While it is mandatory in Marrakech to have your building be one of a few slightly varying shades of a peachy terra cotta color, it must be mandatory in the pretty little seaside town of Essaouira (2.5 hrs drive west to the Atlantic Ocean) to paint your ancient wooden door a fabulous shade of peeling blue paint. Me to my son: Look! There’s another great blue door, I have to get a picture. Him to me: (in the dry way only a child can say) Mom, they’re ALL blue! I guess I’ll have to go back to photograph the other 1,429.

Even the boats….

Maryam just recently posted about doors as well. Even better than what you see is what you can’t see behind them. Ahh, the mysteries of Morocco.

All aboard/that pla-aa-aane! Wow! I had such a hard time figuring out where to begin to share all the exciting sights and happenings on my trip to Barcelona/Marrakech/Madrid that a whole week has already gone by since my return. I’ll start with Marrakech first:

It’s just hard not to be made speechless by the quantity and quality of the decoration there. Everywhere there! Even the most humble restaurants and buildings are a visual smorgasbord of color and pattern. The colorful fabrics, the lacy metalwork, the painted pottery, berber carpets, intricate carved plaster, inlaid wood, embroidered leather, zelij tiles, bebouches (leather slipper/shoes), the tadelakt walls that are everywhere with sgraffito borders ”scratched” into them: Everywhere you look is a feast for the eyes! Here’s just a sampling-

Left are the 2 story high windows at the Marrakech airport that is undergoing renovations. I looked at these closely, of course, and believe that the vinyl was all cut by hand! At right is an antique painted wood door that was in our courtyard at Riyad el Cadi.

Zelij tile floor at Ali ben Youssef Medersa and, right, a wall in a hammam.

A trip to Jardin Majorelle is required I think, if just to experience the most pure blue and yellow colors you will ever see. At right, stencil templates are used to transfer patterns for carving wood and plaster.

Tadelakt and a Sgraffito border at a restaurant off the amazing Jemaa el-fna and, right, the berber carpet that is hopefully winging its way to my dining room as I write!

My son Dan and I had a wonderful time meeting the most lovely Maryam, both in town and at Peacock Pavilions. She is all that you would expect, and then some more! One of my favorite memories is her and her friend bargaining (in perfect French, of course) with a vendor for about 10 minutes to get me a good price on my new fake Ray Bans. She’s tough, this girl! Our creative journey together continues!! Maryam and Chris’ style is very chic and sophisticated and their goal is to incorporate traditional Moroccan designs and motifs in a very modern, unexpected way into their interior spaces. And so we shall……more to come, of course. I am chomping at the bit to get back there with our painting group in May! Morocco is definitely NOT the kind of place to visit just once.

There are more of my trip photos here and here also is another great flickr set on Marrakech by someone who is actually a very GOOD photographer, rather than the accidental one that I seem to be!

Excuse me?! No, not burp, BLURB!

When I was presenting at the Meeting of the Masters last October, I saw a gorgeous, printed portfolio in the booth of a very talented artist, Carol Pascale. I’m like, “How did you afford this!!” She looked at me like “Are you serious?” No big deal, it’s through my iBook, but Blurb is cheaper. Blurb, blurb, blurb I repeated in my head so I wouldn’t forget. Miraculously I didn’t, and found the website immediately upon returning home. Isn’t this just the coolest thing ever?! You can while away large chunks of time previewing other peoples books (ask me how I know this!) and getting great ideas to make your own. What a perfect tool for a limited run of swanky artist portfolios!

  

So, I’ve been biding my time trying to decide what my first Blurb book will be. Ah HA! The Painting of Peacock Pavilions! (working title). Maryam has offered to contribute some wickedly witty writing so I think it’s going to be a winner! Even if it isn’t it will be fun to do and a great keepsake for the artists in the group, don’t you think?

More-

This also would have been great to do after the Italy Painting Trip. Darn! Not quite as glamorous, but I DID write an article on that for the most recent issue of the The Faux Finisher magazine! 

And more-

Maryam just sent me this link from Grow Wings. What talent! Look at these lovely ladies….

