Art & Sculpture

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Have you ever come across a person who simply inspires you? If you haven’t, you need to change the people you’re spending time and networking with. There are a few people who inspire me who can also serve as an inspiration to all of my readers. Jennifer Ramos of MadeByGirl is one of those people.

I believe that the things a person chooses to have around them, in their home and elsewhere, are a reflection of who that person is. Because we haven’t been living in our own space for quite some time now, my husband and I look around and don’t see very many reflections of ourselves in our surroundings. There are the photos on the wall — but not much else. We’re hoping that this move to a new state also means a new start, and I intend to put my stamp on our space as much as possible.

You know the “3 Rs” mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle. Well, if artist Dolan Geiman had his way, there would probably be a fourth R: rescue. Geiman salvages wood and found objects and puts them together to create beautiful, eclectic works of art. These constructions often feature animals, and the paint used to create them comes from the Chicago Paint Exchange Program, which helps give traditional, but unwanted, paint a home.

In other words, you won’t find these at your local TJ Maxx or IKEA.

When you work from home and work for yourself, it can be really easy to become uninspired and/or overwhelmed. There’s no face to face social interaction (although Twitter serves as a great virtual stand-in), and I’m always doing 10 things at once and feeling like I’m on the edge.

I know, I know…you’ve been seeing these posters everywhere. I have too, and I really want one — it is a concise reminder that no matter how overwhelmed I might feel, panicking won’t help matters. The message, originally intended as WWII propaganda, also has an eerie timeliness given the dire state our nation’s economy.

When I was a little girl, I always wished I could fly, or at least defy the forces of gravity for a little while. I would hang upside down, and even shimmy across a ledge that went around the back of my neighbor’s 2-story house. Stupid? Most definitely. I could’ve easily killed myself had I fallen, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. (I can say that about a lot of things in childhood).

I like coconuts. Seriously. When you grow up in the Caribbean, they become familiar and attractive, not to mention a delicious source of coconut jelly and water. I actually like their fuzzy shells and the way they look inside when you split them open. But as home decor?  Never quite imagined them that way — probably because I never imagined they could look so good.

Every time I’m having a bout of writers’ block or feeling at all uninspired, all it takes it one visit to Etsy.com to turn me around. During my last visit, on a day when I was feeling particularly “blah”, I discovered Jalex Studios, and boy did it put a smile on my face!

Jalex Studios recycled everyday objects into truly inspired pieces of home decor, from gorgeous lamps and vases to large-scale art pieces made of recycled doors. The Jenga-like Modern Lamp, shown above at left, is made of a combination of recycled wooden window brackets with reclaimed Bruce wood flooring for the inserts. The Eco-Smooth vase at right, also made of recycled and reclaimed materials, has a super-contemporary Asian flair that would be the perfect home for a group of bamboo shoots.

I’ve never really thought of a mobile as being decorative. My daughter’s mobile definitely kept her amused when she was an infant. But, I couldn’t imagine hanging “Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, too” in my living room. That is, of course, because I had a very limited view of what a mobile is.

By definition, according to Dictionary.com, a mobile is “a piece of sculpture having delicately balanced units constructed of rods and sheets of metal or other material suspended in midair by wire or twine so that the individual parts can move independently, as when stirred by a breeze.”