EMD Design Journal

The Tocar Touch: a second chapter

EMDixon — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 05:00:55 +0000

After a stellar ten-year run, Susan Bednar Long and Christina Sullivan Roughan, the New York City-based power duo behind the much touted Tocar Interior Design firm, have embarked on separate paths.

As a team, the designers were known for deftly blending modern and traditional elements in every project. Their style focus is tailored, crisp and sophisticated and they never missed the mark. Here is just a sample of some of the deliciously livable spaces that the girls created together. We wish them all the best in their new ventures and look forward to seeing what comes next.

East 73rd Street Townhouse

London Townhouse

5th Avenue Pied-a-Terre

: Greenwich Village Loft

Tribeca Loft

CT sculptor profiled in new magazine

EMDixon — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:10:48 +0000

As I mentioned in my last post, New England Home has launched a Connecticut edition and I couldn’t be more excited. In the premiere issue, I did an artist profile on Cornelia Kubler Kavanagh, a sculptor who translates the beauty and brutality of nature into sensuous form. Read about her amazing work (as seen below) and see the gorgeous interior designs in the magazine which is on sale at many of the major book and grocery stores in Fairfield County. For those of you who can’t get hold of the actual magazine, click here for Cornelia’s story.

New England Home’s Connecticut is on the stands!

EMDixon — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:21:31 +0000

I’m excited to report that New England Home magazine has launched a Connecticut edition and I’m so pleased to have been asked to contribute a piece for the premiere issue.

The magazine, which offers a sophisticated look at area designers, architects, products and artists, is now expanding its focus to the exceptional design world to be found in Fairfield County.

In this era of rough seas for the publishing biz it does my heart good to see such a lovely and esteemed magazine float confidently through the flotsam.

Kudos!

So many great blogs – so little time

EMDixon — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:49:58 +0000

WOW! I just received a Kreativ Blogger Award from Monika at Splendid Willow – A splendid blog indeed. Splendid Willow is a trove of delicious images with a focus on the best of Swedish design- with its serene, time kissed, breathable spaces- and when we are lucky, pictures of her beautiful family too. Monika was just named as a well-deserving recipient of the award and was gracious enough to pay it forward to seven of her favorite blogs, including EMD Design Journal! It is suggested that the honorees share seven things about ourselves but I’ll use that platform to show you a few of the amazing blogs that I think are worthy of their own awards…

Thanks again for your warm and enthusiastic support Monika. And thanks to every EMD Design Journal reader for stopping by!!

My Kreativ Blogger Award picks

slightly me's weblog

all the mountains

the paris apartment

just three things

Litchfield.com

Swoond

Living Lab

5th Avenue Elegance – Simply Stated

EMDixon — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:36:26 +0000

Last month Architectural Digest had a story about a NYC duplex renovated by fave design firm Shelton Mindel & Associates. Lee Mindel and Peter Shelton worked with their senior interior designer Grace Sierra on this beautifully restrained project. They only had three months to turn this time-worn limestone duplex across from Central Park into a chic and modern family home. Despite the limitations and challenges, the result is stunning! Ooh La La!

Photography by Michael Moran

sad. just sad.

EMDixon — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:27:08 +0000

Alexander McQueen - 16 March 1969 – 11 February 2010

Life in Focus

EMDixon — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:11:25 +0000

I met husband and wife photographers Wendy Carlson and John Kane when we did a magazine shoot together a while back. I love the way Wendy captures a broad range of subjects with unpretentious elegance and, like the Momix and Pilobolus dancers that he works with, John’s photography elicits lyric and rhythm in human form.

I look forward to working with them again soon!

Photo courtesy of Wendy Carlson Photography

Photo Courtesy of Wendy Carlson Photography

Photo courtesy of Wendy Carlson Photography

Photo courtesy of Silver Sun Studio

Blows to the Head: How Boxing Changed my Mind

EMDixon — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:49:52 +0000

Click here to order it on Amazon!

It’s here! It’s here! It’s heeere!!.

Popular radio host, Binnie Klein, has just released her new book: Blows to the Head: How Boxing Changed my Mind and I can’t wait to read it!

Judging by the blurbs on the publisher’s website, this id-romp of a memoir is destined to be read and reread by anyone who has ever grappled with the intricacies of self concept, and anyone who appreciates how the mysterious hiccups of everyday life can dictate our paths.

Nice Blurb: “Until now, I have avoided anything to do with boxing on the grounds that it was brutal and uncivilized. Reading Binnie Klein’s elegantly literary, funny, philosophical, moving, and endlessly intriguing Blows to the Head has changed my mind! It’s a wonderful discovery.” — Katharine Weber, author of True Confections and Triangle

Nice Plug: In a story that will captivate and inspire women and men, athletes and nonathletes, Klein shows us that if we turn over the “weird stones” on our path, the ones we usually ignore, we may find ourselves on an unexpected journey that will summon vitality back into our lives.

Why not?: When Binnie Klein took up boxing in her mid-fifties, the reaction from friends and acquaintances was always the same: “You?” Why, after all, would a middle-aged Jewish psychotherapist with no previous history of athletics take up boxing?

New year – new design story…

EMDixon — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:05:48 +0000

Welcome to 2010 everyone!

I’m pleased to kick off a new season by posting some images from virtuoso designer Amie Weitzman. The former Design Director for Joseph Abboud Inc. and designer for the Ralph Lauren Home Collection, Weitzman’s alchemy of earthy textures and crisp editing give all of her spaces a livable agelessness. To punctuate that mix, she brings the same creative vision that she was known for as a fabric designer to her custom furnishings and textiles. I am excited to be doing a story on her amazing Connecticut lake house for the March issue of Litchfield Magazine (see story here) and hope to publish a piece on another beautiful home she did in Westchester before long.

Christmas in Connecticut

EMDixon — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:53:34 +0000

Photo via Flickr

Sure, it’s a cliche, but there really is nothing more nostalgic than the image of a child at Christmas time. No matter how different our individual experiences have been, most of us share some universal flashback of the awe and anticipation that colorful lights, cheesy carols and once-a-year confections bring- reminding us of a long lost vibrancy and openness which often evaporates as we grow older.

I recently saw an 8mm movie of me as a baby- bubble-butted from droopy diaper, bonnet upon peach fuzz head, dirty hands, drooly face, boundless energy – toddling among what must have seemed like a carnival of wonders, but was really just the tragic refuse on a trailor-trashy lawn. It reminds me this Christmas that gifts can come in any form you care to receive them, if you can manage to tap into the expansiveness of a child’s imagination. (I find vintage Christmas cartoons and champagne helps to reproduce the effect – - the cartoons are optional.)

The photo above comes courtesy of a Flickr stream called; When the Journey Collapses, where they offer a number of their own personal holiday pix which are strangely familiar because they are just so darn every family USA. It really could be my bubble butt, and peach fuzz head! Thanks WtJC..