Windows to your Soul

I would have loved to see more of this room than only this small vignette because I like the warm colours and the huge mirror besides the bed. So I can only start from here.

with courtesy of http://www.livingetc.com

As usual I was looking into my stock of art pieces and found a silk scroll that would fit nicely into this colour scheme and restrained pattern of the wall:

This silk scroll is a semi-abstract interpretation of the mind's view towards the inner self. As we never can see the whole until we have reached the perfection we will only be able to peek through many little windows. Doesn't this correlate wonderfully?

"Windows"
(painted and stitched) 

silk scroll

 45" x 24"
©Petra Voegtle

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A Bathroom with a mysterious Landscape

I love mysteries. I love mystery stories, I love mysterious people and I absolutely love mysterious landscapes. I love to explore caves, gorges and all those places where you don't know what you can expect turning around the next corner. It is exiting, it is food for inspiration, it is a source for dreams of another world. What would our lives be without mysteries and dreams?

I am especially fascinated by stalactite caves. They are truly mysterious and your phantasies can go berserk when you look at those glitzy stalactites and stalacmites, the forms and patterns they create, sometimes looking like sculptures of humans or aninmals, sometimes filigree like crotcheted lace even in different colours depending on the minerals they contain. A natural miracle and mystery. Beautiful beyond any words.

This is how Mother Nature designs her interior:

all images are from ARGE Höhle & Karst Grabenstetten e.V.

And this is my humble example of re-creating a landscape from below the surface on silk:

"Underworld"
(from the Magic Landscapes Series)
silk, 40" x 21"
©Petra Voegtle

And in which interior design would I place this painting? F.e. in this bathroom where this painting would certainly add a mystic touch. Imagine you relax in your bathtub after a long working day and you dream of landscapes which do not seem to be on this world...

(unfortunately the original image source got lost...I apologize)

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Chocolate Colours in the Bedroom...

This is a wonderfully simple setting in a bedroom with the colours of the earth. It is far from being boring - instead it is calming and peaceful. I feel though that there is something missing on this dark wall, a focal point. So I thought I have the perfect painting for this bedroom: Ricefields at Dawn from the Magic Landscapes series.

original image source and with courtesy of 

http://www.livingetc.com

"Ricefields at Dawn"

(from the Magic Landscapes series) 
40" x 21", silk
©Petra Voegtle

The painting reflects all colours as shown in above image. It has been painted on silk and additionally stitched with silk thread in order to add texture.
The motif has been inspired by the many rice terraces you can find in southeast Asia which look absolutely awsome in the early morning light when the air is still full of moisture from the night.

You can find other vignettes with this painting here and here.

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Celts - a Silk Painting of a Magical Place

There are thousands of magical places on this world and only very few I have seen myself. Stonehenge was one of them at a time - some decades ago - where tourism did not overflow the whole area yet and where they did not request yet astronomical entry fees and where the stones were not fenced from any touch yet. But times change...

Stonehenge has always been a fascinating motif for painters and poets and will remain so as long as it exists. I could not withdraw from its spell myself and so this painting on silk Celts became part of the Magic Symbols series. If you would like to know more about the painting please read here.

"Celts"
(from the Magic Symbols Series)
silk, 40" x 13"
©Petra Voegtle

(sold)

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Please check the following links if you would like to see the impact in a room with a painting such as this:  interior1, interior2, interior3, interior4

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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It's all about Colours...

When I enter a room or look at photos of rooms my spontaneous reaction is a response to the colours. This is the most important impression for me. Everything else that fills a room comes much later and can be even totally secondary. It is the colour that spreads the emotion,gives you a feeling of being at home and peace of mind. Yet sometimes I feel repelled, even sense a kind of hostility and alieness.

This bedroom may not be spectacular and probably the interior designer did not mean to create an extremely sophisticated room but in my opinion s/he's done a wonderful job to create a room that is calm, cosy and peaceful. Exactly the right background to find a good sleep after a long busy day, a room where you still read a couple of pages of a novel before you switch off the lights.

I could not help it but I thought the silk carving would be a nice compliment for this room, colours are wonderfully matching and the Lord Ganesha would certainly watch over your sleep...

original image source from My Home Ideas/ Southern Accents

"Ganesha"
( from the Angkor's Faces series)
silk carving, 39" x 19"
©Petra Voegtle

What is a  silk carving©? This is a development by the artist - it was evolved out of the trapunto techniques of quilting. The intent of this technique is to create a symbiosis between carving and fiber art. The surface of the fiber is transformed completely into a relief. The upper layer of this piece is made from one single piece of silk - nothing is sewn on top to add depth. Additionally paints and pigments are used in a manner to give the visual impression of other materials such as stone, wood, metals.
If you would like to read more about the "making of" please check this link.

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Dark Rooms

In the meanwhile I have seen a lot of images about interior design and one point really sticks out - many rooms are incredibly dark, especially hallways. I would like to know what the reason for this is. I could possibly understand this in geographical regions where sunlight is abundant but still I could not stand dark rooms, even less in areas where the winters are long and dark.

The design of this hallway is harmonious but very dark especially as the adjacent rooms seem to be dark as well unless this has been photographed in the evening but I doubt it. The illuminated graphics on the wall cannot really lighten this space up, the pottery - although wonderful - adds to the sinister feel I would have in this room.

