Christian Dior ready to wear

Descending from the realm of the unimaginable to the merely outrageous (affordability-wise), we have the fall 2007 ready to wear collection from Christian Dior. And, once again, John Galliano shows off his genius, melding his exquisite couture collection with the classic look of Dior. What can I say? The man has the touch.

The art we did buy

I posted earlier about the paintings we left behind, but we did buy a painting in Santa Fe. In fact, we liked the artist, Robin Daniels, so much, we bought two! I found an image of one of them online. The other is similar in style but bigger, more rectangular, and warmer rather than cool. It's hard to tell from the image, but she uses this amazing mix of media: paint, encaustic, and stamped images. The results are, to my eye, a little bit asian, a little bit southwestern, and gorgeously colored and textured. I can't imagine getting tired of looking at them.

Quote of the Day

Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."

--Charlie Brown

Not tagged, home edition

As I mentioned earlier, I thought it would be funny to compare the books I have lying around the office with those at home.

The home edition:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Name of the book and author: War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
3. Turn to page 123.
4. Go to the fifth sentence on the page. Copy out the next three sentences and post them to your blog: 'Please, General, as if I would,' answered the captain, his nose redder than ever. He smiled, and his smile showed that his two front teeth were missing--they had been knocked out by a rifle-butt at Izmail. 'Oh, and tell Dolokhov to rest easy-I shan't forget him.'
5. Tag--I don't want to tag--it irrationally feels like a chain letter request to me. I would love to hear what others have lying around, though.

I'm currently 65 pages into War & Peace (so I don't know what is going on in the above passage) and it's brilliant. The only problem is that the book is so heavy I can only hold it to read for so long before I feel like my forearms are tired.
This edition clocks in at 1359 pages, plus end notes.

Buying art

We purchased two beautiful paintings this past weekend in Santa Fe, but it's the one we didn't buy that illustrates how Niall and I choose art. One of the galleries in Santa Fe has an exhibition of Maryland artist Grace Kim. The exhibition opened last Friday and by the time we came in Sunday, the gallery had sold ten paintings, including four to staff (which the staff themselves felt was unprecedented).

We loved, loved, loved her work. Her still lifes (of flowers and vegetables grown in her own garden) have an amazing vibrancy and gorgeous reflections. I hope very much to own one or more of her paintings someday. But, we didn't buy any on this trip. Why not? Well, her work is quite expensive relative to our normal spending habits. If, however, any of the paintings shown here had been available, my vague sense that we should save the money to fix up the bathroom would have flown right out the window. No, the real reason is that that pieces that leaped out at me and Niall, the ones that we imagined we could spend the rest of our lives viewing with pleasure, were already sold. There were other lovely paintings available, but they weren't the right ones. This standard is probably so obvious to everyone else that they're wondering why I bother to articulate it, but as someone who fancies herself as a cool, rational decision-maker (ha!), the freedom to choose based solely on pure, intuitive desire is perhaps one of my favorite aspects of collecting art.

So, adios for now Grace Kim, but I hope we find you again.

A weekend away

Niall and I have been talking for weeks about taking a long weekend somewhere (anywhere!) but we've been too wound up to actually schedule the darn thing. So, when I saw that my favorite gardening writer and her husband were going to be speaking at the Santa Fe Greenhouses, I decided that this was reason enough, and we were off to Santa Fe.

We had a brilliant time. Between the red chile enchiladas at Cafe Pasqual's, art shopping on Canyon Road, and a spa afternoon at Ten Thousand Waves that left me completely unstrung, we were verging at relaxed out by the end of the weekend. (And we certainly couldn't eat any more: the look of resignation with which we viewed our giant breakfast plates in Taos on the way home was sign enough of that.) It was a good weekend, and just the right length.