The Inner Things

"In a way winter is the real spring, the time when the inner things happen, the resurgence of nature."

--  Edna O'Brien, Irish writer

Livaria Lello Bookstore in Porto, Portugal

This is the time of the year when we tend to stay inside or go to indoor spaces that nurture the "inner things."  Recently I have spotted some beautiful places and writing that take us there.

 Bookstores

Shakespeare and Company in Paris

All of the book lovers out there (and I know you are one) can enjoy this inspiring article about the twenty most beautiful bookstores in the world. These spaces are truly stunning.  The only one I have been to is Shakespeare and Company in Paris where I fell in love with its bohemian beauty.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to visit the others?  Go here to see them all.  While many of us have been lamenting the closure of independent bookstores, an article like this gives us hope that at some point bookstores will be back.   And it is inspiring to know that these bookstores are valued and cherished. 

Museums

A visit to the museum is always enriching; it is one of those experiences that feeds the soul.  Right now the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has an exquisite exhibition of paintings by the 17th-century artist Caravaggio -- "Bodies and Shadows: Caravaggio and His Legacy" -- along with paintings by other European artists who were influenced by him.  I did a little research and discovered that Caravaggio was kind of a rock star; he had a big impact on an entire generation of painters throughout Europe in the seventeenth-century.  This exhibition includes more than fifty paintings, including many by Caravaggio, which have never been shown in California.  I feel good when I make the effort to see some art and am really looking forward to seeing this show.  

Dance

This scene from the ballet "Serenade" as performed by the New York City Ballet caught my eye the other day.  There is so much beauty and grace in this image;  I am always in awe of the beauty of ballet.  Go here to read more about "Serenade."  However, if we can't make it to New York, we can try to see a ballet performance in our own city.  Check your local paper to see what is playing nearby.  Many of the big ballet companies such as the Joffrey and the American Ballet travel around the country and perform.  Right now the Joffrey Ballet is touring with their spectacular production of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" -- it premiered in Paris in 1913 to a shocked public --  and I was lucky enough to see it this weekend!    

A favorite writer

One of the most rewarding and challenging writing projects (it requires discipline!) is keeping a diary.    Virginia Woolf used hers as a creative outlet -- "The habit of writing thus for my own eyes only is good practice.  It loosens the ligaments." -- as well as a journal for documenting her activities.  At the same time she was experimenting with a new form for the novel.  Books and words were her passion.  Here she writes about the kind of diary she would like hers to be:

"What sort of diary should I like mine to be?  Something loose knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful that comes into my mind.  I should like it to resemble some deep old desk, or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through.  I should like to come back, after a year or two, and find that the collection had sorted itself and refined itself and coalesced, as such deposits so mysteriously do, into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the light of our life, and yet steady, tranquil compounds with the aloofness of a work of art.  The main requisite, I think on re-reading my old volumes, is not to play the part of censor, but to write as the mood comes or of anything whatever; since I was curious to find how I went for things put in haphazard, and found the significance to lie where I never saw it at the time."

It is not too late to start a diary for the new year!

   

 Inspiring Blogs

Some of the best bloggers open our eyes to what is going on in other parts of the world.  These bloggers (below) are taking us to some beautiful places.

Ben Pentreath shows us how beautiful London looks in the snow.  Go here .

Designtripper takes us to some special and rustic "cave" hotels which are located in the small, medieval hilltop villages of Italy.  The owner is attempting to save the dying hill towns in southern Italy and has worked with historians to revive them, adding these fascinating small hotels.  The interiors are decorated with an emphasis on traditional crafts such as textiles.  The coverlets and other linens are all produced locally by women who use ancient techniques.  These hotels are amazing!  Go here.

Sous Style gives us a peak into into the beautiful world of carnations.  We learn that even though carnations do not have a great reputation, they are actually one of the most respected and oldest cultivated flowers in the world.  And the most beautiful!  As long as you stay away from the typical colors of pink and red, they make stunning floral arrangements.  Go here.

