want | need | wear | read : ME

want:  I've been in the market for some new ink for a while now and I'm hoping I can "scratch the itch" soon.  If I promise to get a big portrait of you, Santa, would you pretty please foot the bill?  (LAST MINUTE TIP:  make a cute homemade gift card and include some moolah for someone in your life who is wanting a new tat of her own.  This is a super easy last minute gift!) 

need:  I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  my eyes suck and I need to get more serious about seeing things clearly.  One of the main reasons I don't wear my glasses as often as I should is because I hate having to switch between prescription glasses and non-prescription sunnies.  For anyone who wears glasses, you know how weird it feels to go from "good vision" to "bad vision" in a swoop of an eyeglass frame.  I'm hoping this might be the Christmas that I can finally say, "Why yes, I can read that speed limit sign, officer!"  (LAST MINUTE TIP:  hack into your friend's computer and figure out when they have an opening on their schedule coming up and make them an appointment with an eye doctor.  Then after they get their new prescription, foot the bill for the new prescription sunglasses.  This is an easy-peasy 2-in-1, folks!) 

wear:  As a woman who is still nursing and still a long way off from feeling like putting on a super slim fitting sweater, this winter I'm all about my clothes fitting looser than…well…you can insert your own ending here.  This swingy sweatshirt is comfy enough for lounging around the house, easy enough for NC to access the goods, yet put together enough to wear out with jeans and boots.  (LAST MINUTE TIP:  brave the crowds and scoop up something pretty for your girl!  It's almost impossible to go wrong at H&M--find a store near you here!.)

read:  Everyone's raving, and I want to join in the fun.  As if 'Girls' wasn't reason enough, watching her hilarious short video series, 'Ask Lena', just sealed the deal.  (LAST MINUTE TIP:  buy the Kindle edition for her to read on one of her many techy devices!) 

This marks the end of our 2014 gift giving guide!  We hope you have an amazing holiday season filled with love, laughter, food, family, friends, and mistletoe.  See you in 2015.

xoxo

-mel

want | need | wear | read : HER

I asked a good ole' friend of mine to contribute for today's WNWR gift guide and she really hit the nail on the head.  Lauren Kennedy is one of the most stylish and graceful human beings I've ever known, plus she's super talented and wicked smart to boot.  By day she works for Ballet Memphis (which brought her to be included in the Memphis Flyer's 2014 edition of 20<30), and by, well, the rest of her life, she plays a leading role in the blossoming art scene in Memphis and beyond.  She runs and curates a gallery out of her own living room, Southfork (which has gotten amazing wonderful beautiful reviews recently, by the way), and recently co-curated Pandora's Children, a three-part feminist exhibition featuring regional and national artists, at the Clough Hanson Gallery at Rhodes College (Lauren's & my beloved alma mater).  For as long as I've known her (going on 10 years now, Lauren, can you believe it??), she has been passionate about lending her unique point of view to bring art to the masses.

Naturally, Lauren's WNWR list focuses on objects of beauty which are perfect for any woman in your life.  You can easily adjust Lauren's gift ideas to suit any special lady of your own, whether it be a great piece of art, a beautiful piece of jewelry, a classic piece of clothing she will wear forever, or a book to bring her inspiration for years to come. 

want:  Alex Paulus is a friend of mine and an artist whose work I enjoy a lot.  He was in a great show I put together at Southfork, and I've been wanting to keep one of his weirdo paintings for a while.  They're irreverent and smart in a dumb kind of way, and I love the colors and textures.  Plus, art has to make the best gift ever.

need:  I haven't bought a new coat in years and it is high time.  I love Zara in general because their pieces are always nice but still ultimately affordable.  I have been trying for years to retrain myself to save up a little and buy one nice thing instead of several crappy things, and Zara is usually a place where I can do that.  Figuring out something that somebody needs but hasn't been able to spend good money on themselves for whatever reason is always a great gift.  Plus, I just can't get enough of this color green.  I want it on everything.

wear:  I love this jewelry designer based out of my hometown of Dallas, F is for Frank.  I have one of their stingray rings and it is a piece that I wear all the time, and constantly get compliments on.  I have been looking at this necklace for months and am sure that I would wear it a lot.  All of their stuff is great.

read:  I have always been enamored with Louise Bourgeois, but have been thinking about her even more lately after seeing some of her work in DC this summer and being asked to be a part of this feminist show at Rhodes.  I would love to have a big, beautiful book of her work and writings to spend some time with.

