Hank Darlington rode from Fishkill to Suffern, NY, on this day of his four-week ride-a-thon.

If there's ever been a "Roaming by Design" post, this is it! Hank Darlington, one of the founders of the Decorative Plumbing Hardware Association, is bicycling from Maine to Florida for a good cause, the goal of raising $20,000 for scholarships being helped along by the sponsorship of Mr. Steam. The 76-year-young athlete will be averaging 70 miles a day for four weeks to benefit the DPHA Scholarship fund, which awards two $3,000 scholarships each year to deserving students working at or children of any individual working at a DPHA-member business.

Alexandra and Kymberly of Fun and Fit fame have conducted an audio interview posted here which not only illustrates Darlington's commitment to the cause but brings his jovial nature to the airwaves (of course with Alexandra behind the opposite microphone, would wouldn't be chuckling non-stop)!

Darlington claims moist heat, as in this Steamtherapy shower, is the best treatment for a day's worth of riding strain.

To follow his progress, visit Hank's blog, Cross Country Rider. You can donate to the cause at DPHA Scholarship Donations, and visit the sponsor, Mr. Steam, to see why Darlington is hoping to find one of their Steamtherapy showers or baths at the end of the road each day (and don't we get that)! To catch up with Alexandra and Kimberly at Fun and Fit for some serious fitness and lighthearted amusement, click here. 

"To see our country from a bicycle seat is just incredible!" remarks Darlington, who logged 76 miles yesterday, noting in his latest blog post that he had made it to Virginia Beach, Virginia. Now that's some adroyt riding! 

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Sign of the changing times! © adroyt original

Why have just one serving when you can have as many as you’d like? Here’s another scoop of the US Department of Energy’s 2011 Solar Decathlon, which is running from Sept. 23rd through Oct. 2nd in Washington, DC. Adroyt had the pleasure of joining Miele USA and their publicist White Good & Company on a press junket (see our pre-event post on adroyt here), along with several other guests in the design and journalism fields, on a tour of their sponsored entry: the University of Maryland’s WaterShed house.

Skyler Stevenson knows his way around a Miele kitchen! © adroyt original

The house is a built metaphor for the path of a water droplet as it cycles from the clouds to earth, incorporated into a sustainably designed residence. The U of M team drew their inspiration from their native Chesapeake Bay aquatic ecostystem, the name of the structure an overt tribute to the integration of human and natural systems. A blend of simplicity, modernity, and vernacular tradition, the house is elegant proof that there are ways to live with the earth and not just upon it.

The sleek Miele induction cooktop. © adroyt original

Miele’s long-standing commitment to conservation, efficiency, and innovation was a perfect partner to the project’s goals: they contributed several of their top-of-the-line appliances to the sleekly designed living space, integrated seamlessly into the clean modern aesthetic. The reward of forethought and conscious evaluation was amply evident as we absorbed the results of the nearly two-year-long design and construction process. Nineteen other teams had their unique concepts on display on the park lawn, across from the Jefferson Memorial; their presence was a resounding affirmation that American ideals and leadership were still very much in evidence. 

The Lincoln Memorial © adroyt original

We’d like to offer our thanks to our hosts, Miele, White Good, the DOE, and the U of M team for a very enlightening (and encouraging) day in the nation’s capital, beside the Potomac. Lunch afterward at Founding Farmers (gotta love that name) was the icing on the cake, and our fasttrack to and from D.C had us hurtling back to the future in just over twelve hours!

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Toma Clark Haines definitely knows la dolce vita!

We’re speaking Italian on this Travel Tuesday with some exciting news. Our ONLY choice for European lifestyle tours, The Antiques Diva, is expanding to, you guessed it, Italia; and Toma is already working her magic on the romantic language by saying, “Buongiorno Baby” to anyone wanting to come along for the Tuscan ride!

Word up, Diva fans; this is Toma’s sixth country, and the list of destinations for gallivanting is impressive: France, England, Belgium, Holland, Germany and, now, Italy. Where’s my passport? 

P.S. We understand there is a spot of royalty in The Antiques Diva’s future. Check in at adroyt in the next week or so and we’ll fill you in!

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Lisa S. Roberts at the Cooper Hewitt event

The Cooper Hewitt was buzzing on August 16th when Lisa S. Roberts' show "My Design Life" was screened for an elite audience of design devotees. The docuseries premieres tonight with two back-to-back episodes on the Ovation network at 8:00 pm ET. The show, which will consist of ten thirty-minute episodes airing on consecutive Wednesdays at 8:00 and 8:30 pm ET/PT, follows Roberts and her team as they visit museum exhibitions, trade shows, retail stores and designers’ studios in order to gather ideas and inspiration for her upcoming book DesignPOP: Popular Trends in Contemporary Product Design. The new book explores the trends taking place in contemporary design throughout the past 30 years.

