i love them, hope you do too. all photos by denise paxton, full archive viewable here.
Loretta Flower is Austin, Texas-based brand strategist, (retired) floral designer, writer, and stylist Mary Kathryn Paynter
all photos by mary kathryn paynter unless otherwise noted. all rights reserved.
Monday, June 25, 2012
emmylou
Sunday, June 24, 2012
dana & greg
a few photos from a may wedding i had the pleasure of styling out at star hill ranch. beautiful hand-painted sign by the very talented joe swec
outtakes
want to say big thanks to the wonderful ladies at spruce for letting me shoot these beauties there AND for naming me their nugget of the week. if you're in austin, i highly recommend stopping by for what is undeniably the best fabric selection in town. xx
Friday, June 22, 2012
Thursday, June 7, 2012
twenty thousand roads
after finishing up the last of the spring weddings, currently taking a vacation driving all over california for ten days.
first stop was joshua tree national park, things got a little cosmic. spent the better part of an hour looking for the spot where gp was cremated, making a new, generous friend along the way. once we found it, it had recently been cleaned by the parks department, and only a few telltale ashes and rhinestones were left behind. earlier, finding myself without cash at a small souvenir shop, i jokingly bought a henna tattoo kit to meet their credit card minimum. at the site, we found ourselves with no way to mark it until we realized we had that silly henna kit with us, so we left a note for gram and my fingers are now sore from squeezing that little tube of dye throughout the lyrics of my favorite song.
Monday, May 21, 2012
on failure
surely like many others, i was fascinated with the film jiro dreams of sushi and the concept of a shokunin. literally, it is the term for the highest sushi chef and means "craftsman" or "master" but the film played out a more nuanced definition that i found comforting.
as acclaimed sushi chef jiro describes his life's work, it becomes apparent that his main focus is to improve, always. to let life be rote, predictable, let your work be simple, understandable, so that you may always repeat it and always be humbled by it.
the truth about starting your own business is that you feel like a failure a lot of the time. most of time. it gets very hard to focus on what you have accomplished rather than what you have not. it's not grad school, there are no academic walls shielding your best attempts from the outside world. and all of the connectivity dripping between us, the "hall of mirrors", as franzen calls it, doesn't so much help with personal growth as it gives a shallow hint of self-worth, which typically extinguishes after a good night's sleep.
you're on your own. you're the only person who can account for your shortcomings. sometimes i think this is why people go into debt to build their businesses into huge productions, take on big accounts and hire assistants and managers galore--when your failures and flaws eventually surface, you have so many other people you can blame.
when this happens, it's easy to call the work "boring" and move on. and i'd be a terrible liar if i said i hadn't wanted to do just that many, many times. but this comes from the belief that your craft will serve you, that it owes you something. you have to give that up. you have to give yourself over.
the shokunin's dedication to his craft is lifelong. there are no distractions. it is him and the fish and the knife in his hand, everyday. everyday he wakes up and works long hours performing the same simple tasks of labor. everyday, he seeks perfection as his hands and his mind and his spirit begin to attune to the demands of the craft. in this way he is a vessel, he is taught by the pursuit of perfection.
the shokunin knows something that i am slowly learning--that a craft is not a human relationship. it is not fair, it is not a give and take. it is a give and give and give and be taught and taught and taught some more. it is about failing everyday and loving it and letting your failures drive you to start over, to pay more attention, to understand every step of the process better than you did the day before. your victories are tiny and rarely completely satisfying. it liberates you from the idea that happiness or satisfaction will ever come easily.
it is strangely pleasant, and more importantly, infinitely worthwhile.
as acclaimed sushi chef jiro describes his life's work, it becomes apparent that his main focus is to improve, always. to let life be rote, predictable, let your work be simple, understandable, so that you may always repeat it and always be humbled by it.
the truth about starting your own business is that you feel like a failure a lot of the time. most of time. it gets very hard to focus on what you have accomplished rather than what you have not. it's not grad school, there are no academic walls shielding your best attempts from the outside world. and all of the connectivity dripping between us, the "hall of mirrors", as franzen calls it, doesn't so much help with personal growth as it gives a shallow hint of self-worth, which typically extinguishes after a good night's sleep.
you're on your own. you're the only person who can account for your shortcomings. sometimes i think this is why people go into debt to build their businesses into huge productions, take on big accounts and hire assistants and managers galore--when your failures and flaws eventually surface, you have so many other people you can blame.
when this happens, it's easy to call the work "boring" and move on. and i'd be a terrible liar if i said i hadn't wanted to do just that many, many times. but this comes from the belief that your craft will serve you, that it owes you something. you have to give that up. you have to give yourself over.
the shokunin's dedication to his craft is lifelong. there are no distractions. it is him and the fish and the knife in his hand, everyday. everyday he wakes up and works long hours performing the same simple tasks of labor. everyday, he seeks perfection as his hands and his mind and his spirit begin to attune to the demands of the craft. in this way he is a vessel, he is taught by the pursuit of perfection.
the shokunin knows something that i am slowly learning--that a craft is not a human relationship. it is not fair, it is not a give and take. it is a give and give and give and be taught and taught and taught some more. it is about failing everyday and loving it and letting your failures drive you to start over, to pay more attention, to understand every step of the process better than you did the day before. your victories are tiny and rarely completely satisfying. it liberates you from the idea that happiness or satisfaction will ever come easily.
it is strangely pleasant, and more importantly, infinitely worthwhile.
hill country weekend
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