White textures

I promised I'd keep showing all the posts that never made it into my month (or two) of white posts in January and February. With all the sun and colour of the last 2 weeks I thought a cooling white catch up might be in order, and might psychologically prepare me for the snow predicted to arrive this weekend. Poor little lambs nearby think every day will be sunny like today was, I wish I could take them home. Enjoy the lamb-like whites, mostly familiar names, but also a few newer ones...


Tara Donovan: Strata, glue, 2000-2001 via Ace Gallery


Element Clay Studio: Large Noni ceramic tile (detail) on Etsy


Element Clay Studio: LCeramic Micro tiles on Etsy


Georgia Russell: The Times, cut newspaper, 2003 at England & Co.


Jeanne Opgenhaffen: Dancing Shadow, porcelain


Mia Perlman: Cut Paper 'Nigh' (detail) 2007


Noriko Ambe: Lands of Emptiness A (detail), Cut paper, 2003


Jennifer Prichard: Ceramic Wall tiles, Shag


Cassander Eeftinck Schattenker: Photography, 2007


Aleksandra Gaca: Architextile 2007

Crime does pay, apparently...

Josef Hohensinn: Loeben Centre of Justice, Austria

Can you believe this is a prison cell?! Designed by Hohensinn Architektur. The entire prison is super slick, sculptures, designer seating, sculpted garden area, gym... makes me want to bungle a crime! (thanks to Risa for the link, she has lots more photo's).

Beautifully wrapped...

Mr P forgot that he had saved lots of post for me while I was away, one of them was a most exciting package from Daphne filled to the brim with treasures and treats of every kind. As you can see, I had to photograph the packaging before even opening them, the entire box of goodies was exquisitely wrapped with a huge variety of hand stamped papers, all of which will be kept, many of which will be framed or used in collages in the future. Poor Mr P was on the phone when I opend the box and had to try and hear over the sound of increasingly high pitched gasps and ooh's. Daphne knows exactly the kind of things that put a huge smile on my face - thank you madam!

I forgot to update on a few things. The trellis is back, and without neighbourly wars. There's a new fence in Mr P's garden replacing the one the gales smashed. The first lambs were born in the nearby farm at the weekend... and today they were skipping in the surprise sunshine, with daffodils smiling nearby. And lastly, I have reduced the migraine to a general tension headache by chopping off 1/3 of my hair! Sounds extreme but I hadn't cut it in months and it was down at my bum again.

Big sign, tiny sign

My trip - clue No.6b

The newer plants are growing so well some are huge already. As you can see this one is bigger than me. I was so excited to see all this change. The place looked incredible, lush (in a dry way) and each garden was really individual. No more dusty patches covered in dog poo. People are taking real pride in their plots and in the spaces between the sidewalk and the cars, which were so often ignored before except in areas with more money. It's so good that people have embraced being eco friendly. All this water saving is making the streets and gardens look amazing and it must be great for biodiversity now that there is so much cover around.

My trip - clue No.6

There have been a few guesses as to which part of California I was in, and one person hedging their bets with a double guess which contained one right answer...can you guess which one? This post should help confirm it.

The best part of the trip was seeing the change in attitude towards plants. People seem no longer to be striving for squares of green grass. The click click click of sprinkler systems was entirely absent, I don't think we saw a single domestic sprinkler (and only one public park sprinkler). Such a wonderful change, and in place of the dried brown grass such a fantastic array of native plants and other plants suited to the California climate, like these lovely grey blue succulents above. They were everywhere growing very contentedly with other succulents and many beautiful tall grasses.

Numbers with grey and orange

Water sources

Killer migraine day 3 so just posting pics.

Pale blue & white

So many lovely blues in the LA light.

The Golden State

California! Well done to Deedeen and Janet for guessing the correct State. Isn't my brother amazing to pay for this trip... Thanks Bro!

But where in California? Not San Francisco, though I was really wishing we'd had an extra week so I could have gone to visit Lisa and all the other amazing bloggers who live in the Bay area. We were based in one place and were always back there to sleep, so never more than half a day from the images I've been showing recently. Of course, they are images that drew my attention, not necessarily the ones that would catch the eye of other visitors. I reckon it'll take most of you 3 seconds to guess :)