high+southernplayalisticadillacmuzik.

  • Posted 30th April 2014

ATL1
 
Last weekend I went to the Counterpoint Music Festival near Atlanta, Georgia.
 
I haven’t been down to GA (my hometown) in a few years so it was great to be back. The highlight of the trip was obviously getting to see Outkast perform their 3rd epic performance together in almost 10 years—the first 2 being at Coachella the weekends prior.
 
Other than that I didn’t have time for much, although I did squeeze in a trip to Lennox and The High Museum of Art (that i ran through with about as much grace as a person stranded in the desert running towards an oasis), but overall the entire trip reminded me how much I love being from Georgia… and just HOW different it really is from North Carolina.
 
checkout the full lineup from the weekend here.
 
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Please forgive my lovely iphone photos and the fact that I didn’t record any of the artist’s names. I’m pretty sure a google image search of any of these would pull up all of the credits. All photos taken at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

I realize the fact that this entire post is about the festival, but the imagery is only of the museum (which gave me a creativity boost i was starved for) because all of my festival photos are blurry crazed concert images from the center of a bagillion people — an experience I will forever remember, but rather not share here.

pinkgreen&blk.

  • Posted 22nd April 2014

amazing
 
“If she’s amazing, she won’t be easy. If she’s easy, she won’t be amazing. If she’s worth it, you won’t give up. If you give up, you’re not worthy… Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.”
-Bob Marley
 
Surround yourself with people that reflect who you want to be and how you want to feel, energies are contagious.

lsd.

  • Posted 16th April 2014

1Lauren-Santo-Domingo1-Paris-Duplex-03
 
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Lauren Santo Domingo’s Paris duplex via Design Chic.

thatkindofwoman.

  • Posted 12th April 2014

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I finally got around to purchasing Irreverent by Carine Roitfeld after watching her documentary, Mademoiselle C, which details the production of her first issue of the CR Fashion Book.
 
Honestly, I haven’t been hit with a girl crush / icon / inspirational obsession / etc. in a long long time. I realize I’m a bit late to the game learning about her (especially since i have two copies of CR) but after watching the movie it was like a compulsion i HAD to have the book immediately and learn as much about her as I could. When it arrived earlier this week I was completely blown away. It’s sublime.
 
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Interestingly enough I’ve been shying away from fashion— (completely inspired by this Phoebe Philo for Céline post HERE and this trend post from the Manrepeller HERE) sticking to black, white and neutrals (which i realize is a trend right now, but i digress) and focusing more on art, design and interiors. BUT I literally devoured this book. I read every page (which I rarely actually do with magazines/coffee table books) but it was so clean. chic, interesting and erotic.
 
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These are my favorite quotes:

“I don’t know if I’m a Yves Saint Laurent woman or not, but I hate when people compliment me on what I’m wearing. It was Saint Laurent who said that you should compliment a woman for her beauty and not for her clothes, which are only supposed to set off her beauty.”

Q: What do you attribute your success to? Can you define it, or is it a mystery to you?
“There’s certainly something mysterious about it. It’s not my place to say whether I have any talent or not, but success is a mix of hard work and good luck. I met the right people at the right time, but I also knocked on the doors that I knew were the hardest to enter. I never chose the easy option. I have always gone after the most interesting things, even if they are the most difficult. Always!”

Q: Do you see yourself as an artist?
“I don’t see myself as an artist. In a way, I envy the freedom artists have. Artists can push themselves beyond their limits, in pursuit of their ideas and their vision, even if they are inhabited by demons that can also play tricks on them. I would love to have that purely creative side. But fashion has allowed me to collaborate with artists of all difference kinds—writers, filmmakers, as well as genius hair stylists and make-up artists.”
 
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Q: How do you manage to preserve your creativity?
“Although I’ve very diplomatic, I’ve learned not to back down when it comes to my own vision. I stay inside a bubble so I can focus on my own creativity and not feel burdened by outside influences or pressure. I don’t live in a fairy tale— anything but. But I remain inside my private, insulated space where I find my inspiration and my freedom.”

Q: Do you think that real fashion has been absorbed by fashion photography?
“Street fashion is real fashion now. Ultimately, that’s what is driving the industry. The kind of fashion that I love exists only in images, where it becomes part of a world of dreams and fantasies. Only a few great eccentrics can wear it. But chasm doesn’t bother me, because I think there’s a tension– or a continual dialogue— going on between street fashion and the fashion depicted in photographs, which very few woman can afford to wear for obvious financial reasons, as well as certain social pressures.”

“But luxury isn’t an easy thing to do these days. Luxury has become so vulgar. Luxury items have become the symbol of nouveaux riches, of new fortunes made out of IT and the dot-com industry, and by people who don’t have experience with this kind of culture appropriating historically luxury items.”
 
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Have I contradicted myself? Not too long ago I told my mom that I think my goal in life is to be an elegantly aged woman. After learning more about Carine, I think that’s true.

access.

  • Posted 12th April 2014

happysad
 
“Try to say nothing negative about anybody for three days, for forty-five days, for three months.
See what happens to your life.” – Yoko Ono

thehunger.

