blossoming rose bushes (over a thousand kinds of roses are cultivated here)

Victorian greenhouses and ponds peppered with exotic lotus flowers.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) offers something for everyone; Brush up on the history of Plantae at the Plant Family Collection. (Handy fact: ferns were the first plant to appear on earth). Try and list all 80 plants named in the Bard’s plays over at the Shakespeare Garden. The Japanese Hill and Pond Garden, one of the most visited Japanese-inspired gardens outside of Japan, is a must-see during spring’s cherry blossom season. Don’ miss the viewing pavilion and Shinto shrine.

 Photo by Ruiyan Xu

While flowers come and go with the seasons, art is constant. The BBG has invited Canadian sculptor Shayne Dark to bring his works to the BBG as part of a year-long exhibition that ends July, 2017.

I caught up with Shayne this summer. (Shayne is pictured above with Tanglewood Blue) He told me that his installations – often made from different types of wood from cedar branches to apple gnarls – are influenced by his childhood growing up near the Ottawa river in Ontario where he played a lot with sticks and wood. Logs from a nearby paper and pulp factory  would float downstream and get tangled in bends.

As a child I was fascinated to see that, running across the logs and pushing them away and trying to get them back into the flow of the river… I like using ephemeral materials. I’m ok with these works going back to nature. Art doesn’t have to last for durations of time. It has to be in the moment.

Shayne applies matt theatre paint to his pieces. He discovered the flat paint while working in set design at NYC’s Ed Sullivan Theatre (now David Letterman) twenty-five years ago.

The paint is so flat, Shayne explained, so that the light doesn’t bounce into the audience’s eyes and distract them from the performance.  (Shayne pictured above with Tanglewood Red) He likes working with primary colours.

Primary colours are so immediate as compared to secondary colours. You see something red and it emotes a feeling. I like to bring beauty into my work.

Make a day of your Brooklyn outing and visit the Brooklyn Museum next door. Housed in a pretty Beaux Arts landmark building, the museum is known for its top temporary exhibitions. I popped in and saw “Disguise”,  an eye-catching show by 25 artists from Africa and beyond who used the history of African masks to address twenty-first-century  issues.

A little nature, a little culture – my ideal day.

August, 2016

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I look for those one-offs all the time, and it makes my day when I find them. I know a fair few places, but the best places are always the ones you go to for the first time. It’s always the weird places.

A self-proclaimed shopping addict, Harkness has been sourcing vintage, especially denim, for decades. As a teenager he used to have a stall at vintage mecca Camden Market in north London. But then Harkness visited his sister in Manhattan and fell in love.

I came for a holiday and ended up staying 26 years.

Harkness supported himself by  working in clubs and sourcing American vintage for friends  and clients back in England. Until he experienced his Damascene (or rather sushi) moment:

Twenty years ago I was working for a sushi bar and some Japanese guy came up and said I’ll buy your jeans  for $250. I had only just bought them for $10.  I said I’ll be back in five minutes. I ran back home. I lived nearby. That’s where it pretty much started. I thought maybe I could make this into a business.

Fast forward to 2016 and Harkness has two New York shops, one recently opened in Brooklyn, the other  Manhattan. The Brooklyn outpost located in ‘the up and coming’ part of Williamsburg on Driggs Avenue is about a ten minute walk south from trendy, hipster heaven.

The shop is spacious, light-filled and well-curated. Try and go when Harkness is in and can explain the back story – in his lovely lilting accent – to all the pieces placed around the shop from the original 1969 Jimi Hendrix posters to his serious collection of 45’s – soul, punk and Ska. Give it to me! Prices range from $8-$8,000. Yes, eight is his good luck number. (Mine is three, in case you were wondering).

The two shops trade under the name The Quality Mending Company, the same name he uses for his own brand of vintage-restored and vintage-inspired clothing and accessories. His own brand includes shoes made in England, sweaters in Ireland and Scotland, and jeans, socks and t-shirts in the States.

Old bandana fabric has been refashioned to make these multicoloured shirts …

and this jacket was made from 1940’s motorcycle trousers.