  Food 52,  Amanda Hesser's exquisitely beautiful food blog, creates a "Downton Abbey"- inspired menu that starts with a creamy mushroom soup.  There are sage scones involved as well.  Go here.

And here is a terrific interview with Lesley Nicol, the actress who plays Mrs. Patmore on "Downton Abbey."  I would love to spend some time in her kitchen cooking the menu from Food 52!  As you read the questions and answers, be sure to click on the two videos that spoof "Downton Abbey."  They are very funny.

Put on the kettle, have a cup of tea, and enjoy.  There are so many places to go on a February day!

Summer Beauty

"It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top."

-- Virginia Woolf

Summer can be a great time for inspiration.  It is well known that when we daydream our minds are free to roam and we can come up with imaginative creations or stumble upon creative solutions to problems.  And in the summer, when the pace is slower and we are often relaxing, we can get our best ideas and find inspiration for our everyday life. Sometimes it is just a matter of getting away from our own environment to see things more clearly.  Our thoughts take off and we suddenly come up with an inspired thought or notion, an idea or a plan  At this time of the year everything is fresh and lush, colors are vivid, and there is beauty and fragrance wherever we look.  We may be traveling or staying in our own neighborhood when it happens.  But no matter where,  the mood is the same -- relaxation, surrounded by beauty, and then the great idea.  Here are a few images that might lead to some summertime dreaming and arriving at that moment of inspiration!  

 Bougainvillea at the San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito, California

Lush pergola at the Getty Villa in Malibu

A vista in Napa, California that looks like the Italian countryside

The grandeur of nature in Sun Valley, Idaho

Closer to home, a neighborhood country mart on a summer day -- the beauty of a simple red barn

 A midsummer's night dream at "The Plow and Angel" restaurant in Montecito

Contemplating garden beauty in faraway places

Monet's home in Giverny, France

And places nearby, in a neighbor's vegetable garden

 Or in a Pasadena garden that was on the Garden Conservancy tour 

And right on the kitchen table -- hydrangeas and roses from the garden

Let your mind wander and dream, be sure to take notes, because as someone once said, "life is not a dress rehearsal."  Let's put some of these great ideas into motion!   Maybe it's an idea for that book or short story you've always wanted to write.  Or maybe it's a system for organizing your books or files, wherever it is you go for inspiration. Having it organized will make your life and your writing easier.  That is my current project, and I am loving how good I already feel!  How about that gardening or art class you have always wanted to take?  Why not learn a new language? I want to take more French classes, having taken them in the past and would love to pick them up again.  Or maybe joining a yoga class or taking bridge lessons is something you'd love to do.  Of course you could always start a blog! 

There are endless ideas out there for us to execute.  Fall is around the corner and it is always a time of exciting and creative activity.  Let's get ready!  Happy dreaming!  

A Fondness for Green

"We think we deserve some good luck.  Yet I daresay we're the happiest couple in England." 

-- Virginia Woolf, after purchasing Monk's House in 1919.

I have always wanted to visit Virginia Woolf's home Monk's House, and now I feel as if I have.  Have you seen the June issue of "The World of Interiors"?  If you enjoy seeing the houses in which writers lived, you will love this article on Monk's House, Virginia and Leonard Woolf's cottage in Sussex, England.  I love seeing the places where writers lived and worked, the environments where all that creativity took place.  We can wonder, for example, which room Virginia Woolf was in when she came up with the idea for a new novel? Was she warming herself in front of the fire when she suddenly saw the main character in her mind?   How did the morning sunlight coming through the kitchen window, together with a soothing cup of tea inspire the ideas that lead to a story?  Was she daydreaming in the garden when the perfect solution for how to end a book came to her? These kinds of musings are especially relevant in the case of Virginia Woolf, since houses and their interiors have such a strong presence in her books.  As the writer of the article points out, the Woolfs adored Monk's House and lavished great time and attention on making it the very best it could be.   It was almost like the child they never had.

