THAT [unreliable] GIRL

In my many hours spent scouring design and interiors sites for snippets of inspiration, I've been coming across a reviving trend which, to be honest, has perplexed me a little. It has suddenly become fashionable once more to adorn your walls with collections of decorative plates. It sounds innocent enough, but I have instant flashbacks to my grandmothers house where her whole living room was secondary to the masses of fine china on display...and then there's the terrible plate I painted myself in primary school. Anything that combines an ocean theme and an 8 year old with a paintbrush is almost doomed to fail (or maybe it's just when it's me with a paint brush!)

But enough rambling. Flicking through Frame the other day, I finally came across a collection of plates that I would hang on my wall in a heartbeat. Dutch designer Hella Jongerius collaborated with the master craftspeople at Japanese firm Ando Shippo to produce the Shippo Plates collection. The results are simply divine.

Jongerius has combined the ago-old technique of enamelling with her own distinctive design sensibilities. Commissioned by the very stylish people over at Cibone, the designs celebrate the richly coloured enamel without detracting from the beauty of the copper base. The ancient method has become part of the design, not just a means to an end.

She insists that her designs are not merely explorations in nostalgia, but that by employing old techniques, all but extinct in Europe, she is simply broadening her design horizons.

It would be difficult to argue with such a renowned ceramic artist that decorative plates aren't nostalgic in their own right, but nevertheless I would happily have these lovely works of art on my walls. Grandma would be proud.

I have a confession to make. No matter how many pretty, lacy, doily, girly type things I feature on this blog and happen to love...my brain keeps telling me that I'm a minimalist at heart.

Perhaps architecture school scarred me more than I ever imagined, possibly because almost every project I've ever worked on (both real and university projects alike) have been all about glass, steel, polished concrete and sleek, rectilinear lines. And if I was feeling generous, maybe some intricately detailed timber. Maybe. Most of my favourite architects and designers are ruthlessly minimalist, modern, and even brutalist on occasion.

My apartment, however, is living proof that although I may be a minimalist in theory, I am not and will never be a minimalist in practice. In fact, my very first post centred entirely around this fact.

Nevertheless, I continue to indulge my theoretical minimalism over at 2Modern every week, and it was only a matter of time before my inadvertent maximalism won out.

I can't get enough of plates. I've been trying to deny it, I've been pretending that I'd never, ever put plates on my wall, and I've been trying to keep my secret love of plates separate from my decidedly modern posts over on 2Modern.

But then artists like Cat Merrick come along and create delightfully deconstructivist porcelain plates that are just impossible to resist!

She sandblasts plates for heavens sakes, I can't NOT love that!

Back in November I even blogged about how much I didn't get the whole plate resurgence, but then I found these fantastic Shippo plates by Hella Jongerius , and it all started to click into place.

So here I am, almost on the dark side, pondering if it's worth annoying my landlord by hanging plates all over my walls.

And when I find more amazing pictures like these ones of Lisa Congdon's kitchen stashed away in my favourites folder, it's like Darth Vader is not only inviting me over to the dark side, but putting the hammer and nails in my hand and marking up my wall in an artfully random composition.

So this weekend, I'm going plate shopping. Yeah, take that theoretical minimalism!

And on that note, hope you all have a fabulous weekend, free of Darth Vader invasion delusions. Unless of course you're going to join me on my plate crusade, in which case, see you on the dark side!