How was your weekend - besides wet?  I've been thinking about all the families out there who packed their cars, hauled the coolers, organized the kids and the long handled shovels and the pool noodles, and are looking at a scene like this one above, with a traffic filled drive home not yet in their rear view mirror.   Memorial Day is one of only two precious long summer weekends that American life still grants to our working folk with limited vacation, and to have one with constant rain just seems unfair.  My heart goes out to everyone in this scenario.

And yet I must confess, this steady gray drizzle has felt like a welcome home gift to me.   I returned late Friday night from the Museum Store Expo in Philadelphia where I was showing my custom line of scarves, bangles and valet trays based on my paintings of bespoke places and collections.  Exhibiting at a wholesale market is a LOT - three days in a dreary windowless convention center, setting up a 10' x 5' booth which you hope will communicate your dreams.   But if just a few of the interesting conversations I had with amazing non profits on my dream client list come to fruition, I will be doing cartwheels on the beach like a second grader.  So cross your fingers for me.   

Remember those family vacations when your mother let you bring a friend along?   READ MORE

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Isn't this a fascinating concept?  How to blur the line between interior and exterior spaces through thoughtful design.   Are you like me, feeling the urge to throw open every door and window?  I think we are craving permeability, air, light, movement.  This spring especially, we're inviting the birdsong and breezes to drift indoors.

Today, we're taking a look at steel casement doors, garden rooms and loggias.  Rooms that breathe the outdoor air, houses that invite the garden in.  Let's wander together over vanishing thresholds, as butterflies drift by, seemingly oblivious to boundaries between inside and out.  READ MORE

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Last week, a wonderful friend invited me to a gala benefitting the Young Concert Artists.  This is a fabulous organization which I knew nothing about - click on the link above, and I know you'll be glad to learn more too.  These outstanding young artists perform regularly in NYC and Washington - make a note to catch the next great virtuoso before the rest of the world catches on.  The season finale of this year's Young Concert Artists series is at Carnegie Hall this Wednesday, May 13, and you can still get tickets here.

The Uber ride into DC for the gala was the setting for a spirited and amusing debate on this pressing topic:  What is a dinner jacket and on what occasions may it be worn?  Let me start things off by saying, I am 85 percent convinced I was wrong.  I thought a dinner jacket had to be white (well, ivory).   Otherwise, it's just a tuxedo jacket, right?  My otherwise astute friend disagreed.  READ MORE

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