[Individual photo credits: 1. Photography: Ania Wawrzkowicz, Styling: Aliki Kirmitsi, alikiandania.com 2. Things Organized Neatly 3. Bob Dinetz Design 4. Thing Organized Neatly 5. Jamie Newton 6. Todd McLellan 7. crowhand 8. Monika Hoinkis]

**Note:** I apologise for my absence from this little spot on the net for the past few months. It has been a difficult time personally with family health issues taking up all of my (our) time and attention. Things are very much on the up and hopefully this means for a restful and stress-free rest of the year! It’s really nice to be back! xx

my favourite blog to visit for quite some time has been sandra juto’s. i love getting a glimpse into her daily life and it’s lovely to see all the details she notices in her daily wanderings. i’m all about the details. her photos are unassuming but acute and it feels like she really gets under the skin of gothenburg, the city she lives in.
i also love getting to see her daily creative process both at home and in her new studio.

[photographs: sandra juto]

sandra is so the bees-knees. have you seen her wrist worms? and her illustrations? she makes softies too.

i always feel happy after visiting her site. go have a look:
+her portfolio.
+her shop.
+and go here for her blog.
+she’s also on flickr.

+ oh, the colour! [x]
+ how i love a little kitteh with big ears! [x & x]
+ in the works [x]
+ hannah huffmann [x]

before bedtime

the street lights buzz and flicker on,
time to say goodbye to friends
turn your bike around and head back home

hannah’s words perfectly complement her photos. this & this i also love.
+ haeshu [x]
+ this, this & this is really pretty too.
+ i just discovered this place here


now, i think it’s time for me to take stewie and myself off to bed as tomorrow Semi Permanent beckons!
(oh! and guess who turns 29 tomorrow?…)

xo

“At the beginning of 2001, I started taking pictures of recently abandoned offices and the things people had left behind. This project was more than photography for me. It was economic archeology. America has not suffered such a vertiginous economic collapse since the 1930′s, and I wanted to document the human cost while it was happening. There is something very strange about walking into a recently abandoned office. The heavy, Pompeii-like stillness, punctuated only by the occasional sound of the air-conditioning turning itself on. A coat-hanger waiting patiently for a coat. A limp “happy birthday” balloon on the floor. A drawer stuffed with take-out menus. Everywhere, signs of life, interrupted.” –Phillip Toledano

Phillip Toledano is quickly becoming one of my favourite photographers. I first saw his BANKRUPT series on boing boing last year and have periodically gone back to look over them again and again. In another of his photo essays “Days with my Father” he documents living with his father’s dementia following his mother’s sudden death. This moving tribute to his 98 year old father really affected me.

“There’s something delicate and tenuous in the act of letting your story go in the desire that it will mean as much to a stranger as it does to you.”*

…

“Having read the whole story, I feel stillness and solitude. The kind of mini-metamorphosis you rise from after you’ve just had an experience that’s led to realization. My parents are still younger, but one day they will be old. One day I will be old. I see myself taking part in a loop, both familiar and alien, of childhood and manhood, of life and death, and of the parent becoming the child.”*

I’m not able to say anything about this series that hasn’t already been said perfectly before. Go look at these. And take your time. Read the words.
I haven’t been so moved by a photograph for a long time.

I can only hope to one day be able to create such a beautifully deep personal memoir.

[*quote via shape+color]

I love love days like this. Especially when there are no appointments to be kept and plans can be left for another time.

I’m awash with links of wonderful new places and loads of inspiration and pretty things to look at.

I love days like this.