Come back for our next WNWR gift guide, comin' atchya from a pretty fly guy & equally rad dad, my one and only Mr. 

Noonday Collection {GIVEAWAY CLOSED}

I recently learned about an organization called Noonday Collection and got immediately excited about it.  Their mission is  

"to create economic opportunity for the vulnerable" by partnering with artisans around the world and creating a marketplace for their goods.  Noonday empowers their artisans by offering no interest loans to help get their businesses off the ground, making advance payments on orders, and of course paying fair living wages.  In addition to creating a sustainable marketplace for underprivileged artisans, Noonday donates a portion of sales to help place orphans with forever families.
  

Beadwork from Guatemala 

With the spirit of Thanksgiving still ringing in our ears, I thought now would be the perfect time to encourage you to "purchase with purpose" this gift giving season!  Supporting organizations, like Noonday Collection, that make a greater impact in the global marketplace and in the lives of everyday people in a real tangible way is something I try my best to support whenever I can.  I encourage you to go into this shopping season with a similar goal in mind.

Artillery beads from Ethiopia

To help you get in the gift giving spirit, Noonday is kindly giving away one $50 gift certificate to shop this holiday season!  All you have to do to enter is visit their website, and leave a comment below telling me what you would buy for yourself and one thing you'd gift to someone special (I'm eyeing this bangle, this scarf, and this leather tote.)   I will randomly draw a winner on Friday, December 5.

Embroidery from Peru

If you are in the Denver area and are interested in learning more about Noonday Collection (while eating, drinking, and shopping their winter collection, maybe with your new gift certificate!), I will be hosting a Holiday Trunk Show on Sunday, December 7.  Let me know in your comment below if you are interested in attending and I will send you more details!

If you are not in the area, no worries!  Just visit Noonday's website and fill up your shopping cart, then when you check out choose 'Dawn Post' as your ambassador, and type 'Megan Lombardo' in for the trunk show you are supporting.

Thanks in advance for supporting artisans from developing countries around the world this holiday season!  Now, get to shopping!

-mel

**Congratulations Eirin!**

Ludwig Bemelmans

Ludwig Bemelmans is best known for his creation of the legendary children's book character, Madeline.  That typical little Parisian school girl has graced the bookshelves of countless children around the world for years, including mine.  I recently stumbled across a drawing of Bemelmans' that captured my adult interest just as his Madeline once captured my childhood imagination.  I'm no artist and don't pretend to know much of anything about visual art.  Nevertheless, Bemelmans' drawings seem almost to be "stream of consciousness" to me--lines that seem to never end, looping and turning and dancing across the page, creating some of the most elegantly idiosyncratic little scenes I've ever seen.

Profile of a Lady. 

ink, wash, and graphite

St. James's Park. 

ink and gouache on paper

(image above)

Self Portrait. 

pen, black ink, and grey wash

Chef tasting wine.

watercolor and ink on paper

Shades Of: Purple & Gold

With the onset of fall happening right now, I'm really drawn to the combinations of varying shades of purple and gold that are happening all around us.  The aspen trees are bursting into flames and the hues of gold are leaning toward almost flourescent, while other trees are tending to go out a bit quieter, their green leaves turning darker and then over into the side of purple and eventually to brown and away, gone, into winter.  And every once in a while, you see a rose losing some of it's pigment, changing a once rich shade of wine into a lighter blush.  The combinations of these varying shades--the bright metallic golds with the rich deep indigos or light muted comfortable purples--are helping me to find inspiration in the now, instead of dwelling on the cold winter to come.     

