250620092874

250620092874
Originally uploaded by KatherinelvJackson

I took this picture a while ago. But it reminded me to talk about Deco furniture and inspired furniture.

In my house i have a wonderful two seater sofa and two single arm chairs. They are corbusier; and wonderful to look at. However with the adverts on the TV showing discounts on those soft sofa's it is easy for me to be disenchanted with what i have got.

They are not the most comfortable, but they are fab. I think it is a design choice when you chose to keep something that is stylish over comfort.

I do feel guilty about them though, i feel that they are not in the correct setting for them. If i have the space and ultimatly the house i would decorate a room to suit the theme (deco-esque). This would also then require me to buy a new sofa.

Hmm i need to ponder on this thought.

Sleigh bells ring...

As an interior stylist I could dictate to you that Christmas should be coloured co-ordinated. You should have got everything planned at least two months ago and that to be an enjoyable Christmas everything should be perfect.

But guess what, I am not. Why? Because even I do not get that anal about it! Sure if I had a ton of spare money I could invest in a whole new set of Christmas decorations to go up all over the house. But in this climate I just do not see the point.

Instead I am going to tell you what; if anything I am going to do.

1. TRY and enjoy the time off from work.

2. SPEND as much time as possible with family.

3. RECYCLE my old (yes saved) Christmas cards into festive bunting to decorate the small hallway in my house.

4. PUT up my tree and decorate it with the decorations I had last year, make it look pretty and sparkly oh and stick the lights on a timer so I do not have to crawl underneath to switch them off from behind the TV!

5. DIG out the Christmas CD and play constantly.

6. NOT WORRY about all the mess and unorganised-ness of the place – I will save all of that for spring cleaning in SPRING.

7. COOK just enough food for the family and me.

8. FIND all the Christmas inspired DVD’s I can and plan to watch them and not TV.

I am still working on a plan for the wreath at the door, I am thinking of gathering a few twigs (fallen of course) and bundling them together and if I feel brave and venture out in to the garden I may spray paint it!!!

http://familycrafts.about.com/od/christmaswreath1/a/PineConeWreath.htm

I think ultimately unless you thrive on the stress – don’t stress about it. My response to people who comment that it is not Christmassy enough is that they can do it next year and pay for it too! After all it is the fact that you are spending time with family and making an effort to be joyous around each other that matters. Let old dogs lie, forgive and forget and let the New Year herald a fresh start.

If however you want a few more crafty tips there is a load of websites out there.

http://crafts.kaboose.com/holidays/christmas/christmas-crafts.html

http://www.allfreecrafts.com/christmas/

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/christmas_crafts.htm

http://www.craftown.com/xmas.htm

Although I have to say I was fairly impressed when I went into the B&Q in Canterbury to see their Christmas shop display, not bad on the purse strings either.

Luck be a Lady

Recently I have been involved in some craft markets in and around Canterbury. The lovely ladies at the Lady Luck bar in St Peter’s street, host a monthly craft-tacular market. The setting is truly inspirational.

http://www.myspace.com/ladyluckpub

http://www.canterburywanderer.co.uk/#/the-lady-luck-bar/4534078104

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thorskegga/3826875523/

www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=97240340534

I have been thinking on the 50’s vintage style and the two extremes we are often presented with. Although I think this could apply to most interior settings too.

On one hand you are given the perfect 50’s housewife, with all the mod cons and homely comforts and on the other the rock and roll, darker more vice inspired communities.

So how can we translate this to the homes that we live in? Well I guess your first choice is whether you would consider yourself a lover of all things vintage and want to have a few choice items which enhance and make statements. Or in fact you live the life and want to surround yourself with the era of your choosing and only want to use modern day consumerables in a hidden and utilitarian way.


http://photos.gardenweb.com/home/galleries/2007/10/our_50s_kitchen.html&usg=AFQjCNEa4MLda4rsWNKQKJQRlhd9tXhxeQ

It have been my experience that if you already live the lifestyle and want to create it in your home or workplace – like the Lady Luck, that you already have a strong idea about what colours and furniture you want around you, often only needing input to bring it all together and the physical work to get it done. However if you want the look and have no idea how to achieve, then asking an interior stylist/designer like me can help. We have a huge store of resources to help give get an idea of how you want the space to work.

Depending on your budget, the cheapest way to create the look is with colour. But this needs to be carefully considered, to dark and you will look as if your room stepped out of a Victorian Gothic novel, to light and it will look as if you have a Childs nursery.

Try and find original, posters with colours and picking a colour from a piece of furniture can help get the tones right.

If you want to splash out, original wallpaper can still be bought, alongside the modern replicas. Choose, something you can live with for a while, otherwise it will just be a huge waste of money.

If you can visit homes that are already 50’s inspired – even better, no two home is alike. Equally check out all the resources available to you online. Take note the 50’s was a hugely important era of America and as such there are a lot of images and decorative items so if you are looking for a more British style, then consider that Britain was still coming out of the war, and despite advances in things more families could not afford the luxuries and so you need to temper your enthusiasm and look for quality over excess.

