My favourite Bathroom and what I would do with it...

I am not an official interior designer and would not dare to call me so without the correct licenses but I love to look at all kinds of interior design and I love to help with advice. I am an artist and designer for all sorts of objects. So if you have a problem with placing a piece of art into an appropriate environment you can send me a photo or two. We could work this out together and I'd love to help.

I love to see what people like to surround themselves with, their different styles and tastes, their preferences for certain colours and forms. It tells you a lot about a person even if s/he did not create her/his own environment but had it designed by a professional. But I don't want to go into psychological details.

I even love to look at freaky designs and often ask myself what kind of "geek" may live in that kind of environemt. But this would be an injust and ignorant judgement. The world would be dull without these "individual" tastes. I only ask my self sometimes where does it come from, this judgement about something being freaky and outside the common rules? And who makes these rules? Is it that dreaded peer pressure (front garden syndrome), that tells you what you can do or not? Not always but often...

In many cases it is part of a certain social class that requires the individual to obey a certain kind of style, even trends no matter whether you like it or not. Sometimes people even stop asking themselves what they like or not, it becomes more important to be part of the establishment, living in the orbit of important names and becoming an important name themselves, surrounding themselves with important objects. What a shame. But I am rambling...

But despite all social dependencies there is also that special sense for harmony and beauty, the magical Golden Ratio (sectio aureo). The Golden Ratio seems to be something that is firmly fixed in our brain. That decides which face or figure is beautiful (at least the analytic psychology tells us so), automatically indicates where we feel comfortable or not.

The Golden Ratio is an important element of the Arts and Architecture and describes the perfect proportions of all elements which lead to harmony and esthetics. The Golden Ratio can be found in ubiquitous examples of nature, especially in plants.

So what has this all to do with "my" bathroom? I think it is a subliminal affinity we ( me ) have towards classical architecture of earlier epochs, where the rules of the Golden Ratio and the esthetics were pre-requisitional for any building and smaller elements.

This bathroom reminds me of smaller ancient Italian villas you can find all around the Mediterranean coast. It may be a bit farfetched but this implies for me living and enjoying life in all its facettes. It contains the smell of rosemary and lavender, cypress and pines.

This would be "my" bathroom with exactly these colours. And dreaming of a bathroom such as this one, living in the "right" environment near the sea,  I added a little sketch that might complete this room such as this with my favourite sculpture Putri Dedes, the goddess of transcendental wisdom...

click on images to enlarge

original image source "left" House Beautiful
image "right"  ©Petra Voegtle

 "Putri Dedes"
Goddess of Transcendental Wisdom
(from the Asian Wood Carving Series) 
43" x 28" x 19" - hand carved
©Petra Voegtle
(private collection)

The sculpture has been hand carved in pine - no tropical wood. The completion took about 25 weeks and weighs 70 kg. It has been treated with an ebony-like varnish and polished with beeswax.

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A Bedroom to love...

This is one of the sweetest bedrooms I have ever seen and I wished it were mine!
The colours, the light, the lovely stencil painting on the wall, the bed itself - I personally don't like the pillows though with these ribbons - that's just a tiny bit too much - everthing is so romantic and inviting to spend a good time in this room:

original image source from http://www.getdecorating.com

And if this room were mine I just would have added my dearest sculpture Putri Dedes, the model for the goddess of Transcendental Wisdom, Prajnaparamita.
The original statue, by which this sculpture has been inspired, probably is the most beautiful and exquisite Ancient Indonesian statue, to be found in the National Museum at Jakarta.

The Javanese called this statue Princess Putri Dedes. She was the first queen of Singasari, from whom all kings of Singasari and Majapahit descended. One of the ruined temples in the south of Candi Singasari was called the Temple of the Princess, and it is thought that this statue may once have been enshrined there. Putri Dedes was the daughter of a Buddhist priest and an identification with the goddess Prajnaparamita would be highly appropriate. But there is no proof for this. Nevertheless - for me she is the goddess.

So in my fantasy I added a little cast iron table with a glass plate on which the goddess rests. This would make the room for me complete - just as below:



This sculpture literally carries my heart blood because carving this piece was quite an endeavour and took about 6 months - it was a full time job. Carving chisels need to be extremely sharp and more than once a little blood drippd from my fingers into this wood. Also the figure is terribly heavy - it's massive wood.

To give you an impression about the details of this figure I have added a few photos. I especially love her face for its expression of total harmony and peace. The voluptuous form of this sculpture is a tribute to Indian temple ornamentations and figurines.

"Putri Dedes"
Goddess of Transcendental Wisdom
(from the Asian Wood Carving Series)
43" x 28" x 19" - hand carved

©Petra Voegtle

You can see here that the figure's back has been fully sculptured as well by showing her full hairdress as well as her jewellery and dress.


Her throne has been carved separately. This way the whole weight was devided up and it was easier to carve the intricate pattern. The basis of this throne are stylized lotus petals.

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