Pretty In Paint.

Head-over-heels in love with these painted portraits by Los Angeles-based artist Shae Acopian Detar. Her fashion photography is beautiful, too - I'd wear that gold glitter leotard any day of the week.

 

See more at Shae Acopian Detar's website, here.

Solitude.

This week on the Equals Record, thoughts on learning to appreciate solitude. 

An excerpt from the new post: "I ended my trip [to New Zealand] on Great Barrier Island, where I washed dishes at a local fishing lodge in exchange for a bed and free meals, many of which happened to include lobster…One morning before I left, the lodge owners allowed me to take their station wagon to the beach (a terrifying experience, as I’d had no prior experience driving on the left-hand side of the road). When I finally arrived, nauseous and a little shaky, I found the sands deserted, with not a single other beachgoer in sight. And so I spent that afternoon alone, with a book and a sandwich and a sweater to guard against the wind. I might, at one time, have found this solitude frightening. But on that day I felt adventurous. Like a daring traveler. A wanderer. A pioneer."

See the full post on the Equals Record, here. You can find past entries from my weekly column, Looking Forward (about the ups and downs of "growing up" in my twenties), here. Thank you for reading, and for your support, as always!

Farm Fresh.

I was so happy to see cookbook author Nancy Singleton Hachisu and her husband, Tadaaki, an organic egg farmer, profiled on The Selby yesterday. Nancy and Tadaaki's farm is located in rural Japan; last fall, Nancy authored a cookbook, Japanese Farm Food, based on the fresh and flavorful foods they enjoy there. (Around the time of the book's release, I had the pleasure of attending a dinner in Nancy's honor at one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants, Diner. I was blown away by the food, all of which was made using her recipes, and now treasure my copy of the cookbook.) 

Did I mention that Nancy teaches cooking classes and runs an English-immersion preschool on the farm, as well? Feast your eyes, below. (And see the rest on The Selby, here.)

Have a warm and wonderful Tuesday!

PS: I'm guest-pinning all this week for online art gallery Ugallery. I'll be pinning different categories of art each day til the 14th, so please be sure to check back often - thank you to Ugallery for having me!

Photographs by Todd Selby. 

Windows.

I've been dreaming of travel lately, and artist Jim Darling's paintings of the views outside airplane windows are only fueling the wanderlust. (My favorite's the one of the city at night.)

See more at Jim Darling's website, here. In other news, I hope you're all having a lovely start to the week. I'm still recovering after three very late nights in a row - yesterday, I capped off a falafel-filled evening with a showing of Django Unchained. Have any of you seen it yet? Thoughts?

Max Pix.

A few favorites from Max's very beautiful round-up of photographs from 2012. 

See more at Max's new blog, here. (Scroll through and look for Elmo - that one's another personal favorite of mine.) And have a wonderful weekend!