For the Love of Italy

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FOR THE LOVE OF ITALY

Rural Pleasures and Hotel Estates

by Marella Caracciolo

Photography:  Oberto Gili

The pleasures of farm life, as most of the people featured in this book can tell you, are found in the details of everyday living:  the smells, the tastes, the long walks in the woods; picking berries in summer, seeking mushrooms in winter; being aware of the sun and the moon at all  time of day and night.  Sitting in front of a crackling fire, sipping a glass of wine, and cooking chestnuts on the burning coals.  

—excerpt, For the Love of Italy, Rural  Pleasures and Hotel Estates

More images from Oberto Gili:

See more of Oberto Gili's work 
(including a tour of his own studio and home) 
in his book:

Home Sweet Home

Sumptuous and Bohemian Interiors

Gili's passion for the grand, bold and quirky granted him access to the inner sanctums of both high society and the bohemian demimonde.  The selection includes numerous homes of French and Italian nobility, lords of the European and American creative class, and the photographer's own remarkable Piedmont farmhouse. –excerpt from the publisher

The images that I am now realizing in the studio... sixty nature-fantasy plates of fruits, flowers, vegetables, and the female form, mixed with tropical insects and butterflies — is a book on natural history for kids and grown-ups, Mon jardin, monde enchant, by André Grangeon (1948) that my mother gave me when I was five years old.  I am using the gum bi-chromate printing method, a nineteenth-century technique for creating a painterly color image from a black-and-white negative.  It is a combination of two media, camera and brush, and the joint work of the eyes and the hands.  —Oberto Gili (excerpt from Home Sweet Home, Sumptuous and Bohemian Interiors)

images 1-5 For the Love of Italy;  6-10:  Oberto Gili website; 11: Home Sweet Home

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about a chair

Have you ever noticed that a solitary chair seems to have a personality all its own?

This one is regally posing for his portrait.  He doesn't need props to feel comfortable.  No side table with flowers to feel complete,  not a single pillow.    He is stoic and confident all by himself.  

It doesn't bother him a bit that he's becoming a tad threadbare on top or that his seat is a little saggy.  Unlike most of us, he wears his age proudly -a badge of honor.  To be called "antique" is the ultimate boon.

He is charming and knows how to work a room, lending his star quality to the design whilst ever-willing to play the supporting role when duty calls:

All the prodigious posteriors at all those seven-course dinner parties!

All the children who have launched off  to infinity and beyond!

All those times he graciously subbed in as the lazy-man's ladder...

...These are the trials and tribulations of chairhood he endures with nary a complaint to be heard.  (Save for the slightest strain of a spring now and then.)

Chair, you are a good friend.  Stalwart and true.

Would that I might learn humanity from you.   :)

photograph via ELLEDECO (France), photographer Nicolas Tosi, 

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Design Daily - writing desk, "A Life Worth Breathing"

Looking for inspiration?  Try:  "A Life Worth Breathing" 

by Max Strom
 

Image via:  Maisons Côté Ouest

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"It's a mystery."

Shutters are on my agenda today.

Our little pied-à-terre we are renovating is the coloration of these last two photos.  New iron and glass doors are going in the kitchen and with that, we will also replace two adjacent windows.  It won't happen all at once, but the plan is to continue replacing windows around the house with (I hope) shutters to be added not far behind.  In any event, I'm working as though the decision is imminent.  I'm gathering photos and honing in on what would look best as though I'm purchasing them tomorrow.  

I don't know if you have found this to be true, but it seems whenever I work on something as though it is already the case, it somehow comes to fruition.  Even when all indicators seem in opposition to what I want;  -even when I'm lacking the means or the wherewithal to make it happen. 

That reminds me of a phrase my daughter and I often employ for a bit of comic relief:  

"I don't know.  It's a mystery."

It's from Shakespeare in Love and if you have seen the movie, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about:

  After many weeks of renovating, living through the daily dust and delays;  it sometimes seems that it will never be finished.  But I continue to have faith.  I know that this is the "natural condition" of any design project.  The best advice is to just "go with the flow."  Somehow, everything will come together –just as it should.  Strangely enough, it always turns out well.   Don't ask me how, though.   

—It is (indeed!) a mystery.

. . . . . . .

. .

Images 1,3-7: Côté Maisons,    

Image 2: Elle Decoration 

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Design Daily - Bath Design

—As a "bathing room" should be.

 Images via Maisons Côté Sud

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The Simple Life

Tuscany Interiors

Podere La Casina - This farmhouse is the traditional refuge in summer and winter of the family that purchased the property many years ago.  Lovers of the simple life, they take refuge in this rustic hideaway with its splendid views of the surrounding countryside, where the sun climbs and descends in the silent splendor of a natural environment.  Around them grow the olive trees and vines that yield the olive and wine they share with the many friends they have made in the area.  Part of the estate has been left as woodland, which helps to keep the climate cool in the summer and mild in winter...  -excerpt from page 104, Tuscany Interiors

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A journey into harmony.

Photographer:  Gianni Berengo Gardin

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Design Daily - country bedroom

Marie Claire Maison

Juil-Aout 2005

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