My new Rex Ray

OK I need to gloat just a little bit... very excitingly this is my new Rex Ray which I'm collecting from Chicago this weekend. I can't wait to put it up in my living room. Thank you to the lovely helpful staff at Jonathan Adler, Chicago :)

Some of Rex Ray's beautiful collages are available in the new 2009 calendar which is also on my wish list.

Squirrel topiary - who knew?

Where has this amazing squirrel topiary been all my life? How has my balcony survived without it? What an amazing Christmas gift for a gardener!

Squirrel topiary frame, £12.95 mydeco.com

mydeco Design Box

Hot Dog!

This has to be the cutest picture I have seen in a looong time. It got me inspired to look for daschund related objects of desire, and it's amazing how many I found! Check out my most recent lust list below.
Mulberry tartan draft excluder, £95 from mydeco.com.

Cath Kidston draught excluder, £25 from mydeco.com.

Pablo Picasso poster from Easy Art, £13.95 at mydeco.com.

Toy dog 'Nara' from The Conran Shop, £58 at mydeco.com.

Fabulous Moschino shop window in Milan

The Italians may be fashion obsessed, but you can't say they don't have a sense of humour. This is a great window display I saw in Milan, love those mice!

Come Alive! November is Sister Corita month

November is Sister Corita month! Sister who? I hear you say. Sister Corita King was a religious revolutionary artist (an actual nun!) who brought her unique brand of Jesus joy to the art scene in California during the 1960's. I discovered her screen prints alive with spiritual sentiment on a trip to the St Ives Tate last year, and was completely won over by the sheer joyfulness and colour seeping out of her works and into your pores. Some of her prints are overtly religious, others are witty, subtle and all of them make you want to sing. If you're in NY this month, check out the exhibit at Exit Art until November 22nd (Corita's 90th birthday).

If you want to know more, I highly recommend this fab book 'Come Alive! The spirited art of Sister Corita'.

Santa Monica Rex Ray

Just got sent this great display of Rex Ray artwork from the Jonathan Adler store in Santa Monica, CA. As well as fab ceramics they are now the only place you can buy Rex Ray artwork (that I know of). This is what I aspire to for the walls of my humble flat in North London. Sigh...

Planning a US shopping spree...

Despite the lagging strength of the pound, I've booked a trip to Chicago to see friends and of course take advantage of the fabulous US home and design shops! Since leaving NY I have really missed a few of my faves; West Elm and Crate & Barrel in particular. I have my eye on this cool mirrored side table from West Elm, but I might be restricted to what I can fit in my trusty suitcase. In which case, I'm making a beeline for this lovely candelabra from West Elm and this hurricane tea light from Crate & Barrel.

Christmas lust list part 1

'Tis the time to start seriously thinking about what you're going to buy all the difficult people on your list. Personally, I am feeling much less stressed by the thought of gift buying having discovered the best set of Christmas gift lists I've seen. This simple but very stylish nut-cracker will be perfect for a gourmand relative on my list, and they might just get the gorgeous spoon set below too. Except I want them both for my Christmas table too... At £20 each they look way more expensive than they really are, which is always the mark of a great gift.

Jingle jingle...

Ooh Christmas is on it's way and I am loving the stylish decorations out there... I might even be able to banish the tinsel to the cupboard this year. I love the idea of these slightly trad, slightly kitsch decorations hanging from my tree. I love love love this retro stocking.

I was going to just include a few more links to the Christmas gifts and decorations on mydeco.com's cool Christmas interactive magazine (oooh, just flipping through those virtual pages has put me in a festive mood!) but I got totally carried away with the fact that they've collected fabulous Xmas decorations by style! I have never seen this anywhere else before; you can buy a whole Christmas look to suit your taste whether it is retro decorations, romantic decorations, classic decorations or modern decorations.

So here are some of my fave decs that will be gracing my tree and table this year...

Classic Christmas bauble from Heals:


Romantic hand-painted baubles from Not On The High Street:
Modern white bauble from Heals:

Chicago's fabulous bean

Chicago is a great city. Two of my best friends live there.  But also because, they have the coolest public sculpture in Millennium Park I've seen in a long time.  'Cloudgate' is the official name of the reflective bean by Anish Kapoor. The way the city reflects in the curved surface is just beautiful.

Welcome to brinylon...

Blogging is intrinsically one person's ramblings, so I'm not going to pretend this will be anything other than a totally subjective lust list of all the things that I fall a little bit in love with. 

My big loves are art (contemporary, abstract) and design (mid-century modern and a little bit kitsch), so I hope you like some of the things I post here as much as I do.  I'm starting with my favourite artist, Rex Ray.  His collages never fail to make me happy - just look at those colours, I want to LICK them!

All photos are copyright Rex Ray. I particularly love his resin panels, but the paper collages are pretty damn fabulous too.