Serious Horsetail Ramblings....

I really had to fight off a strong urge to stay in bed yesterday with my fascinating Somatics book.  The mourning doves were cooing in the falling rain and I was freezing; the blankets were calling.  I still had to find out why my arms have been falling asleep at night the days I do yoga.  I think the key to discovering why is at the end of this volume and I can't bring myself to 'cheat' by flipping ahead.   Well, I took a hot shower instead to warm myself up.  Besides, staying in bed with a book usually leads to a nap and who really feels good after a nap?  Especially after just eating?  For me it's a recipe for a depressing day, especially when its so gray and cold outside that I feel like I want to blame my sluggishness on my imagined SAD disease diagnosis.
So, Daniel asked me if I wanted to go to Scherwiller to pick sugar plums at his Cousin's.  Just to tell you: his Cousin lives in Paris and uses this Scherwiller house as a vacation house.  Her three daughters and their corresponding boyfriends use it sometimes, too (party house).  The first time I saw the home, it was still in possession of his Aunt and the property was a little bit overgrown but there were natural wonders to discover: two quince trees, two black cherry trees, two pear trees, raspberry brambles, blackberries, kiwi stands, one walnut tree, two sugar plum trees, one mirabelle tree, several elderberry trees, muscat grape vines, and an apple tree (I think.)  The Parisians have torn down all the fruit trees except the muscat grapes, the two sugar plum trees, and one cherry tree.   The landscape has changed, it is less wild, and your foot hits sad gaping stumps as you walk the grounds.   Plucking the sugar plums was fun anyway.  Even in the rain.  As I picked each fruit, it felt like I was milking a cow, or what I think milking a cow would feel like in that the tree was finding some kind of relief of sorts in the harvest.  'Isn't nature generous?' I screamed at Daniel.  Photos of the sugar plum harvest will follow tomorrow.  I know, the anticipation is killing you.
Afterwords, we went to a a corn field, (yep, where this Hoosier felt right at home!) where growing between each stalk were to be found horsetail tufts.  Daniel needed more for his biodynamic decoctions.  I have no idea how he found them hidden away in the corny shadows but there they were, and he nipped out a bundle.
Enjoy your day!

A walk through Andlau...

After an afternoon hike up to the Chateau d'Andlau, we walked through the village of the same name and found some radiant morning glories as well as a strange Baboushka pumping water.

Goetheanum Pilgrimage...

A handful of photos of our trip to the Goetheanum, the epicenter of Anthroposophy and of The School of Spiritual Science!

We had a truly fascinating, almost surreal afternoon with a private tour guide.  We will return! 

Stretch like an Animal...

I got this soft organic & fairtrade interlock fabric from a great company in England called Gossypium and knew they’d make for some great yoga or pilates shorts!

I made my own pattern after a different pair of yoga shorts I liked, and just sewed in an acetate strip at each hip, sewed three lines which form the ‘tubes’ and passed through two cords. presto!

I can ruche them hard or soft, tie them into a knot or a bow…functional and cool!

Farm animals on the mat keep things light and fun!

'The more you stop to observe animals and learn from them, the healthier and more peaceful your life will be.' - Dr. Wayne Dyer

Daniel the Gardener

Contact: 0673574005

Harem Pants

I can prance in these pants!

A big thank you to Aunt Sue for the dark green silk (and pink too, more on that soon!) used in the construction of these pantaloons!   Pattern found in Burda Magazine, November 2009

See those triangular sections at the front, back and at sides and inseams of the pants?  These were really tricky!  Thank goodness Madame Sutter was present with her generous expertise!  We didn't have enough fabric for the bow or pockets, but who needs 'em?  

Daniel took off on his bike to harvest some wild plants.  Here they are sun drying. ↓  

They will be used to make some herbal decoctions and then applied on a client's garden that's attacked by fungus and undesirable insects.   Here's what he found: 

Stinging nettles ↑

horsetail↑

and tansy.↑

After simmering in water on the stove for 30 minutes, each batch is strained, bottled in glass, cooled, and finally administered.   More work than chucking a container of roundup into the shopping cart and squirting it willy-nilly, but then, would we be able to hear those nature spirits singing as loudly....?  

Thanks Daniel! 

Peekaboo Garden Babies

Little green beans!   Pierrot's beans have been coming in for months now so we thought there was something the matter with ours which hasn't yet given us one stinking bean!....I'm all like, Daniel, we should ask him what's wrong, why ours isn't producing...?  But he said no, we shouldn't.  There's a thing called gardener's pride.  Who has the greener thumb? huh?  huh? 

And a baby cucumber with a fluted head!  

Peekaboo Garden Babies! Why do these make me laugh!?

mirabelle & quetsche jam....

