Valentina

Spring, Beauty and Books: Anne Goodwin

12 Apr 2022 7 Comments

by Valentina in Books Blog Tags: #FictionNovels, #NovelsByAnneGoodwin, #SpringBeautyandBooksFeatures, #SpringInspiration, #SpringPlanting, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor

I am not the only one amazed at how a tiny seed can grow into a giant healthy plant. This year, I planted strawberries, and for the first time, the birds are not eating them. These little red juicy jewels hanging from a pot beautify my garden incredibly. I mix strawberries with a bit of sugar to make a natural facial exfoliating that refreshes and nourishes my skin. Of course, I eat my strawberries as well.
Author Anne Goodwin feels the same amazement with her Spring seeds.

“I love to watch my garden emerge from hibernation, to awake to birdsong, to see butterflies and bees and find frogspawn in the pond. I’m always amazed how a tiny seed can grow into a plant that dwarfs me. It’s like the germ of an idea that becomes a story. But, like writing, gardening with nature does not always go to plan. Some seeds take root where I least expect them and, like weather and reader reactions, it’s not all within my control.
Yet it’s wonderfully therapeutic to bury my hands in the soil or the keyboard. Such a thrill to harvest the fruits of my labours: the food on the table; the words on the printed page. Or to lift my gaze from my desk to the window and catch the flowering cherry in bloom.”

Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home Blurb

In the dying days of the old asylums, three paths intersect.

Henry was only a boy when he waved goodbye to his glamorous grown-up sister; approaching sixty, his life is still on hold as he awaits her return.

As a high-society hostess renowned for her recitals, Matty’s burden weighs heavily upon her, but she bears it with fortitude and grace.

Janice, a young social worker, wants to set the world to rights, but she needs to tackle challenges closer to home.

A brother and sister separated by decades of deceit. Will truth prevail over bigotry, or will the buried secret keep family apart?

In this, her third novel, Anne Goodwin has drawn on the language and landscapes of her native Cumbria and on the culture of long-stay psychiatric hospitals where she began her clinical psychology career.

To purchase a copy and/or find out more, go to Matilda Windsor link tree https://linktr.ee/matildawindsor

Congratulations on your third novel, Anne, wishing you much success.

Please allow me to advertise my books.

Valentina Cirasola is an interior-fashion consultant, author of 6 published books, a storyteller, and a blogger of many years. Her books are non-fictional practical ideas to apply in the home, fashion, cooking and travel. Get a copy of her books here: Amazon and Barnes&Noble

Medieval Doors in Gioia

08 Apr 2022 6 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #BiancaLancia, #FredericIICastle, #GioiaDelColleItaly, #GioiaPaintedDoors, #TravelItaly

The legend goes that Emperor Frederic II, King of Sicily, King of Germany, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor, King of Jerusalem all in the decade of the 1200s, ordered the incarceration of Bianca Lancia in the dungeon of the Castle in Gioia, Italy. To these days, nobody knows what crime she was accused of, maybe her only fault was her beauty, and that she was the lover of the Emperor, pregnant with his baby. At that time, it would have been good enough to lock her up to get her out of the public eyes. Once his baby, Manfredi was born, immediately inherited the Kingdom of Sicily.

On the dungeon’s walls, there are two balls carved in stone, they appear to be Bianca Lancia’s breasts, says the legend…. what a cruel fate reserved for lovers….!!!

Emperor Frederick II also surnamed “stupor mundi” (wonder or amazement of the world) seems to have been a well-liked Emperor then and now. He was a charismatic person with a fascinating polyhedral personality, spoke many languages, loved the arts and cultural innovations as a means to unify all races, and as often happens, his advanced thinking was contrasted by the Church.

The theme of these painted doors is portraits of people and life in the 1200s depicting effigies of the Emperor’s era: soldiers, war scenes, courtesans, and lovers are all there to tell the story. Every few years, the city of Gioia organizes an international artist competition, during which artists choose one unpainted door and give space to their creativity in interpreting subjects Emperor Frederic II would have loved. These painted doors permeate the center of town with a great sense of history.

