Happy New Year 2012

white Christmas ..eve... morning

It has melted a bit. Hopefully some will remain for xmas day. It's great to live in the country, minutes from the city. How people survive apartment city life, I'll never understand.

first snow dog walk

The Samoyed is a rescue dog.

We have friends. They have Somoyeds. Between the two couples there were five Samoyeds. Now there are two. Perhaps they tend to run away, like Siberian huskies. A Samoyed appeared in our village, our village 'older sister' was given one b her brother, passed on to him by someone who couldn't care for him. We relayed the discovery and it turns out it is one which visited our house last year as a pup ( below). So we will bring him back to the friends who love Samoyeds.

It is a bit strange as distinct purebreds are not common, especially when pups like him may fetch up to 1k or much more, they are listed as some of the most expensive pups available here and in America.

One fall day in November methinks , we visited Jiri mountain park with our painter friend Jeong-ju ( in blue shirt). We visited his hometown of Namwon and the theme park a few posts ago with his school chum and also graduate of Yeonmi's art school, her ' senior' in Korean speak. He is pictured at his exhibition in bottom photo. He provided us with these images. He does ceramic and lacquerware these days.
With us is Hae-jong 'onni'- a lovely dame- a Le Marais fan , frequent visiting coffee club friend and recently customer.

recent work

As you can see from the two collages most of Le Marais recent work is recycled wood furniture. Maybe half or more of new orders are for our vintage style pieces. Sourcing the wood for these keeps us busy as well. I'm trying to make stuff using up all the wood I've collected over the past two years, as well as unfinished pieces, doors, drawers made for other things. So much wood in stock. So much space in display shop. You can also see above bottom corner , a steel table with used wood top. I've welded three tables now, this is the only one with grinded steel color, the others were painted matte black. I hope to do more welding, one table a week and my skills are getting better...

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Sunday again and a few moments to blog.

A couple of sad links to share. Greed of the 1% and global inequity ; the slashing of the global fund for Aids/HIV. An excerpt and the link:

Do they regard Africa as a territorial piece of geographic obsolescence? Do they regard Africans themselves as casually expendable? Is it because the women and children of Africa are not comparable in the eyes of western governments to the women and children of Europe and North America? Is it because Africans are black and unacknowledged racism is at play? Is it because a fighter jet is worth so much more than human lives? Is it because defense budgets are more worthy of protection in an economic downturn than millions of human beings?

And from Korea, presidential bulldozing or democratic tyranny..:

The Four Rivers project is far from its original goal of developing the regional economy and the rivers into a nature-friendly zone. Instead, it has produced environmental degradation and cultural and ecological destruction, while channeling super profits to the big construction companies.