Highlights from the show include visits to the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the design studios of Harry Allen and Tony Wurman; retail stores such as Design Within Reach and Moss; and restaurants, including David Rockwell’s Pod and Christine Liaigre’s Buddakan. Viewers will learn about the history behind the featured designs, as well as back stories of the designers and manufacturers who created them. The aim of Roberts and her team is to educate their audience about the importance of contemporary design while adding an air of whimsy and accessibility at the same time. 

Lisa Roberts began her career as an architect. After six years, she left the field to pursue her professional interests in product and graphic design. Most recently, she has designed products for museum stores, such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum, among others. In the early 1980’s Roberts began collecting contemporary product design objects, which she calls “Antiques of the Future.” In 2006, Roberts published a book by the same title and, since that time, has traveled throughout the country speaking on the subject of design. She has been featured on HGTV, The Today Show, and the Early Show, and Antiques of the Future was reviewed in Time, USA Today, Parade, Dwell, and local publications. In addition, Roberts serves on the executive committee and as a trustee of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, and as a trustee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA), where she is a longstanding member of the museum’s contemporary design group, Collab.  

Tune in design fans for a vivid romp through the contemporary design world; you'll love the full-on, behind-the-sceens access!

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The Stein Salons courtesy of SFMOMA

If you are a frequenter of Roaming by Design, you may have noticed I haven’t been posting as much lately as I have in the past. That’s because I’m putting all of my efforts behind my new social media consultancy, adroyt, and its blog. We’re delving deeper into subjects relating to SoMe and hoping to encourage some great exchanges through our new initiative, the adroyt salon. Inspired by the fervor with which Gertrude and Leo Stein discussed and dissected the subjects they surveyed with A-list visionaries in Paris, we will be posting new questions each Thursday, which we hope will be bandied about at length during the following seven days.

Our first salon post speaks to Gertrude Stein’s influence in my life, and in case you’re not familiar with her, one of the interesting things about the author is that she thought of her writing as a literary form of cubism. A peek into her book Tender Buttons is proof that she was working toward a unique melodic quality that had never been accomplished before: “A closet, a closet does not connect under the bed. The band if it is white and black, the band has a green string. A sight a whole sight and a little groan grinding makes a trimming such a sweet singing trimming and a red thing not a round thing but a white thing, a red thing and a white thing.” 

The sound is not extant but this is a home movie of the living, breathing legend (it's worth sticking around for the great smile at the end)!

Another book Stein penned is The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. In it she described the Saturday evenings on the rue de Fleurus as “a kaleidoscope slowly turning” (writing as Toklas, of course). These salons hosted two of cubism’s founders—Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris. About them Stein wrote, “…cubism is a purely spanish [sic] conception and only spaniards can be cubists…Americans…are like spaniards, they are abstract and cruel. They are not brutal they are cruel…” 

It’s interesting to me that she took the stance that Americans express cruelty because the Spaniards are known for one of the world’s most barbaric sports, bullfighting. “I always remember Picasso saying disgustedly apropos of some germans who said they liked bull-fights, they would, he said angrily, they like bloodshed. To a spaniard it is not bloodshed, it is ritual.” We hope one of your new Thursday rituals will be to join us on adroyt where we will discuss myriad topics and maybe even kick up a skirmish or two!

To follow along with the salon discussions, here are links to the adroyt salon posts, from the first to the most recent:

It's the Adroyt Salon: Belly Up to the Bar!

Original Thinking

The Social Media Megaphone

Exploring the Salon as a Social Conversation

Approaching a Big City and Our Social Media Selves

I Wish I'd Thought of That! (Our Social Media Salon)

The Adroyt Salon: Take 7

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If you're in San Antonio, Texas, tonight, you're a lucky duck because the McNay Art Museum is hosting "A Mad Men Night" with George Nelson. The architect, writer, designer and educator is going to revisit the heyday of American Modernism. Who better to do so than someone who had a tremendous impact on it (the images floating through the kicky video are his designs, munchkins; and who will ever forget their first sighting of the Marshmallow Sofa?)! The retrospective of Nelson's work is being brought to McNay from the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, and the exhibition will remain on view through September 11, 2011.

The lecture + libations go from 6pm to 9pm tonight. Sigh...if only that Roaming by Design private jet would crystalize, we'd be all over this one!

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There was inspiration aplenty, not just in the design activities going on in American Standard’s studios and laboratories but in the dedication the designers and engineers have to water conservation. I don’t often cover serious subjects that impact the environment here because the tone of Roaming by Design tends to be a bit more kicky and fun. Let me just promise I was having plenty of fun when the subject of water conservation came up, as Gary Uhl, who was taking us on the tour, was one of the most entertaining individuals I’ve ever met on a design tour. In fact, I think American Standard should hire him out to show other manufactures how it’s done!

See, I’ve gotten off track already: focus, Saxon, focus! Pointing out the sustainable attributes of the showroom at the facilities, Uhl noted the bamboo floor and movable display units that prevent them from having to reconstruct the area when new products are released. About the variety of freestanding tubs on display, Uhl remarks they use less water than whirlpool tubs, adding, “Performance and demand for water conservation is growing so quickly that the industry is changing like it never has.” 