Madame Sutter came in with a bucket of very ripe and fresh mirabelles and questches yesterday....

and got started right away on making some jam!

 

It's about time Madame Sutter got herself on the E + D blog!!!  Here she is, cutting the pits out of the quetsches! 

We certainly have domestic fun together and I appreciate spending time with her very much as she's really good at reminding me of the true value of things.   A Bellemère & Bellefille fruit fest!

Saturday Eggs

Basil sprouting up in our lifelike terra cotta egg planter.

Zucchini Bread

Experimental Peanut Chocolate Cinnamon Zucchini Bread.  Thank you to our very giving zucchini plant.

Poiret's Péniches

Daniel and I had an attic-purging yard sale a couple of years ago.  My good sense penetrated the clutter-reducing frenzy as I set aside a stunning 'Exposition des Arts Décoratifs' postcard set.  Yesterday I carefully got it out of my nightstand drawer, and looking at each, hoped to find one fitting for the 9th edition of the Festival of Postcard's topic 'Locomotion.'   

Then, there it was, the twelfth postcard in this booklet of fifteen depicts three péniches, or barges...

This black and white postcard pack features the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs that happened in Paris in 1925.  Twenty-one nations participated and it is from this very exposition that the style Art Deco gets its name.   There were considerations to be made at this World's Fair that is related to the postcard that I chose: was fashion truly a decorative art?  From a 1925 guidebook to the Expostion:

'"Is clothing-at least in its affiliation with the feminine toilet-a decorative art?  It is, without a doubt, and the most venerable, that which leads to all the others.  It is also the art which relates most closely to modernity as it lives on surprise and novelty.  In France, fashion is a major issue, a supremacy to which all our rivals must accede'."* 

So, la couture was represented by Paul Poiret, the French fashion designer who freed women of the epoque from corsets with his unstructured, draped dresses, introducing harem pants and pantaloons and the very popular lampshade and hobble skirts.  And he was to displayed his work within these three floating vessels.... 

Now, let's explore the postcard:

Lined up along the dock of the Seine are three barges near the Exhibition entrance.  The Eiffel tower is barely visible jutting into the sky behind.  Along the bottom in white lettering: 'Exposition des Arts Décoratifs  Les Trois Péniches: Amours, Délices et Orgues' 

In the right bottom corner is marked '55 A.N Paris,' A. N denoting Alfred Noyer, publisher, photographer and member of the Salon de Paris.    
The back side of the postcard is divided with the words: 'Made in France, Fabriqué en France.

Also seen is Noyer's distinctive circular Logo: 'A. Noyer' 

along with another logo 'SPA'.

Amours, Délices, and Orgues (In French, these three nouns are notable for their unusual genders: singular, they are masculine, but plural, they become feminine) were Poiret's couture showboats.   The barge Amours housed interior creations and furnishings made at his Atelier Martine and École Martine, named after his daughter.  École Martine was an experimental school that provided artistically inclined Parisian working-class girls with the opportunity to learn design.   Under the direction of design educator Marguerite Gabriel-Claude Sérusier, the curriculum was unstructured and the ladies were allowed to create as they wished, sketching plants and animals in local parks and zoos.  Poiret then bought the best of their drawings, which were adapted for use at the Atelier Martine, the design studio. At first, Atelier Martine produced only textiles and wallpapers, but soon expanded to create carpets, lighting, hand-painted glassware and ceramics, dolls, furniture and offered interior design services.  The output of the atelier was then sold through the retail shop La Maison Martine located at 107, rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré until 1924, when it moved to 1, Rond-Point des Champs-Élysées. **  

Inside the boat Délices was a presentation of Poiret's perfume creations from Maison Rosine, named after his other daughter.  (Click here to see views of the Rosine boutique from the 20's and here to see the enticing names of some forty Parfums de Rosine.  The Rosine line was reintroduced in 1991 under perfumer Marie-Hélène Rogeon.) It was here at the 1925 Exposition that Poiret introduced the newest of his Rosine scents: Coeur en Folie.  Also on the Délices was a restaurant.  


Found in the Orgues were elegant examples of Paul Poiret's fashion designs alongside an illuminated organ.  

Below is a postcard I found of the barges on the Seine at night.

More views here,  in a three postcard set of the three boats, sent by Charles Hermance, a musician who played in an orchestra on the Orgues during the Exposition.




Read the New York Time's art review of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exposition: 'Paul Poiret: King of Fashion' from 2007.  Or listen to an NPR broadcast about it, and Poiret in general.

a sketch by Poiret

CITATIONS

*Gronberg, Tag.  Designs on Modernity: Exhibiting the City in 1920s Paris, 1998.
**Paul Poiret: Textile Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.