Treat Time

by Jay

Our recent trip to the City of the Angels (Los Angeles for those not fluent in Spanish) also resulted in the sweet union of architecture, music, fashion and sexiness.  Lizzie and I share an appreciation for all of the above. But, let me just shut up and get to the video you must see if you, too, love architecture, music, fashion and sexiness:

Despite the fact that we’d already left the Golden State, we were transported back as I was showing Lizzie some of my favorite videos of Cibelle who did “London, London” with Devandra Banhart – together, two of the most interesting and beautiful voices in music today. Then, I clicked through some more Banhart videos and BAM! A beautiful woman (who I later learned was Banhart’s girlfriend, Rebecca Schwartz ) was sitting naked in a tub with Banhart.  Even sexier are the first few frames of the video, when you see  John Lautner’s famous “Rainbow House“, also known as the “Garcia House”. Lautner, a student of Wright, gave birth to the “Googie” style of architecture. I must give credit to my dear friend, Don, for introducing me to the vast world of architecture over 20 years ago. My appreciation for this amazing field has grown ever since, particularly the architecture of Los Angeles, where Frank Lloyd Wright and all his descendants (his son Lloyd Wright, Rudolf Schindler, Richard Neutra, John Lautner, et al) designed and built some of the most celebrated architecture in the world.

The lovely dovey, sexy music and sweet flirtations of Banhart and Schwartz set the stage as the two lovers playfully model an array of stylish Oliver Peoples frames that cherryontop this video. Shot in the gorgeous light of the magic hour; sweetness ensues, in a Mad Men-esque way – well, at least a la the episode in California where Don proposes to Megan. Oops, spoiler alert … but, you get what I mean about the whole mid-century thing.

Because I’m the type of guy that likes to get to the background on random things, I was led here: Nowness.com. Lisa Eisner‘s piece is quite possibly the sexiest little video I’ve had the good fortune to see. Lizzie has had a thing for Oliver Peoples for quite some time and after this slice of heaven, I do too. So there you have it: music, architecture, sexiness and fashion, not necessarily in that order and all jumbled together in a sweet symphony.

by Lizzie

You know when you have one of those moments of nostalgia when you hear some simple common expression that the people throughout your life have used? Like yesterday when I was at the market buying basil for our dinner and I heard a lady say, “six one way, half a dozen the other…” and I instantly was called to a memory with my sweet grandmother. It’s part of what I love about language. The way it can call up the other moments in your life when you heard those same sweet words strung together. I love expressions. I can’t say that I use them too much myself in my speech. One saying that my former mother in law used to use a lot: ”Haste makes waste.” is a great reminder. Good gravy, I should have given this lesson more attention!

a lizzie mara doodle

Or how about this one in our daughter’s American Girl book about the Great Depression: “Waste not, want not.”? Talk about making you stop and think! I adore this concept. It’s a fantastic reminder to me of living responsibly. And of course this little gem: “A stitch in time saves nine.” Perhaps you knew what these meant when you were little. I can’t say that I did. But now, there is something so familiar and sweet about these thoughtful words, strung together like little poems + lessons that I just truly adore.

A Stitch in Time - made modern + fun by Letters and Forms, via Etsy...

It would be fun to do a collection of illustrations for different idioms like this fun one brought to us by Plato: “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Below is a small illustrative piece I did a few years ago about one of my all time favorite sayings: “She didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.” It’s just a much sweeter way of saying that someone ins’t as unsophisticated as one might assume – such a good refocus for those prone to judgment! And for me, it’s all the better an idiom because I love the symbol of the turnip. It pops up in my work often + can be found in several of our Treat Design Co. goods!

illustrations from Lizzie's studio - spring 2009

Here’s to sweet nostalgic idioms, life lessons, and of course; beautiful English - one of the many amazing things that attracts me to my dear love, Jay.

Happy Sunday from Treat land.

Hi.

We’d really like to make it to 200 likes by this March 31. We think it’s super realistic. Do you?

Tell your friends about our FB page. Tell us what you’d like to see more of + hear more about. We’re listening.

Thanks.