A shout out to Nora DePalma and Wendy Silverstein for treating us so well and making sure we had everything we needed to bring our “takes” on the products and design advancements we saw to you. Speaking of other “takes,” here are the links to pieces by my cohorts in crime that day.

Kitchen and Residential Design by Paul Anater

Kitchen Design Notes by Laurie Burke

adroyt by Richard Holschuh and Saxon Henry

Andie Day's Lifestyle Blog

Building Moxie by JB Bartkowiak

Thanks to American Standard for the great hospitality, including room and board, during the two-day excursion. Comps were taken but that did not influence the tone or content of this article. We at RBD take integrity very seriously!

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So we're saying goodbye to May, marvelous month that it was, and stepping into June with our eyes on tweetups and junkets that will serve as great roaming opportunities, and we'll definitely be reporting back (be sure to check out our sister site adroyt for some of the fun--okay, so she's the smarter sister but we're still cute here at RBD!).

We had a blast at Alessi and once again Marcel was on the scene, um, actually, he was the scene! A group of bloggers gathered to tweet what the Maestro of Moooi had to say about his designing mind. 

A fab time was had by all at the Museum of Art and Design as we hosted a Tweetup during the opening party of MAD's exhibition "Are You A Hybrid," curated by Stephen Burks. 

GD Cucine was hopping with a hip vibe as design devotees feasted on freshly prepared Italian fare and on Cleto Munari's vision, which was sprinkled around the showroom in the form of the "Il Magnifici 7," a colorful collection of furnishings that popped within the serene backdrop of sleek kitchen charisma.

Our Tweetup during Moss Gallery's Fraternal Twins event was packed!

Soho was one rocking nabe during much of the week, our Moss tweetup being a highlight. We hit so many showrooms on Monday night that we stumbled around in sensory overload, ending the evening at Scavolini's showroom with its lively atmosphere, fantabulous food and hip crowd.

There were so many events, so little time, which is about how we always describe ICFF week in New York City; that said, we did our stellar best to make it to some of the hottest parties and unearth the best in design offerings. Oh yes; there was the show itself! Here's one of our favorite offerings: James DeWulf's Ping Pong table, in concrete, which can also serve as a dining room table.

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When I received the invitation to attend a comparative glassware Champagne and wine tasting hosted by Maximilian Riedel, CEO of Riedel USA, and Nick Ord, CEO of Miele USA, with my dear friend and colleague Saxon Henry, my favorite roamer, I must say I was quite intrigued. I have spent many years in the restaurant and wine industry, and was taught that Riedel or any fine stemware should never be cleaned in a dishwasher for several good reasons. First off, residual soap interferes with the aromas and flavors of the wine, and scratches and breakage were always a concern. So of course, I wanted to find out firsthand from the man himself why the company had announced a new partnership with Miele to endorse their dishwashers as safe for their glassware. Lots of rules have been broken in the wine world since I first began to understand fine wines and cuisine as a server at the venerable Gotham Bar & Grill in the early 90s. We were taught to always hold a wine glass by the stem, never by the bowl, to ensure that our fingertips would not warm the wine. This would also allow us to swirl properly to release the aromas in the wine that were so integral to our overall enjoyment of it. We were also taught the importance of the right wine with the right glass which Riedel touched upon during the event we attended (see a bit of his tutorial in the video below), and the right food/wine pairing. These revelations have stayed with me for years for good reason. In 2004, everything changed when Riedel introduced the “O” line, a stemless glass series. Really??? Well, it took off like wildfire and stemless wine glasses were popping up in top restaurants and well appointed homes around the country. If Riedel endorses it, what’s not to love? thought those of us who paid close attention to wine and food subjects. The glass was so successful that it increased Riedel’s U.S. sales by $18 million dollars from the previous year. Sometimes, you have to break the rules, as they say.

It was quickly clear that Ord likes to break the rules as well. While shopping for stemware to best enjoy his fine wines at home, of course he was considering Riedel, he was shocked to read on the box that they did not recommend washing their “instruments” in the dishwasher. Well, of course Mr. Ord took this as a personal challenge and set out to make a dishwasher that was Riedel worthy. And the rest, as they say, is history. The event Saxon and I attended launched the global partnership of the two iconic brands, unveiling the next generation of Miele machines that will be introduced this coming June. The Futura series is made up of 20 models of 18- and 24-inch dishwashers that have features as sophisticated as a super tall bottom trays equipped with fittings that hold extra tall stemware in place and an option for chilling pilsner glasses (beer drinkers everywhere can thank Ord for this fact: he’s an ale man)! Beyond the tech fun, there is tech genius behind these new dishwashers as well, such as water and energy consumption features, and RemoteVision™ that alerts a technical service team whenever there is a performance issue. Oh, and did I mention we tasted some excellent wine in none other than Riedel stemware, or as Maximilian called them “tools” for making any wine-tasting experience delightful? It was a tough job but someone had to do it! Roaming by Design would like to thank Susan Wilber, our guest journalist today, for this juicy post! The dynamic food/wine guru is a freelance culinary event planner who makes the behind-the-scenes rigamarole of handling intimate and large-scale events seem effortless when they are far from it. We're thrilled to have her as an occasional contributor here. Welcome Susan! For my piece on the event, which I wrote for the kicky new site Food Republic, hop on over to this page (and don't forget to stay for a while and look around)! Happy Roaming everyone!

