Nomadic Decorator

My husband brought a piece of carved wood to Chicago from the Chennai store where he found our apartment’s front door. It’s carved with a lotus shape and has faint traces of deep pink paint on it. I plan to add a black stand to it, like the pieces below. There’s something about this that emphasizes a piece, gives it extra posture. It’s like adding jewelry to an outfit. Or, great shoes … Here’s inspiration from various websites:

18th century wood horse on stand at 1stdibs.com

Wood horse on stand at Gump’s.

But wood horse heads aren’t the only things to put on stands, oh no, not by a long shot. You can do this with many things:

I really don’t want to say what these are because they’re part of a real animal. But they’re antique so the animal is long gone. I wish they were clay sculptures instead. Shown at Andrianna Shamaris website.

An ox cart wheel on a stand at Wisteria.com.

A more rustic wheel on a stand from Urban Home.

Temple sculpture at Gump’s

Stone carving from John Robshaw

Toraja panels at Andrianna Shamaris

Tribal necklaces at Andrianna Shamaris (I am really liking the style at that site)

Appears to be carved wood element, from alhambraantiques.com

Natural root sculpture, from alhambraantiques.com

Teak sphere on stand from www.weylandts.co.za

Butter churner from CB2.com

Notice the commonalities across all: natural materials, natural colors, organic shapes.

We have some decorative elements on stands around our home, but someone stole our camera and iPhone pics don’t do justice. We’ll likely get a new camera during holiday sales next weekend and I’ll post our pieces here later.

Many of  these are Moroccan inspired, delivering sparkly shapes in the shadows. At least one lantern such as these will be hanging in our Chennai apartment when it’s ready for accessories and atmosphere. I haven’t been good about tracking where these are from; I’ve been keeping these images in a lantern inspiration folder:

Now that’s nice. But let’s ramp up the dancing shadow effect a bit more:

More, more, more! Let’s see even more shadows:

Here are a variety of lanterns that could create this effect:

From Viva Terra catalog.

From Williams Sonoma Home catalog.

I don’t know where these are from. They would be perfect on the garden terraces!

From Pottery Barn.

Handmade Nicaraguan lanterns from nicanelly.com.

It’s certain that somewhere in the place, I will be hanging a set of three lanterns, so we can spend evenings under stars dancing on the ceilings, walls and floors!

In my post about Restful Bedrooms, I shared photos of sheets and blankets with subdued, soothing block print patterns. The designs mix very large prints with tiny prints:

Border prints are also used near top edges of blankets and sheets:

Whenever we’re ready to move beds into the apartment, I intend to design and print my own bedding to attempt this look. I love the contrast of large and small prints with ample white space between. And, I love hands-on design projects!

So I’ll be on a mission to collect the following wooden blocks for printing:

• Enormous paisley
• Tiny evenly-spaced print
• Border floral with open airy feel
• Medium-size florals

You can find a variety of wood blocks of all designs online: new blocks, vintage or antique blocks, and even custom blocks made just for you. Here are paisley wooden blocks, custom made by Colouricious:

I may need to go the bespoke route for paisley blocks large enough for an enormous print, if I don’t find affordable and quality ones online.

Here’s the kind of block that would make small evenly-spaced prints:

Here are border blocks for sale on etsy.com in by seller textileblocks:

You could combine several border prints to make a bigger border.

Other blogs have shared stories about block printing that have inspired me:

• Once Upon A Tea Time shares some history of block printing, and photographed pieces from her collection in dreamy photos that can send you to a fantasyland of gorgeous printed fabrics.
• Artnlight shares stories of block printing in Bhuj, along with the most luscious photos of wooden blocks. Yes, this blog’s photography makes wooden blocks look luscious!
• Ro Bruhn shows an energizing mix of layered colors and stamps, including a demo of block printing on artwork.
• Blau Druck shows indigo textile printing with 300-year-old wood blocks. This person has collected about 460 wood blocks. I’m so envious of the creativity and inspiration that must be in one place to use! Thus far I have only one. To be shown in a future post.