The house dates from the late 17th century and was lived in by millers and carpenters until Virginia and Leonard Woolf bought it at auction in 1919.  Virginia told her friends that it was an ancient Monk's house with niches for holy water, but this was an instance of her famous verbal embroidery (though there were niches on either side of the chimney); monks never actually lived there.  It is a charming brick and weather-board cottage with a large garden in the Sussex village of Rodmell.   As Virginia's books began to make money, the Woolfs were able to add amenities to the house. At one end of the house there is an extension built in 1929 that was possible because of the money Virginia earned from her novel "Orlando."  They added a studio for Virginia in the garden.  The garden was Leonard's pride and joy; he created and cared for this beautiful retreat where they spent many happy hours.

The view of the house from Leonard's Italian garden

Some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century found their way to Monk's house, including T.S. Eliot, Maynard Keynes, E.M Forster, Lytton Strachey, and Roger Fry.  Eliot told the story of the slope in the bathroom floor that made the bath water sit higher on the right.  The artists Vanessa Bell (Virginia's sister) and Duncan Grant hand-painted most of the furniture and decorative objects in the house. It is a house bursting with the personalities of the two people who lived there and, as with so many great houses, it allows us to understand them better.  "Places explain people," as David Garnett once said.

This issue of "The World of Interiors" takes us on a tour of the inside of the house and gives us a glimpse into the domestic life of Virginia Woolf.  It is a beautiful article with great photos, written by Caroline Zoob who is the last tenant-curator of Monk's House.   She tells us that Virginia "felt an irrational pain and sense of failure when her painter sister Vanessa Bell ridiculed her fondness for green."  But even though she was often influenced by her sister's artistic pronouncements, Virginia went ahead and included her favorite color in almost every room of the house.  

The sitting room at Monk's House, featuring Virginia's favorite green

The canvas-work seat of the chair in front of the writing desk in the sitting room, made by Duncan Grant's mother

The dining room with its green enamelled stove
The chairs were designed by Duncan Grant and the yellow seat backs were worked by Mrs. Grant

Virginia's sunny ground floor bedroom, surrounded by the garden.  Vanessa Bell painted the fireplace surround, signing it "VW from VB 1930."   She featured a lighthouse at the top of the tile work.

My favorite detail?  It has to be Virginia's Shakespeare collection which she bound in colorful papers.  In 1936, she wrote to E.M. Forster that she was "rebinding all my Shakespeares - 29 volumes - in coloured paper," labelling the spines herself.

 Lady Ottoline Morrell gave Virginia the Chinese silk shawl which is draped on this chair in her bedroom.  Virginia would write here using a board which would sit upon the chair's arms.  

Virginia's Shakespeare collection rebound by her "in coloured paper" -- it almost looks marbleized.
How beautiful!

Virginia Woolf's fondness for green is just one of her personal preferences that we can see in the way she decorated her home.  Pick up this issue of "World of Interiors" to see all the gorgeous photos of her charming Bloomsbury retreat and to read the fascinating article. (Photos by Caroline Arber and text by Caroline Zoob)   Notice how personalized everything is --  her hand or that of her sister Vanessa is responsible for almost everything.  Her approach to decorating this country cottage reveals a time and a sensibility when most things were hand decorated and this approach to making a home was the welcome relief she needed from writing her books.  Her friends enjoyed being at Monk's House and many of them wrote about it:  

"I loved the untidy, warm, informal nature of the house with books and magazines littered about the rooms, logs piled up by the fireplaces, painted furniture and low tables of tiles designed by the Bloomsbury artists, and writing done in sunny, flower-filled , messy studios.  A smell of wood smoke and ripe apples lingered about it, mixed with the fainter under-perfume of old bindings and old paper."

-- John Lehmann

It sounds like a wonderful environment for inspiration.  And now I can picture Virginia sitting in that chair in her bedroom with Ottoline's scarf wrapped around her shoulders writing one of her books.  With Shakespeare nearby to guide her, she was in a great space to unleash her creativity.