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Newton Vineyard's Unfiltered Chardonnay and Michael Wisner's "The Element"

Tonight, winemaker Chris Millard of Napa Valley’s Newton Vineyard will be in New York to host an interactive workshop on sustainable winemaking. Also on hand will be Michael Wisner, the Snowmass, Colorado-based eco-friendly ceramicist who has joined with Newton for the winery’s third-annual Eco-Chic collaboration. Wisner will preview “The Element,” a set of clay coasters and a wine chiller created from clay he harvested in Newton’s Carneros vineyards, made exclusively for the vineyard’s Unfiltered Chardonnay, which will be available in late April. Millard will explain what distinguishes unfiltered winemaking from other methods, while Wisner will discuss his own take on sustainable artisanship.

The Brinson's know how to entertain!

Last Thursday evening, William and Susan Brinson invited a lucky gaggle of tweeps to their chic NYC apartment for a delectable repast. We had the pleasure of drinking the Chardonnay and I’d say it’s going to be a feather in the vineyard’s eco-chic cap. We sipped the wine as we nibbled on William’s spread of appetizers that included a sauterne and black truffle pate, speck ham, crusty French bread, pungent aged cheeses, and spiced cashews. For dinner, he and Susan served Jamie Oliver’s Pasta alla Norma. It was divine and the perfect end to our rousing tweetup at the Duravit showroom, which brought the always entertaining Philippe Starck to town to debut his shower toilet SensoWash. How do we know he’s ever the life of the party? Check out this interview, one I will personally never forget!

Tamara @nestnestnest, Rich @concretedetail and William @WilliamBrinson post-pasta

It was so great to see all the tweeps who rocked the #Starck4Duravit event with us. A shout out to @irwinfelddesign @nestnestnest @concretedetail @abcddesigns @StudioBrinson @sar_fraz @WilliamBrinson @novitapr @RobertaKLEEDAP @RachelWells @jenniferrector @apttherapy. And a hearty thanks to @NewtonVineyard for creating such a fantastic wine!

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Foundational Exuberance

The world is heading to Milan for Salone Internazionale del Mobile forthwith and it's likely that everyone in the design world is going to be met with an entirely different landscape than they've encountered in central Milan in the past, especially the Porta Nuova and Republica neighborhoods. I snapped this shot from my hotel room in the Principe Di Savoia last October as the city began to prepare for the World Expo 2015, which will carry the theme "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life." It reminded me of Miami once upon a time when the joke circulated that the construction crane had become the city's official "bird"!

Springing of the Green in Milan

Our inbox is rocking and rolling with new launches at iSaloni as furniture manufacturers prepare for the show with great anticipation (and likely a bit of trepidation considering the global economy). Instead of covering these here, we ask that you check in on the Design Commotion Facebook page for news or click on over to Modenus where V and Tim are going to be doing previews of new products debuting at the fair and Tim will be reporting live), I'm taking a rather #TravelTuesday tack today to shed some light on an initiative that I believe bears watching. It's an effort by Paul Clemence and Jade Dressler called Green Provocateur (here's the blog), which will launch on April 10 just as iSaloni gets underway.  They are calling their guerilla installations a "global urban art intervention" and the one in Milan is being sponsored by AMAZElab.

I've collaborated with Clemence on articles for Aishti magazine and celebrate his eye for an emotionally-charged architecture so I can only imagine the exhibitions they produce will be powerfully magnetic. "I find architecture's poetry wherever I go," says the photographer. Take the time to watch the video and you'll understand more of the thrust of their vision. You can also follow their guest posts on Metropolis Magazine's online site Metropolis P/O/V. I can't wait to see how Clemence's and Dressler's point of view ripples across the globe! You can like the Green Provocateur Facebook page here. And visit them on indiegogo here.

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Cassa Hotel & Residences: Our AD Show Headquarters!

