Edouard Manet - Flowers in a Crystal Vase Archives

Evaluating a Wardrobe: A Year of “Flowers in a Crystal Vase” by Edouard Manet

December 14, 2018

Remember our friend the soil conservation engineer? The woman who is constantly reminding people that the brown stuff in which plants grow is SOIL and not just DIRT...

She's inspired by the potential inherent in healthy soil, the potential for things like flowers! So when she was choosing a theme and focus for her wardrobe, she chose this painting:

She thought about her priorities - softness with brown, feminine and timeless - and she isolated her favorite colors:

In January she got to go to a conference of soil engineers, which was a delightful chance for her to talk to people who deeply and truly understand and share her professional passion.

Her contacts at the conference worked out well - in ... View the Post

Flowers in a Crystal Vase by Manet, Revisited for Autumn 2018

October 19, 2018

Our heroine is a soil conservation engineer. Lots of people don't quite understand what she does... but she gets to go to conferences with others who do what she does, and that helps! She's so well regarded in her profession that she's often invited to speak to groups of students, which she loves... And when one of her peers made an amazing discovery, she was the first person they called to share the work and the excitement.

Okay, maybe the dirt isn't that exciting to everyone... but her inspiration is actually the beauty of flowers - especially as seen in this painting and color palette:

In fact, that big discovery back in the summer was VERY big! In fact there's a conference upcoming around what she and ... View the Post

Flowers in a Crystal Vase by Manet, Revisited for Summer 2018

July 23, 2018

Our friend the soil conservation engineer! She went to a conference of engineers back in January, and then she got to be a guest speaker at a University, in April... Although she works with dirt (soil, PLEASE!!!), she's inspired by this painting and colors for her personal style:

The Phone Woke Her Up... So she knew it had to be important!

"Can you be here by lunchtime? The hillside's eroding away because of the rain, and we've found strata that we've never been able to reach before!!!"

Only another soil engineer would be this excited...

"You can stay with me - we're going to work until dark, and then have dinner... Today is probably the only day we'll be able to get to this level. It could be ... View the Post

Flowers in a Crystal Vase by Edouard Manet – Revisiting for Spring 2018

April 10, 2018 She's a soil conservation engineer... a job nobody understands...This is what inspires her - the richness of brown, and the beauty of what the soil can produce:

Just after the 1st of the year, she attended a conference of soil professionals. She packed carefully, and within her plan; she was delighted with the results:

One of the people that she met at her conference has invited her to speak to some of the classes at the University where they teach. THE University, as far as environmental issues are concerned.... She's thrilled, but doesn't want to go too "over the top." They will be walking through a bunch of plowed fields, after all. (yes, they have boots for her to borrow!)

The professor ... View the Post

Flowers in a Crystal Vase by Edouard Manet – Inspiration for Tote Bag Travel

January 9, 2018 You're a Soil Conservation Engineer?

"I can't imagine spending all of my time working with dirt!"

It's SOIL, not dirt...

"It just doesn't seem like there would be that much to do - it's dirt! It's all over the ground! What else is there to know?"

Well, keeping it all from washing away into rivers, and thus into the ocean, is a good start...

"And you're going on a business trip? What can there possibly be to talk about? Dirt isn't really that interesting..."

But new ways to conserve and enrich soil can be fascinating, and it's always great to be able to spend some time with people who share you passion for the SOIL...

"Something that's really hard for me to understand - this just doesn't ... View the Post

The Twelve Art Works of Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of those who are celebrating today, and a warm and wonderful day to everyone!

Today I've got 12 works of art for you - 11 paintings and 1 pretty amazing photograph, along with color palettes, and a sense of how the colors might be made to work in a wardrobe.

I've chosen almost all "modern" works of art - for what we do here on The Vivienne Files, I need to have a relatively limited color palette. Paintings that are completely realistic tend to have every color of the rainbow in them, and THAT would make a carefully edited wardrobe almost impossible!

So, if you have time, and if you have an opinion (or 12!), tell me if you'd like to see any of these developed into a wardrobe. If you've a preference for warm ... View the Post