If you are just gathering ideas or just browsing about have a look at the link above and the following.

http://www.ladylucksboutique.com/catalog/

http://www.rockabillyrave.co.uk/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1950houselovers/

Retro Shot

DSC00003
Originally uploaded by KatherinelvJackson

I had a set just like this in my shop! Except mine were priced at £6 bargin I think!

I still have a few retro bits and pieces, i try to do markets and fairs, so if you are on the look out for some thing, stay tuned and I will keep you updated of where I will ne next :)

CAAG and OTAG

Well the second week into the month is always the busiest for me.  I have two evening meetings in two days running.  

CAAG: for those who do not know is Margate's Conservation Area Advisory Group.  We get to have a look at any planning applications that fall with in the conservation area and make our comments/objections on them.  if you are interested in becoming involved then please contact me stylecounsel@katiedid.co.uk and I will give you details or where and when.  The group has a google group (closed group for members only) for easy collation and dissemination of information and a flickr group (again a closed group for members only) so that we can photo-document changes in the conservation area.

OTAG: Margate's Old Town Action Group, has in the last year grown and become a formidable force with in the locality.  It has just started it's summer markets and there is another one coming up at the end of the month. Stay tuned I will post more information on this at a near time. However it is a great meeting to attend it you are a trader/resident or interested party in the historic Old Town. They have even got a community portal website. www.margateoldtown.co.uk So go and check out their calendar of events :)

All go Margate

If you did not already know, there is a lot of events planned for Margate over the summer season.

Things have already kicked off, two new restaurants/cafes have opened in the Old Town area.  Turner Contemporary hosted a music event on the "piazza" and I hear that musical events held in other venues like Westcoast (Seaside Shuffle) over the weekend have also been brilliant.

So what else is going on?

Well although I can not provide you with a exhaustive list of featured events here are a few that i have been told about and through trawling the net found (see below).

On the Interior Design front, met the couple who have Kazbah towards Westbrook. Pepper has a wealth of experience in the Interiors world and now provides shabby chic painted furniture of vintage/antique variety.  Going to pop along and have proper mooch around hopefully in the new week.

 

dates	events	venue	times	contact details
Sat 7 Mar 2009 - Mon 4 May 2009	Just Because its Spring	Ingoldsby Gallery 2 Lombard Street, Margate, Kent		01843 292779
Sat 4 Apr 2009 - Sat 16 May 2009	Acts of Worship	Old Town Gallery 1-3 Broad Street, Margate, Kent		01843 225565
Sat 4 Apr 2009 - Sun 14 Jun 2009	Crossroads	Turner Contemporary 17-18 The Parade, Margate, Kent		01843 280261
Sat 4 Apr 2009 - Sun 14 Jun 2009	Sound of Music	Turner Contemporary 17-18 The Parade, Margate, Kent	10:00 to 16:00	01843 280261
Fri 1 - Sun 17 May 2009	A Pattern for Margate	Turner Contemporary 17-18 The Parade, Margate, Kent		01843 280261
Wed 6 May 2009	Rob Brydon plus support	Winter Gardens Margate Fort Crescent, Margate, Kent	19:30	01843 296111
Thu 7 May 2009	Comedy Club	Theatre Royal Margate Addington Street, Margate, Kent	19:45	0845 130 1786
Sat 9 May 2009	Callas	Theatre Royal Margate Addington Street, Margate, Kent	19:30	0845 130 1786
Sat 9 May 2009 - Sun 5 Jul 2009	Sea Fever	Ingoldsby Gallery 2 Lombard Street, Margate, Kent		01843 292779
Sat 9 May 2009	Thanet Talks	Turner Contemporary 17-18 The Parade, Margate, Kent	14:00 to 14:15	01843 280261
Mon 11 May 2009	Leon Jackson and Same Difference	Winter Gardens Margate Fort Crescent, Margate, Kent	19:00	01843 296111
Wed 13 May 2009	War Graves Tours	Margate Cemetery Walks Manston Road, Margate, Kent	12:00	07982 829664
Sun 17 May 2009	Rhydian	Winter Gardens Margate Fort Crescent, Margate, Kent	19:00	01843 296111
Tue 19 May 2009	Every Day is a Good Day	Turner Contemporary 17-18 The Parade, Margate, Kent	18:00 to 19:00	01843 280261
Sat 23 May 2009	Sea Garden Volunteer Day	Thanet Coast Project c/o Thanet District Council, PO Box 9, Cecil Street, Margate	10:00 to 13:00	0184 3577672
Sun 24 May 2009	Seaweeds & their Secrets	Thanet Coast Project c/o Thanet District Council, PO Box 9, Cecil Street, Margate	18:30 to 20:00	01843 577672
Mon 25 May 2009	Cycle to the Vikings	Thanet Coast Project c/o Thanet District Council, PO Box 9, Cecil Street, Margate	14:00 to 16:30	01843 577672
Tue 26 - Sat 30 May 2009	A Night on the Town	Winter Gardens Margate Fort Crescent, Margate, Kent		01843 296111
Tue 26 May 2009	Cool Seas Film Night	Thanet Coast Project c/o Thanet District Council, PO Box 9, Cecil Street, Margate	19:00 to 20:00	01843 577672
Wed 27 May 2009	Family Workshop	Turner Contemporary 17-18 The Parade, Margate, Kent	13:00 to 16:00	01843 280261
Wed 27 May 2009	Rock Doc Walk	Thanet Coast Project c/o Thanet District Council, PO Box 9, Cecil Street, Margate	11:00 to 13:00	01843 577672
Wed 27 May 2009	Smugglers and Serpents	Thanet Coast Project c/o Thanet District Council, PO Box 9, Cecil Street, Margate	10:00 to 11:30	01843 577672
Wed 27 May 2009	Surf Taster Lessons	Thanet Coast Project c/o Thanet District Council, PO Box 9, Cecil Street, Margate	10:00 to 12:00 14:00 to 16:00	01843 577672
Wed 27 May 2009	War Graves Tours	Margate Cemetery Walks Manston Road, Margate, Kent	12:00	07982 829664
Fri 29 May 2009	Ha Ha Hamlet	Theatre Royal Margate Addington Street, Margate, Kent	19:30	0845 130 1786
Sat 30, Sun 31 May 2009	Market – Spring Fair Garden Theme	Market Place, Margate	10:00 to 16:00	01843 299055
Sat 30 May 2009	Seal Trips	Thanet Coast Project c/o Thanet District Council, PO Box 9, Cecil Street, Margate	09:00 to 14:00	01843 577672

