Deeply rooted.

So I'm still on my gardening kick. I've spent about ten hours over the past two days cleaning up our three yards, cutting back overgrowth, cleaning flower beds, and potting Spring plants. Seeing as how we rent our house, it makes a lot of sense to pot plants seeing as how I can take them wherever we end up (except for maybe on the road). Potted plants are also a great way to satisfy my great anticipation of all things Spring. I've potted some iris bulbs I rescued from bad bed, French lavender, Rosemary, and Cilantro. I ran out of pots today so I'm keeping an eye open for some new planters. I usually grab interesting ones that I comes across at yard/estate sales and thrift stores, but Etsy has got some really cool ones...

Clayflower22 makes these INCREDIBLE hand painted planters from antique doll heads. Here are some of my favorites. (Just click the photo to go to the specific page!)





left: handmade planter from Inkypots.
right: handmade clay planter from Lori Koop. Check her out--she's an amazing potter.


left: vintage jaguar planter, from InspirationMemories.
right: Grouchy Pot planter, from JMNPOTTERY.



left: knotty Oak planter, from lauri706.
right: Capodimonte swan planter, from TheEnchantedAttic.

Beloved Curiosity, Jonathan Adler.

I just love, love, love Jonathan Adler. I mean, most people already know all about this guy, but here are some interesting facts about Monsieur Adler that I have come across today in my search for all things Adler...

He's married to Simon Doonan!! I literally had NO idea. What a couple!

He went to Brown to study semiotics in the early eighties, which I think is kind of present in some of his pieces--like the condom caddy and similar pieces, as well as the drug container cookie jars. Semiotics is the study of signs and signifiers--what is communicated and how its meaning is understood. These pieces manipulate our understandings of what is meant by an image of a phallic sword, a pill box, or even the slang drug terms that fell out of popular use in the 1970s. They're clever. They're funny. But most of all, they're so beautiful.

Here are some of my favorite Adler pieces, beginning of course with the quaaludes and downers and prozac and uppers and dolls... (click on the image to follow the link, all of course from Jonathan Adler.)



And I just love the Utopian pottery series, too. It reminds me of 1950s/60s tiki/island inspired figurines. I think it's the bulbous heads with tiny eyes and the proportions of the bodies. These are some of my favorites...