This is in response to the Thursday Door Challenge hosted by Dan Antion. Ciao,
Valentina
Amazon Author’s Page

Copyright © 2022 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Spring, Beauty and Books: Colleen Chesebro

05 Apr 2022 32 Comments

by Valentina in Books Blog Tags: #ColleenChesebroAuthor, #Poetry, #SpringBeautyandBooksFeatures, #SpringGarden, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor

Spring in California is magnificent. On the same day, one can go to the beach and in an hour or two, one can reach the mountain to ski on fluffy snow. It sounds rather tiring, but a lot of wealthy people in this area live exactly like that. The weather is always very comfortable, not too warm, not too cold, it’s always Spring even in the winter. Heavy coats and heavy garments are not part of our wardrobe. I forgot what it is to live in cold weather. I look at my garden and feel like a parent watching the kids growing year after year. I see how it has grown from seeds, how time and my various moods have changed it and how much food it has produced for me. I feel so proud, a city girl like me has shaped a non-descriptive, anonymous yard into a beautiful garden.

Author Colleen Chesebro has a different Spring.
“Here in Michigan, it seems like we are in our third or fourth winter. Most days are sunny, but the biting wind makes it hard to enjoy the sunshine. Occasionally, southerly winds caress me with warmth, which is spring’s way of flirting—like a pretty girl who doesn’t realize her own beauty. Those warm days help me forget all the cold days.

Much of the snow has melted and last year’s spent leaves litter our front yard. I’ve spent some time thinking about what I will plant in front of our house this year. So far, I know I’ll plant flowering bushes (hydrangeas, come to mind) after the old maple tree stump is removed and I can enrich the soil.

After the maple tree—what will I plant out front?

Spring, inside the house, blooms in unexpected places. My Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter cactus blooms on a southerly facing windowsill.”

Spring sunshine brings blooms
pale blooms bask
in sun’s afterglow—
spring awaits
© Colleen M. Chesebro

Are you ready to learn how to craft Japanese and American poetry? Consider this book the first step on your journey to learning the basics of how to craft syllabic poetry. Inside, you will discover many new forms, syllable combinations, and interpretations of the different Japanese and American forms and structures of haiku, senryu, haiga, tanka, renga/solo renga, gogyohka, haibun, tanka prose, the cinquain, and its variations, Etheree, nonet, and shadorma poetry.

So… what are you waiting for? Let’s craft syllabic poetry together!

I’ve done the work of researching these syllabic forms for you. Word Craft: Prose & Poetry is available as an Ebook and a Print book. mybook.to/WordCraftProsePoetry Let’s write syllabic poetry together! ❤

Blog: https://wordcraftpoetry.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ColleenChesebro

Your teaching sounds very much like art, much success to you.

Stay tuned for the next feature on Tuesday. Allow me timidly to advertise my books.

Spring, Beauty and Books : Sharon Marchisiello

02 Apr 2022 16 Comments

by Valentina in Books Blog Tags: #MysteryBooks, #SecretsOfTheGalapagosBook, #SharonMarchisielloAuthor, #SpringBeautyandBooksFeatures, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor

Beautiful and fresh April, the beginning of a new nature’s bounty. April in Latin is translated in Aprilis, it derives from the words aperio, aperire, apertus, a verb meaning “to open”. In Roman time, April 1st was the beginning of the year, here we are my friends, Happy New Year to all and happy Spring.

I wanted to open this new Spring year with authors who can inspire us with thoughts of Spring, showing what they do to beautify their lives, and how they keep negativity away, suggestions that might be very important to keep our sanity at this time. Lately, I have not been much in touch with authors, I have been reading about politics and history in my language trying to learn this new global situation and be able to make my own decisions and conclusions versus what the media wants to push on me. This is my chance to get to know authors I am not familiar with.

The first to open the series is Sharon Marchisiello. She lives in Georgia, where spring has a very small window of pleasant temperatures before the weather starts getting hot and where she enjoys yellow-and-white daffodils, a redbud tree, and purple azaleas.

