Welcome to Kitchen Week! Culled from submitted entries, the week-long series focus on five artists with extraordinary projects. For the first time ever, each artist and five readers are receiving prizes for their beautiful artworks. Look to the end for today’s sponsor and your chance to win! Our Kitchen Week starts with an old friend of Fauxology, Los Angeles-based Kaveri Singh, who has previously been featured in our Powder Room Week series. She and her partner, TJ, starts us off with a strong, richly colored and personal project. She recounts the gorgeous commission.
Santa Ynez. Rolling yellow California meadows, nestled among the blue grey hills, the gentle fog a backdrop for lazy cows; time here seems to stand still. The neat rows of grape vines bear silent witness to the wonderful blue house on the hill, a little gem of indigo. I remember walking up with TJ and feeling happy, excited for this wonderful adventure that awaited us, an interior that spoke to our Indian roots, a client unafraid of color, pushing to break the barriers of beige.
The designer on the project, Joanna Poitier of JSP Interiors, has known the clients for many years and her one directive was that this house had to be filled with color.
The clients, Sam and her husband Eric, who own Coghlan Jewelry in nearby Los Olivos, are both jewelry designers and so the rich colors of gems were the order of the day. The kitchen is the heart of the house and with two young boys and a love of cooking that they both share, the island took center stage. The island was a giant butcher block where the family could roll out pizzas that would be cooked in the built in pizza oven and they could spend time together cooking, sipping wine and entertaining friends…looking out at the rolling lines of grapevines that surround the house. TJ and I pored over books from India and decided that what was a must was to create a typical Indian arch detail that would go in the bookcase at the end of the island.
The walls were finished with a deep turquoise Venetian plaster, with aged turquoise blue baseboards. The rest of the kitchen was done in a multi-layered finish of cream with bits of a darker espresso base. On the other side of the pizza oven, Joanna and Sam wanted to incorporate a stand-alone cabinet so we mimicked the details of the bookcase along with the arches and columns that would again reflect the Indian arches.
Closeup of the multi-layer cream and espresso cabinets above (love the different knobs!) and the turquoise Venetian Plaster and decorative painting over the pizza oven below.
The inspiration for the designs on the island, around which the entire kitchen flowed, came from Sanganeri prints from Rajasthan. These detailed bootah prints, done in vibrant colors of emerald green and blue, were the main design elements on the doors. Reminiscent of inlaid designs from the Taj, it seemed appropriate, as gems are an integral part of Sam and Eric’s lives. The columns were more in the style of Gujarati furniture and the combination seemed appropriate since the Sanganeri designs are an amalgamation of elements from Gujarat and Malwa.
Close-up below
Traditionally, Sanganeri prints are done on a white ground. However, it was an image of a craved block drenched in blue and green dye that was the inspiration for the palette. There is a certain rhythm to these traditional color combinations, and I discovered that with every use of a cool color there had to be one that was warm. Even colors that where analogous, one leaned a little warmer than the other. It was this balanced use of hot and cool vibrant colors, always reined in with a use of a cool white or cream that really established the balance in the room. Hence the use of a hot pink cabinet against a cool turquoise made it in some way to make sense.
To see more of the entire home, click on a recent feature by Seasons Santa Barbara. One could imagine this inventive kitchen, on the gentle slopes of a California landscape, on the dusty, exotic sands of Rajasthan. In an unusual and happy way, it was a perfect fit for a creative young couple.
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Isn’t the kitchen spectacular? Kaveri is an incredible talent! Please do visit her site to see more of her projects and learn more about her Los Angeles studio at her website, Kaveri Singh Artworks.
For her winning submission for Kitchen Week, Kaveri will receive a Twisted Roller (value $65) from today’s sponsor Faux Design Studio. Would you like to win this prize as well? Scroll right below or click here!
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