Joseph Marini opens his book Mastering the Art of Entertaining with this declaration: “I have always had an innate love for cooking, from home economics in middle…
View More Masterful EntertainingCategory: Interior Design
Though you may think the category interior design doesn’t belong on a blog featuring creative writing, I beg to differ. What would a film be without a movie set?
I challenge you to find a story that doesn’t need a setting! I feel fortunate to be immersed in the interior design industry because my exposure to beautiful interiors gives me a backdrop in which to place the characters I enjoy writing about. In A Room with a View x 2, it was E.M. Forster’s novel hinted at in the title of the post, his characters Lucy Honeychurch and George Emerson the inspiration for Justin Shaulis’ bathroom vignettes he designed for the American Standard DXV Design Panel in 2015. When I saw the beautiful settings, I knew they would make a perfect pairing of design and literature for my diary.
In my escapade Reading Dante in Milan, I place Percy Bysshe Shelley in a sunny spot on a banquette a new restaurant in Milan, Le Vrai designed by Karine Lewkowicz, for a leisurely lunch and an afternoon of reading Dante! I think the famous poet would have enjoyed the heck out of the experience!
I had very little work to do to decide who would be the perfect historical figure to fit within Garrow Kedigian’s space in the 2016 Kips Bay Decorator Show House because he had chosen for me. His Napoléon’s Lounge was a stunning room with chalk tromp l’oeil architectural elements that knocked me out. I presented the new General of the French army and his soon-to-be wife Josephine through Evangeline Bruce’s Napoléon & Joséphine: An Improbable Marriage.
French Chateau Style
Catherine Scotto’s journey to discover the owners of French châteaux listed as heritage sites in locales throughout the country can be described as nothing less…
View More French Chateau StylePresidential Residences in France
Anyone who follows me here knows that an addiction to large, gorgeous coffee table books is alive and well, and I have a new favorite…
View More Presidential Residences in FranceLeigh Hunt Avid Decorator
This essay about the decorating exploits of Leigh Hunt is included in my most recent book The Modern Salonnière. The 34 other essays in the…
View More Leigh Hunt Avid DecoratorThe Fabric of Design
In their introduction to The Decoration of Houses, Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman, Jr., write, “In the middle ages, when warfare and brigandage shaped the…
View More The Fabric of DesignThe Sensuous Delight of Place
Like Katherine Mansfield’s enigmatic stories, the book Place by Tara Bernerd feels like “a thread with a subtly woven texture embracing ecstatic feeling, sensuous delight.” The…
View More The Sensuous Delight of PlaceTransitory Spaces
The beginning of one of Napoléon Bonaparte’s earliest letters to Joséphine de Beauharnais simply oozes sensuality: “Seven in the morning. I awaken full of you…the…
View More Transitory SpacesRewriting the Myth of Pandora
I’ve always been fascinated by the myth of Pandora because the most widely accepted explanation of this parable—that feminine curiosity “is responsible for all the…
View More Rewriting the Myth of PandoraReading Dante in Milan
“I’d like that sunny table near the windows under the beautiful mirror,” he says to the hostess at Le Vrai, pointing to the niche set…
View More Reading Dante in MilanThrough the Looking Glass into Devon
Through the Looking Glass Into Devon “‘What is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversations?’” “What is the use of a…
View More Through the Looking Glass into Devon