“When I’m stuck on a scene, or just depressed about the latest news, taking a walk rejuvenates me. We live next to a cart path; our town maintains 75 miles of multi-use trails for walkers, cyclists, and golf carts. My route takes me past a lake where, if I’m lucky, I’ll see a great blue heron or a pair of Canada geese tending to their goslings. Then it winds through the forest where I’ll sometimes see does and their fawns foraging on new vegetation. Afterward, I love to sit outside on my patio, reading a book or sipping a glass of wine, inhaling the fresh scents of springtime, or maybe a neighbor’s barbeque. And when the sun sets over the golf course, bands of orange, pink, and purple steak the electric blue sky, reminding me that I’ve made it through another day”.

About her latest book
My most recent novel, Secrets of the Galapagos (Sunbury Press, 2019) is set in an archipelago 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador. Located almost on the equator, the people and unique animals of the Galapagos enjoy perpetual spring.

Secrets Of The Galapagos – A novel by Sharon Marchisiello

Here’s a summary of the story:

“Shattered by a broken engagement and a business venture derailed by Jerome Haddad, her unscrupulous partner, Giovanna Rogers goes on a luxury Galapagos cruise with her grandmother to decompress. At least that’s what her grandmother thinks. Giovanna is determined to make Jerome pay for what he’s done, and she has a tip he’s headed for the Galapagos.

While snorkeling in Gardner Bay off the coast of Española Island, Giovanna and another cruise passenger, tortoise researcher Laurel Pardo, both become separated from the group, and Laurel is left behind. No one on the ship will acknowledge Laurel is missing, and Giovanna suspects a cover-up.

When the police come on board to investigate a death, Giovanna is sure the victim is Laurel. She’s anxious to give her testimony to the attractive local detective assigned to the case. Instead, she learns someone else is dead, and she’s a person of interest.

Resolved to keep searching for Laurel and make sense of her disappearance, Giovanna finds that several people on board the cruise ship have reasons to want Laurel gone. One is a scam involving Tio Armando, the famous Galapagos giant tortoise and a major tourist attraction in the archipelago. And Jerome Haddad has a hand in it. Thinking she’s the cat in this game, Giovanna gets too involved and becomes the mouse, putting her life in jeopardy. But if she doesn’t stop him, Jerome will go on to ruin others”.

Buy links:
htt ps://www.amazon.com/Sharon-Marchisello/e/B00NH6N4WK
https://www.sunburypress.com/collections/sharon-marchisello
https://smarchisello.wordpress.com/

This sounds like a good intriguing book, much success to you.

Allow me to timidly advertise my books.

The Door To Pleasure

31 Mar 2022 9 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #DanAntionDoorChallenge, #LifeInVenice, #ProstitutesInVenice, #ThursdayDoorChallenge, #VenetianDoor

Venice, the only Italian Venice I know, never stops to surprise me. Recently, I visited Giacomo Casanova’s exhibition at the museum in San Francisco. One of the rooms was set up as the “Putta House” (the prostitution house), the only one allowed by law in the Carampane district, often frequented by Casanova. The background wall in the exhibition showed how the lady of the night incited the trade by flashing their breasts from the brothel’s windows that overlooked the “Ponte delle Tette” (the bridge of tits).

The trade of selling sex was a common work in the Republic of Venice in the 16^thCentury, a city frequented by rich merchants, kings, gamblers, Italian and foreign nobles, art dealers, and a lot of the upper crust of society. The government made this kind of work legal and collected taxes from the women, but they weren’t free to live as they pleased. The government, with a decree, decided on the life of the brothel, limiting the area, time and days of operations, even dictated what the women had to wear such as a yellow scarf to distinguish themselves from respectable women. Although they were allowed to sell themselves legally, they were often scrutinized by the Inquisition for their licentious customs.

