Once In a Lifetime You Should Take The Plunge…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Sometimes you find a work of art that makes your heart sing…

I had the dream and put some savings away every month in the hope that one day I would find the piece that would be “the one”.

After years searching and signing  over prices well out of my reach, this stained glass window captured my heart and being within my budget completed a lifelong wish to own a real antique window that would make me smile every single time I would look at it.

Let’s just say that every time I look at this I am inspired about all things beautiful in this world, I appreciate the stunning workmanship and the colours never fail to brighten my day.

Of course this is a once in a lifetime purchase,  but maybe just sometimes once  in your lifetime you should take a plunge and do something mad, like buying a stained glass window.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Grow Your Own …..Window Display!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Last Summer, on one of my walking tours I stumbled upon a shop called “Rutten” in the Piet Heinstraat (about Number 88) with one of the strangest window displays I have ever seen.

It was a Sunday so the shop wasn’t open, but clearly it was a fruit and vegetable shop, with maybe a deli section in it too.

What struck me was that the window display was growing!

There was a  long section by the window that included mushrooms in boxes, but there were also mushrooms actually growing in the window display.

I did a double-take and then got my camera out.

I’m allergic to  mushrooms so wouldn’t be interested in sampling these, but of you like to buy your mushrooms fresh… then I suppose you can’t  beat the freshness of some of these!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Windows give an Outlook on the World…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Another folder in my archive folder holds photographs of  interesting  windows that I have found on my walking journey’s through the Hague last summer.

Their various styles naturally reflect the periods of the houses they are in, but they are united in the additional ornamentation that feature in combinations of brick, tile, ironwork, decorative features and glass.

Looking around any building of like age in this city, these appear to be standard features and not “extras” at all…

…and this makes me seriously wonder at the supposed “advances” we have made in the plain featureless “plain” boxes that architects today churn out in modern cities all over the world.

I ask myself if the progression from old style to new has really been “progress”?

Personally, when I see the detail and beauty in the bricks and mortar here, I see a balance, harmony, peace,  beauty and sheer mastery that exceptionally few modern buildings of  the last half century can even dare to stand in the shadow of.

Look at the combination of forms, how well all the different pieces fit together,  for me it’s like looking at the very different instruments in an orchestra and hearing a symphony when seeing the whole.

These are details that make me stare, inspire me and make my inner artist dream.

Call me a hopeless romantic, but I think the world needs more dreamers…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

Shhhh, or you’ll wake the lady in the window…

Seen in a window on the ground floor of a house… a painting on the glass of a sleeping lady.

Arty, unique, different…  Take a look, but don’t wake the sleeping beauty.

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)