Jay + Lizzie

"full summer", 8" x 10" mixed media on wood panel by Lizzie Mara

Hi friends. Today’s hits are from Madeon – another French DJ who obviously grew up listening to Daft Punk. This dude was born in 1994. S0, yeah, if you do the math, he’s 18 in 2012. You could easily hear this as a deleted scene from Interstella 5555; which, if you haven’t seen, is Daft Punk’s fusion of their love of fantastic 1970′s Japanese cartoons with their sublime mastery of house music. Incidentally, Madeon uses scenes from Daft Punk’s movie in his mashup – Pop Culture. But, Madeon leaves all traces of identifiable sound behind, while clearly retaining the influences of Daft Punk, then mixes in elements of trance, electro, nu-disco and just his own Frenchiness in general for his “Icarus”:

Get your dance on.

In addition to creating his own yumminess, he’s also created a number of juicy remixes including songs from The Killers, Alphabeat, Yelle, and Deadmau5.

Here’s this dude playing live – look at this dude! He’s barely bigger than our ten-year old. But, the boy can spin.

by Lizzie

Think About Tomorrow Or Don't, by Margret Lee 2007, Dikeou Collection, Photo courtesy of Amy Whitaker of Museum Legs

Jay and I have had an amazing 2012 so far. Our new brand has made some great strides in such a short period of time + this has been such a rewarding + thrilling few months. This moment brings me to sit and reflect on all the inspiring women Treat Design Co. has brought me face to face with.

While in Atlanta in January, I met buyers + taste makers from stores far + wide. I have such great respect for the female business woman. The ambitious, bold, + brilliant who truly shine. One of those that stands out was Tamara Dillard the owner of the charming Sophie’s in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She is the epitome of fashionable, fun, & has a darling business in North Chattanooga, selling objects for the home, flowers, + vintage. Just my ticket – as I adore all three of her store’s categories. If I lived in Chattanooga, I’d want to hang out with Ms. Dillard + frequent her shop for lovely gifts, bouquets, + that fab find from the past.

A toast to Tamara from Sohie's! I spotted these on Sophie's FB page + love that she stocks this pretty line - they're just like the flutes we used in Atlanta to toast to the new collection at KP's house!

In February while in decompression mode, after the hustle + bustle that was America’sMart, Jay and I were invited out on the town with some friends who love art like us. The event was at Dikeou Collection in celebration of the new Clyfford Still Museum which officially opened just months ago. To honor the time Still was prolific, The Dikeou Collection hosted a poetry reading, beatnik style. Visiting the collection, curated by Devon Dikeou is like taking a walk and falling through the rabbit hole, to find yourself in a land of amazing modern art, wit, humor, & cutting edge expression.

Somehow I Don't Feel Comfortable, 2000, by Momoyo Torimitsu - Photo by Amy Whitaker of Museum Legs

The Dikeou opening was also celebrating the release of the 20th edition of ZingMagaizine – published by Dikeou. Oh, how lovely it is to be exposed to such a inspiring collection + a woman dedicated to art. YUM.

From The Inviting Company Note Card Collection - So glad we were able to connect with Pam. What a fabulous woman!

March is here and I had the absolute pleasure of meeting two more inspiring women. The first is Pam Hatcher of Inviting Company. Pam’s been in business in our industry for nearly two decades + goodness she is both knowledgeable + humble. What a beautiful combination.

Pam insisted I meet Kelly Plank-Dworkin; the founder + president of Swoozie’s. So, as luck would have it, I met Kelly that very day at Swoozie’s new Denver store when I attended their grand opening gala. The celebration that Kelly’s team hosted for the Denver opening was in one word – GRAND. Everything from the hot-pink-illuminated refreshment tent out in front of their sparkly new store, to the plentiful + gracious staff  showing off the beautiful assortment of product – this opening was spot on in the world of retail meets Page Six parties.

Image courtesy of Mountain Living Magazine via FB

I reflect on this eclectic mix of women, including the one I’ve given credit to in several of the photos above (Amy Whitaker of Museum Legs) and pause to soak up the inspiration. I’m grateful + energized.

by Jay

So, when I get into a song, I usually play it obsessively for days, until I get it out of, or maybe into my system. Today, my OCD falls upon Graffiti6. So, far I’ve heard the song below about 12 times in the last 4 hours.

Here’s a little ditty called “Stone in My Heart” from their album Colours. They’re Brits, see, hence the extra “u” in the word colours. As we take cover, preparing for the onslaught of Simon Callow’s automatons (One Direction), England reveals they’ve still got some decent music to offer.

Despite nearly skittering on the brink of overly bubbly pop, Graffiti6 prove an acoustic depth as well, covering Fleet Foxes “Blue Ridge Mountains”:

I love me some new music.

by Jay

Just watched the Burning Man-inspired “Greyhound” video from Swedish House Mafia recommended by my friend Benjamin.