 

Andy Warhol's TV in LIMBO - Substation Art Space

Andy Warhol’s TV In 2006 Limbo Arts founder Paul Hazelton found and bought Andy Warhol’s old Philco Predicta television set in a Margate second-hand shop called Style Counsel. A few months later Style Counsel closed following a burglary. In October 2008, Limbo Arts will work with Kate Jackson of Style Counsel to present Andy Warhol’s TV, an art show that looks at Margate’s relationship with culture at a time when the town hopes that cultural improvements – led by the Turner Contemporary arts development – will help to reverse economic and social deprivation in the area. There will be no artwork in the show, in which Margate’s Substation Project space will be partially reconstructed as a hybrid of Style Counsel and a museum or gallery. Instead, second-hand objects will be on display– some as they would have been in Style Counsel, others as objects might be presented in a museum or gallery. The television, which is no longer working, will occupy an area behind this hybrid space, and will be temporarily re-animated by a projection of an episode of Andy Warhol’s TV, the artist’s cable television show from the 1980s. Limbo Arts’ goal with the show is to look at what Margate (specifically its second hand shops) might be able to contribute to artistic ideas about the representation and interpretation of culture. Specifically the show will look at how the emergence of the television in Margate could affect interpretations of Warhol’s work and ideas. Like Warhol, the show’s organisers are interested in culture as something that is always mediated – by images, context and time. The real thing, person or lifestyle that we aspire to through goods, images, films and art, is elusive – maybe nonexistent. For example, Marilyn Monroe is the sum of everybody’s interpretations of her image or persona – we could never, even during her life, know the ‘true’ Marilyn, because she exists in multiple, different at different times, and different to different people. Warhol’s work reminds us that with anybody or anything there is the sense of something absent – the individual beyond the surface, beyond the repetition; and it is pertinent that his work deals with images of celebrities, because it implies that to some extent that we are all performers – like the shadows of the puppets on the wall of Plato’s Cave – whose true identities are never revealed. This process is both democratic and ironic: democratic because our interpretations of objects are particular to us as individuals; ironic, because our own individuality is as much a patchwork of interpretation as any celebrity’s. In Andy Warhol’s TV, the replica second hand shop and the objects it contains become a metaphor for this level of removal from the thing or person in its ‘true’ state. In a sense, we could say that everything we experience is second-hand, removed from our image of it as an original, idealised object. There are an unusually high number of second-hand shops in Margate. Partly a result of economic necessity, partly because of the accumulated history of the town as a formerly popular destination for holidaymakers, they capture something poignant about the sense of nostalgia that haunts the town. With this show, Limbo Arts hopes to explore how this sensibility might compliment Warhol and his work – reminders of the vibrancy of the past. Limbo art’s aim is to produce an art show that is integrated with Margate’s culture rather than imposed on it, and to ask how the objects that we might imbue with value when we pick them from the obscurity of the second-hand shop might have in common with Warhol’s Elvis’ and Marilyns. Matthew de Pulford Andy Warhol’s TV is funded by Arts Council England, the national development agency for the arts, through its Grants for the Arts programme for individuals and organisations.

Dates and times: Preview:17th October 2008 6-9pm Show Runs: 18th- 26th October 2008 12-6pm Workshop: 18th October 2008 1-5pm Admission to the show is free