Happy 2013!

First morning of a year full of plans and prospectives. May good luck keep us going to new discoveries, personal growth and unforgettable moments. All aboard!

Accidental Hearts

Paris

Paris, France, Gare du Nord, Singer, Bourg, Eiffel Tower, CDG

Window shopping in Paris

Paris, Paris shopping, el corazon, red chair

Window shopping in Istanbul

Paris magic

Artists and Patrons

What I remember the most of the streets of Florence it is not the architecture, but the illuminated windows of the small antique shops.
In a city-museum the variety of exhibitions ranges from lazer sculpture shows to precious little collectibles displayed in store front windows with the same care they set up the shows at the Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti.
These windows contain the remnants of past lives of wealthy patrons who loved to collect the useless and excessive, the special and the custom made, the decorative, the sublime.
The city carries gracefully the tradition of the artifact made for the privileged lover of the arts who, like a Pope gives his materialistic benediction to the talented artist who then creates the commissioned piece.
Artists and patrons have long been gone but the commissions survived.
Now they are displayed in glass cases, on rich fabrics, on a prominent spot. The objects lie there, seemingly inert, arousing desire to the window shoppers and the collectors.