sunday & i guess i just feel like

dancing around the house this sunday morning to the gorgeous voice of john mayer and i guess i just fee like...

come dance with me! & enjoy...

sunday & nicki bluhm

dancing around the house this sunday to nicki bluhm's to rise you gotta fall...

just so good! come dance with me! & enjoy...

happy father's day! to dad, the one i love

enjoy

sunday & natalie merchant & rem

dancing around the house this morning to this amazing collaboration between rem and natalie merchant, two of my absolute favs...

come on, dance with me! enjoy...

monday & california style

i'm not entirely sure why, but as the years go by, my east coast taste and style is leaning, ever so slowly, toward the quiet sexiness of california styled spaces, inside and out...

(via)
the style is really quite different than what i'm used to seeing, than what i'm used to living in, but there is a draw to the desert color palette and unique solitude that these spaces offer. maybe it's the california sunlight? not sure. but there is just something special about them. enjoy!

random spaces to love today

i could spend time in any of these spaces today. i like them all for so many different reasons (um, that blush pink living room wall?!)...

(links)
enjoy!

these

i just like these today. the color palette combinations, the lines, the statements. they make me smile...

(links)
enjoy!

sunday & a little smile

i spent today on the outskirts of new york city, i could see the skyline. going through a little town, the flags were at half mast at every turn, and for obvious reasons today. but then there were small celebrations all over town, outdoor lobster lunches on the greens of small churches, families dressed up still in summer wardrobes, an antique fire truck loaded with children with painted faces waving and laughing and celebrating drove past my car, going where i'm not sure. i wondered how the mood of town could seem light, and happy, and full of people smiling, today. it seemed to go against the grain. but maybe that was what was so perfect about it. to celebrate not what happened on 9/11, but that we are stronger because of it. we are prouder because of it. we are americans. smiling today in many ways for many reasons, still...

enjoy!

sunday & mississippi

singing and swaying around the house to the cactus blossoms today, and mississippi...

enjoy!

let's talk tampons. no, really.

when molly hayward approached me about cora,her product, (and yes they are indeed tampons), i thought...hmmm, seems strange right? why on earth would i feature tampons on a design blog? but there's (obviously) more to the story, (though tampons ARE a definite design in a sense). so yes, molly's product line, cora, is about tampons, but it's also about helping to bring about "a better future for all women in every part of the world." but i'm getting to that, the AMAZING cause behind cora soon...

cora tampons are 100% certified organic (read more about why that is SO important here). women purchase and use over 10,000 tampons in their lifetime. wow. so there's that. and because of that giant number we should want the best for our bodies right? and yes, as you can see from the images above, cora's branding is fabulous, they come to your door looking like this, beautifully packaged in clean, modern ways to carry (aka, very creatively hide) and use your tampons. so that's pretty cool.

BUT, why i took on this post is because of THE CAUSE. molly has traveled extensively, and through her research concludes that approximately 100 million girls/women lack access to adequate menstrual products around the globe. um, 100 million woman. wow. products that you and i reach for in a split second, without thought. we can do better than that right? well molly is.

read more about molly's cause, through her cora product line here, it's about the every day struggle of women from different cultures, religions & countries and about why this is so important. for every month's supply of cora tampons that you purchase, AND LISTEN UP, this is the amazing part, cora donates one month's supply to women in need. women in countries where just talking about a period is embarrassing or unheard of. so they don't. and then in turn, they are not taking care of themselves. so tell your friends, your co-workers, your family! guys, tell your wives, your sisters, your mothers! women and men reading this blog, help cora support all the women they can.

BONUS!: for the next 30 days, cora is offering avant garde design readers $5.00 of your first purchase. simply enter the code CORA5ROBIN at checkout!
enjoy!

in full disclosure, i received product for this post but all opinions are my own.

artist feature: arthur hent

i'm loving this abstract line series today by french-based artist arthur hent...

arthur's linear works have personality all their own. and he actually names each of them a numbered "self-portrait." (some are drawn with a bic pen!) i love that. in 2013 the online design and culture magazine trendland wrote (here) of arthur & his work stating that "though his art consists mostly of just solid colors, bold lines, and rectangular forms, each piece exudes a presence that moves them beyond simple abstracted compositions. taking inspiration from abstract expressionists, hent has created a new kind of abstraction closely linked to the biological and technological world. no work contains words or realistic figures, and yet each digital portrait has a life and personality of its own."

abstract art is one of those subjective styles that some viewers either really enjoy, or not. you either really "get it", or not. or maybe you don't have to, maybe you just enjoy the marks that the artist makes, and that's enough. in arthur's self-portraits, i feel that i see figures in motion and still, seated or standing, that i see emotion even. not sure if arthur would say that i'm accurate. but just by the fact that i'm looking, that i'm enjoying...i think he would enjoy that too.

p.s. his strictly graphic instagram account is pretty amazing too.