While visiting the "Salon Art + Design " show at the New York armory last November I was immediately drawn to the work of renowned French mosaic artist Beatrice Serre. Two incredible wall hangings looked as though they came from a galaxy far far away. Shards of black tourmaline radiated out from a mirror center, rimmed with clusters of naturally formed crystals and gold leaf nuggets, inlaid with 24 carat gold, like a cosmic sundial. Both ancient and futuristic all at once. Captivating iridescent hues of light sparkled, bouncing off the thousands of tiny mosaics that formed each piece. Upon close inspection, the centers revealed a myriad of hypnotic colored bismuth crystals reflecting teals, greens, purples, violets and blues, yellows and golds. From...
Travel Diary: Peru Day 5
Day 5: Today Pascal and I bid farewell to our new found friends at the hotel. We continued our adventures in the Sacred Valley and were heading up to the ancient Inca capital city, Cusco. We were picked up promptly at 8 a.m. by our fantastic guide Giovanni Alegre Of Willka Maki Sacred Expeditions and began the ascent towards the textile town of Chinchero, famous for its artisans. Families here spin the llama wool and alpaca into yarn (while singing, creating a rhythm to control the speed at which the spindle spins), dyeing the yarns with natural dyes and weaving incredible cloth. The...
Travel Diary: Peru Day 4
Day 4: Once again Pascal and I awoke well before dawn, bursting with excitement to be returning to The Citadel. Joseph, our wonderful guide, met us at the lobby and we headed down to the buses. We didn’t have long to wait and soon we were swerving our way around the hairpin bends, as we wound our way ever higher through the cloud forest to the entrance. Tickets and passports had to be shown, they stamped our passports with a Machu Picchu stamp, and we headed up the steep stone steps along incredible stepped terraces. We walked along a narrow stone pathway,...