What’s chic and dynamic and fabulous all over? The three days Roaming by Design spent gallivanting around Manhattan as we made our way from our sophisticated digs at Cassa Hotel & Residences to the 10th annual Architectural Digest Home Design Show. There were furniture launches (our Blogger19 cohort Susan Serra being among the buzziest of all), tweetups (the magical Veronika Miller, @Modenus, and Troy Hanson, @troynyc, holding one that drew some topnotch Twiterrati to the Ligne Roset/Valcucine/Margaritelli/Rimadesio lounge), parties (the DIFFA Cocktails by Design being a highlight) and dinners (more tweep talent at one table than any on design junkie deserves)! Making our RBD headquarters at Cassa was a smooth move, as the amazing mid-town location meant we were at the center of everything. We had an extended-stay apartment in the sexy building designed by Enrique Norten. The luxe treatment and serene setting were just the balm for the manic schedule we maintained.

Susan Serra with her new Bornholm Kitchen

On Thursday evening, we had the pleasure of saying hello to Margaret Russell, the editor in chief of AD, at the DIFFA cocktail party, and ran into some of our favorite design elite, including Daniele Busca of Scavolini and Tamara Stephenson of NestNestNest. We then whisked away to dinner with some of our favorite friends from twitter. Carmen Natschke, The Decorating Diva, cornered the evening on photo ops, Sabrina Velandry out-ordered everyone, Cynthia Bogart, whose site The Daily Basics we love, was a surprise addition to an already amazing night! Getting to see Modenus’ UK contingent, Tim Bogan, was a blast; we adored hanging out with Andie Day; and RBD’s creative director Rich Holschuh stole the show with his kilt—yes, I said kilt! Friday was all about the show, beginning with Modenus’ Mary’s & Mimosas Tweetup and continuing through a dizzying display of design where we bumped into the always vivacious Amy Dragoo of ABCD Designs, Cheryl Kees Clendenon, Sarah Lloyd, Marcy Feld, Catherine Avery, Chuck Wheelock and Talis Lin. Susan Serra’s Bornholm Kitchen debut drew a stellar crowd. The Scandinavian-inspired furnishings were given a fitting tagline “Warm Heart, Cool Designs,” and we salute Susan for producing such a finely-crafted collection. Think Fabricate was also at the show with an artful line of furnishings, and our friends at Boca do Lobo brought some interesting pieces to the show once again this year. A newbie to us, perched perfectly within The Paris Apartment booth, was Munna. We couldn’t have been happier to see Aston Smith and Manhattan Center for Kitchen & Bath at the show, and Maybelline Te’s newest introductions for Snug Furniture were as exciting as ever—how she continues to push the envelope in design is beyond us!

Maybelline Te with her Woven Nest table

We were particularly fond of the MADE section of the show, where artisinal products of every stripe were showing, the array of materials included within the booths covering the spectrum. While making our way through the maze of products, we bumped into the talented duo Eric Slayton and Elena Lyakir—a pair to watch, as we are convinced their stars are on the rise. Among the offerings in MADE, Douglas Thayer’s designs in concrete & wood were standouts, as were the mod-Asian wares in Jia Moderne’s booth. We were drawn into Randi Solin’s booth, aching to touch her vases and sculptures dripping with drenching color (thought didn’t dare)! Her Solinglass studio in Brattleboro, Vermont, is filled with talented artisans creating luscious designs. We asked her to describe her process when she is creating her art. We hope you enjoy her work and how knowledgeable she is about her craft.

We’ve spotted a few other worthwhile recaps of the show that we thought you might want to see. Modenus has one, as does Quintessence.

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"Me & Me" by David Drebin at Contessa Gallery

The Armory Show hit NYC last weekend and the art-haute crowd was milling around the Piers breathing in some pretty rarified air. Rich and I made our way around the Modern show seeing the work of some of the most iconic names in art history hanging on the provisional walls. New York-based Jonathan O'Hara Gallery had a booth filled with transfer drawings by Robert Rauschenberg, and I had just about given up on my game of "looking for Julian Opie" (haven't been to an art show in years during which I wasn't seeing his effulgent figures incessantly stepping or swaying) when we spotted a series of his works in London town's The Alan Cristea Gallery booth (no prancing portraits this time, but an interesting series of fashionable figures).

Chuck Close at Contessa Gallery

One of my favorite galleries was in attendance, Cleveland, Ohio-based Contessa Gallery, bringing what I have come to regard as their normal high standards to the show. Chuck Close was front and center in their booth and they had a handful of excellent Andy's (Warhol, that is). I especially liked the Pop-maestro's graphite on hand-made paper piece depicting kicky Halston heels. A mere $450,000.00 would have allowed you to take the #FashionFriday statement home!

Andy Warhol's "Shoes" at Contessa Gallery

Contessa brought David Drebin to the fair. He's been getting ample buzz of late and we're betting he's one to watch. So agrees ARTnews and the New York Daily News (just in case our word's not enough!). Our pick from the nearly sold-out Drebin offerings? "Me & Me." At $3,400.00, it was a steal next to the Close portrait ($120,000.00) and a 1951 oil-on-canvas Jean Dubuffet ($450,000.00). Our take on that: get him while you can! If the crew at Contessa is as right as it has been in the past (and who can argue with Close, Dubuffet and Warhol), his prices will rise with his fame. Rich will be reviewing a Vermont-based artist that caught his eye soon. In the meantime, happy Roaming art lovers everywhere!

