... Up Where the Air is Clear

So today I casually brought up the idea of planning a treehouse for next year at my parents new property. I have always wanted to build a tree folly and I believe every child should grow up with one but until now we simply did not have a place to put one. While my boys would most likely be happy with a ladder and a platform (and a coat of turquoise paint as my six year old is intent on adding as much colour to the world as possible...) I have always come at a project with the "go big or go home" mentality.


A few years ago I became obsessed with the Duchess of Northumberland's tree castle at the Alnwick Gardens. The project was a collaboration with the Prince of Whales to create what was to become the largest public gardens in Europe and the creativity and talent that went into them is nothing less than astounding. I followed their progress until the website changed over to basic tourist information. Many of the photos were unfortunately removed, but if you are ever able to put this on the itinerary for an excursion, I believe it would be more than worthwhile!




Not so long ago, the spherical treehouses from Free Spirit Spheres that originated on Saltspring Island (a place I once lived) made the rounds on sites such as Inhabitat and other design oriented blogs.

These are funky... still not my style though.

But these! Now this is something I could spend a great deal of time in... hell, this is something I could throw a great deal of martini socials in! I'm sold. They are prefabricated in Germany and I may have to sell a kidney just to cover the shipping, but there are some things in life that you just have to sacrifice for...

Baumraum has created dwellings that sit amongst the treetops in countries all over Europe and as far as the U.S. and Brazil. Just a trip through the galleries on their site has me dreaming of what fantastic things can be done thinking outside, and in this case, waaaaaay above, the box.

What do you suppose the chances of hoisting a retrofitted Airstream into a tree are? Fabulous, me thinks.

...and the Livin' Is Easy

I have been twisting my brain into a pretzel trying to figure out what to blog about for the last little while because I have barely been around a computer and can't seem to find a thread of commonality amongst what I have running about my noggin. It just now occurs to me (my lovely friend just pointed out on the phone) that perhaps it would just be best to put a few things out there and 'empty the folder' so to speak. If this is a lifestyle blog, then perhaps a peek into how life is lived around these parts would be appropriate.

This is my summer so far.

So to begin with, my parents bought a beautiful piece of property way back in spring that backs right onto the river and although that means a healthy dose of mosquitos, it also means spending many many weekends coming out to sit about barefoot eating watermelon. Life could definitely be worse.

This is the boys' new playhouse...

The backyard

Early in June my sister and I made the nine plus hour treck to Vancouver, which is where we both grew up. She bought a new car and phoned one day to say that she wanted to drive it so she was taking my boys and I down to play tourist. If there were a way for me to describe how much of a stretch it is to imagine my sister stuck in a vehicle with a two and a six year old for over nine hours... well, let's just say I am impressed that we ALL made it home together. Eventually.

... looking for creatures

We took Rowan to the Vancouver Aquarium as we happened to be there on his sixth birthday (and it just so happened that that day is now the birthday of a certain beluga whale who was birthed while we were in attendance). We did the Stanley Park thing and snapped this pic from across the water of Vancouver's new LEED convention center with it's green living roof. In fact, we noticed that Vancouver is showing a much greener side these days, even moreso than when we lived there a decade ago. Even the info booth at the park is sporting a wildflower roof. Perhaps a bit of a facelift for the coming Olympics?

This year we made it to the Strawberry Festival at the Ashram. This amazing property is only open to the public for this one day of the year and I have always wanted to go. The building itself is built entirely for acoustics and it really is the most amazing experience to be inside. Every single whisper or footstep becomes a statement and being that it is meant to be a place of silence most of the time, it is very profound to be inside. Profound is not the word I would use to describe entering the Ashram with a two and a six year old... "enlightening" may be in there someplace however. We spent the day walking the grounds and heard people saying "even the rocks on the beach are beautiful!... do you think they were imported?" So funny.






The Factory had the Grand Opening of their new store and celebrated their second annual Day to Night Fashion Show and I did take my camera to take photos of the behind the scenes hooplah, but was too busy to actually shoot anything. These photos are random shots from others who attended...




... and in true Nelson fashion (no pun intended) there were many painted bodies in attendence...

My lovely friend Kelly's artshow...

A few more bits and pieces here and there...

and then some more relaxation in the great outdoors. It's been rough folks...

The End.

Steel Butterfly

I am SO excited about this. In my circle of "always ready with a hairbrained, newfangled, tree hugging idea" kind of friends, the discussion of alternative housing and building comes up often. Being in the Kootenays, the Land of the Intentional Community, there are actual examples of eco housing all over the place if you know where to look for them. What we don't understand, is why the concept is still labeled "alternative" and not looked to as the emerging norm.

Enter Maison Idekit Home out of Quebec. (For those of you not geographically adept, that is the large french part of Canada that sits right in the middle. Home to Montreal, which even Vogue recognizes as not being limited to igloos... unless of course you count the Ice Hotel, which is at least the most fabulous igloo going... for those who are into that sort of thing.) Maison Idekit's founders Bernard Morin and Joyce Labelle have finished construction on their dream home, which is also their business prototype, using seven reclaimed shipping containers. The massive steel boxes are the type used by freighters to carry shipments overseas and are generally reused to some extent. Eventually though, they end up in a sort of giant box graveyard that hopes to at least see the steel recycled, but with wood losing its reputation of being the worlds most renewable resource and the strength of steel being greater, using these containers for much needed affordable housing makes sense.

