No one will ever accuse Sera Hersham-Loftus of being tasteful. Still, her over-the-top decorating is a lot of fun. Her style could be described as somewhere between early brothel and late bordello. According to the dust jacket from her new book, Seductive Interiors, she is an “innovator of the seductive and boudoir trend”.

Lush rooms are richly layered with brocades and satin. Lampshades and tablecloths drip with heavy fringe. Sofas and alcoves are cushioned with velvet pillows and leopard print. Dramatic lighting in dusky interiors creates sultry ambience.

Some of the spaces have the quality of childhood fantasy where you might dress up in unlikely costumes and act out stories; others are like stage sets. Many of the rooms have the hallmarks often associated with romantic interiors: candles, polished silver, lace and flowers.

My favourite is a barge that travels the waterways in London. It has the appeal of a gypsy caravan and offers a cozy, built-in day bed where you could curl up with a good book – or friend.

Maybe tasteful is overrated.

- Jane

Kristeen Griffin-Grimes loves knitting and all things French. The second of her French Girl Knits: Accessories has just arrived and it is a charmer.

The book includes many appealing projects like the Tattoo shawl, “the perfect modern wrap…with a dose of French gothic mystique”. This wispy and elegant creation features an ostrich-plume-stitch pattern in fine silk/mohair yarn.

There are patterns for many chic hats as well as lacy anklets and long blanche-neige stockings. Dainty ballet slippers are worked up in watermelon red silk and merino yarn. They have a buttoned strap and black velvet ribbon wound through a lacy edging.

Her first book (shown below) offers patterns for sweaters, dresses and vests with boho chic design aesthetic.

Creating a French-inspired life is the mantra of her website that includes blogs on knitting and cooking as well as information about tours of France in the Languedoc region that she leads. On her website, I also found a wonderful video on scarf tying that I am planning to revisit. It was an “aha, so that’s how you do it” moment. Check it out.

- Jane

Today's blog post is by Candace, one of our Central Library staff.

“I wish you could see what I see out the window—the earth pink and yellow cliffs to the north—the full pale moon about to go down in an early morning lavender sky...pink and purple hills in front and the scrubby fine dull green cedars—and a feeling of much space—It is a very beautiful world.” – from a 1942 letter to painter Arthur Dove

Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings are amoungst the most well loved paintings in North America.  They are pretty and simple and austere. One of our new books, Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Houses: Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu, sheds light on the two homes in New Mexico where she created many of these paintings.  It is a book that walks into the personal spaces of a great artist.

Ghost Ranch frames many of her most memorable landscapes.  The flat topped mountain twelve miles distant dominates the landscape and provides a dramatic backdrop for “The Deer’s Skull with Pedernal”.

O’Keefe painted the rocks and bones that she picked up in her rambles through the desert and brought back to her studios and the Jimson weed that grew by her patio.

The Abiquiu house provides us with her more livable house: the one with the garden and the cloths line.  It is also where she painted her patio door series. These doors represent, to me, some of the mystery in life.  I look at them and contemplate both their simplicity and the mystery they evoke of the unknown. They are not typical for her because her paintings were not usually mysterious, they were hymns to what she found beautiful.

Check out our other books on this iconic artist, and the biopic produced in 2009.

–Candace