are lovely.

i would have loved to see the rauschenbergs on loan at the jonathon o’hara gallery that closed just a few days ago in manhattan. the special exhibit had 42 works altogether, some of which had never been shown in the states. the collection displayed the pioneered transfer technique that rauschenberg originally developed. he is one of my biggest artist crushes, my mixed medium hero. i’m just so drawn to their suggestive faint memories of 1960s politics, materialism and personalities. i guess you could say he is a true favorite of mine because he outlasts other fleeting art infatuations and i never tire of him. kind of like listening to peter gabriel…but that’s for another day…

this summer i experimented with drawing in this handmade book by seedpod with transfers using an inexpensive (and safe) transfer pen. the results were really fun and immediate and a good exercise in collaging. i wish i had taken photos of it before i packed it away.

later i found a totally inspiring artist from wales, christian j. olsen, who fills moleskines up with gorgeous solvent transfer imagery. some that i could visually linger in are blossom and girl suitcase.

auto y rio, montevideo.

voicethread is just the most brilliant idea i’ve seen in a long time. you can use audio to annotate photos and engage in conversations with other users. brilliant. (edit to add: you can hear us here!)

if you have a cup of tea and some time, look through eastman photos, they’re really beautiful! found via desire to inspire (thanks irene.)

meg’s agfa photography catches my breath too. i want to accept her invitation to sit on a bench, and just talk for hours, oh yes.

gorgeous lion wings above a door i love at the mercado de los artesanos in centro montevideo.

handmade cold porcelain wing i wanted to give the mysterious woman in this photograph dated santiago, chile 12 maggio 1926.

i have received so many emails from curious readers wondering how we moved to south america, i thought i would finally address some of the questions here. (sorry it’s taken me a while, and thanks for being patient!)

at first, i answered some of you, but after a while it was hard. because when so many of you ask how, i’m finding that everyone has different ideas of how.

like, is there a job involved? your husband must have some job offer, right? well, no.

then, do you have family, friends there? no.

well then, you must have…some outside reason, besides just wanting to go, right? nope!

but that’s how we’re used to thinking, right? (we includes me.) we believe that life goes from point a to point b, in the way that tradition lays it out for us, and dreams are just for occasionally thinking about when we glance at an exotic postcard that sits on our desk, where we work in a job we loath for 60 hours a week. dreams are for later, for storage, for when we can “afford” them. you know, after we have achieved wealth or x amount of cars or square footage or whatever. (those things are nice, and i do think that they are worth working for to some degree, it’s part of enjoying life after all!) but why is that a first priority? stability, yes. success, yes. happiness, yes. working like a dog to have just another thing while letting yourself become unhappy and shelf dreams, no. not for me.

some of you want to know how because you have always wanted to do the same thing and want to know the details. with that, i don’t really know what to say…

because really, when it all boils down to it, i decided it on a whim. and it worked out, ridiculously easy too. moving here was just as easy as relocating somewhere within the states actually, just a longer plane ride.

i mean, really, it was all on a whim. we didn’t have one BIG reason saying, do it because…xyz. even though families move to other countries all the time for jobs, military transfers, peace corps, missionary work, humanitarian work, etc. that’s acceptable. but because you WANT to? strange, right?

i think the lesson to learn is that trusting intuition is something most folks are scared to do. the what if’s take over and safety and the comfort of what you already know sounds more appealing than going through the pain of learning new things. new customs, new traditions. i thought that the timing may have not been right until now, but maybe it had been “right” this whole time and i couldn’t understand that until after i took the plunge.

i realized that yup, there was a fundamental flaw in my priorities and decided to do something about it. i just evaluated what i believed and realized that i didn’t need to wait till my children were all grown (or before i was “tied down” in a marriage, insert my previous excuses here) to fulfill my dreams of traveling. i’m learning that the life that we are building together is a vehicle which we can steer how we like. we can go off the road and find beautiful vistas outside the city. or the country. i remember standing outside of our home before we left virginia, feeling ready. it was windy that day. all around us, our neighbors were living their routines and i was packed ready to move to south america.

i’ll never regret my decision to move us down here because it has confirmed that i am the innovator of my life. and what i want out of it doesn’t have to be shelved for “later” while a series of thursdays run together between chores and obligations.

there are thursdays here, sure. we live a pretty normal existence, but we are living it in the setting of one of our dreams. and you know what? something funny happens once i’ve taken a big risk like this, i look back at the four months we’ve lived here and realize it wasn’t really that difficult at all. and i feel more capable, in general. i feel like i could take on a lot more, and i realize just how much courage i have…and i wonder how much more i may be unaware of. where does that come from? i want to spend my time finding out. and i would do it all over again, with enthusiasm.

i can’t assure you with all the details before making a move abroad, i don’t know how your kids might adjust (though i can tell you that max loves school here) and i can’t tell you where you will find a place to live (we stayed in a hotel for a couple weeks until we found a sweet spot) and i can’t tell you that you will be met with a perfect experience (maybe i’m just too easy-going, but i haven’t had a rough time here at all.) the main thing is this: if your intuition is nudging you to go this way too: then do it. you don’t need to know all the little details, they will fall into place, after all, they are just details. some three million people in montevideo are all enjoying a way of life just fine, and we are too.

i really love to hear from you and i hope i answered some questions. and i hope you feel more encouraged to listen to your intuition, whatever it may be telling you!