Happily Looking Through Old Magazines

Pablo's Palazzo

12x12 oil on panel

I was attracted to the table base - a pair of Italian gilt cupids - and the strong cast shadows of this photograph. Still using a limited palette and now wondering: are all my colors are starting to look alike? This subject matter tangent has led me on a delightful scouring (and dusting!) of old books and magazines, searching for inspirational interiors.

I tend to save stuff like books and magazines. It's true - they are yellowed and dog-eared and I've thumbed their pages a dozen times. But never twice in quite the same way. This week I'm looking for something entirely different: subject matter for a painting. So they feel like new. I am certain I have *never* before been inspired by Count Paolo Michelangelo Zappi-Manzoni's Central Park apartment. Known as Pablo, he was a fashionable make-up artist with Elizabeth Arden back in the day. The book is an old friend: Architectural Digest's Celebrity Homes (1977).