Inside a “Putta” House – Casanova Exhibition

The society divided them in two categories:
* the low-rank courtesans “cortigiane di lume” (courtesans of the light), poor and inexpensive;
* the high-rank courtesans “cortigiane oneste” (honest courtesans), very stylish and educated that could pass for respectable women regardless of their sins.

The high-ranking women were social climbers, depending on “la creme de la creme” of the Venetian society, and on influential lovers to accumulate wealth. Among these honest courtesans, Veronica Franco, became well known on the international scene. She was beautiful, educated, classy and was the subject of Tintoretto’s paintings. In the poetries she wrote, she encouraged women to stand up for themselves.

Inside of “Putta” House – Casanova Exhibition

Does this last view look real? Yes, it does but it’s not. It’s a tridimensional painting I brought from Venice.

This is my entry for Thursday Door Challenge , hosted by Dan Antion. Ciao,
Valentina
Amazon Author’s Page

Fantasy Door

24 Mar 2022 21 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #ColorfulDoor, #ColorfulInteriors, #FantasyDoor, #PaintedClosedDoor, #ThursdayDoorChallenge

“When there is no color, there is no energy and if there is no energy there is no life” ~ Caravaggio.

I just finished painting one side of my studio. The colors and style are not for everyone, I am sure. In my home, I am not looking for relaxing colors, I will have enough relaxation when I will be dead, now, in this life, I want colors that will vibrate my existence.
I sit at the computer with this closet door behind me, it used to be white. I was tired of covering the white closet door with a curtain printed in a Paris scene, the Eiffel Tower, and Montmartre stairs, a view of Paris that offered a vicarious traveling pleasure to the audience viewing the videos I produce on various subjects.

I decided to paint colorful fantasy butterflies on this door. I had no previous drawings, photographs or ideas, I just grabbed some colors and brushes, and freehand I composed as if it was music.

I liked what I saw as I progressed in the painting, so much to determine the colors of the wall next to it. Before it was light yellow and it became glittered red with metallic gold stripes.

I continued with the glittered red paint over the door, I thought it needed to be in unison with the wall.

I am showing the door first closed and then opened to the corridor to reveal another mural I painted a few years ago.

The goal of painting my home in a fantasy way was to see another view instead of a simple white wall when the doors are opened. I carried this concept in every room and it feels cheerful. I have a couple of other areas to paint, the fun continues, hoping I will stop before the roof…
This is my entry for Thursday Door Challenge, hosted by Dan Antion. Ciao,
Valentina
Amazon Author’s Page

Valentina Cirasola is an interior-fashion consultant, author of 6 published books, a storyteller, and a blogger of many years. Her books are non-fictional practical ideas to apply in the home, fashion, cooking and travel.
Get a copy of her books here: Amazon and Barnes&Noble

Artifact Door

18 Mar 2022 5 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #ArtifactDoor, #DanAntionDoorChallenge, #GinoDonvitoArt, #InteriorDoors, #ThursdayDoorChallenge

I had the opportunity to meet the renowned Italian artist Gino Donvito whose art doesn’t reflect anybody’s fashion. The artist lives in the Puglia region, a southern part of Italy. Emperor Frederic II and the Medieval life of the Emperor’s time are the focus of his art. A common friend to the artist introduced me to Gino Donvito. He drove me to his home and a new world of art opened up to me. A sign outside the artist’s home grabbed my attention. It said “An artist lives here” almost like a warning. Gino Donvito, the man wearing glasses in the sign, is looking straight into the eyes of Emperor Frederic II, in a confrontational attitude. I felt the sign was a challenge, at least to me.

I couldn’t help, while I was admiring his art, to notice the décor of this very peculiar home. An antique Indonesian door was readapted into a coffee table, with a glass top protecting the beautiful design and the metal decorations.