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@SarahFrazier @SaxonHenry and @concretedetail at #TheArthurShow tweetup @Moss_Online

Roaming by Design has been on the road a bit lately (uh, I guess that's what we're supposed to be doing when we promise roaming, huh?)! We've been around town (and across the pond, actually) gathering tweeps around us for some excellent partying. Recently, we had a highly successful tweetup at Moss Gallery in Soho during their #TheArthurShow, joined there by @abcddesigns @StudioBrinson @williambrinson @goodwithstyle @RMManhattanEd @sarahfrazier @concretedetail @RodRuizPhoto @MelissaCantor @DESIGNCOMMOTION and (yours truly) @SaxonHenry to name a few.

@WilliamBrinson asked to snap a shot? Nooo!

At the sexy rooftop lounge at the Gansevoort Park Avenue recently, we gathered a good group of tweeps around us to celebrate #PlungeWeekend. Keeping it cool that night were @Joeod3 @SusanWilber @concretedetail @GansevoortPark and @SaxonHenry. Where are we next? Well, Vegas, baby--we'll be cozying up to @Paul_Anater and a long list of tweeps he'll be gathering at the #Coverings2011 show (which includes the divine @jolocktov)! And at the #ADshow2011 in NYC late next week, there will be a large gathering of twitterati (a little birdie tells us @Modenus @AndieDay @SabrinaInc @troynyc @Tim_ModenusUK and @gwphoto38 will be there!). If you want a twitvite, leave a comment and we'll make sure you are in the know! Happy Tweeting everyone!

Plunge at the Gansevoort Park Avenue

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During my last trip to Paris, I spent an afternoon sipping wine in Les Caves du Paradis, the former private wine cellar of Louis XV, at Ô Chateau. Our charming sommelier, Lionel Médoc, took a group of us through the in’s and out’s of identifying a wine’s clarity. He was a charming host, very knowledgeable about the French wines he was pouring that day. After obtaining a degree in oenology from Toulouse, Lionel told us he traveled the globe studying New World wines, trekking to Sonoma, Mendoza, and Australia. Even though his last name could pin him as a pure Bordeaux man, Lionel is actually the son of a Burgundian mother and he grew up on Reunion Island, near Mauritius. His charm during the several hours we spent swirling and sipping in the cellar with its graceful stone archways is evident in this video. Owner Olivier Magny has just opened a new wine bar, so be sure to stop in if you are in Paris anytime soon! Details are on the web site. À votre santé on this #WineWednesday, everyone!

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"La Corrente" by Julie Richey takes the 3-D Prize

Julie Richey’s “La Corrente,” a marble, glass smalti and seashell dress sculpture, has won the Best 3-D Mosaic award, a distinction given to her by the 2011 Mosaic Arts International—an annual international juried exhibition of contemporary mosaic art. “La Corrente” means “The Current” and the piece exemplifies beauty amidst destruction, a theme that Julie was inspired to explore because she created the work of art during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis. We’ve followed Julie’s esteemed career since she won the Orsoni prize and love how her depth of feeling comes through in her work. We thought we’d treat RBD readers to a sampling of how travel makes an impact on Richey’s creative expressions. She's planning a Master Mosaic Tour in Italy this fall in case you're so inspired you want to follow her to the ends of the earth (well, Italy qualifies as that for most of us who long to return again and again)! In her own words: I love to travel—anywhere—and I consider myself fortunate to have discovered a career that allows many interesting travel opportunities. I've been all over the US, to Mexico, Italy, the UK and Spain; and soon, I will travel to Australia—all for mosaic-related work.

"Night Shirt" by Julie Richey won the Orsoni Prize in 2009

Looking at my mosaics from the last few years, some are inspired by traveling and finding an image imbedded in my head from the trip. This would be "Night Shirt," a wall-relief mosaic of a shirt depicting San Francisco Bay at night. I was inspired by a 3 a.m. visit to a park overlooking the city. I held that image in my mind until eventually it came out as a mosaic sculpture. Other works can be inspired by a friend's vacation stories (as with “La Corrente”), or are formed as a response to an opportunity, be it a commission, a juried show or a public art commission. I've made mosaic landscapes of my New Mexico vacation photos and utilized clients' photos from summers in Canada to make a glass kitchen backsplash for a new home.

