Tulips

It's Easter week in New York City but the weather has not been very cooperative; cold, grey, windy, raining. Today when I was on my bicycle it was actually snowing. This is the point when I have really had it with cold weather. But. Flowers. They always help. We can "force" spring with some spring flowers.

Tulips are a quintessential spring flower. I love how they bloom. Other flowers crumble inwards and die but tulips open up and stretch out and fall apart petal by petal; they put on a show all week. Also I like the pale green of the stem and leaf combined with a pastel flower head -- very pretty spring colors.

We got a pot of tulips and some cut tulips. Bunches of cut tulips are all over the place now, at the farmer's market and the corner delis. The plastic pot of tulips came from the farmer's market. It cost the same as a bunch, $6. I put the plastic pot in a terra cotta pot for a garden touch.


A pot of tulips has a romantic Dutch feeling too.


A bunch of cut tulips can be separated into individual vases. I cut the stem to fit the vase and group it with other objects and candles. Simple to do. Always trim the bottom of the stems so the flowers last longer.


I don't really like tight bunches of flowers, I like them to be airy and loose. I think you can see the shape of the flower and the leaves better when they are not bunched up tight. If there is a candle nearby you get nice shadows on the wall. It's more of a relaxed, casual, country feeling. When you separate them each room can get a flower


including the bathroom.

Valentino: The Last Emperor, now playing in theaters in select cities:
"I love beauty. Is not my fault."

A Trip to Florida

Henry James wrote that the most beautiful words in the English language are "summer afternoon." I think my favorites are "We're at the beach!"

TD and I are back from Florida where we visited my parents in Sarasota/Siesta Key. Siesta Key has one of the prettiest beaches I've seen -- a long graceful arc of fluffy white sand, sparkling turquoise water, and infinite blue sky. In the winter my parents take a cottage on Palm Island. My uncle Brian and aunt Monica are nearby too and we visit our friend illustrator John Pirman so it's a nice trip.

We spend as much time as we can on the beach.


I brought an Irish novel to read, At Swim, Two Boys, by Jamie O'Neill. I love the way the Irish write; they reverse the order of words, like the title itself, which American-style would be Two Boys at Swim. Also, when things are good, they say, "That's grand."


At rest, TD.


I went for a run on the beach with no shoes which I haven't done in a long time but I love running in the shallow water where it glitters in the sun. After the run, I bent over to splash my face and my back gave out. Ouch. Couldn't move. Gave out the next day too. So on Saturday afternoon I found myself in downtown Sarasota in a darkened office lying stomach-down on a massage table with my face in that donut hole thing getting massage therapy. Not exactly what I planned for my beach vacation, but what can you do? I was glad to have someone look at it. The massage therapist said I was a "weekend warrior."

On Sunday it rained so we drove into town to poke around. Some things were closed but we found a great used book store, Parker's Books, with aisles of books carefully bound and shelved.


We drove to Towle's Court Art District, a small artists' colony of galleries and studios housed in a historic enclave of Old Florida-style bungalows and cottages. Shoogie Boogies was open, a charming gallery selling photography, soaps, and garden accessories.


A small black cat kept watch over the proceedings.


By Sunday afternoon the sky had cleared and the sun was out. On Sunday nights before sunset at the beach drummers come out to "drum the sun down" so we bicycled over. Dusk is my favorite time of day, when the light is fading and everything looks softer and less intense. As the sun descends over the water it casts a silvery light that is magical. A lot of people came out to the beach for a walk.


It was grand.

We usually call April 1st April Fools' Day and play a joke on someone, but this year April 1st is April Food Day. My blogger friends Meg at Pigtown Design and Chris at Easy & Elegant Life have organized this online effort to raise money to relieve hunger; they have created a blog about it here.

Feeding America is the nation's leading domestic hunger-relief charity. Its mission is to feed America's hungry through a nationwide network of member food banks and engage our country in the fight to end hunger.

The Feeding America network provides food assistance each year to more than 25 million low-income people facing hunger in the United States, including more than 9 million children and nearly 3 million seniors.

The recession has created a new wave of people in need. The New York Times recently published an alarming story about makeshift shantytowns rising up around the country. First-time requests at food banks are at an all-time high, but the shelves are bare. Corporations and foundations have decreased their donations, and individuals uncertain about their own finances have cut back on giving.

We are asking blogging readers to make a donation to Feeding America here, even if it's just a dollar or two. It will help someone get food to eat.

And that's no joke.

Off tomorrow for the sand, sea, and surf of sunny Florida.
I leave you with a bit of spring:
A happy daffodil

A bunch of tulips midday

late afternoon

night time, with Rose on the chair opposite

I was sitting here last night with a soupcon of red wine, looking at my new book called The Impressionists at Home and listening to Wagner's opera Lohengrin and falling asleep.

Cheerio, mes amis.