(clockwise from top left) 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 

Alfie Design

How beautiful are these watercolor invitations from Alfie Design?

Even though I have absolutely nothing remotely important enough to justify having such stunning works of art act as invitations for coming up in my life, I'm still pretty tempted to commission some anyway.  How about an invitation for coming over to help me fold laundry?  Or a nice evening of binge eating chocolate chips while listening to a very determined 1-year old protest about having to go to sleep?

See, I knew I could come up with something.

See more of her beautiful work here, or purchase one of her cards, invites, or paintings here.

 

         

Drugs, Sex, and…Classical Music?

I'm not going to go into too much detail here about why this topic interests me.  That would take way too much space and you would most certainly not come back to read much more from me I'm sure.  "Rambling" would be putting it lightly.  Anyway, I'll just say that classical music has been a huge part of my life since I was 6 years old and sat down in front of my first grand piano.  I love it.  Always have, always will.  

For me, there is no question that classical music is completely relevant and exciting even hundreds of years after some of it was written.  Having studied extensively the history and theory behind much of the classical music repertoire, I understand that my interest is inherently biased, but I also feel strongly that even without a musical background, anyone can find a similar interest and love of classical music.  And if that means you have to read "Fifty Shades of Grey" to do it, so be it. 

I've never read it, but supposedly, the book's namesake Christian Grey has an interest (Among other things…) in classical music.  In one particular scene, as explained in this WQXR article, "Grey turns on his car stereo and proceeds to inform his love interest, Anastasia, about his 'eclectic' taste in music--'everything from Thomas Tallis to the Kings of Leon'.  Grey says the Tallis is 'very esoteric, I know, but it's also magical'." 

Even though reading that little excerpt makes me throw up in my mouth a little (hey, we all have different tastes in men and their pick-up lines), I will say that it is pretty impressive that a "mommy porn" novel can make a medieval choral motet break through the top 10 on the music charts some 450 years later and inspire a whole soundtrack full of classical music.  I'll certainly applaud for that.


There's no question that the guiding force behind the newfound popularity of pieces like Tallis' Spem in Alium is, plain and simple, sex.  The same thing that guides so much of pop culture today is creating a renaissance for musical forms from the past.  There are countless other examples of movies finding new ways to create a link between classical music and sex (here's a good starter list, if you're interested).  And you may be shocked to learn that this link between the racy promiscuous behavior and the bland penguin-attired orchestral musicians isn't just dreamed up by hollywood executives.  It's real.

According to Amazon's new series "Mozart in the Jungle" (based on the memoir of oboist Blair Tindall by the same name), the inner workings of classical music are just as outlandish as what you'd expect from the green room at a Rolling Stones concert.  Perhaps Mr. Grey wasn't so out of line after all.

So my question to you is does the sexualization of classical music make it more appealing to you?  More relatable?  Is classical music more interesting if there is drama and scandal attached to it?  What words, feelings, emotions, do you associate with classical music?  Is "kinky" one of them?

This is a safe space y'all.  Feel free to comment anonymously if that makes you more comfortable.  Either way, let 'er rip.

xoxo-

mel

(images via here, here, and here)

The Return of Inspiration

I'm not going to lie, the last several weeks have been hard.  In the midst of trying to tie up approximately 14 billion loose ends at work and home before baby arrives, my Mr. went and broke his ankle, leaving us one leg down.  So with just the normal craziness that accompanies any self-employed business owner who is trying to make sure things are covered during her absence, I learned the very hard lesson of just how unbelievably valuable my Mr.'s second leg is.

I hear that the last couple months of pregnancy are supposed to be for turning inward, focusing on connecting with the creature who is about to rock your world forever, learning to quiet your mind and your spirit in preparation for the greatest most life-altering experience of all time.  However, I admit I've spent most of mine in the throws of panic and stress, slowing down every once in a while to come back above water and remind myself of just how blessed I am.  But for the sake of honesty, I'd be lying if I said I didn't go back to swimming around in the great "woe is me" for the better part of it all.