Julie Richey with "L'Ambasciatrice"; photo by Pete Lacker

For "L'Ambasciatrice," I was inspired to create a sculptural dress depicting native Texas wildflowers and butterflies for a special event—an art auction benefiting the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, TX. I love Austin and will use almost any excuse to pop down from Dallas. In this case, I couldn't finish the mosaic before the deadline, but just kept working on it (for nine months, off and on) until it was fully realized. Although "L'Ambasciatrice" never made it to the Wildflower auction, it did travel to shows in Mesa, AZ, Galveston and Dallas. I named it "The Ambassadress" because throughout its construction, I carried it everywhere for art demos, including one at an arboretum, the arts center where I taught mosaics, even a church where a pastor used my mosaics to reinforce his theme of "brokenness and reconstruction" for his sermons. That last one was a stretch, but in every case, this “little mosaic dress that could” allowed people to see a facet of mosaic-making up close. They were very curious about the methods, materials and structure, and the ambassadress did her job well. I've been fortunate to travel to Italy frequently—first as a college student for a Rome semester, then as a graduate scholar in Art History. Once I became fluent in Italian, there were return trips for sister-city cultural exchanges, tours with the Renaissance Polyphony chorus of my alma mater, and the invaluable learning experiences I had taking workshops at the Orsoni foundry in Venice. Winning the Orsoni Prize in 2009 was a dream come true. It was an honor just to earn the recognition—but they sweetened the deal by including a full trip to Venice, a week in their workshop, and a full stay at the beautiful Domus Orsoni bed and breakfast. Talk about reinforcing your career choice! For the dedicated mosaic artist, there's almost no better place in the world to spend a week wallowing in luscious colors and absorbing the Venetian setting. After more than two weeks at Orsoni and a subsequent family visit, the members of the staff there are my friends, not just professional contacts. I feel at home in Italy. I could spend weeks in Rome and rarely need a map. Put me in New York City and I'm as lost as last year's Easter egg.

You can feel the sweep of sea grasses floating past...

Now most of my days in Italy revolve around mosaics. Where are the truly great sites? How can I get there without spending a fortune and driving my fellow travelers crazy? Who wants to go with me to an obscure Tuscan seaside town to eat spaghetti alle vongole and explore Niki de Saint Phalle's Tarot Garden mosaics? Two years ago we were on a January choir tour of Italy, and we took a day trip to Palestrina, the birthplace of one of our favorite composers. As soon as we'd finished singing Mass, I bolted up the steep steps of the village to the archeological museum where I knew the famous Nile Mosaic was housed. The hike was crazily vertical, and I was gasping for breath when I arrived at the site but the mosaic was so worth the pilgrimage. Sometimes the desire to wallow in mosaics brings serendipitous moments. In June 2009 I was leading a small mosaic tour of Rome and had made an appointment to visit Dr. Paolo di Buono, director of the Vatican Micromosaic Studios. He suggested a Wednesday morning. Travelers familiar with the Vatican know that the Pope holds his public audience each Wednesday morning. We expected the Vatican grounds to be quite chaotic, but instead they were quiet and deserted. The audience was set up outside in Piazza San Pietro where Jumbotrons flanked both sides of the colonnade and hundreds of chairs were lined up for special visitors. After we toured the studio with Dr. Di Buono, he offered to take us into Saint Peter's Basilica through the side door. When we passed the guard and entered, I realized we had come though Bernini's famous "skeleton door," the monument to Alexander VII, at the back of the basilica. I've been in St. Peter's countless times, and have even attended Easter Vigil Mass there with thousands of pilgrims. This time was different: it was almost deserted.

As delicate as a lacy slip, sea shells ornament "La Corrente"

One worker on a miniature Zamboni-style machine drove up and down the nave, polishing the marble floors. Five guys in rappelling gear were perched on the Baldacchino, the high altar canopy, cleaning it with Swiffer dusters. Dr. Di Buono brought us to the entrance of the basilica to see the mosaic works his studio had restored, including an altar painting designed by Raphael that was actually a mosaic. Looking past the Swiss guards in profile through the open doors, we could see thousands of people outside in the piazza, awaiting the Pope. Inside, it was just the four of us, the Zamboni driver and the Swiffer duster men. We exited as we had come in, via the Bernini door, and as we turned in our security badges and got our passports back, I glanced over to the basilica. Not 30 feet away was the iconic white Popemobile, awaiting Benedict XVI. The guards hurried us along so that the Pope could come out, get into his little car, and start toward his audience. We exited Vatican City, wove our way through the colonnade and popped out into the piazza. There he was, larger than life, on the Jumbotron. In the two minutes it had taken us to get to the piazza, he'd climbed into his car and beaten us to the starting gate! We'd like to thank Julie for gracing our blog on this Twitter #MosaicMonday, and wish her happy Roaming as she inspires artisans far afield and close at home! Photos of "Night Shirt" and "La Corrente" by Stacey Bratton.

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By the Table; Verlaine is far left and a young Rimbaud is seated facing him.