World Wide Web isn’t a phrase you hear bandied about much this days. Being vocally lazy, most of us just call it “the web” or “the net”. I have to share a bit of Google research with you: Did you realize that the internet has only been available to the general public since the early 90’s and search engines since the mid 90’s? Holy cow! How DID we manage?! Anyway, I just wanted to share how pleased I am that this blog is getting some really nice exposure around the WWW-thanks largely in part to Maryam’s very cool post about our upcoming project at Peacock Pavilions. Maryam is quite the blog star (deservadly so!) and some of the images from her post got picked up here and here. The latter one is in French, no less. Ooh la la! Thank you Maryam, for letting me hang on to your lovely coattails a bit!

As any blogger knows, the key to getting people to actually drop by “your place” in this vast web universe is to be fortunate to have people that link to you through their blogs, either through post links or blogrolls. Besides Maryam, here are some recent incoming links from some REALLY nice blogs that are showing up on my dashboard. Back at ya’ and big thank you to:

The Crafty Cameleon

Eye Candy

Taddie Tales

Bari J

Garay Artisans

and Room Service. I don’t even know what she said, but I’m hoping is was good

Do you know of Suzanis? Even if you don’t, there is a very good chance that you have been seeing images of them in home fashion magazines and on the design blogs for the past year or so. I wrote this little post myself on the Art of Living last July. With the trend toward brighter colors and ethnic influences you will probably be noticing them even more. Suzanis are very colorful, elaborately embroidered silk wall hangings or bed coverings that originated in central Asia, primarily in what is now Uzbekistan. The name Suzani is actually derived from the Persian word for needle. There is a very informative article online here. Maryam collects antique Suzanis and plans to use them extensively throughout Peacock Pavillions and as I said they will also be used as the inspiration for the stencil art we will be applying there. I thought you might like to see some of the range of patterns we have been looking at for inspiration.

One of my favorite inspiration sites that I have written about here before is Marla Mallet’s. The link takes you directly to the page on Central Asian embroideries, but there is much, much more to see if antique rugs, fabrics and embroideries make you weak in the knees. Be prepared! There are both new and antique Suzanis for sale on this site, but Maryam advises that they are now using child labor to meet the demand for the newer ones, so she only invests in the antiques.

It makes for quite a hard decision when each pattern and colorway seems prettier than the last! With so many beautiful options, which will it be?? Oh, wait and see….

PS The middle design is not a Suzani, it is antique printed linen, but of a similar look and motif.

I am not one to gloat. At least not very much. It’s very hard to write this though without a smile on my lips, a song in my heart and the phrase “neener, neener, neener” running through my mind. Does that make me bad ? No, seriously, I am thrilled (you’ve guessed!) that I am going to be making two trips to Morocco in the coming months-and that’s not really even the best part. The best part is-why!

Why, you ask? Oh, no big deal, I am just going over there with a small painting group to add my small touch of art and decoration to the magical Maryam’s oasis of comfort and beauty, Peacock Pavilions, which is rising from the olive groves to soon become the Marrakesh destination of choice for weary travellers, saavy shoppers, design and culture lovers and the thousands of people who religiously read and enjoy and rejoice in Maryam’s blog, My Marrakesh, every day. If you read through some (many) of her posts, which you MUST, you will find that she and her handsome architect husband have been working on building their dream (I think she started it) to build a set of guesthouses, and one for them, for a year and a half. It started with a vision-

It’s ALMOST there-

Some beautiful images from My Marrakesh-

Maryam’s passions range from Peacocks to photographing and writing about design. When she’s not working as a personal shopper, she’s travelling to far-flung destinations for her real job working for a human rights organization.

Her love and the joy she receives from her family are permeating through much of her gifted writing.

She has been twice awarded The Rising Blogger Blog Post of the Day here and here.

So, our little group will be staying at Peacock Pavilions in May (first ones-breaking in the beds!) and adding some artistic touches to some walls and ceilings for many guests to enjoy for many years to come. Maryam’s head is full of wonderful design ideas and another one of her passion’s is antique textiles, which are going to be the inspiration for the artwork. More to come….