My Big Fat French Life.

So many thing, So many thing So many things!

There’s so much stuff going down in my so-called ‘hood these days that I barely know where to start. Screw it, I’ll just start with the things I’m most excited about:

1. I gotz de flowers! After 2 years of awful summers, I’ve actually managed to get a little rooftop garden growing at the Barbie Dream House.

It is truly awesome! Special thanks to French Mother-in-law and French Father-in-law…who basically did all the work while I stood around and grimaced and moaned.

2. I have new artwork! I’m in the middle of working on a new series called “The Coronation” for my September exhibition in NYC. (more on that in a minute. Just hold your horses.) Wanna hear me talk about it? Take a look at my promo video in which I am wearing my super-fly pink star earrings.

3. And last but not least—the thing that’s totally taken over my life: For the last 8 months I’ve been planning and organizing an incredible art event that kicks off September 8th in New York City. It’s called “6x6” (pronounced six by six) and it is going to be totally RIGHTEOUS.

Basically 6x6 is the art version of a music festival with six back-to-back exhibitions sandwiched between a whole slew of events aimed at bringing artists and art lovers together in a totally “no art snobs allowed” way.

Long story short, I met artist Charlie Grosso in 2009 when we were in an exhibition together. Eventhough she lived in Los Angeles at the time, we stayed in contact….and voila---a year later we had formed Baang and Burne Contemporary Art. A kind of freestyle curatorial gallery project that stages short term exhibitions in New York City.

At the moment we are in FULL-ON fund-raising mode to pull off this event. We have 20-something days left in our fund-raising campaign over at kickstarter.

If you really love me, you should go over there and become an official backer. 

It’s pretty easy and takes about 2 minutes. We’ve raised $6400 so far. But I just need a little push to cross the finish line. Please watch the video if you want to see me hopped up on 3 double espressos:

If you can back my project for $10 that would be great, but if you’re willing to back me for $25 or more you can score some really cool rewards! The $200 reward is actually one of my limited edition, hand-pulled lino-cut prints from the coronation series. (That's about half the regular gallery price.) Click here to become an Art Hero: http://kck.st/lb7d0L

So that about brings us up to date I think.

Oh wait, also, I lost 25 lbs. But that’s a story for another post.

Wicked.

-Your beloved, Madame K.

Magic Garden Update: You Bring the Bamboo, I'll Bring the Booze.

It's been pissing pouring rain for 4 days, so I haven't been able to get outside on the terrace to take any photos before now. Finally, the storm let up for a few minutes this morning and I was able to get outside and take a few quick shots.

As you can see my mail-order bambou is happily in its home. We found these gigantic plastic planters made by some slick Danish company at the local yuppie garden center. They are super lightweight and are guaranteed to resist UV fading for a hand-full of years. I have complete and blind faith in Les Danoises.

The same weekend we potted the Bambou, French Father-in-Law and FrenchBoy installed this lovely and colorful straw material stuff that I found on sale at Leroy-Merlin. It's synthetic, so it should hold up a bit better than the real stuff we had installed on the terrace at our old apartment. The best part, besides finding it one sale of course, is that it makes the whole space seem more defined and dare I say cozy? I mean who wants to hang out and have cocktails on a Helipad? Ok, I would, but it would need to be dressed up pretty nice first.

You bring the bamboo, I'll bring the booze! p.s. That metal armiture to the right of me in the photo is a hammock that I might eventually use if it ever stops raining.

And just last week French Mother-in-Law called to tell me that Lidl was running a promo on lavender for less than 3 euros a plant.

I promptly drove over to my nearest location and bought their entire stock. OK, I left one plant in the store. I didn't want to look too greedy. (My apologies to the grey-haired old lady that I drop kicked in order to score an entire case of 6 plants, but lady, you had it comin'.) When we bought the planters from the garden center, I saw the exact same size of Lavander plant for about 10 bucks per plant. I don't exactly know which type of lavander this is, but I couldn't pass up that deal. Now my only hope is that they somehow manage to survive the psychotic Lorraine winter and don't end up as 6 flower-sicles.

Anyone who has tips on how the hell to protect Lavander from frost and pissing pouring rain for months on end, speak up in comments.

Oh, and for those of you in France who want to order your own magic garden in a box, I bought my bambou here: here's the website: http://www.bambouweb.fr. The selection, information, and pricing is nothing short of amazing. Order now, have your plants in 4 days. Insane!