During my time in Paris, I visited the Musée d’Orsay, drinking in the architecture of the former railway station from blocks away (and understanding why the museum bills the building, which was erected for the Universal Exhibition of 1900, as its first work of art). The locale on the banks of the Seine opposite the Tuileries Gardens is its second triumph. And its art collections, spanning from 1848 to 1914, is its pièce de résistance. One painting in particular was pilgrimage-worthy for me: Henri Fantin-Latour’s By the Table. I’ve been fascinated with it since I can remember because the subjects in the composition are men gathered at the Salon of 1872, including Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud—an almost cherubic Rimbaud sitting facing his friend at the time. It was Verlaine, a more mature poet, who would eventually contribute to Rimbaud’s disillusionment, causing him to put down his pen at the age of 20. What a loss for poetry! One of my favorite quotes has been attributed to Rimbaud, though I have never managed to track down the source: “I’d rather be the poem than the poet,” he was reported to have said. I feel that sums up the level of dedication a true poet would have to his or her craft. If you’ve never read Rimbaud’s story, it’s worthwhile. He didn’t have an easy life, and he wrote what he produced at such a young age, I can only imagine the quality of work he would have produced had he been writing as a mature poet. A great place to start if you also happen to like rock-n-roll is Wallace Fowlie’s book Rimbaud and Jim Morrison: The Rebel as Poet. He compares the two renegades who did share a passion for stirring things up. I give you Rimbaud’s “Sensation,” a poem he wrote in March of 1870, nearly a century and a half ago:

Through blue summer nights I will pass along paths,

Pricked by wheat, trampling short grass:

Dreaming, I will feel coolness underfoot,

Will let breezes bathe my bare head.

Not a word, not a thought:

Boundless love will surge through my soul,

And I will wander far away, a vagabond

In Nature—as happily as with a woman.

                      Arthur Rimbaud

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Cheers, Toma; With This Gal, Good Taste is a Given!

Was it just two weeks ago I was flitting around Paris with Toma Clark Haines, The Antiques Diva? Uh-huh, and what a blast we had combing the Marche aux Puces and sifting through floor-upon-floor of goodies at Bazaar Hotel de Ville (She even cooked a sumptuous Parisian-inspired meal!) One of my favorite souvenirs from Paris is the tote bag she had made for me. Get a load of the close-up below and you'll understand why!

About to Embark on a Diva-fied Day of Shopping (note the tote)!

This is the second year I've had the delight of touring Paris flea markets with Toma and I thought I'd pass along news about one of her newest offerings, customized Diva City Tours. I asked her to explains to RBD readers what inspired her to create seven-day gallivants chock full of more fun than the faint at heart could endure! She has a great group of Divas lined up for her Paris tour from March 7 through 13 and she will be posting news on her blog so be sure to stop in for a bit of voyeuristic pleasure Diva style! The Diva Dishes on Her New Explorations: The concept behind The Antiques Diva® & Co European Shopping Tours is simple: we combine the jet-setting lifestyle of a diva with antique shopping in favorite European cities, including Paris, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin and beyond. Our one-day tours have been wildly successful due to this formula of carrying a shopping sack in one hand and a champagne glass in the other! What differentiates us from most antique shopping tour companies is that we do not arrange group tours, shoving a bunch of strangers together for an inflexible, pre-set period of days. Instead, we cater to our clients travel dates, taking them by the hand on one-day tours that maximize their time with a private, one-on-one customized shopping experience.

While we do offer a variety of services for antique dealers and interior designers, we also offer shopping tours to mere mortals…letting our clients source European antiques and vintage pieces at addresses usually only known to the trade. We recognize that most clients don’t antique shop in a vacuum: while they want to shop les puce they are also visiting these cities to tour the destinations. All our Diva Guides are well versed on what’s hot in their city and thus we’re always making recommendations to clients on where to eat, drink, shop and tour; our Diva Guides are your best friend abroad. With our new multi-day Diva City Tours, we’re taking those tips a step further and offering clients a chance to see Europe through our mascara-laden eyes.

Frames at the Marche aux Puces

These Diva City Tours are usually four-day packaged trips whereby the Diva Guide takes the clients to a variety of must-see addresses in the city. In our popular Paris Diva City Tour we do cooking classes at the Ritz, dine at Michelin-starred restaurants and tucked-away bistros a tourist hasn’t touched. We shop both vintage and haute couture, see where Coco became Chanel, but then turn around and surprise clients by hitting the local grocery store where they can load up on innovative European products they’d never find in America or the UK. We visit out-of-the-way museums and when the day is done, we pop over to a friend’s apartment to have champagne and macaroons in a grand salon. The multi-day Diva City Tours are designed to show clients what their lives might look like if they lived in one of these international cities, as the next best thing to living in Paris, Antwerp, Berlin or Amsterdam is touring with someone who does! This tour comes with a WARNING, though: 3 of our last 10 clients decided to move abroad after doing the Diva City Tours!

Some of My Loot from BHV

Insiders Tip: Tourists traveling in Paris might be surprised to know that some of the best souvenirs in Paris come from the local hardware store. The department store BHV, or Bazaar Hotel de Ville, has a basement level bricolage store that serves up everything from those charming blue & white Parisian house numbers to gorgeous fleur-de-lys picture hooks to upscale Parisian tea towels, copper pots and a variety of accessories for the home.

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