Anyway, my point is:  I'M BACK.  I don't know what happened but yesterday I woke up and I was finally excited to see the beauty and inspiration that I have found for so long in this great thing--my dear internet cosmos.  There's no explaining it.  Maybe I just had enough of this whole self-pity crap.  Maybe I realized that I have less than a month before the curtain rises (supposedly) and holy shit, that's a huge of load of reality!  Time to get back into the beauty.

So, how about a round-up of a few things that have helped to remind me of who I really am.  In no particular order of importance:

1.)  Peaches--all day, every day.

Chilled Tomato & Peach Soup

Peach & Raspberry Crumble

The famous Palisade Peaches

2.) Petra Borner drawings--I want to tattoo these all over my body. (found via Jessica Comingore)

3.) Cursing, and trying to figure out how to make that work with virgin ears coming my way.

Miss Phies Boutique

4.)  Dexter--I may or may not have watched all seven seasons and got up to date to the current season 8 in approximately 2.7 weeks.  Don't judge me.

5.) My boys.

*DISCLAIMER: the below photo of my Mr. was taken in more innocent times, times before the reality of rock climbing injuries and the always present probability possibility that one will indeed bust their ass on an outcropping and send said climber straight to the surgeon's table and into the "non-weight bearing" oblivion of 8-12 weeks.*

**DISCLAIMER TWO:  if you were drenched by disdain from my previous disclaimer, please forgive me.  I'm working through it.

Let's talk.

Happy Friday, my dear internet cosmos!

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about this blogging platform. I think there are a lot of circles where if someone where sitting down to talk to the infinite void of internet every day, that person would be committed. But we do it. And we love it. And even if no one talks back, we keep talking. Tell me, is this normal?

See, I just posed another question to the unending ether without thinking twice about it.

I know there are voices out there on the other end of this thing. I've seen you, heard you, held your hand, drank a cold one with you, lived with you. Hell, I've even read your conversations with the same internet that I write to.

My point is, I'd love to hear from you. I want you to talk at me the way I talk at you in this platform. I'd like to create that old fashioned thing they call "conversation".

So, here are some ways you can engage in "active listening" with me:

*Look to your right-hand side of this page. Now look up a little. Yep, right underneath that mysterious picture of me. Enter your e-mail address and instead of having to remember to come check up on me, I'll come straight to you in your inbox.

*Stay over there on the right-hand side and you can subscribe to this blog. That means I'll show up in your reader when I write a new post.

*I have a lot of opinions on a lot of things. Do you? Let me know by leaving me comments at the end of posts.

And even if you're more the "silent listening" type, it's okay. You're beautiful just the way you are. I'm just glad you stopped by to stand quietly in the corner and observe. You're welcome anytime.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend! MEL

(image from here)

CREATOR.

Okay, so I've finally found a way to explain to you why I inadvertently spend so much time away from you when I really don't mean to and I certainly don't want to.

I am a creator.

This is the reason why I leave you for so long and then come back frantically wanting to catch up and fall madly in love again.

I know it sounds a little crazy but bear with me and I'll prove to you that it's true.

My life consists of many MANY hobbies and interests.  I am obsessed with glossy fashion and design magazines, not because I want to be rail thin and 7 feet tall or live in a pristine mansion, but because I am so drawn to things that are just plain pretty.  I'm in love with being outside as much as I can, and anytime I'm enjoying nature, it swallows me whole and next thing I notice, I look up and the whole day has passed.  I obviously love music, not only because it is my own personal paradise, but because it is a utopia I get to share with others every day through my work (and by work I mean, job that I get paid for).  I love cooking, eating, drinking, cutting out, gluing, knitting, knotting, painting, drawing, writing, blogging.  These are the things I fill my life with.  And all of these things are creative things.

And therefore:

*I am always doing more than I'm asked.
*I'm obsessed with trying new things.
*I'm passionate about teaching others about the things I love.
*I have a uncanny ability to turn things that I love into my work.
*I take LONG breaks.
*I work when others are resting and rest when all the rest of the world is working.
*My brain is constantly in rotation around new and beautiful things to create.
*I am always searching for my next bit of inspiration.
*And last but not least, I am completely in love with life.