The Magic Garden.

One of our main goals for this year was to finally do something with the Barbie Dream House terrace. It’s been nearly 3 years since we moved in I think and we still haven’t done anything with the space. You see the problem with having a 130 square Meter terrace is…where the hell do you start? Not to mention the obvious question such as how much is this project gonna cost. In the end we gave ourselves a modest budget to work with for this year. Little by little we’ve been ordering everything on our list:

Salon and coffee table? Check!

Over-priced planters? Check!

Ginormous Parasol? Check!

Plants? Oh Fer f*ck’sakes I knew we forgot something!

So after much deliberation and research we took the logical next step. No we didn’t go to the garden center and pick up some trees; instead we ordered some bamboo on the internet. The place came well recommended by a friend of French-Mother-in-Law so I wasn’t really worried about quality. I don’t know exactly what I thought it would look like or how it would arrive. I guess I imagined it would come on a truck or something. Instead, what actually arrived was so much better:

Voila! Say hello to my gorgeous little garden in a box delivered by regular express mail.

My 8 baby bamboo plants came wrapped in saran wrap and packed in white packing peanuts inside a medium-sized cardboard box. (Seriously dude. Who the hell still used packing peanuts?) Much to my delight they are in perfect health, and very, very pretty.


Bamboo in a box. Who knew?

Barbie Dream House vs. Baby: Round 1

I am pleased to report that not only did we truly enjoy having my friend Nat and her daughter Esmé for a weekend visit at the Barbie Dream House, but that everyone survived and nothing got broken. Before the visit, I was a bit worried. For two people who profess to eventually want so breed and make some little crumb-snatchers of our own, we somehow managed to pick out the most un-baby friendly décor possible for our new home. That said, our baby visitor took it in stride. Amazingly she managed to not poke her eye out on the razor sharp edges of our BoConcept entertainment center, and failed to give herself a concussion on the 200 kilo glass dining-room table.

Before this weekend FrenchBoy and I had joked about commissioning the Bouroullec brothers to design us baby cages for our kids, but now I am confident that our furniture probably won’t permanently disfigure our future-offspring.

Barbie Dream House Update #16: Let There Be Light!

I haven't done one of these posts in awhile...mostly because there hasn't been much to talk about. After living in the Barbie Dream house for a year, we still have so much stuff to do, and frankly I've been really really lazy about it. The walls are in the first floor are still bare and we don't even have curtain on any of the windows thanks to the glorious magical invention that is electric "volets", which for you not Francophones is electric rolling shutters that at the push of a button roll down and render a room pitch black. Magic. Magic!

Anyway, we did however manage to finally order a chandelier for the dining room. Mind you this is a year in the making. We originally saw this light in a magazine about 2 years ago, but they forgot to list the name of the manufacturer. Fast forward a year--FrenchBoy finally e-mailed the magazine for information and was directed to the company's website. Unfortunately they only sell wholesale, so we went about hunting down a retail distributor. We were lucky enough to find a local shop that could order it for us.

In about 6 weeks, this lil marvel will be hanging above my dining room table:

It's called "Tundra" and is made by a company that specializes in making decor from natural and petrified woods. Since the rest of the house is uber-modern minimalist, I figured this piece would offer some much needed warmth. I like the combination of "slick" geometric and "organic". I dig it.

Now, if I can just figure out how to work a water element into the room, it will be Feng Shui'd up!

Snips 'N Snails and Puppy Dog Tails.

So now that the busiest June is history is…history. I’m on to a month of July filled with guests. The first special guests to arrive this month are my mom and my nephew Tyson. After two wonderful flights, they arrived at the Luxembourg airport only to discover that Lux Air managed to lose my mom’s suitcase---again. In fact every time she has come to visit us, Lux Air has lost her luggage. At this point it’s just funny.

Anyway, yesterday was exhausting. I had a really tough time adjusting to having a kid in the house. Dude, the Barbie Dream House is NOT kid friendly. How could we have not realized this before? I spent the entire afternoon chasing after Tyson making sure he didn’t accidentally break stuff. And even if he did, who could I blame but myself? Which leads me to really good question: What kind of Yuppie Jack-asses build a house, then furnish it with furniture that’s as fragile and as rare as Fabergé eggs? Answer: Yuppie Jack-asses who obviously have no kids. If FrenchBoy and I ever do get around to making kids we will either have to sell the Barbie Dream House or keep them in cages. Mind you fragile and rare cages designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec.

