I watch my daughter more than she realizes, especially now that she is leaving. I look at her letters and essays from school, and above all, the beauty of her handwriting is what strikes me. That hand  ballet-dancing across the page, each swirl, an artistry. Then you see the completed page and all it needs is a frame.

The notes that she leaves on the kitchen table are remarkable, even something so mundane as a shopping list.  And so the word “sponge”, for example, does not convey utility but rather itself, its own form, an abstract image.  Look at the “s” and what is it but a swan’s neck, with such sensuality, such grace…

And then there are dinner party guest lists, where the friend’s names are celebrated even before they are invited. Along with birthday cards and letters where feelings spill across the page and what have you got?  The profound poignancy of a handwritten letter. It’s the attention to each letter.  Such an old world concern.  And perhaps that’s why I examine it, why I let it enthrall me — because it draws you back, not to another decade but to another century, to some classical sensibility long forgotten when the form of the day wasn’t tied commercial enterprise, but to expression itself, for itself….

Hence the forgotten, and totally romantic experience, of receiving a letter that you can put on a shelf or on a wall or simply in a drawer, where it doesn’t disappear when your computer breaks down or when you push the delete button.

It’s the lost art I appreciate.

Flora Grubb Garden is located in the far reaches of San Francisco, off the 3^rd Street corridor in the Bay View district and is created by Flora Grubb, a young woman with an affinity for gardens, who set out to create this new ‘rustic urban’ ambiance. Reminds me of a trendy spot in Amsterdam, nested in what the Jordaan neghborhood has become.

At Flora Grubb Gardens you find colorful chairs and tables stored in Shakers tradition hang on the wall, suggesting the elements of a David Hockney painting. Flowers, palm trees, Japanese maples, shrubs, grass thrive and in the most beautiful pots. But here plants do not live just in artisan pots; you will be wonderfully surprised when you stumble on an old Edsel car overgrown with succulents and grasses.  And then a hanging bicycle giving a home to air plants.

Among my favorite things are the vertical succulent gardens, a living art gallery, where the art does not smell like oil and acrylic paints but has the sweet natural smell of the plants.

To make life even more perfect you want to sit down with a cup of espresso topped with a heart or leaf design and enjoy this perfection of the garden. The local coffee-roasting company Ritual has a café right there in the garden.

I celebrate at the drop of a hat.  The first of anything; the last of something.  A foggy day that will not burn off.  The scent of something I can’t quite identify.  A flower in bloom, a blade of grass coming up out of the cement.  An old man striding down the street in new suit.  The dinner partner searching for the right word.  The odd feel of something, or someone.  Close, or distant.  Which is why I love champagne.  It’s the switch that turns everything on.  An expectation begins. And so you put on the prettiest dress, you linger with the mascara, you marvel at the bubbles, you acknowledge happiness even as it dissipates.

The glass is all-important.  Which is why I’m always searching for new flutes, for better fish tanks in which to see the bubbles, to see the rising, to hear the proper clink.  The sound has to be strong, not fragile.  Bad luck otherwise. The other day I found some very fine, hand-made glasses by Henry Dean at Gardner. It’s one of my favorite stores.  Highly recommend.  The glasses stood on a table just waiting for me to take them home.

And now I’ve used them, had them as it were, and what strikes me is the way in which they magnify the sparkle, draw me into their lightness. Salut to good life.

I am memory’s captive, and for that reason I’ve always been interested in documenting great moments and adventures, and then finding ways to keep them in a stylish way.  And so my fascination with journals, diaries, notebooks, and boxes.  The first book I designed was a photo album with pictures of my dog, a Rhodesian ridgeback with an elegant slim body. Using a special technique I developed, I raised a bold image of his profile on the leather cover of the book. It was unusual effect particularly when you think of books decorated with engraved or printed images.  After this first attempt I was inspired to do more than just photo albums, and so expanded to other forms, including leather books and boxes. I made book covers with the raised images of simple objects such as a pen on a journal or a camera on a photo album. These became an instant success.

My purpose was to make a book or a box a work of art in itself and that’s how I started my company On Your Marque. Soon after celebrities and successful companies paid attention to my work, and I was asked to make personal and promotional gifts using their brand images. One of my favorites is the Oprah “O” I put on the gratitude journals, which I made for her network.  My work has been honored in many publications, but the most prestigious was the show in The American Craft Museum in New York City, accompanied with the book,Objects for Use/Handmade by Design.

I remember the January, it was January 18th,  the year I arrived in San Francisco from Slovenia, wearing my vintage-style clothing that I was so in love with, including my handbag, which I inherited from my long dead aunt, Frederica. And then a doctor’s bag that I salvaged from a trash bin in Ljubljana.  It even had old hotel stickers from exotic places like Venice, Bombay and Monaco. And here I found myself in San Francisco in my little vintage summer dress in the middle of January. Nobody told me that California could be cold.  It was not how I imagined it at all.