In order to show how paintings can make a difference in similar rooms such as this one I added these silk paintings virtually, in order to add a bit of colour and another feeling to a dark room.

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

The two collages/paintings belong to the Magical Symbols series and are painted on silk. They are also stitched to add more texture.

"Minoans I and II"
(from the Magic Symbols series) 
40" x 13" each, silk
©Petra Voegtle

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If you would like to see details of these paintings, Minoans I and II please see this link and this link.

A sunny Bedroom with dancing Sepia on the Wall

I love this friendly little bedroom - it makes me smile, the warm and sunny colours make me smile. This is certainly a bedroom where you can have a wonderful, relaxing sleep. Nothing is there that could cause a nightmare.
What if you would add a painting, on silk, with two sepias on their wedding dance? I have seen them, many times while diving somewhere in the caribbean oceans. They look wonderful, ever changing their colours when they get excited. See more of the painting here if you like.

from My Home Ideas
please click here for the original image source 

"Sepia"
(from the Magic Creatures Series)
silk, 40" x 13"
©Petra Voegtle

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Two Art Quilts on the Wall

I have shown one of the quilts several times already. But this time there is the possibility to hang two of my works which fit very well together. As an example I chose this livingroom with a wonderful huge window which lets in a lot of light. This livingroom is reminiscent of a sunroom which I absolutely adore because it gives a feeling of having an inside garden where you could grow a lot of nice plants. Plants turn a room int something vivid.

The original art on the wall made the room a bit too conservative - I would prefer a bit more exotic touch, especially as the colour palette is quite subdued. But check for yourself. I have added a pic from the original room...

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

the original image

The following image is the silk art quilt Buddha and you can read more about it here. It is an unusual piece as it consists of 2 top layers instead of one. In a way it is 3-dimensional.

"Buddha" 

38" x 34", Silk Art Quilt
©Petra Voegtle

Details of the second art quilt you can find here including detailed photos.

 "Apsaras"
52" x 69", silk art quilt
©Petra Voegtle

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A Bedroom and a Mystery Landscape on Silk

I am fascinated by rooms with high ceilings because they open so much more possibilities for design. Although they might be a horror regarding heating costs especially in climatically demanding regions if you don't install some energy saving system such as a solar system, high ceiling rooms promise a lightness and openess which "normal" rooms cannot supply.

There is a simplicity in this room design that I like very much. Nevertheless - if it were my room - I would add even a bit more drama to the view - a painting about a mysterious underworld landscape which may lead you into some adventurous dreams of treasures to be found beneath the earth...

You would like to see more details of this silk painting? Please use this link.

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

"Underworld"
(from the Magic Landscapes Series)
silk, 40" x 21"
©Petra Voegtle
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A very feminine Bedroom with a very precious silk Artquilt

I like this room for its feminine aura. Colours are soft, soothing, calming - exactly right for a lady's bedroom. The grace of this room yet could be enhanced by the "right" artwork - my suggestion would be - if it were my room - a precious art quilt, entirely made of silk and handquilted with silk. The quilt has been handpainted - including the intricate pattern on the godess' sarong. You can see details of this quilt using this link or click on the image of the quilt below.
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original image source from http://www.getdecorating.com

Normally I don't do this and leave it to the viewer whether s/he likes something or not but in this case I find that the interior designer of this room was lacking a good idea for decor as s/he placed those pink bags and feather boa on the wall. It simply looks cheap and it diminishes the lovely aura of this room. But this is only my personal opinion:
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If you click on the image below you can read about the creation of this quilt, its inspiration and background. I have mounted it here in a virtual gilded frame because this fits best into above room. There are other possibilities to hang this quilt though depending on the environment...
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"Golden Nymph"
50" x 26", Silk Art Quilt
©Petra Voegtle
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Some Mysteries and a cozy Retreat...

Isn't this strange? While I was very young history has never interested me much besides ancient buildings, ruins, fortresses which can be a great inspirational source for a child or teenager. I have always loved to read stories which take place in ancient sceneries full of secrets and mysteries. Maybe this was the spark for this series of Magic Symbols which I painted just a few years ago. Memories of childhood fantasies. I really don't know.

What I do know now is that I love this kind of bedrooms, a cozy retreat from every day's stress and duties. Light colours to re-fill soul and energy.

The silk painting on the wall is Qumran, from the Magic Symbols series. Click on the link and you can see more details about this series. Qumran is an ancient place from the days of the Second Temple on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. It became famous since 1947 when a number of ancient manuscripts were found in nearby caves. Today these manuscripts are known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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

Qumran
(from the Magic Symbols series)
40" x 13" silk
©Petra Voegtle
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I am adding here an example of how this silk painting could be framed (as shown in the ambiente above). The richness of this gilded wooden frame adds to the colours and enhances the subject I believe:

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The Minoans in the Hallway...

The painting that hangs in the original image source on the same place disappears a bit behind the plant and is too neutral for my feeling. I think this elegant hallway deserves artwork that is a bit more prominent.

Also I thought that the delicate art deco style of the entrance door and the filigree stair railing would be complemented nicely by the two delicate silk paintings which start to shimmer when light is on them. But again this is only a potential scenario and does not want to diminish the intent of the original interior designer or home owner.

If you would like to know more about these paintings, Minoans I and II please see this link and this link.

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

"Minoans I and II"
(from the Magic Symbols series)
40" x 13" each, silk
©Petra Voegtle
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