Oh, Oh! And the noise. The noise! Listen, I grew up with 2 brothers, but clearly I have forgotten the absolute avalanche of sound that even one kid playing solo can create. Yesterday my brain actually hurted. Of course my Mom thinks it's hilarious. She's having quite a laugh at me running around the house like a mad woman. Revenge is sweet I suppose.

The one quiet moment of the day was an hour or so when my Mom and Tyson decided to make some paintings. OK, Tyson decided. I taught Mom and Tyson how to mix 2 colors of brown from orange and blue and how not to let your acrylic paint go dry in your brushes. For one blissful hour we all painted. Quietly. It was nice.

So today, we are off to the Zoo or Aquarium, or whatever kid friendly location I can find around Metz. I just want him to see cool stuff and have some fun. (Any clues on what 9 year olds think is cool or fun?)

And I will do my best to chill out and not have a cardiac arrest the next time he slams his cup of water down on my lovely glass dining room table or somehow manages to fall over and completely topple one of the fancy matching leather chairs.

Barbie Dream House Update #15: Dream On!

Since it’s spring, we’re back to doing work on the Barbie Dream House.

Now if you recall, we have not one, but two terraces. The small one is directly off of the kitchen. The monster terrace is on the 2nd floor and can be accessed by the main hallway and by our bedroom.

Ever since living in NYC I’ve dreamed of having a rooftop garden, but last weekend was a seriously rude awakening. Has anyone else seen the price of lawn/outdoor furniture lately? It cost as much, if not more, than indoor furniture! Am I the only one on the planet who didn’t know this?

We had absolutely zero luck at finding the type of furniture we wanted...in our price range, so next we headed over to the lawn and garden place to look for trees. Since our bedroom opens onto the big terace, this is the look I’m going for:

The good news is, according to my calculations, the Barbie Dream terrace will only cost about 15,000 euros to create! So, I’m gonna put a tip jar on the sidebar of my blog and with the love and support of all of you faithful readers, I'm sure I'll have my Barbie Dream terrage by the time my third child starts Lycee.

Sidenote: All photos above stolen from Desire to Inspire blog. If you're into home decor and you aren't reading it everyday, you're a damned fool!

So since we made no progress on the terraces, we ended up buying wall paper for our bedroom instead. Originally we wanted something printed with images from the Kamasutra, but we settled for a simple multicolored rice paper. It was a tough call. Our second choice was this:

Also we may put these lovely puppy decals in our master bathroom.

Seriously…who buys this shit? I do not understand how a country with a reputation for being a center of style, fashion, and art could sell something like puppy wall decals. Does anyone else wonder about this? All I can say is: O' how the mighty have fallen. *shaking head in disapproval*
Oh yeah…I forgot to tell you. We finally got our furniture!

From the photos you probably also noticed that I scored this lovely sculpture by Denis Pérez one of the artists I met during Art Metz. FrenchBoy and I both liked him immediately and 3 days later bit the bullet and bought it.

He's officially the first French piece in our French-American art collection!

So, the furniture is even more lovely than we imagined. It was totally worth the many months of waiting. The crazy insane orange color is right on. It totally warms up the whole room and its wacky and fun. It really is quite lovely. In fact it’s so lovely that it made me hate everything else in our apartment for about a week.

If our apartment were highschool, the new furniture would be the group of cool seniors that everyone is afraid to talk to. Nothing else quite measured up.


But luckily I came to my senses . I’m over it now.

Barbie Dream House Update #14: Art for Your Ass.

One of the coolest things about moving into our new flat is of course decorating. Last week we made a huge amount of progress in that department. We finally have closets! For the past 3 months we have been living out of our old IKEA armoires which are stored in the 2 guestrooms. That’s fine and all, but getting dressed in the morning entailed going to one room to find my underwear and then crossing the hall to get some pants.

About 2 month ago we ordered custom closets and had the rooms measured. Last Thursday the nice man came and installed them. Nevermind my bad photos, they are fabulous!

