Well since I have stated that this blog is about all manner of surface decoration, I thought it would be appropriate to post this then I got an email this morning from Heather Moss with all these crazy cat photos attached. I imagine it is making the rounds so you may have seen it?

Apparently there is this little Painted Catssubculture in our society, balanced by the obligatory counter-revolution of those outraged by the use of cats as canvas. If you want to jump into the fray, check out the Why Paint Cats website.

I though people were a bit crazy when willing to pay $40 for a doggie sweater. That pales in comparison to the reported $15,000 that some are willing to pay for their cat paintings (with touchups every three mos.) I think I prefer my pets au naturale. How about you?

An “amour” is a love affair, which I find highly appropriate for my relationship with design as I am basically obsessed with looking at it, thinking about it and somehow attempting to create it most of my waking hours.

So, for my personal blog I wanted to design something that looked, well, personal! My most recent creative muse has been kimono art and I have been really inspired by the Japanese design aesthetic in many different ways. I also wanted to design a blog that didn’t look like a typical blog and again WordPress provides that option. Plus, something really cool it that there is a “theme switcher” option with WordPress, so you can actually have multiple themes that reader and viewers can select from and the whole blog changes like that! Adding additional themes for this blog are 146 on my list of things to do, so it won’t be happening any time too soon, but someday…..

While web researching, I came across a really pretty site that I found both unique and inspiring, Jeux de Maux. It’s French, naturally!

A few clicks later and there are more beautiful blog sites to see here Dotclear. You have to scroll down the page and on the right hand side there is a Themes drop-down menu. Just select different themes to create a completely different way to view the blog. Very cool! Here is just one view.

Anyway, just wanted to share that. Like all self-doubting artists, I think that this site could definitely use a few more tweaks but finally figured that I just needed to get it going and will get back to it when I am down to 146 on the list.

I found it a little overwhelming when I started looking at blogging options. While is seems that the majority of blogs are on Blogger or Typepad I decided that I really liked WordPress. You can set up your own domain, there is a lot of flexibility in the design and, most importantly, I loved the fact that it has been created, not by a corporation, but by an online community of people who are passionate about their “art”.

To make it harder on myself, I wanted to set up not one blog site, but two; one for myself and one for the Art of Living project I have begun in partnership with Barb Skivington of Faux Works Studio. For days, I researched what the heck a blog was and browsed through dozens of sites and the available theme pages. There are hundreds that have already been designed by programmers all over the world. You can REALLY get lost in this stuff-I was lost quite a few times!!

I kept going back, though, to really clean looking themes by headsetoptions, finally settled on “Easy White” for the Art of Living blog and started working with my in-house graphic artist Lauren on the header and footer. I REALLY like the way it turned out, with the use of color along with B/W photography. Everytime I go to the site it makes me feel good!

Wow. It’s hard to believe that just a few short months ago I thought blogs were primarily the domain of political left and right wingers. Then, on a flight back from an East coast project, I picked up a Newsweek magazine that had a piece on the new blog phenomenon. What really caught my attention was a little reference to a popular design blog called designsponge. Fortunately, for once I remembered to fish the magazine out of the seat pocket in front of me before debarking and got on designsponge pretty much the minute I walked in the door.

A couple of hours later my “cheeks” are numb, my eyes are glazed over and I am SO EXCITED to have fallen down this wonderful rabbit hole and be exposed to the endless maze of blogs that have been birthed by thoughtful, articulate, intelligent, inspiring, sharing and massively creative people. There are blogs covering every facet of design and home decoration, 21st century “crafting”, illustration, pattern, interior design and LOTS of visual eye candy.

I’m ecstatic, I’m addicted and, of course, I want to create one! I love design, I LIVE design everyday and my friends and family seem to think I am growing roots in front of my computer anyway so what’s the harm in another project, right?

One thing that becomes obvious very quickly is that most of the women (and some men) who have started their own popular blogs are young, hip and highly fashionable. Hmmm, I am none of those things BUT I do know quite a bit about a very specific area of design: Designing decorative patterns and finishes for surface decoration. 

So-after much fussing and tweaking, here is my own personal design blog where I can talk about my projects, share my inspiration and current creative muses and hopefully contribute something to the great web universe!