Artifact Door at Artist Gino Donvito’s home

The mixed eclectic décor made this home masculine, but very interesting. Eastern furniture met Western furniture; modern lighting and old gas oil lamps beautifully illuminated each room; Egyptian fabrics and Persian rugs contributed to the elegance of the home. Nothing matched in this décor, brass and bronze statues, ceramic and carved wood objects, old books and a lot of music records decorated the home. One main area looked into a courtyard full of olive trees, stones and tall succulent plants. The exposed wood ceiling beams and a very tall fireplace made a warm inviting home. The artist’s paintings, brushes, the many boxes of colors, and his wines were scattered everywhere.

Usually, we are accustomed to seeing the same style of interior doors. This home didn’t have a lot of interior doors, but those few were designed with different crowns and everyone hosted books.

Outside his home, nature was rough, uncultivated, and virgin, therefore the architecture of the home communicated in that context. The wood entry door was very simple, a couple of signs portraying the artist and the Emperor created the excitement of what was inside. His family’s vineyard produces excellent wines and I got to taste them as well. Getting to know Gino Donvito felt very comfortable, I had the impression to have known this artist for a long time.

If you like to know about some of his art, he paints on wood Medieval faces and Medieval life views.
I wouldn’t mind having one of his faces painted on one of my doors.

This is in response to the Thursday Doors challenge, hosted by Dan Antion. Ciao,
Valentina
Amazon Author’s Page

Valentina Cirasola is an interior-fashion consultant, author of 6 published books, a storyteller, and a blogger of many years. Her books are non-fictional practical ideas to apply in the home, fashion, cooking and travel.
Get a copy of her books here:
Amazon and Barnes&Noble

Picasso – Catalan Door

11 Mar 2022 7 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #CatalanDoor, #DanAntionDoorChallenge, #PicassoDoor, #SpanishStyle, #ThursdayDoorChallenge

In Barcelona, every street and every building speak art and design. At the Picasso Museum, I expected to find a modern building, maybe a surreal building, as I see many of the modern museums around the world hosting surrealist art, instead I found a typical Catalan gothic style, almost the same as the Spanish Colonial architecture seen in Central America. I was not disappointed, the building was very nice, and I had a lot of architecture to study and admire. I think the modern glass door needed to be a heavy carved wood door to keep in style with the decorative stone pediment above.

The museum is located on 15 Carrer de Montcada, in the Baró Gotico, basically, the historic heart of Barcelona and it spreads through five ancient stone palaces built in the 13th and 14th centuries. Through an exterior staircase in the courtyard filled with palm trees, the visitors can reach the exhibition areas upstairs.

Up there, the primary focus is on Picasso the apprentice and his early artistic life. With the teacher, his father, he mastered the human anatomy, the psychological insight of portraits, learned to paint real feelings as death and life. Growing up in France he tried to emulate many of his colleagues’ techniques: impressionist landscapes, posters and still lives.

It was a great pleasure to learn about his early work of the period he lived in Barcelona, a collection hardly seen anywhere. One can see over 4,000 works between paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and ceramics.

Picasso declared he was taught to paint as an adult when he was a teenager and painted as a child when he was in his eighty.
The Museum sells more than one million tickets each year, if you plan of going over there, get prepared.

This is in response to the Thursday Doors challenge, hosted by Dan Antion. Ciao,
Valentina
Amazon Author’s Page

Copyright © 2022 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola is an interior-fashion consultant, author of 6 published books, a storyteller, and a blogger of many years. Her books are non-fictional practical ideas to apply in the home, fashion, cooking and travel.
Get a copy of her books here:
Amazon and Barnes&Noble

Coffered Door

04 Mar 2022 7 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #BariDoors, #CofferedDoors, #DanAntionDoorChallenge, #OldBari, #PugliaExperience, #ThursdayDoorChallenge

Bari, my native town is dotted with classic and neoclassic style doors. The coffered red door in my photo was, at one point in history, the entrance to a patrician home. A coffer in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit, or vault, usually found in historical buildings of powerful families, nobles, and royals. Doors were also designed in the coffer style to mark the importance of the family living there. Today, this building with a coffered red door is home to regular working people, the patina of time on the stones around the door tells the story… it is a great expense to clean those stones, modern people without servants usually don’t pay much attention, busy as they are making a living.