But let’s get back to my handbags. I have this tradition that I put things I like on a pedestal. Shoes; photos; sometimes, my favorite fruit, and just then, my two bags. They tied me to the place I came from, they held the excitement of anticipation, and the feeling of giving way to life,  to the will-o-the-wisp and oblivion.  And so that’s how I got inspired to design and make handbags. I bought a very heavy industrial sawing machine. I found some fine leather and started to put pieces together. First, I made a bag inspired by Frederica’s handbag, with pockets on the side, in crocodile impression cowhide leather. With a zipper on the top. It made me think of safaris, for no clear reason, and warm places, and train rides, and the smoke trains leave behind when they depart the station.

As I make these bags, I live a double life in my imagination.  I don’t think about the work; I follow a string of fantasies. The next creation was a reincarnation of my doctor’s bag, actually a variation on a theme.  When I think of that bag I think of jaguars slinking around, and unnecessarily dangerous adventures.  But, of course, people may wear elegant clothes in those situations as well. I asked a friend, a talented artist and carver, to make frames for my bags, and I asked him to carve jaguar heads on the both ends of the frame. I sketched a design, made a pattern, cut the leather and embossed with stripes.  Both bags were a success and I have gone on to make many different styles of handbags but those two remain my favorites.

A simple thing done well, whether it is a memorable paragraph or a black dress or a swan dive cutting through the air and into the water without notice is always memorable. The food at Adriana’s that night was like that, simple but not really. Into the mouth without splashing. Warm, but not heavy. Warming not just to the body but to some other appetite. Good company perhaps, or the closeness of a warm kitchen in the San Francisco fog. Risotto, meatball soup, salad, and a massive chocolate cake somewhat resembling the Great Pyramid at Cheops. First the risotto. It must be the native Italian blood Adriana gets from her mother, that makes the rice kernels open up instinctively just for her. What is the secret sauce, not a bland buttery broth as in my attempts but something red and spicy. Slighty sticky, and real, something that dances soft and wild and deep and rich across the tongue. Flamenco rissoto? Something you could live on. And then the meatball soup, but meatballs are the wrong word. More like meat dumplings, little and floating and light like clouds. You chase them out of the brothy bowl with your spoon like the wind chases clouds. Savory, the whole thing, and the conversation like spice through out. Wine, candles, the long bank of candles that cross the table like an altar. And this is the church we have come to worship at, the church of nourishment, of glad company. The heat of the candles, the flush of the wine, the love that is in the food made by friends. I haven’t forgotten dessert. Chocolate cake, thick as the night up over Twin Peaks.. Real chocolate cake. The Aztec Gods were winking at us like the city lights. Dinner at Adriana’s. A fork is recommended.

These days particularly, although I cannot possibly explain it to you, I am always returning to my home in the village of the Nine Houses. And always I am returning to this photo, which I took on a recent visit as a way to remind myself. The flowers makes me think of summer and good smells. Incidentally, the little niche was made for saints. Almost every house has such a place. Most of the time the figure is Mary, draped in her blue coat, our sublime mother and protector. In the beginning, I thought I must do that too.  I began looking in flea markets, thinking she might appear among someone’s forgotten momentos.  But then one day I walked into a little gallery in Gradz, Austria, and there was this vase. Very heavy, crusty and old looking, made of cement; the top is finished with a beautifully painted and glazed white and blue flower motif. Two extremes that attract. I think of it as Mary in the abstract. Mary in all of her alchemy. Mary as the source of fresh water, beauty and divine magic.

My place is full of objects and naturally each has a story, but among the most special are those made by my close friend Kate Frankel (Roger & Hebe Studio). There is a penholder in my office, in the living room a wonderfully imaginative holder with vases; a hot pot holder and a tea cozy in the kitchen, a first-aid pouch in the bathroom, an i-phone holder in my bag. And it is not enough that they are in every room, they also travel with me. Kate even made the name tag in the shape of the apple for my luggage, and I cannot forget the Christmas tree ornaments. You can call this a Kate obsession. I met her years ago when her twin boys and my daughter were just starting kindergarten. Now, the kids are taller than we are. Kate always struck me as a very elegant women, and not given to the mainstream. Not in her clothing, not in her life.  And you see it in what she creates, you can see how she sees the world, Her felt-fiber designs are particularly imaginative — completely unexpected — but at the same time, elegant. She also executes her design. I imagine that she cannot live without her particular materials and tools:  her German high quality felt and thread.  Her various pairs of scissors, her sewing machine. And then there is her eye for nuance. Her cleverness.  Her tireless effort to find something human in the everyday.

We spoke the other day and I asked these questions:

How do these ideas come to you?

Quite often in the wee hours of the morning, when I’m lying awake, my mind tends to solve design issues and I come up with new uses for felt.

What is the last great object not made by you that you held in your hands?

A hand-carved wooden crab – I like the shape of a crab’s shell and its claws.

If you had to leave tonight — to go on a completely unexpected vacation — where would you go?

Paris, bien sur!

Who inspires you the most?

My Aunt Cat, (Catherine Bixby Barrett) whom I’m named after. She is 88 and still working on new designs for knitting projects, Valentines, clothespin dolls. And she continues to paint in watercolor, which for me is the ultimate challenge!

Where do you go in San Francisco to feel creative?

The Flower Mart with its branches of buds and bright blooms (Floriana was my first tour guide for the Flower Mart!) And I like “window shopping” – admiring the displays at such small boutiques as: Workshop on Union St., Erica Tanov on Fillmore St., and  Bell’Ochio on Brady.