The one word that comes to mind after watching it is, YES! Not only do I love the costumes, the incredible music and the stunning creativity that comes from Burning Man, but also the groovy beats of the Swedish House Mafia. The Swedish trio of Axwell, Steve Angello, and Sebastian Ingrosso that make up the mafia are all world-renowned DJ’s in their own right, collectively they’ve made some classic club hits of the last decade. They started with Get Dumb in 2007 and went on to make One and Miami to Ibiza in 2010. Then, in 2011 they brought Save the World and Antidote. Blending the genres of house, electro house, trance, with a little bit of grime they get booties shaking all over the place.

The world of electronica, generally does not get a lot of airplay in the US, though pop artists, Lady Gaga et al beg, borrow and steal from it with abandon and it seems only a matter of time before it gains to the level of acceptance of the most popular forms of music.

Speaking of Sweden and other forms of music, both Miike Snow and Lykke Li are both Swedish performers who I’ve got great love for and if you haven’t had the chance, check them out!

Miike Snow’s indie/electropop brought us Animal and Black and Blue (with a happy feel-good video), which are among my fav’s. But, he’s cooked up a new release for 2012, “Happy to You” with the bomb dropping, doughnut eating, big-nosed and leather -panted video, The Wave.

The truly good news is that BOTH Swedish House Mafia and Miike Snow will be creating eargasms at Coachella 2012.

Unfortunately, the coy, yet edgy little minx that is Lykke Li, who burst onto the scene with Little Bit in 2007 will not share the sunshine in the Coachella Valley this year, boo.  But, since we’re talking about Swedes, I couldn’t fail to mention her. Another hot hit that I adore is Get Some.

Oh, music you’ve come a long way since ABBA, baby.

Image Credit: We <3 IT.

We started writing this on the last full moon night, and we should have been getting some sleepy sleep, but instead, with the energy of the big beautiful moon, we geeked out with our laptops, read blog posts, surfed the news online, + half payed attention to The Wire which Jay had recently become obsessed with. That’s a whole other blog post.

We are music lovers. Art lovers. Design lovers. And this makes us Coachella lovers.

Here’s the deal with our little design company heading to a music + art festival. We’ve been selected by one of Coachella’s artists to go help with his “installation.” It’s somewhat top secret, otherwise we’d spill the beans all about it now. However, it’s super cool + we are honored to rejoin the Artist Camp for one amazing weekend of live music, art, amidst the beautiful polo grounds of Coachella.

photo credit: Aurore Leblanc for Glamour Paris

Last year in our Art Camp we had the pleasure of  hanging with our friend Aurore Leblanc, aka Miss Selector. She’s a photographer from Paris who visited LA + Coachella last year; shooting for Glamour Magazine and Vogue Paris. It was fantastic to watch her shoot. Just to see the details she observed and then even more AMAZING was that Glamour Paris online chose one of her photos of us to feature. C’est magnifique!

Jay describes his response to the music line up upon first seeing it: “My eyes jumped first to the English band Madness and the nostalgia kicked in. The song “Our House”, you see, brings us back to our own salad days when we were just kids running around the neighborhoods in the days of 1970′s parenting – where you walk to school without supervision, come back from school with friends, ran around for hours and played without any parents to be seen. Until, finally you caught a voice on the wind and strained your neck to hear your mom yell, “Dinner!”  The freedom we enjoyed was never given a second thought – it represented the social norms of the times.

Being a step-dad, having parachuted in when our kids were 9, 7, and 4 – I found myself shocked at what I initially viewed as borderline paranoia; parents hovering over their children. Children were virtually never alone. See, I was simply ignorant of modern parenting. I understand the social norms have changed radically. But, I retain a great deal of faith in the intelligence, thoughtfulness, and maturity of children. It’s hard for me to believe that people have actually changed that much. Yet, despite my faith and trust in our children, I now hang out in the street to watch them pedal up and down the block and yell, “Car!” for them with the other parents in the traveling pub that is our block after 5 o’clock.

Thus, bands and songs that bring us back to sweet memories and more innocent times; when our largest concern was listening for mom to call for dinner became part of the Coachella experience. Last year, it was Duran Duran. One of my friends, who was 26, had never even heard of Duran Duran. I feel old. But, Lizzie just might have to pack her roller skates for this moment:”

Then there’s the list of bands that grows longer every time we look at the schedule that we’ve enjoyed in our adulthood (if you can really call it that).

