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 hotel,” thought Timothy Oulton, “without whimsy and curiosities?” With Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as his inspiration, the designer set out to transform the interiors of the Glazebrook House Hotel into…Continue reading Through the Looking Glass into Devon
Category: Literature
I cover a broad sweep of literature here on The Diary of an Improvateur. I return to the writings of my literary heroes time and again, and they never disappoint.
I don’t stop at the obvious—the novels of Henry James and Edith Wharton for instance. They were both avid travel writers and I enjoy their musings on their wanderings just as much as their fiction. In my diary entry The Red Carpet Treatment, I sit in The National Arts Club, where I stay when I travel to New York City on business, and channel Wharton’s era given the interiors reflect Old New York sensibilities. In fact, a scene from The Age of Innocence was filmed at NAC. Every time I walk up the steps to the bar, I think of Daniel Day Lewis, who ascended the same stairs!
If you haven’t read Jane Austen’s novels, you might think that set decorators are able to draw the décor surrounding the actors in films based upon her books but it’s far from true. Austen rarely “set the scene” in her fiction, concentrating instead of the dialogue that would bring the relationships in her books to life. I explore the novel and the film Emma to present examples, offering a number of suggestions from Might & Magnificence: Silver in the Georgian Age, a sale at The London Silver Vaults for items that would have decorated her table.
I also take a train with Edna St Vincent Millay, leaving New York City to Croton-on-Hudson where she would summer with her friends. I channel her poem, “There Isn’t a Train I Wouldn’t Take” as I trundle along the hem of the Hudson River and visit the library to read her collected letters in a town that would be an important one in her life—it’s where she met her husband Eugen. If you didn’t know Vincent van Gogh was an avid reader, you might want to read his letters to his brother Theo. The scope of his reading was awe-inspiring so to press upon my readers just how vast the subjects he covered was, I put together a summer reading list that sprung right from his missives. In Vincent van Gogh was an avid reader, another entry featuring the painter, I shared a poem I wrote to highlight the publication of my first book of poetry Anywhere But Here.
God’s Articulate Finger
Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel In this last entry of the year, I wanted to share a piece of my own creative writing to say ciao to 2015. I’ve chosen “Art:History” from Anywhere But Here, my first book of poetry published this year by Sharktooth Press. I was inspired to write the poem after studying…Continue reading God’s Articulate Finger
Dining with History
A month from Sunday, I’ll be winging my way to Paris to attend Maison & Objet, and I’m thrilled to say I’ve been invited to Limoges to visit the Bernardaud factory while I’m in France. This invitation from the porcelain manufacturer means so much to me because I will be able to see, in person,…Continue reading Dining with History
The Red Carpet Treatment
There is a momentum to writing that, once interrupted, is challenging to reboot. I’ve experienced this first-hand during the past two months as I have made some significant life changes, the most chaotic being a relocation of sorts. I’m no longer a full-time New Yorker, as I will now be splitting my time between New…Continue reading The Red Carpet Treatment
An Unsung Hero of Modern Design
Resurrecting pivotal eras in design is irresistible to vanguards who understand that sometimes the best place to begin looking into the future is to take a glance back in time. The resurgence of the mid-century aesthetic, which defined the quietly sexy fifties and less subdued sixties, is proof that if vision and quality existed there…Continue reading An Unsung Hero of Modern Design
Timothy Oulton Design Adventurer
“As the momentous words ‘England is now, therefore, in a state of war with Germany’ came somberly over the radio, Major James Bigglesworth, D.S.O., better known as Biggles, switched off the instrument and turned to face his friends, Captain the Honourable Algernon Lacey, M.C., and ‘Ginger’ Hebblethwaite. There was a peculiar smile on his face.”…Continue reading Timothy Oulton Design Adventurer
We’ll Never Be Royals
Nest Nest Nest features the Alliage pattern.As I write this, I can feel the design energy draining from the Americas as the movers-and-shakers in our industry trek across the Atlantic to Paris for Maison & Objet. During the last iteration of the French fair, I followed the savvy coverage by Tamara Matthews Stephenson, and was…Continue reading We’ll Never Be Royals
A Room with a View x 2
When I saw the expressive twin spaces Justin Shaulis created as one of American Standard’s 2015 DXV Design Panel participants, I knew I had to feature him for two reasons: the sensual storytelling he achieved within the spaces he designed and the novel he chose as his inspiration, A Room with a View by E.M. Forster,…Continue reading A Room with a View x 2
Judith Paul’s Cover Story
Before I made a definitive decision to carve out as close to a writer’s existence as I could, I exhibited as a stained glassed artist in my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. I was a member of a gallery and active in AVA, the Association for Visual Arts. Just before I moved to New York City,…Continue reading Judith Paul’s Cover Story
Horace Walpole Shops The Decorative Fair
The books I’ve been reading about Horace Walpole since I returned from my trip to London to attend The Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair in late April proves there was more than a smidge of tragicomedy in the eighteenth-century writer. Not entirely comfortably, I’m also finding that I have more in common with the popular…Continue reading Horace Walpole Shops The Decorative Fair