Aristocrat O'Donnells

The review in The New York Times for a play called Aristocrats by Brian Friel at the Irish Repertory Theater began: "The O'Donnell family is on its last legs."

Well, I had to see that. For I am an O'Donnell.

My maternal great grandfather Dan O'Donnell came from Sligo, Ireland, to New York on September 6, 1881. He made his way up to Herkimer, New York, and was a railroad engineer on the line from Herkimer to the Adirondacks. In 1886 he married Bessie Crinion and they lived in a big Victorian house at 611 West German Street and raised in style eleven children -- my grandmother, great aunts and great uncles.

Although for thousands of years the O'Donnells were a royal family in Ireland, my great grandfather was not an aristocrat; in fact he had to leave Ireland because he was caught poaching fish. However he poached from a Protestant land owner so there was the attendant justice of poaching from a Protestant who had come in and usurped the Irish land. On his day in court his name was called: "Daniel O'Donnell?"
Someone stood up in the back and said, "He's gone to America!"

Last night TD and I went up to the Irish Repertory Theater on 22nd Street, only seven blocks away, to see Aristrocrats, a play by Brian Friel. Small theater, intimate setting, a lot of white Irish heads in the crowd including my own. I have seen two plays by Irish playwright Brian Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa and Faith Healer. I remember the joyous jig of Dancing at Lughnasa, and the terrible tragedy of Faith Healer.

Aristocrats tells the story of four adult siblings of the O'Donnell family of Ballybeg in Donegal who have gathered together in their crumbling hilltop homestead for a wedding. The once grand family is now plagued by depression, alchoholism, and a leaky roof. Their mother suffered from "down periods" before she committed suicide. Their aging father "was adept at stifling things" and squelched the dreams of his children who are in various stages of unhappiness. Anecdotes about the past are told, including how the family knew William Butler Yeats and Frederic Chopin. The truthfulness of the tales is questioned, and then we are in the Irish bog of things not said, questions not answered, stories changed. However at the end with a turn of the plot it seems that the children will be free to pursue their lives without the burden that they have borne.

At the curtain call the cast took their bows in a straight line, these O'Donnells of Ballybeg. For a moment I imagined my O'Donnells on the stage, my great aunts, my grandmother, my great uncle Fred who was a lawyer upstate – and then there was an O'Donnell tear.

Alessandro Twombly

At Christie's last week, I met Elana Rubinfeld, a charming young woman who is the director at Fred Torres Collaborations, a new art gallery in Chelsea. She invited me to see an exhibition at the gallery of work by artist Alessandro Twombly.

I hoofed it up to West 29th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues, a block I had not been down before. The gallery is on the third floor, and sunlight glowed through windows covered with white shades. The art work, in shades of pink, floated on white walls creating a festive party atmosphere.


Alessandro Twombly is the only child of Cy Twombly, who at 81 is one of the greatest artists living today. Cy Twombly inherited his name from his father who was named after Cy Young, the renowned pitcher. The American artist settled in a Roman palazzo with his wife Tatiana Franchetti (the sister of modern art patron and collector Barone Giorgio Franchetti) and their son Alessandro, and went on to create his famously poetic, cryptic, abstract paintings and drawings.

Son Alessandro has always worked as an artist too. He is married to couture fashion designer Soledad Twombly and they have two children. The family lives in Rome and in a house outside of Rome, where his mother Tatiana lives as well. Alessandro's work is not as abstract as his father's -- he is often inspired by flowers.
By poppies in Afghanistan:


Pink flowers in his Italian garden:


Red flowers in his Brazilian garden:

The work is spirited, lively, rich. The joyful colors and organic shapes have a happy exuberance.

Cy Twombly's life in Rome has interested me since I came across in the F.I.T. library a Vogue story from 1966 about the Twombly Roman palazzo, photographed by Horst and written by his partner Valentine Lawford. In the story the interiors of the elegant palazzo are pale grey and white -- the perfect combination of classical furnishings and Cy Twombly's abstract art.
A bedroom, below, featured Mongolian fox, Empire furniture and art by Cy Twombly. Today when you see Julian Schnabel's style of decorating, I think this is where it comes from: Twombly's mix of Baroque, grand furniture with oversized abstract art.

Here is Cy Twombly from that shoot at the palazzo in his 1928 Alfa Romeo wearing a World War I leather greatcoat.


Like father, like son: coincidentally Alessandro Twombly's house outside of Rome is published in the current issue of Elle Decor. Photographs of the interiors feature the sculpture and paintings now on view in Chelsea: life as art/art as life.

An Ode to the Cardigan

Michael Kors, Spring 2008

Recently, Mr. Peacock interviewed me on his blog and asked me what my favorite article of clothing was. Later I thought, I should have mentioned the cardigan, the sweater that buttons up the front.
I love cardigans, and I always have:

That's me, age two or three, in a scan of a xerox of a photo, but you get the idea. Cardigan sweater, white shirt, wool trousers; that is what I am still wearing today.