Black Keys

Swedish House Mafia

Miike Snow (How do you say “Holla!” in Swedish?)

Radio Head

M. Ward

Mazzy Star

Neon Indian

Bon Iver

Florence + the Machine

Dear Hunter

tUnE-yArDs

Santigold

Kaskade

The Shins

Those are the bands we know and love – and that doesn’t include the little gems we’ll find as we start researching. It’s a music lover’s paradise.

So, this post’s a bit of a retrospective – commemorating our first foray into the great wide world of merchandising America where the big fish swim. At the beginning of the year we attended America’sMart in Atlanta – one of the largest trade shows in America – and it was a smashing success. Why smashing?

Well, first of all, we were placed in a juried collection – selected from the pool of fish because they thought we were pretty – into the “Paper Boutique” section, a collection of design led, high end paper products. That was a nice little pick me up that picked us up. Second, the feedback we received proved overwhelming and we signed a number of solid accounts from Florida to Washington – New York to LA. When I say solid accounts, I’m talking retailers who liked what they saw so much that they bought a whole ream full of it + wanted it yesterday. We were quite pleasantly surprised by the interest we had from other companies for licensing Lizzie’s images and collaboration projects. It was quite a debut. So, thank you, Atlanta!

The pretty tissue paper flower party (which is a huge trend this spring) courtesy of Sherree, great fuel + good rest courtesy of Karen, + Treat hydration courtesy of Annie Abbruzzese of Wonder Boston

A dedicated friend - making things pretty.

Speaking of thank yous, our first blog post was all about our gratitude for our southern friends, but it got destroyed in our creation of the new little gem of a temporary website. But, if youhad read it, you would have have seen our attempt at gratitude for our dear friends Karen and Sherree. Their love, support and winning smiles made our entire trip possible. Really, without them – we would have found ourselves stuck in a flea bag motel deep in the heart of Atlanta – and not the good part. Karen welcomed us into her home after our discovery that we basically rented a room from hotels.com that was a by-the-hour motel. (The pictures of the outside were so nice!) But, wait, there’s more! She took us in and fed us fine Southern food, included a pretty bouquet in our guest room, and she and Sheree worked their tails off for us during the 5 day show. Did we mention the fresh baked biscuits + homemade granola for breakfast? Talk about an amazing hostess! KP makes waking up in Atlanta easy for anyone, especially Lizzie, who is still working on her “morning personness”.

The girls in Atlanta! Lizzie, Karen, + Sherree!

If you’ve spent any quality time in the city of Atlanta, you might have had the pleasure to visit the infamous Mary Mac’s Tea Room. (Thank you to our excellent hostess with the mostess for the fun recommendation!)

As luck would have it, we were enchanted by their popular Good Will Ambassador who sat down with us to chit chat, but also to give Jay a nice back rub. If you look at their site, you will find that this is a real position held by Jo Carter for decades. What luck to have met this lovely + sweet public face of this historic tea room.

So, one more time – from the bottom of our hearts – thank you Karen and Sherree – we miss you!

And before we sign off from this post, we must mention one little gem of a moment in Atlanta. We had the pleasure of showing our line to Robin Lohre from Talulah Jones of Denver, Co. If you’re not familiar, this is a fantastic (and we mean FANTASTIC) store right in our own backyard. Kismet like this should always be celebrated, because, you see, Robin has supported Lizzie’s work since 2008, when Lizzie was making one painting at a time and had yet to find Jay and make Treat Design Co. Lovely and supportive through thick and thin, Robin is beautiful inside and out. We were blessed to see her in Atlanta. It was like the stars were aligned + the Universe, in it’s amazing language was saying – “This is the path. Allow me to show you the way.”

It's serendipity when our first store to support Lizzie's work is also one of our first orders... all the way from Denver, Colorado - we were thrilled to spend time with the brilliant owner of Talulah Jones, Ms. Robin Lohre.

by Lizzie + Jay

Our website is still under construction, but so are our products! So we’re practicing patience. However, while we wait, we have a super fun little gem to share: a sneak peek at our new line: www.TreatDesignCo.com/ Thanks to a wonderful website designer and architectnamed Garrett Knoll!

Please do take a peek and enjoy some the images of what we have in store!

Go ahead, take a peek!

We are so excited about the next phase of our budding business. Lizzie met with a super hip Denver paper store last week & the owner was like, can you “Pulllllleeeeeease bring these products into my store, like, tomorrow?”! Such a nice compliment. Ahhh, the test of patience. Why is it so hard sometimes?!