See, like I said, I'm a creator and my life is a twisted-up tangled mix of a million different inspirations.  And more often than not, I'm off on a tangent, getting caught up in a new part of life that engulfs me and carries me out into it's sea.  And then I float back to shore and write a new blog post to you, my dear internet cosmos.

So, please forgive me for my time away.  And thanks so much for reading.

More inspiration to come--
MEL

Major Art Movements

I'm really loving these pared down prints by Outmane Amahou that cleverly and succinctly describe major art movements in history.

Of course I know these prints don't even come close to explaining the magnitude of the different major art movements they portray, but they're a hell of a lot easier than the art history courses I slummed through in college.

Keepin' it classy--
MEL

(All images from here.  Found via here.)

Znak Wallpaper

How rad is this completely customizable tear-off wallpaper from Znak?  I'm particularly obsessed with the thought of putting this in a kids room and letting a child go wild.  Just tear off random sections and the wall goes from "paint bomb explosion" to "graphic art masterpiece".  Like this:

(Found via Design Milk.  Images from here.)

Hope you're having an inspiring Monday.
XOXO
--MEL

Prom

This morning, I was driving home from a quick getaway up the mountains with my best friend, whom I have known and loved since we were both 5.  Crazy I know, but absolutely true.

Anyway, my point is that this friend of mine also went through the most ridiculously confusing, self-depracating, pretty much all around terrible time called high school with me and we still love each other.  And that's really saying a lot.

Again, I digress.  The actual point here is that we got to talking on our drive home about high school and our probably-never-going-to-happen upcoming 10 year reunion and about "remember that time when...blankity blank blank blah?".  Needless to say, we both kind of moved on from that topic as quickly and as randomly as it had started, and just like high school feels looking back on it now, the whole conversation had disappeared as quickly as it had begun.  Thank god.

Then I got home and sat down to write this post and remembered coming across this review of an amazing new work of photography and film being shown at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, frankly entitled Prom.  Oh god, here comes the flood of memories again.  And by memories I mean, extremely blurry montages of light and color that I think might have been from prom but then again, I was rocking away on a boat that night with a bunch of wild children who were all, just like me, escaping from the reality of small town high school for the evening.  So, really who knows.

Anyway,  I'm so thankful that there was no one at my prom to document it like Mary Ellen Mark did for this extremely intriguing (and overwhelmingly gut-wrenching) exposition of polaroids and film that is currently on exhibition.  I can't get over how surreal these photographs seem.  And how I too was a girl going to prom once.  And how I really hope I didn't seem as hopeless as a lot of these kids.  Yikes.

This is the stuff of genius, folks.  If you live in the Philly area, please go see this exhibit and tell me all about it.  It looks absolutely amazing.

Christina Chang, Austin, TX, 2008. Mary Ellen Mark

Michael Glorioso and Eliza Wierzbinska, Staten Island, New York, 2006. Mary Ellen Mark

Toccarra Beguma and George Wilkinson, New York City, 2007. Mary Ellen Mark

Okay, enough reminiscing for me.  Must stop before I throw up from the memories of parrot bay and diet coke, stale cigarettes, and fast food.

XOXO
--MEL

Megan Lombardo Music

I'd like to take a moment away from regular programming to give myself a completely shameless plug.

As I've mentioned many times before in this space, I'm a musician.  By trade, by hobby, by passion.  And I am now accepting new students in the Denver metro area!

Please visit my professional website for more information.

Thanks so much for your support!
--MEL

Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam

How about an art exhibit that you can climb all over?  I could definitely get into that.

Artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam had the same idea when she decided to crochet playgrounds for her admirers to not only look at, but climb on.  

I mean come on.  Look at this woman on her hands and knees crocheting!  That is seriously amazing.

Go out and play in your community today!

--MEL

(All images from here.)