While the clothes are made for men, Harkness strongly advises women wear men’s clothing. Good, I’ll take this sweater then.

Stay tuned for this autumn’s ‘Fox hunter waistcoat’ repurposed from WWII British military boxers.

February, 2016

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I needn’t have worried. Sebastian’s a talker. And a reader. And is very smart. And funny. And busy – having just had a retrospective at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, been invited to give  a TED Talk and a yawn on Times Square.

This is an artist who likes to challenge conventional thinking – for his university thesis in Santiago he asked his professors if he could hand in the first and only blank thesis. Something people would actually look at versus the 200 pager students were required to submit. The university heads refused, only to write Sebastian 15 years after he’d graduated to say they’d changed their minds.

Sebastian reads six to seven newspapers a day looking for inspiration.

“For me it’s all about ideas. I need you to get my ideas as quickly as possible”.

This thought came to him after learning that on average three females and one male get killed by their partners everyday in the US.

The high rate of campus rape in the states inspired this jacket. Sebastian spouts off disturbing facts with alacrity. One in five women on a college campus will be raped. Eighty-five percent will know their attacker. Ninety percent of the cases will go unreported. Sebastian says:

“The male student athletes accused of rape often receive support from the schools while the girls tend to suffer public shame until silenced”.

Flying back and forth between NYC and Santiago during the Iraq war, Sebastian was used to seeing shell-shocked looking American soldiers in uniform. When he researched the statistics and discovered that twice as many soldiers committed suicide after the War than got killed in it, Sebastian was inspired to create this street art, “American Kills” in 2009. This image went viral and CNN ended up covering it.

Sebastian is also a talented and meticulous designer. Here are just a few of  his tools.

He makes everything from exploding maple cabinets to covetable heels to lamps that quack.

He is currently designing the interior and exterior of a G650, the biggest and fastest commercial jet available. He suggested to his South American client that the wing should read “Goodbye Losers”. The idea was vetoed, but maybe in 15 years…

February, 2015

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Oh my goodness! Where to begin?

I immediately called my friend Natalie who, like me, seriously struggles with Fear Of Missing Out and, unlike me, is an ace researcher/organiser. Natalie decided gastro-hub Williamsburg was a good starter for us newbies. So we packed our passports descended the subway at 59th and Lex and off to Brooklyn we went. Here’s Natalie a few hours post-subway, looking a bit smug  at how well her planning has gone. She’s seated at the counter in the uber-cool Reynard restaurant at the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg.

But I’m jumping. More on Wythe later. Destination 1: Brooklyn Museum near Park Slope. There we saw a fun show called “Killer Heels”. Don’t miss the somewhat raunchy videos- heels never looked so sexy.

I strongly recommend hailing  a cab from outside the museum to Williamsburg going via Bedford Stuyvesant’s Hasidic neighbourhood that seems otherworldly and at odds with happening Brooklyn. In Williamsburg we wandered on and around Grand Street taking in the cool buildings.

And the cool people where vintage hats, thigh-high boots, colourful sandals and hot pants are in, in, in.

We lunched at the Wythe, once a factory now a buzzy hangout. The line for the Ides Bar stretched around the block, but for the Reynard restaurant we just walked straight in.

Autumn Rose anyone?

Next on Natalie’s list was foodie central Smorgasburg, the ‘Brooklyn Flea Food Market’ where the hipsters descend every weekend until November 22nd/23rd and stuff their faces from a slew of tempting stalls.

It’s a big party where every hunger/thirst pang can be satisfied. Fancy some Ethiopian tea? Or perhaps a glass of  Vermont Maple Lemonade? Oaxaca Tacos, Burma Noodle Bar, Biteme Cheesecake, Jack’s Chedbread and Elvio’s Chimichurri, it’s all here. Long lines are always a helpful clue to what’s worth eating. The lines were impressive at this pork joint.

And this sweet spot…

And for those who like truffles…

Get there early because things sell out…

Finish off with a tasty Vendome macaron…

October, 2014

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