This type of door has a central panel that opens to let in only one person at a time. It closes with a latch and a huge iron key just like a castle key. An iron door knocker announces that someone is at the door asking to come in, otherwise, the usual screaming in the street, calling someone’s name would do the trick and a person would come out at the balcony to respond.
Usually, this large door opens into an atrium without a roof, where people socially congregated. In the atrium, a set of stairs will take the people to their flats.

Bari’s old town has been revamped to accommodate fancy businesses and tourists more than residents. About twenty years ago, the city gave incentives to people living in the old Bari to leave the area and find newer homes in the modern part of Bari. As a consequence, many designers, movie producers, music makers, architects, lawyers, and many professionals took over the top floors of the historical area. Down below at the street level, restaurants, bars, pubs, various eating places, and shops for tourists occupied what was once warehouses, deposits, and market stalls. Today, old Bari is very safe and retains the charm of an ancient town. It is called the living room of the city. I remember when I needed a man to accompany me as a protection, just to attempt to walk around along the perimeter of the old town, it was never advisable for a woman by herself to get lost in the deep part where it would have been difficult to get out.

This is my entry for Thursday Doors challenge, hosted by Dan Antion. Ciao,
Valentina
Amazon Author’s Page

Valentina Cirasola is an interior-fashion consultant, author of 6 published books, a storyteller, and a blogger of many years. Her books are non-fictional practical ideas to apply in the home, fashion, cooking and travel.
Get a copy of her books here:
Amazon and Barnes&Noble

La Salle Dore’ – Door With A View

24 Feb 2022 9 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #DanAntionDoorChallenge, #FrenchDoorHinge, #FrenchStyleDoor, #SalonDore', #ThursdayDoorChallenge

I visited la Salle or Salon Dore’ at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco when it was just reopened after a newly refitted for a seismic area. The room is a re-creation of an elegant French neoclassical interior architecture. At the time I was remodeling an upscale home in the very same French style. The hinges of the doors in this room reminded me of the same ancient door hinges I had seen in my grandmother’s home and in many ancient homes of regular blokes I visited when I was a child.

The hinges allowed the doors to open away from the frame and lay flat on the walls, giving more space to the ladies wearing a panier dress to pass through without going sideways. That’s what women wore in the 1700s. One can see the full door opened in the rectangular photo (click on the photo to see it larger).
This hinge also allowed the owner of the mansion to see how many guests were in the salon without really being seen. My lovely vane grandmother did the same thing, she wanted to be fully prepared to receive her guests and peeped through the half-open door hinge. She came out when the room was full of people.

A very special door hinge at La Salle Dore’

A Bit of History
During the reign of Louis XVI, the rooms’ style in patrician mansions reflected the grandeur of ancient Rome. Evoking the great exploits of Imperial Rome with giant gilded Corinthian pilasters, tall arched mirrors, trophies of war and love was the way to convey a higher social status of the owner.

Salle or Salon Dore’ Photo: Legion Of Honor

The Salle Dore’ is a historical room that passed hands many times since 1795. Its boiserie (wood paneling) beautified the rooms of many world noble elite, notable business people and bankers, from the Hôtel de la Trémoille in Paris to Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild’s mansion in England, to Mr. Rheem in Burlingame, California until finally arrived in San Francisco at the Legion of Honor Museum and re-created in its full original beauty.

My client ended up decorating one of the rooms in her home sort of like this Salon with bergères, and a canapé upholstered in blue and white silk, armchairs and console tables against the walls. The hinges….?
I had to wrack my brain to find a blacksmith who could reproduce the very same style, nothing less, or my head would have come down.
This is my entry for Thursday Doors challenge, hosted by Dan Antion. Ciao,
Valentina
Amazon Author’s Page

Valentina Cirasola is an interior-fashion consultant, author of 6 published books, a storyteller, and a blogger of many years. Her books are non-fictional practical ideas to apply in the home, fashion, cooking and travel.
Get a copy of her books here: Amazon and Barnes&Noble