MY GAL SUBU

I wanted to share the news and excitement about Subu.com and the wonderful blog Subu writes. ( http://suburose.wordpress.com/) Every Monday she posts a crafty giveaway that has been getting a lot of national attention and over a hundred (!) entrants to win. Last week a gorgeous necklace was featured; this week, an adorable wristlet. All the items are handmade by very talented crafters.

Not only does Subu write a terrific blog with posts about crafts, celebs (like Zac Effron!!) and wedding plans, but she also finds time to create some amazing handmade books which you can see here. My favorites are the earth-friendly recycled notebooks that can be customized with your very own colors and stamps. Inside the books are recycled papers with all different kinds of images on them. They are really cool! She recently completed an order for 250 of these great little books! Can you imagine! Here they are all ready to be shipped.

I also love her new folded travel notebooks with side pockets and room for a pencil. They are so new she hasn’t posted them on her Etsy site yet, but I bet she will soon. Actually, you can see some photos of them on her Flickr page.

She is a member of the Pittsburgh Craft Mafia and has been very involved in the Pittsburgh craft scene. Where does she get the energy, you might ask? I don’t know for sure, but maybe from her father. Definitely not me.

The photo above is of some of the buttons and doo-dads she keeps in a glass container to adorn those recycled books. Wouldn’t you know, the buttons are recycled, too. They are part of a collection she inherited from her grandmother (the original Subu) and great aunt. Some of them have also been rescued from old garments about to be thrown away.

Please check out Subu (aka Emily). She is a never-ending inspiration to me. Did I mention she is my daughter?

Content and photos copyright 2007 by Janet Towbin.

REFLECTIONS ON GREEN AND BROWN

These past few months I have had a thing for green; especially a chartreuse green or yellowish green. And now that it is fall, I realize I really like the combination of green and brown. I think it all began with a beautiful orchid specimen I affectionately dubbed Camo Orchid (a grammatophyllum). I saw it at Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh and thought it was just incredible–imagine a living, thriving bloom that is brown. Most brown flowers I’ve seen are dead.

This past week I was in Cincinnati (our new grandson was just born!) and have been able to witness the beginning of fall from a suburban vantage point. I miss seeing green; it is the worst part about living in a city. I can’t look out my kitchen window (or any window, for that matter) to see an expanse of green lawn edged with trees and flowers. The only place I readily see nature’s green bounty in Center City is at Rittenhouse Square Park.

Anyway, the trees and plants in Cincinnati are just beginning to change after a very hot and dry summer. The colors are not exactly the vivid oranges, yellows and reds I remember from autumns past. Rather, they are still mostly what is left of green with tan and brown accents. It is this collection of leaves that got me thinking about this particular color combination…and how much I love it. Then, the more I looked around me, the more I saw green and brown.

For instance, this beautiful flowering bush was in the yard where I was staying. The bush has dried-up brown blossoms (completely intact) still on the branches. I have no idea what kind of flowering bush it is, but it caught my eye and imagination. (By the way, if you know what kind of bush this is, please let me know.) Brown flowers and green leaves. I wonder what they looked like when they weren’t dead. They must have been amazing!

Here is an update on the flowering bush: it is viburnum opulus sterile, also known as a Snowball Tree.

Flying home today from Cincinnati the landscape below was a patchwork quilt of green and brown…rich, earthy tans and browns interspersed with olive greens–greens just a tad less lush and juicy than they had been at the height of summer.

I am in love with this color combination. If I were a color forecaster, green and brown would be high on my list of what’s new in color trend fashion and style.

Funny thing…

What a surprise! I just realized (duh!) that my new Longchamp canvas tote (Le Pliage) is green (almond green) and brown. I knew green and brown would be the next big thing!

For additional information about color forecasting for the fashion industry (and other cool stuff) you can look here for Fall 2007 colors and here for Spring 2008 colors.

All content and images copyright 2007 Janet Towbin.

ZAGAR’S MAGIC GARDEN

A week ago Sunday was a perfectly gorgeous day and I was eager to take a long walk with my camera. I was in search of some graffiti and other street art. Instead of finding graffiti I found a enclave of beauty, art and magic. I am still reeling from my discovery and have been left to wonder why it took me so long to find a treasure like this in the city I have lived in for 7 years. I feel like I was the last person in Philadelphia to know about it.

Certainly, I had seen Isaiah Zagar’s mosaics around town and have admired them and photographed them for quite awhile. There are many buildings in Philadelphia covered with Isaiah’s tiles. The Painted Bride on Vine Street between 2nd and 3rd St. is a masterpiece that I have photographed often and never tire of seeing. But let me tell you, finding the Magic Garden and wandering through its labyrinth of tiles, bicycle wheels, pottery shards, bottles, and other decorative ephemera was mind-boggling. Imagine what it would be like to actually walk into a kaleidoscope of sparking colored glass or pirate’s cave encrusted with treasures of incredible wealth. Well, it is better than either of those things…

It is pure magic! It is a wonderland of decorative whimsy. I wanted to stay there as long as possible to soak up joyful dazzle of the place. Such creative good energy! It was tinkling, jingling, buzzing and humming with beauty, peace, love and ecstatic exuberance. Isaiah’s Magic Garden is a delicious dream of what life could be like if we all embraced art, beauty and joy as our natural birthright.

I took over a hundred photos and would like to share just a few of the better ones with you. You can check my Flickr site to see more of the Magic Garden photos. I suggest you look at them in their largest size to get the full impact of the complexity of the mosaics and all the decorative details. Quite honestly, the photos do not give justice to the Magic Garden. You do not get a sense of the complexity and beauty of the place. It really must be experienced to get the full magical impact. If you are planning to visit Philadelphia, make certain you get to see this amazing place. It is only open on weekends, but I think you can call for an appointment. Check out the Magic Garden website for more information.

Content and photos copyright 2007 Janet Towbin.

RUSTED!

The next best thing to finding amazing graffiti or street art is finding a gorgeously rusted dumpster (with or without graffiti). I have seen some of the most inspiring abstract compositions you can possibly imagine on dumpsters. Intricately formed by the living rust organism over time, the rusted-out shapes meld and fuse into one another and form colonies of circular blobs that expand and grow in rings reminiscent of a tree’s inner circles.

The color palettes are stunning and illustrate how nature works her alchemy with these man-made objects! The rust can be any shade of red-orange, yellow-orange or rust-brown. The surrounding painted portions of the dumpster often generate a patina from the rust rivaling oil stains on wet asphalt. The surface color is also manipulated by age, dirt, fading from sunlight, dents and scratches, and of course, graffiti (spray-paint, paste-ups and stickers).

These behemoths of the inner city are metaphors of change—they are present at construction sites—and are repositories (coffins?) of the glory of former buildings and the detritus from reconstruction. All that metaphorical musing aside, dumpsters are treasure-troves of abstract imagery and inspiration.

I thought that I would pay homage to rusted dumpsters (and the ebb and flow of life in the city) with a gallery of dumpster rust photos. There are plenty more dumpster photos on my Flickr site if you want to see more.

Content and photos Copyright 2007 by Janet Towbin