A few weeks ago, at Spikes birthday party, in Hackney’s much loved but often overlooked Springfield Park I ran into Sarah one of my customers. It is the beginning of festival season and as Spike and his band of merry four year olds dipped in and out of the picnic tent and generally tore around the park Sarah told me about a project that made me smile. Together with a fellow artist and mummy they have concieved a really inspirational kids art project that they are taking to The Big Chill festival. For two days they are going to run a protest camp encouraging kids to produce art work with rebellious creative thought. The kids will make banners to shout about their personal big issue whatever it may be. If you are going to The Big Chill make sure you check it out. If not watch this space for a report of the action. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, inspired by Mischief Makers, protest camps start to appear at school fairs and local festivals next summer.
http://themischiefmakers.wordpress.com/
http://www.londontown.com/LondonInformation/Attraction/Springfield_Park/e9a0/
http://www.bigchill.net/
Just before I started to decorate Olive’s new bedroom I had spent a week in Japan researching for a new collection during my time as a footwear designer at Red or Dead. I have never quite managed to be in Tokyo to experience the beginning of the cherry blossom season but it is way up there on my list of things to do. I recently read a fantastic book called Hokkaido Highway Blues that talks about just that. If you are like reading travel stories or have an interest in Japan I would recommend it. It really is a hillarious and illuminating account of a hitchhiker’s trip through Japan. As I unpacked bright pink lanterns and a vintage kimono for Olive I wanted her bedroom to be inspired by one of my favourite places. I began thinking about painting a cherry blossom tree on the wall above Olive’s bed. The next day I ran into my friend Susanna Burton who is a scenic painter and as much as I would have loved to have had a go at painting it myself Susanna was looking for a kids room to paint and I knew she would do a fantastic job. We talked about the idea, the colours, the mood, we looked through some reference books together and this is what Susanna came up with. It has been on the wall for 3 years and Olive and I never tire of looking at it. I didn’t want it to be too pink so asked Susanna to incorporate some really dark shades and some black outlines to give it some depth and some character. We added a huge oversized moon that has a dreamy pearlised finish to it. Towards the top of the wall the pink gets progressively darker and the colour runs into a black line that runs around the top of the wall.
Susanna’s mural features in the 2008/2009 issue of the beautiful French book MILK – Styles of inspiration for contemporary families as well as the May 2009 issue of Junior Magazine.
http://www.milkmagazine.net
www.muralsoncanvas.co.uk
we made it onto the cover!
We received a great new book in the post yesterday all the way from Japan. It is Tatsumi Publishing Co’s new book on London living . It shows a great selection of houses and flats that belong to some of Londons most exciting independent retailers and designers. I love that the houses aren’t a cliche full of must have statement pieces. Instead they are individual and eclectic and have in many cases been put together with a bigger imagination than a wallet that is a big plus in my book. I’m not sure if it is available here in the UK but if you do manage to get hold of a copy you will find lots of inspiring and original ideas.
One of the things that I thought I would miss when I left Red or Dead was the opportunity to develop products and to collaborate with brillant designers and illustrators. I am grateful that so many designers want to talk to me about their ideas for children’s products. When Gina Lely came to see me with her bespoke name cushions I loved the idea. We talked about colour and fabrics. Instead of producing white cushions like the samples I asked Gina to make an Olive Loves Alfie exclusive on dark denim. The samples looked great and among others we have had Enzo, Lukas, Lola and Bo produced for birthday and christening presents
The cushion complete with a filler costs £17 and each additional letter costs £4 each.
Delivery takes approximatley 1 week.