Brilliant idea, not to mention green, but the emphasis here is on affordable. The cost of the Idekit home using traditional building meathods, would reportedly be $400,000. Apparently, the actual cost using the second of the Three Rs was for $175,000. That is a HUGE difference and other countries (of course) have already put this idea into production. A company who calls itself, appropriately, Container City in London in the UK already is in full swing with a number of buildings that also boast clean wind turbine energy for their live/work studios.

For use as student housing in Holland the containers make quite a statement as the Keetwonen complex.

Hurricane victims in the US, as well as a few here and there one offs, may be the start of a movement on this side of the ocean, and companies such as DeMaria Design Associates are turning prefab into preFAB. (Ugh, I hate it when I do that. Sometimes it cannot be helped.)

The DeMaria website uses one of my favorite Bucky Fuller quotes,

"There is nothing in a caterpillar tells you it is going to be a butterfly."

So true.

Now You See It...

I have run into an issue with my studio and my EPIC party has been put on hold. I am fine with this because I have a million and one things to be getting done and thinking about pink pastries should not be topping the list. It will be a couple more weeks.


In the meantime, whilst diligently doing my eco research, I have run across this GORGEOUS artwork by Nicole Dextras. I ran across her visuals in a completely unrelated search on sustainable fabric dying and lo and behold, she turns out to be a graduate from our local art college, Kootenay School of the Arts! I come from Vancouver BC originally and am accustomed to high standards in most creative fields, (the west coast is pretty much saturated with stunning scenery and high profile artists flock like so many pigeons...) but can honestly say that the work that comes out of that school is really a cut above. Anyway, her open-to-the-public studio is on Granville Island which automatically gives her credence and as you can see in these photos, she is worth taking a look at so I plan to visit the next time I am in Van!


Nicole's work is ephemeral art, which means that it is by nature (no pun intended) made to be impermanent. The work is created, photographed and left to do it's thing. I am so taken by how such a simple idea can create such a lovely image, but then, simple is usually the most beautiful.

In her Iceworks collection, the folds of fabric and garments frozen in place or in blocks of ice create a stunning texture and "movement" and play of light.

That said, the detail in her Summer Weedrobe's layering of leaves, bark, flowers and twigs create a depth that leaves (oh, another one!) you with a glorious fairytale feeling.

So lovely!

You can see more and I believe purchase prints from her website here. I hope you like!

Let Them Eat Cake!

I figured this was fitting... I am less interested in the political stance around Marie Antoinette than the above statement. It seems just perfect for an over-indulgent, opulent and many pastried social event. I suppose my new credo is when in doubt, guild it!

I have a friend who carries the badge of "foodie" like a God given proclamation, and she has taken it upon herself to appoint each lovely piece of my pink depression glass collection with its very own special stack of pastries. Most of them I cannot pronounce, but I have complete and total faith. It is amazing to what extent one can carry a colour scheme. Lavender macaroons, who would have thought?

My wig arrived today and I think that once I figure out how to affix my three feet of hair beneath it, it will be fabulous! I dunno about the corsets of the time, a bit ruffly for me, but the fabrics are gorgeous and it always comes down to a stunning swath of silk for me. I am so excited...

I am having to wait out the structural renos to my space before I can paint, but there are some very intense painting days ahead my friends. I have a surrealist painter and a serious costume lover on my team and we shall create a space not for the faint of heart, I promise! (Think Holly Dyment.)

Oh, just for the record, Marie-Antoinette should be forgiven for the cake statement, as it wasn't her. Not only that, but at the time, it seems, it was an entirely correct political statement to make. Just sayin'...

Well, I s'pose it would go without saying that I am an eco girl at heart... and being an eco girl who makes things out of stuff, I try very hard to make that stuff sustainable. I have been reading an interesting article in my search for organic silk threads, and I thought I would pass a bit of it on to you. I have long known that silks are, while obviously a natural fibre, not very ethical in terms of production. Many many poor little worker silk worms meet their demise when in the employ of silk manufacturers. I did not, however know that the original silk worm (who just happens to go by the uber cool name of Bombix Mori) has been so domesticated that they are actually unable to live without the aid of their human masters. Very interesting...

“With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown” – Ancient Chinese Proverb. The finest, most desirable silk comes from the mulberry silkworm, which is actually a caterpillar and not a worm. Known as the Bombyx mori by entomologists, the mulberry silk worm is a fascinating but tragic bundle of insect life. Raised by professional keepers in China on trays of mulberry leaves a thousand years before the Roman Empire when wild tribes were roaming Europe living in stick and mud huts, the mulberry silkworm has been totally domesticated and can not live without humans for their care and feeding. There are no wild silkworms or Bombyx mori moths that roam and feed in the wild.


Across several thousand years of captive breeding, the Bombyx mori evolved into a blind moth that cannot fly and lives only a few days during which it lays about 500 eggs and then dies within four or five days. The silkworm moth has even lost the ability to eat because of undeveloped structures within their mouth. "

The rest of the article can be read here. It is a good thing to realize just what goes into these things that we take for granted. There is a reason that things were once considered for the use of royalty only. Not that I am supporting that concept at all, but it is an interesting place we have come to where we now have access to so much that some things just don't even seem special anymore.

Anyway, on the note of extravagance, I am very near to my super stellar birthday bash which seems to have taken on a Marie Antoinette theme. I am bringing "Let them eat cake!" to a whole new level. I am renovating my studio and have decided on a rather parisian confectionary look to the entire thing. Much flocked wallpaper and girlie colours. You may as well enjoy where you work! I live in a very tiny one bedroom apartment with two boys and simply cannot do it in my closet, so I rent a studio across the street (I live downtown) and am now very excited! Photos to come...