Fictional food

 A few of Dinah Fried's "Fictitious Dishes"

Fried painstakingly creates meals from text, with a flair for styling

using interesting cutlery, tableware and props.

...the old man held a large piece of cheese on a long iron fork over the fire, turning it round and round till it was toasted a nice golden yellow in color on each side.

Heidi, Johanna Spyri

It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit

and salted pork cut up into little flakes: the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt.

Moby Dick, Herman Melville

After I had left the skating rink I went to a drugstore and had a Swiss cheese sandwich and a malted milk.

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

Scattered bones

Phoebe Richardson's 10-plate installation

Supermodel

available here

Incredible!

Red cross

Nice room...

I spy a Thomas Eriksson cross cabinet.

That's an item on my forever-love list!

We would like to thank all our customers

I'm fascinated by urban ghosts; abandoned, derelict structures once popular and buzzing with the colors, sounds and aroma of the living.

Durham Baths (Durham, England)

Before

After

Waiting for demolition after 76 years of use.

Homage

The lighting remains diffused, the young girls are dressed in traditional school uniforms, the decor is distinctly Asian not European, yet Japanese photographer Hisaji Hara has carefully recreated the paintings of Balthus with exacting detail.

A Study of Happy Days, 2009

Happy Days, 1945

A Study of Katia Reading, 2009

Katia Reading, 1974

A Study of the Salon, 2009

The Salon, 1941

Cats and girls

The Tate Gallery wrote to Balthus requesting a biography to include in their 1968 retrospective of his work. Balthus responded by telegram, "NO BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS, BEGIN: BALTHUS IS A PAINTER OF WHOM NOTHING IS KNOWN. NOW LET US LOOK AT THE PICTURES.

REGARDS, B."

The sometimes sinister, often erotically-charged images of young girls in dimly lit rooms will always be controversial. I really want to see the Balthus exhibition, Cats and Girls currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. 

PS  How great is that exhibition title?  I'm like Ernest Hemingway when it comes to titles of paintings or exhibitions. Simpler and to the point is better!  The Last Supper, The Raft of the Medusa, The Guitar Player, Haystacks, Starry Night, The Scream, Nighthawks, Portrait of Madame X and so on.  The exception--Paul Klee's titles, which are inventive and can be so funny (Ghost of a Genius).