Named after the English Lieutenant General James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan (1797 – 1868), who made the knitted waistcoat fashionable, the cardigan is a classic that has recently come back into style again and I'm glad of it because I've been wearing them for years.

When I first moved to New York City I worked as a chauffeur for Mr. Perry Ellis, but that's another story. Though I will say that's where I first met friend Richard Haines who has a great blog, What I Saw Today. After that job I worked as a communications assistant at CBS Magazines and one day I was in the elevator with Ellen Levine, who was then the editor in chief of Woman's Day magazine. She pulled her glasses down to the tip of her nose and eyed my navy blue cardigan -- hand knit with a ship's wheel logo and shiny gold buttons.
"Paul Stuart?" she said.
"Perry Ellis," I said. I was a young assistant wearing designer clothes that I had bought at a sample sale. I still have that sweater. Let's see if I can pull it out of the hope chest that my great aunt Kay gave me...
Yes, here it is:


I am keeping this sweater, unless Harold Koda wants it for the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute.

While I was in the chest I came across this cardigan which has a Fair Isle pattern and silver metal buttons.

I love this sweater which belonged to my uncle Brian, who is a lawyer in Albany and has wonderful style. He gave it to me and I wore it when I was in law school, but that's really another story.

At CBS Magazines, I also had a pale pink linen and silk Perry Ellis sweater, pictured below -- a summer version of a cardigan. I kept this one too. I don't hold on to a lot of clothes, but I have my Perry Ellis sweaters.


This is me working at Hearst New Media where I was the online style editor in the 90's. Cardigan sweater plus Hermes scarf.


With their buttons, cardigans are kind of like a jacket, but more comfortable and fluid than a jacket. Cardigans can be buttoned or unbuttoned depending on the temperature so they are more versatile than crew neck or v-neck sweaters. And they have more polish than a zip up sweater. You can tuck a short scarf into cardigan, and wear them with everything from jeans to a suit jacket. Cardigans are best when they are in a fine fabric like merino wool, and fit close to the body. If they are too big and bulky it can look like Mr. Rogers. Worn with a French cuff shirt and horn rim glasses, they have a slightly professorial air which I like too.

Here is actor Hugh Dancy in chic Gucci clothes in GQ magazine; photo by Nathaniel Goldberg.

We're back to a cardigan sweater, white shirt, wool trousers. He reminds me of Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley, very 50's. Cardigans are casual sweaters but the deep v-neck and the drape of the buttons give them an elegant aspect; they're kind of Chanel-ish. Simple and soigne at the same time, they are open and easy and conducive to personal style. Fashion legend Polly Mellen told me that when she was a girl at Miss Porter's School in Connecticut she had a Brooks Brothers cardigan. But she wore hers backwards.

The Future of Arts Journalism

I walked up Fifth Avenue the other night to Christie's at Rockefeller Center. My friend Toby Usnik, Christie's International Head of Corporate Communications, invited me to a panel discussion which he organized on the future of arts journalism. The big meeting room was crowded with writers, editors and influencers, and beautiful art work lined the walls.

The moderator of the panel was Stee Sreenivasan, a technology reporter and the Dean of Student Affairs at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Sitting on the panel were Marian Godfrey, the Senior Director of Culture Initiatives of the The Pew Charitable Trusts; Sam Sifton, Cultural News Editor of The New York Times; and Alisa Soloman, Director of the Arts & Culture concentration in the Master of Arts Program at the Columbia School of Journalism. Here they are, left to right, before the discussion began:

A compelling conversation ensued about the changes in arts journalism, and journalism in general. With the demise of so many city newspapers, how will local arts be covered? It, and a lot of journalism in general, will move on to the internet. Blogging, of course, came up. Sam Sifton said something like, "I don't really care what Elmo in his underpants blogging in Queens thinks," and I thought to myself, well I always wear pants...

Sam Sifton talked about how The Times is no longer just a newspaper -- its web site NYTimes.com functions as a news service for breaking stories. That is true -- NYTimes.com is the site I go to during the day to see what is happening in the world. The newspaper, he said, features deeper analysis of the news, and I thought that was a discerning differentiation. He reported that there were one hundred people working in the arts and culture department at The Times; I had no idea his department was so big. Alisa Soloman cleverly observed that with the short, terse statements on Twitter, we are back to the format of telegraphs.

For this discussion of how technology is affecting arts journalism, it was possible to send questions to the moderator by email, by text message or on Twitter. The moderator then repeated the questions to the panel. Though the moderator did take a few questions from the crowd assembled in the room, the majority of his questions came from his lap top. Technology shaped the event itself.

Afterwards there was a wine reception, and I met some interesting people -- more about that later. With the event, Toby successfully initiated a timely discussion as media changes before our very eyes. And, Christie's -- what a beautiful place to spend your days. A new Asian exhibition has just been installed so there were art works and antiques everywhere.

Here's a Thought

This is a great song from Rent.
Measure your life in love: