artnlight

I had gone to meet Madhumita Goswami a few months back with regard to retailing at Loose Ends and how glad was I that she called me home instead of meeting up at some Coffee place. Instanty I asked her if she would be open to me featuring her place here on artnlight & she was like- 'sure'. What immediately struck me about her home was the colour palette. Its not often that I see such mature and confident handling and mixing of subtle and rare colours. The living room has this quiet mauve-blue wall & the furniture is upholstered with bright warm yellow & there is a Madhumita's daughters little chair that provides a bright pop of pink. It takes someone who knows exactly what she is doing to bring these colours together.

Even before you enter you know this house is going to be different. Decoupaged name plate & a quaint little letterbox from the streets of London. Art printed on Canvas. I have great respect for anyone who has the confidence to throw these colours together.

Black and white editorial photography near the dining table lends it a lot of charachter. The family photos in a range of handpicked unique frames

Many continents in one shelf

The background may be a soft moss green, but it is played up with black and white family photographs & super bright & happy wall art.

I love how Madhu has treated this corridor. Moulding in a contrasting colour & a BIG graphic print from allposters.com makes sure that you notice this space.

Madhu's & her husband are voratious readers & they have a massive collection of books & dvds

Every corner has its own charachter whether it belongs to her daughter

or whether it speaks of her travels...

...or her love for cooking. If there is beauty in a bottle label, trust Madhumita to see it.

The very talented Kalyani Ganapathy of Kye is back with a charming, sweet and eyecandilicious collection & Monsoon Struck is what its called. I love her simple lines & the beautiful way these set of cushions are shot (by Shamshad khan).

I just *LOVE* this composition!

To have one of these sitting pretty in your home, just send an email to writetokye@gmail.com

Being entrusted with a treasure like the *Ordinary Sparkling Moments* and being book fairy for the 100 Book Project is a beautiful responsibility. After sitting on the book for a really long while, all the time debating if I should leave this amazing book in a store for someone to pick it or if I should carry it to Bhuj or if I should leave it in a friend’s house at a party; there was one face, rather there were these 2 faces that kept popping up in my mind. So for once instead of going by the book (and after crossing checking with Christine M.M.) I went with my gut & decided to give the book to these 2 amazing artists & creative power houses, Colette Austin & Yvonne Shekhawat. I have known Colette for many years now & everyone in advertising knows them for their iconic work that have built brands for over 2 decades. And for all this they are the sweetest and the most genuine & soft spoken people I have had the privilege of knowing. The bonus is that you will also get to see glimpses of their huge old world heritage meets uber chic office “Colette & Yvonne” which was the backdrop for this episode of the 100 book project.

The more I thought of it the more it seemed like the 'right fit'. 'Ordinary Sparkling Moments' is so much about the journey of an artist & living with everything the word 'artist' entails. The tag line reads "Reflections on Success and Contentment". Christine looks back and forward in this book through every page with much honesty, grace & courage. It seemed all the more appropriate that it be placed in an office that stands for that architechturally & in the decor sense. Colette & Yvonne have carefully & lovingly recreated a space that meshes the old with the new, while honouring all the beauty in the old. Christine Mason Miller's gift is finally placed!!

Yvonne’s cute daughter was also present in their office that day & they all oohed & aaahed over the book together :)

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but still the warmth and love with which they welcomed 'Ordinary Sparkling Moments' was so touching.

Brace yourself people, this is going to be a long post & it is a story of the wonders of blogging, the internet and my journey as an artist-blogger. Infact its going to be so long & I have decided to split it into a 2 part series. I have been a fan of Christine Mason Miller from the time I started blogging. She was one of the 1st artists I discovered through decor8 who blew my mind. (You can read my previous post on her here). Her work & her words were an important part of my artistic & personal journey. My friend & I had printouts of her work on our soft boards in office :) So imagine my happiness when I saw her on Facebook & asked politely to be connect, as I was such a huge admirer of her work. To my surprise she not added me but wrote to me saying she loves my work. That I was amazed and humbled is putting it mildly J there was no looking back from there. To cut a long story short, one of the most exciting results of this connection was that she made me a book fairy for *Ordinary Sparkling Moments* her book that has inspired me hugely & i was officially part of her brilliantly conceived and executed 100 Books Project. A Book Fairy typically places the book anywhere & waits for it to get picked by a random person, but in my next post you will see I didn’t really do it that way. In our correspondence, I had already requested her if I could buy a copy of her book Ordinary sparkling Moments & if she would autograph it for me. I will never forget the day her book arrived in my house. All wrapped up in pretty blue & brown paper & with my address written in her inimitable handwriting. It was one of the most moving moments from me as a blogger and as an artist to hold her book in my hands, go through the colourful, inspiring pages. And in more ways than one it was a milestone in my journey as an artist.

When I 1^st saw Christine’s work I was an advertising art director whose dreams of quitting and doing my own thing seemed very far away & not really practical. And this book was one of the things that inspired me to reach today. My next post will be about being a Book Fairy & the amazing recipients of the brilliant book Ordinary sparkling Moments.

My 2nd post for Vogue.in is about the Scandinavian Fashion Brand DAY and their Winter Autumn lifestyle collection. Here the colour of sophistication, grey is used as a beautiful backdrop .You see velvets, cottons & silhouettes used sharply to bring alive this Autumn Winter Collection, with touches of stately blues, ethnic gold, metal & mud colours. Immerse yourself in elegance.

"Also a color like ETHNIC GOLD looks like it's a classic! It 's a very bohemian very significant color, but works so well with almost all other colors. I have teamed it up with Earthly tones like RED METAL and MUD, and it suits them just fine." Marianne Brandi

"I still have a summer crush on color STATELY BLUE , and I think that the BLUE GREEN and PURPLE colors looked great along with it. This color palette is actually inspired by an antique Ottoman cushion that couldn't get out of my mind." Marianne Brandi

Coming up is fun news about an exciting book project & a book fairy :) Stay tuned!