A couple of weekends ago I took an afternoon trip to the lovely Wallington, Northumberland, a grand National Trust Palladian mansion with an interesting – and political – history. As the rest of the UK was gearing up for the General Election, Wallington turned the clocks back to the 1929 election, when the house’s owner at the time, Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan, stood as the Newcastle Central Labour candidate for the second time. Through a series of installations and displays throughout the house and gardens, “VOTE” told the story of Charles’ political career and socialist aspirations. As I wondered around the house, I stumbled across a room entitled “Utopia HQ”, where Sir Charles’ former estate office had been transformed by the awesome November Club into his 1929 campaign HQ. Continue reading Utopia HQ
Tag Archives: photography
Design Envy – Made.com
If you live in the Northern hemisphere like me, you’ll be more than ready to throw off your winter blues, and with them your cosy, snuggly blankets and pillows, and let some Spring lightness and brightness in.
I’ve bought a couple of things from Made over the past couple of years – their designs are just so different to anything on the high street (that I could afford). Two years later and I’m still in love with the Pierre Paul Pariseau limited edition printed canvas which hangs in my living room:
Colour me Friday: Faded Flamingo
Chris Schoonover is a photographer and art director from New Jersey. He became interested in photography via Instagram, got his first camera in 2013 and started taking it everywhere with him, with incredible results. For me, many of his pictures have that Las Vegas faded-beauty-hit-on-hard-times feel about them which I so love, and puts me in mind of Lana Del Rey and The Killers. Chris has described his work as “a photo journalistic style where the subject is interacting with their environment. My style is always changing, and growing with me. The common thread would be that each image seems to tell a story, and that story is really up to the viewers’ imagination”. You can check out (and buy) Chris’s work at http://society6.com/cschoonover.
Colour me Friday – Seafoam Green Style
I spent this week up on Kintyre on the west coast of Scotland. Surrounded by sea on three sides, it’s a beautiful, wild, windswept (and this week snowy) peninsula. I headed home just as the hailstorm which had kept me awake most of the night turned to snow, I turned to one of my favourite travelling hobbies, “roadtrip window gazing” at the foamy sea. Since I got home, I’ve been thinking about what a lush and under-appreciated colour seafoam green is. Hope you like this week’s picks and pics! Continue reading Colour me Friday – Seafoam Green Style
Colour me Friday – Vintage Vogue Rainbow
A Vintage Vogue Rainbow for some Friday inspiration! Happy Friday and have a great weekend!
Rust
I love rusty old things and I’ve been collecting them for a few years, in the form of photos, rusty shapes from RE, and random finds. My favourite was an old rusty metal house I found a few years ago in a burnt-out bonfire on an abandoned gypsy site, and kept it for a while. Not knowing how to clean it up, I eventually threw it away, fool! I could have used one of these methods.
My job often takes me to old industrial sites, which frequently turn out to be a source of inspiration. I’m attracted to the story behind these objects, their changing textures and colours, and above all the fact that, in many cases, it was the act of abandonment which eventually caused them to be beautiful. I took these photos in the storage area of a steam railway yard and at an old coal mine, both in the north-east of England, and on trips to Bosnia-Herzegovena; Provence, France; The City of the Dead, Cairo, Egypt; and Woodstock, NY and Portland, Maine, USA.
eclectic feel 