The downstairs entrance has a coat closet with fancy white glass doors. The upstairs guest bathroom has simple beige doors that match the tiling seamlessly, and our bedroom has a gorgeous wood panels that actually warm up the entire bedroom. We got good Feng shui goin’ on.

Then, Friday morning, BoConcept came and delivered our entertainment system furniture. In 14 ginormous boxes. FrenchBoy and French Father-in-law spent most of the day Saturday arguing and assembling the unit. It’s installed and it looks freaking fabulous. It’s the next best thing to being able to live in the actual Bo Concept showroom….which they don’t let you do. Believe me I tried.

You will notice however that something is missing from the above photo. Uhm, yeah. Alas we still have no sofa or chairs. We spent months before the move looking at furniture and had almost settled on a fancy little leather ensemble from Roch BoBois, but I was very lukewarm about the whole leather sofa idea. I know it’s the norm here in France, but I just can’t get into it. Plus that’s a whole lot of money to spend on a sofa that you have NO love for. (For the record, I also hate carrelage! Tile flooring should be used only in kitchens and bathrooms for Christ’s sake!)

So after leaving Roche Bobois a bit unimpressed, we stumbled into Ligne Rosett which I always considered a bit snooty and over priced. Exhausted, we sank into one of the display living rooms to pout for a bit. It was so comfortable we didn’t want to get up to leave. So we bought it.

French Father-in-law rolls his eyes and calls it the “Coquilles St Jacques furniture”, but it reminds me more of origami. And we LOVE it! It’s weird looking and modern and….just weird. And for some reason when I look at it I get a craving for sushi. Does that make sense?

The only draw back is that since everything from the fabric to the color of the seams is made to order, it literally takes 4 months for it to arrive. Thus, no furniture for us until at least the middle of April. But who can complain when we will have furniture that’s this cool? Dude--it’s art you can sit on!

Anyway, being the total google stalkers that we are. We did a bit of research on the designers. Turns out it was designed by this freaky little design team of two brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec.

In 2000, Issey Miyake hired them to design his A-Poc boutique in Paris, and recently they designed a pavilion in the new MUDAM (Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean) in Luxembourg that opened in July 2006 in a building designed by Architect I.M Pei. And I think they’re only like 34 years old! That’s totally rockstar!

So being that we are total Art & Design nerds, I am convinced this is the furniture we were meant to have.

Oh great. Now I’m hungry for sushi!

Barbie Dream House Update #13: The Walk Through.

I haven't done a Barbie Dream House post in awhile so I thought I'd post some video footage I took just before we moved in.

I'm posting these mainly for my family, but the rest of you can check them out too. Ok, Part 1 of the tour starts at the front door then goes to the living room and kitchen and ends back in my studio:

Upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms:

The guest bedroom goes for $270 a night and includes a continental breakfast.

Barbie Dream House Update #12

8 days to "Jour J" and to summarize: Sh*t is late.

But as French construction projects go, we've been lucky. Saturday FrenchBoy had a conversation with our downstairs neighbors, and to say the least they weren't so lucky. They had more than a few mishaps including pipes being intalled on the outside of walls, and one bathroom being completely tiled with someone else's tiles!

The wife said they had no choice but to move into their unfinished apartment, and for the first two weeks lived with crews of 10 or more dirty construction workers walking in and out of their home all day.

So, I hardly feel like I have the right to complain.

We were scheduled to move last weekend, but that was impossible for two main reasons. One, we have no heat or hot water due to the fact that we forgot to call and schedule it to be turned on. And two, witness the huge gaping hole, where our staircase should be.

I cannot go into the stair fiasco without punching people, so I will just skip ahead to the good stuff.

The Star trek kitchen just got more sci-fi with the addition of the coveted Space-ship oven hood.

Which looks even more sci-fi at night:

Thursday the one missing door, and the stainless steel backsplash arrives and then it will be completely finished. I think.

The guest bathroom:

I don't mean to brag, but the guest bathroom is nicer than the bathroom at the Montreal Sofitel. We basically stole all their design ideas and then improved upon them. Our guests are in for a real treat!

I may have to convince David to switch it and make it our bathroom after all.

So that's that. The stairs are coming Wednesday. And then 2 days worth of cleaning to get the layer of dust & construction grime off of everything.



You can call me a Princess if you want to, but I'm telling you right now. I will not be the one cleaning whatever the hell that is off those windows.