Millinery Haunting…

29 Wednesday Sep 2010

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© Joan Currie

Passing, glimpsing, everything seems accidentally but miraculously sprinkled with beauty, as if the tide of trade…had this night cast up nothing but treasure.
Virginia Woolf

As I peered in the windows of a millinery shop last night, Virginia Woolf’s voyeuristic essay, Street Haunting: A London Adventure came to mind. My imagination conjured up fantasies about who might buy these hats and to what occasions they would be worn. The mannequins appeared eerily lifelike.

Photos – Joan Currie

Barbie BMW…

28 Tuesday Sep 2010

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© Patrick Rafanan

One of my heroes is Barbie. She may not do anything,
but she always looks great doing it.
Paris Hilton

Strolling along Mission Street at 21st in San Francisco I spotted a custom Barbie BMW 745 LI. Only Barbie would insist on a diamanté BMW logo!

Model – Lauren DiMarco

Sunday Morning: Half Moon Bay…

27 Monday Sep 2010

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© Antonio Genovia

Oh what a beautiful morning,
Oh what a beautiful day…
Oscar Hammerstein II

Half Moon Bay beckoned me this morning. I walked along the shore at high tide and dodged the waves that claimed nearly half the beach.

© Joan Currie

© Joan Currie

Models – Lauren DiMarco and Oleg Galagan

Sense of Smell…

25 Saturday Sep 2010

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© Eleven Orchids Photography

The sense of smell can be extraordinarily evocative, bringing back pictures as sharp as photographs of scenes that had left the conscious mind.

I visited my maternal grandfather only a couple of times, but during each stay he smoked White Owl cigars. Since his passing over thirty years ago, every time I smell a cigar I am instantly transported back to those few, special moments I had alone with him. The most memorable one was when he taught me how to draw a five-pointed star. I traced his pencil lines following his simple directions: across town, downtown, uptown, downtown, and back home again.

Autumn…

23 Thursday Sep 2010

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© Joan Currie

When the frost is on the pumpkin and the fodder’s in the shock.
James Whitcomb Riley

Autumn arrived last night as I took an evening stroll under the light of the full harvest moon. The moon was extraordinarily bright and I was sure to make a wish as the autumnal equinox will not coincide with a harvest moon again until 2029 in the northern hemisphere.

Frenzy: Marrakech…

19 Sunday Sep 2010

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© Joan Currie

Untamed, disorderly, untainted by grandeur or pomp, untamable by council or committee, Jemaa El Fna is nothing less than bedlam.

Time Out Marrakech

My architect-adventurer daughter and I frequently travel together. We arrived in the Marrakech’s main square, Jemaa El Fna, at dusk. The out-of-focus photographs really captures the craziness of thousands of people of all nationalities pushing, pulsating to the drums, steering clear of the snake charmers, bargaining with the stall vendors, and feasting at large communal tables. We ordered a chicken pie that looked very much like the standard pot pies back home. It tasted like chicken but turned out to be pigeon!

Boots…

17 Friday Sep 2010

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© Catherine Lee

My boots weren’t made for walking, they are works of contemporary art.
Lauren DiMarco

My daughter considered urban graffiti a legitimate art form even before she lived in São Paulo, Brazil, “the current worldwide mecca of graffiti.” When Christian Louboutin designed these radical red calf boots she had to have them – not to wear, but to display.

© Joan Currie - Christian Louboutin Boots

© Joan Currie - San Francisco Graffiti

Model – Lauren DiMarco

 

Orange…

16 Thursday Sep 2010

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© Lydia Hudgens

Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower.

Albert Camus

Autumn is my favorite season! Inspired by my glass pumpkin and the pumpkins in the fields and markets, I decided to inject some orange to my decor and wardrobe to spice things up for fall. First, I  planned to repaint my navajo white gallery wall with a rich earth tone. In the paint store I was drawn to color samples with lovely sounding names like Amontillado, Savannah, and Calliope, but finally settled on Chutney.

Being half Dutch, I had no choice but to wear orange at the World Cup Soccer events in San Francisco last June and July. In addition to the excitement of the games, the color orange made me feel energetic, invigorated, passionate, and sensual! Since then, I have chosen several accessories from the orange-red to orange-yellow and gold range to accent my wardrobe and have discovered that I have a penchant for that color!

Model: Lauren DiMarco

Southern Cross…

14 Tuesday Sep 2010

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© Nicolo Sertorio

When you see the Southern Cross
For the first time
You understand now
Why you came this way…

Crosby, Stills & Nash (song)

I saw the Southern Cross for the first time floating on my back in the pool at the Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio. The constellation’s five stars directly overhead were completely visible in the jet black sky. I stared at the heavens transfixed, bobbing in the water with the soothing sounds of the surf breaking onto the beach just across the Avenida Atlântica, and knew that I would remember that moment forever.

Copacabana Palace Hotel, Rio

Model – Lauren Currie

Niterói…

11 Saturday Sep 2010

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© Joan Currie - MAC

Reason is the enemy of imagination.
A razão é inimiga da imaginação.
Oscar Niemeyer

When I visited my daughter in Brazil, she promised to show me the wonders of Rio de Janeiro. Although I adored that city, another city across Guanabara Bay, called Niterói, was even more enchanting. Oscar Niemeyer’s flying saucer-like Museu da Arte Comtemporânea (MAC) dominated the skyline. Its location overlooking the Bay toward Rio reminded me of the view of San Francisco from Sausalito. After examining several art exhibits, we strolled along the shore from the MAC to the bustling ferry building.

On the second floor balcony we feasted on Bob’s hamburgers and Guaraná sodas and watched the sunset. As darkness fell, the riot of Rio’s neon lights began to obliterate Sugarloaf and the other volcanic mountains, save for a patch of white light atop Corcovado mountain that illuminated the statue of Christ the Redeemer. The ferry ride back to Rio was magical, even for the locals. We crossed the Bay in silence enchanted by the beauty all around us.

© Joan Currie - Guanabara Bay