BEAUTY: Illustration--"Architects and Chairs" by Jorge Arévalo

Regular readers may know that one of my day jobs (I have a few) is as an interior designer. I see a lot of furniture and furnishings in the course of my day, and some of the most iconic pieces are some of my favorites. Furniture designed by famous furniture designers (or architects who also designed the furniture that went into their architecture) are very special pieces.

I want to show you the delightful work of master illustrator Jorge Arévalo. He created a series called "Architects and Chairs" where he puts the architect on or near the celebrated chair they designed which defines their individual legacy. The precise, pointy style in which he renders people feels a little retro, perfect for the subject of Modernist furniture. All these images are available as prints at the shop on his website!

https://www.jorgearevalo.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Robert Wun

Wow.

This.
This is art.

Designer Robert Wun showed his Fall Winter '25-'26 collection last week. I always say couture at this level is wearable art but in this case it literally is. Male and female models wore sculpted arms as additional accessories. The bloody hand prints, the paint spatters, the mold blooms, and the scorch marks, all rendered in sequins and beads are stunning. The sculpted nature of some of the silhouettes showed that they change depending on which angle one sees it. The show unfolded like a surreal hallucination, riddled with dream logic. He called the show "Becoming" and described the collection as a journey into "the depths of human desire and imagination." Indeed, he closed the show with a wedding gown, a traditional move harking back to the golden age of couture when Christian Dior started the practice...but this was no traditional gown. The veil was held up by a disturbing little ghost perched atop the head. When the bride removed her hands from her waist, she revealed their imprint into the peplum of her top. A symbol. A message. An omen. 

https://www.robertwun.com/

"Home" by Rufus Joseph

Powerful. Yearning. Authentic.
"Home" by Rufus Joseph.

Let′s go home
We can't hide here anymore
All alone
Watching skies become small

Let′s go home
We have fought for so long
We have proof that we're strong
Let's go home
Let′s go home

And I just wanna come back, run flat
Hear my mother cry about my growth

I just wanna unpack, fall flat
On my old bed and lie with my ghost

Walk into the garden, hardened
Let the rain seep straight into my bones

Find my old friend, make amends
Say goodbye, with a hand to his headstone

Let′s go home, Let's go home
Let′s go home, Let's go home
Let′s go home, let's go home

I just want the time to slow in a life that I have earned

See the place my lines were drawn, embrace the roots and burns

I will stand in place and shine until the monsters learn

The scars have faded, the dark′s now shade and they cannot return

Let's go home, let's go home
Let′s go home, let′s go home
Let's go home, let′s go home
Let's go home, let′s go home
Let's go home, let′s go home
Let's go home, let's go home

I have felt this, this yearning, need, to return and go back to a place or time called home, so powerful it manifested in my body, made me sick...I am with him, every word.

https://www.rufusjoseph.com/

The Underlying

Departure by Thomas Hager

“Stillness is your essential nature. What is stillness? The inner space or awareness in which the words on this page are being perceived and become thoughts. Without that awareness, there would be no perception, no thoughts, no world.

You are that awareness, disguised as a person.

You can become aware of awareness as the background to all your sense perceptions, all your thinking. Becoming aware of awareness is the arising of inner stillness.

Is stillness just the absence of noise and content? No, it is intelligence itself—the underlying consciousness out of which every form is born. And how could that be separate from who you are?

The form that you think you are came out of that and is being sustained by it.

It is the essence of all galaxies and blades of grass; of all flowers, trees, birds, and other forms.”
--Eckhart Tolle, from his book STILLNESS SPEAKS

Photo by Gabriel Wickbold

“We have learned that beneath the surface of an ordinary everyday normal casual conscious existence there lies a vast dynamic world of impulse and dream, a hinterland of energy which has an independent existence of its own and laws of its own: laws which motivate all our thoughts and our actions.”
--Robert Edmond Jones

Shoegazers by Nicholas Bohac

"Toughen Up"

At a private fundraiser, President Obama gave a speech that expresses what many of us are thinking and feeling right now. As today is Good Trouble Day in honor of Rep. John Lewis on the fifth anniversary of his death with protests around the country (I will be attending one!), please read on...

Original MSNBC post on IG: https://www.instagram.com/p/DMGhdeVSVPw
President Obama: https://barackobama.com/
Democratic Party: https://democrats.org/

BEAUTY: Sculpture AND Furniture Design

Sculptor Casey McCafferty works in many mediums but, seeing as I am interior designer, I am drawn to his wood sculpted chairs and benches that are truly works of art. The sense of them is at once tribal, futuristic, organic, and prehistoric. His larger sculptures would look great in the corner of a large living room too...

https://www.casey-mccafferty.com/

Dolce and Gabbana Alta Moda/Alta Sartoria 2025

Wow, please take the time to watch the video of this jaw-dropping show of Dolce and Gabbana's most recent Alta Moda collection for women inspired by the culture, architecture, and imagery of ancient and 1950s Rome, presented at the Roman Forum itself! At sunset, a hundred-plus extras dressed in costumes from Fellini's "Satyricon" filled the show space where models paraded looks made of breastplates and sections of Roman soldier armor or skinny cocktail dresses from the Dolce Vita era when Rome was reborn after WW II and Anita Ekberg frolicked in the Trevi Fountain. Each piece is literally a one-of-a-kind work of art...if a client buys one, it is the only one in existence.

And not to be outdone by the spectacle, D&G showed their Alta Sartoria collection (the men's version) the next evening, also at sunset, at the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome. Inspired by the Catholic Church, the collection is a wild riff on ecclesiastical clothing surpassing anything even the Vatican could produce! Models, each wearing glasses and hair set in pincurls like cherubs, walked out of the Castel and down a gold carpet shaped, appropriately enough, like a cross while assembled cardinals in red watched from plinths on the Ponte Sant'Angelo.

And take a look at this short glimpse into the making of one of the looks...the quality is mind boggling.

https://altamoda.dolcegabbana.com/

I would bet money that D&G have seen--and were inspired by--the famous (infamous) Vatican fashion show segment from Fellini's incredible mockumentary travelogue "Roma." It is at once hilarious and absolutely terrifying, quite on purpose.