in the mood for design...

today i'm guest posting over at garrendenny lane for lorna...

please stop by and see what i have to say...

bank on it...

this is a bank...

not a hotel lobby...

not a designer brand section of macy's or brown thomas...

not a vip section in la or miami's coolest nightclub...

not a members only dining lounge in any of the world's top members only clubs...

not a beautiful terrace with breathtaking views on the costa del whatsit...

not the most elegant yet phunky staircase in some uber chic hotel that every bride want her picture taken on...

not a wall street boardroom...

not the finest looking indoor vertical landscape installation for lenny kravitz...

nope - none of the above...

it the first ever bank concept store for bnp paribas, in paris...created by paris based architeect fabrice (well clearly he's not called chad bradley michaels the 3rd or pat joe mc atarsnick...) ausset of zoevox...

images courtesy of the cool hunter...

something contemporary about it...

brocante...not exactly sure what it means...

i've an inkling its french for "flea" or fleamarket...i'm only sad i never had an opportunity to go visit the brocante furniture market when i was in dublin....

anyhow...you can find out more by clicking here...

so what caught my eye today was something i saw on "something about mary's" facebook page...what's "something about mary" you may wonder too...

"Something About Mary - a collection of images related to Mary - pictures, prints, collages, statues, retablos. Images and Pieces from all around the world."

"Something About Mary began when Shane MacGowan gave us his Madonna drawing, 'Madonna and the Archangel' and grew, is still growing, from there. Please enjoy. All proceeds to Three People - a family poisoned by pesticides."

quotes robbed from "something about mary's facebook page"...

so this is what i saw...

herself and a naggin of jim beam...what's not to love about it...

"tray mary" by "think contemporary" who i've mentioned before on here...more from "think contemporary" later this week...

love grows in all sorts of places...

and if you take your loved for a stroll on garrendenny lane...you might just find it there...

happy valentines day readers...

release...

i've always hidden a geeky bird loving ornathologistical element to my inner self...

but then i moved to arkansas and i just couldn't contain it...hawks, falcons, eagles, turkey vultures, blue birds, cardinals, woodpeckers, hummingbirds...the list goes on...

oh it was all too much...so i embraced the love for all things feathered and winged...and i'm now even the proud owner of a pair of binoculars thanks to mc father-in-law...

i always remember as a child my father talking about corncrakes and curlews and such birds...

when i would go to the gaeltacht in donegal my parents would come to visit on a weekend and they'd be fascinated by the sounds of the birds in the evening because those sounds were almost a rarity back in armagh...

then i received an email form the irish design shop and i decided to share the love...

corncrake print by yellowhammer available at the irish design shop...

here are a few more images from yellow hammer...love the simplicity and caricature displayed in the graphics...

i love all of the above prints...i don't know that i've ever seen a kingfisher myself, but i always remember hearing the loud chuckles of a pheasant (how would you describe the sound a pheasant makes) and then watching it fly low above the ground, disturbed from whatever it was doing by something or other...and in the summer when we'd be making hay the swallows always seem to gather in the telephone wires above the fields...the swallows against the yellow backdrop is the perfect choice for this print...

but my favourite print...is the kestrel print and here's why...

i have some weird fascination with eagles and kestrels and falcons and the likes...and i hope to go to one of those places where i get to put on the big heavy glove and have a massive big bird of prey come land on my arm, and i'll get to give it a piece of meat or a mouse or something and then...this is my favourite part...i'll hold out my arm, and raise it up to the sky and i'll say "release" and the bird will spread its wings and take off in flight from me...

release...please check out the irish design shop for more fantastic prints...

lodged...

thinking about notions of rustic with a hint of southern charm and maybe a wee hint of a french accent...

what say ye...???

big...bigger...biggest...

snowpocolypse...snow week 2011...snowmania...whatever you want to call it it's here and it's kinda bad...

it's hard to imagine that last saturday mc wife and i sat on the front porch with a few beers, some homemade salsa and chips and caught up with my ones on skype for the best part of the afternoon...

and then 2 days later the temperatures plummeted and it started to freeze ands now...

anyways...so i guess the snow on our roof has started to thaw a bit, but by the time it reaches the eaves it started to form an icicle...so this morning when i first got up they were big, and so i thought i'd take a picture...

and then by lunch time they were bigger...and i took another picture....

and by tea-time they were biggest and i took another picture...

i'm just fascinated because i always remember my daddy talking about how when he was a child the icicles were over a foot long and they'd hang way down off the eaves of grannies house and i always wanted to see those...

and here they are hanging off the eaves of our house in villetown...

loving it...

clean...cool...modern...sophisticated...

...suzy hoodless