  • Posted 6th April 2014

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Friday I picked up copies of Dazed, Porter, and The Hunger then the new issue of Interview came in the mail. While they are very different publications, the editorials and typography in each were stunning! A feast for my eyes. I mean really, Hunger printed 20 different covers.
 
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Extras:
Another hilarious encounter with me caught on film here.
My new favorite design focused tumblr. i spent a good hour scrolling through the images.

marketing.

  • Posted 6th April 2014

marketing
 
thoughts on a sunday.

i had a coffee with a new friend the other night and he asked why i don’t market myself. i had a weird answer at the time, but thinking more about it i feel like what i’m writing now (even though they’re published online) are personal thoughts (that could possibly inspire someone who’s thinking the same) but ultimately they are for me. if i attempted to market myself and put for instance my blog “out there” i would immediately no longer be writing thoughts for myself because i would know that i have an audience so i’d filter myself.

i always love the first work of artists/writers/etc. the best because they were hungry. they’d been having thoughts for years so it’s natural and fire. once they get an audience they have to think about what other people would like instead of what they like and feel.

i obviously don’t think this happens to everyone, but i notice it a lot more than i don’t.

and to further prove my point. when we first starting working on the magazine we wanted to do zero marketing and even if no one liked us or came to our first event it wouldn’t have mattered because we put out a product we believed in and were happy with. as we continued publishing i definitely noticed myself at least thinking “we cannot print that” or “oh we need more of this less of that” etc.. see where im going with this? i feel like thats a huge reason i was able to let go so easily because even though i get so much life from magazines it no longer felt like me. mine. it was now for someone else.

i have so much work i never release because i feel no desire to. i don’t need “likes” or comments to do more of it or feel confirmation/assurance my shit is good (or isn’t). it makes my soul happy. my hands and eyes just need it. they must move. must create. must see.

while watching vicky cristina barcelona.

legend.

  • Posted 5th April 2014

ciarabird-alchemist
 
this morning i read the alchemist by paulo coelho from start to finish.
 
the reason i bought it in the first place was because of this post, but i never got around to it, then for some reason early this morning i had a strange desire to start reading it— even though i have a list of things to get through today, it felt important that i take this time to relax and read, and im glad that i did.
 
I wrote this post while reading, so it’s weird and unorganized, but I didn’t want to rewrite anything since these are the thoughts that flowed as I went.
 
ciarabird-alchemist2
 
it made me wonder if i actually want to do the things i dream of or if like the crystal merchant I just want to dream about them.

“it’s the thought of mecca that keeps me alive. that’s what helps me face these days that are all the same… i’m afraid that if my dream is realized, i’ll have no reason to go on living.”

i should be a professional daydreamer because i’m obsessed with planning ideas. i have these grand dreams that are things i could actually do, but am i just content with dreaming about what i would do or do i plan to actually do them?

he goes on to say a few paragraphs later—

“you have been a real blessing to me. today, i understand something i didn’t see before: every blessing ignored becomes a curse. i don’t want anything else in life. but you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons i have never known. now that i have seen them, and now that i see how immense my possibilities are, i’m going to feel worse than i did before you arrived. because i know that things i should be able to accomplish, and i don’t want to do so.”

the boy goes on working for the merchant for 11 months and after he’s helped him grow his business and saved up money to buy back his sheep (i’m leaving out many details) he approaches the merchant to ask for his blessing to leave and the merchant tells him..

“i am proud of you. you brought a new feeling into my crystal shop. but you know that i’m not going to go to mecca. just as you know that you’re not going to buy your sheep.”

that said… what dreams of mine am i trying to convince myself i want. like what do i really want and what am i trying to convince myself of that im really not going to do. ugh my brain. why must you think this way lol.

but then i started thinking is god saying something deeper like this is what you’re trying to convince yourself that you want because it’s good for society and a regular nice life, but you and me BOTH know that’s not what you’re gonna do. you won’t be happy and im not going to allow it.

“.. he was no longer happy with his decision. he had worked for an entire year to make a dream come true, and that dream, minute by minute, was becoming less important. maybe because that wasn’t really his dream.”

“when a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.”

i think that charlotte is my sheep. (ref. pg. 67) or better yet, maybe being a shepherd is being a graphic designer?
 
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“he still had some doubts about the decision he had made. but he was able to understand one thing: making a decision was only the beginning of things. when someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.”

“you must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his personal legend. if he abandons that pursuit it’s because it wasn’t true love.. the love that speaks the languages of the world.”

“one is loved because one is loved. no reason is needed for loving.”
“I love you because the whole universe conspired to help me find you.”

DAMN.

“My heart is a traitor… it doesn’t want me to go on”
“That makes sense, naturally it’s afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you’ve won.”
“well then why should i listen to my heart?”
“because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you’re thinking about life and about the world.”

by the end of the story i’d definitely reconciled all the thoughts and questions above and think i should read this book at least once every year to check in on myself and see how same/different my thoughts are. I could go on and on or just retype the entire book here. haha. if you’re like me you should definitely go read or reread this simple story. it will change the way you see life.

“When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.”

notlikeyoulikeme.

  • Posted 30th March 2014

notlikeyoulikeme
 
And they don’t have no award for that.

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