I’m hosting a new photography segment on LatinosUS. You can find out the details by following the link.
My photographs in this post are also for the One-Day One Photo challenge by Marsha Ingrao and Dan Antion to celebrate and remember the life of fellow blogger and photographer, Cee Neuner. If you would like to participate in this tribute, please read Dan’s post here: https://nofacilities.com/2025/11/06/a-bridge-for-cee-1day4cee/
I’ve closed comments here. Please comment on LatinosUS.
Today, I am thrilled to introduce an amazingly prolific and multi-talented artist, Valentina Cirasola. Valentina is not only an artist, but she is also an artwork herself with her inspirational fashion and jewelry designs.
Over to Valentina!
Tell us about your passion for interior design. You especially enjoy designing kitchens. Why is that?
I never intended to design a lot of kitchens in my interior designer career. I was almost compelled to do it. Studying the American customs, with the eye of an emigrant, I soon realized that kitchens and baths are big ticket items when selling a house. If these two spaces are designed with all the amenities required, with modern technologies and some luxury, they raise the price of the house and allow a faster sale. Although Americans eat out lunch and dinner most of the week, having enviable kitchens and bathrooms is their obsession, even if they use only the microwave to warm up food.
I enjoyed designing kitchens for all the technicalities, they were all custom-made with exotic but not extinct woods. Designing all the other rooms were just as fun, especially when clients allowed me to express my creativity. I enjoyed designing furniture and built-in units that my trusted Italian wood worker executed with professionality and meticulousness. I cared to design original homes to reflect my clients’ personality and lifestyle.
(In a few rooms, you will see some of my photographs hanging on the walls).
A selection of Valentina’s home interiors photographs:
Picture caption: I love this entrance. It is amazing!
You love color. How do you incorporate color into your designs?Are your clients receptive to bright colors?
Returning to the concept of house resale, my clients had lived in safe colors that sell the house fast, until they met me. After seeing me dressed in pleasant, well harmonized colors was easier to convince them that a little change of colors would improve their well-being, vibrate their lives and confidently sell the house when it was time to sell. One of my clients said that walking in her living room, she felt like eating the colors, as I chose them from my food list I had planned for that day.
I adore Valentina’s use of colour!
You have a unique and exciting fashion sense. What advice do you have for people wanting to spruce up their wardrobes?
My designing career started in Italy as fashion designer and stylist. It was my real passion after I achieved the Italian degree in fashion. My wardrobe became an example for others, as I put on only what I liked and not what the fashion industry dictated. My advice is: 1. Buying a few quality pieces, not necessarily signature pieces, that can be easily mixed with colors and styles will save money and time when getting dressed.
2, Never buy trendy pieces that will go out of style in six months.
3. To make the task easier, one must become familiar with the personal season colors, textures, patterns and the right metals for jewelry to add light to the upper body area.
4. Make-up and hair must communicate with the complexion and eye colors. The hair is like the frame for pictures. We frame artwork to highlight it and to add value to it. If the hair color doesn’t highlight the face in a natural way, the face will look like a cheap picture.
5. Be original, be yourself and not a copy of someone else.
Tell us about your books? What is your main purpose in writing books about your design ideas?
I didn’t have a particular purpose when I started to write books, other than enjoy writing, but then I thought, since I haven’t had children, it would have been a shame to let all my knowledge go to waste, so I decided to leave it written down so that anyone who wants to learn part of my design art can do so by reading my books, articles, or various publications. In any case, when one becomes an author, one acquires a certain aura, and the books I’ve written helped me open several important doors to advance in my career. That I knew it was going to happen, and I was so honored my books were well received.
You also produce some beautiful artworks. What are your favourites? Please share pictures.
I started painting after many years I had left it thinking I would not paint anymore. In my design work, I spent many hours, days, months and years designing by hand the spaces I was hired to remodel.
My free hand dictated by my free spirit was “put in a box” by hard precision architectural drawings, calculations, rules and codes. Although nobody does hand drawings in the architectural style anymore, it is a revered art form in this field. I was proud of my ability to hand-draw architectural spaces, room perspectives in multiple points, axonometric, birds eye views of rooms and gardens and much more. The freedom of painting from fantasy is a totally different thing and I missed it for years. Today, I am in a new phase of my life. Being a color analyst and therapist, I am only working with personal color harmony. It made sense to return to painting art and interpret the world they way my eyes see it.
A selection of beautiful floral artworks by Valentina:
Thank you, Valentina, for being a wonderful guest.
About Valentina Cirasola
Picture caption: Profile image of Valentina Cirasola
In my third book RED – A Voyage Into Colors, I wrote:
“…and I was born. I saw the rainbow and heard my mother’s colorful voice. Since then, my life has been a succession of colorful events, it was like opening a window onto a world where color is the main protagonist, giving meaning and value to everything.”
I was born to be a protagonist in my life. I had ambitions and goals to achieve, but I had to do it in another dimension, where I was more in tune with my free spirit and creative nature.
At a certain point, many moons ago, I took the biggest leap of my life. With a fashion degree in one hand and lots of courage in the other, I moved from Italy to the United States without knowing a soul. Thinking back of my life as an emigrant is still very painful, it wasn’t easy at all, but I knew what I wanted, how to find it and how to achieve it. My Italian savoir faire, my passion for colors, style, and love of beauty would have taken me places.
After studying at an American University, I became an interior designer and opened my own design studio, where, for decades, I designed beautiful and harmonious homes.
In my home designs, colors were never an afterthought; they were always the foundation of each project, and everything else began with colors. I used spectacular colors combined with lighting effects that created evocative atmospheres, without ever losing sight of my clients’ needs for a comfortable and livable home.
My American degree made me more than a simple decorator, it gave me the opportunity to learn about architecture and how to execute drawings with architectural rules. I learned all aspects of building or remodeling a home; learned about all hard surfaces and material that beautify a home; I learned to design furniture, lighting, stair, floor, gardens and much more. I was busy for decades.
Over the years, I wrote several books and even hosted my own television talk show on a Californian station. The show was based on Design Universe as I saw it.
My message has always been to not be afraid of colors.
I have encouraged people to see colors from a different perspective to discover what colors can do and how they can transform anyone’s life.
After I achieved all my goals, put a check mark on everything I pursued and had a successful career, I asked myself: “what else was there to do?” I was at a crossroads and had to decide fast my next plan, as if my life was starting again.
I searched for new things to do, but every search took me back to colors. When I thought I knew everything about colors, I found a private school in England that would teach me more about this fascinating subject. Then a Brazilian color expert came along and learned colors with a different twist. I became a color therapist and a color analyst.
Now, I dedicate myself exclusively to personalized color harmony, through which people discover their own power and emotions.
Other than traveling, painting, gardening, entertaining, visiting museums and enjoying theatre productions, chroma-harmony is my next phase of my life.
When I was nine, my family moved to George in the Western Cape for the first time. It was supposed to be a permanent move, but my father hated the year-round rain, so we only stayed in this town for six weeks before moving on to Cape Town. Mom was due to give birth to our youngest sister, Laura, so Cath, Hayley and I were sent ahead to live with our grandparents. Granddad Jack came to fetch us three girls in his old hatchback, but I don’t remember anything about the journey.
When we arrived, Granny Joan was entirely consumed with looking after Hayley who was only thirteen-months old. She was a difficult toddler and refused to eat, a terrible problem for Granny who believed in stuffing children with food all day long. Good food was necessary for children to grow up strong and able to fight off illness and diseases. Cath and I were happy as we got to run wild and get up to whatever mischief I thought up.
One of my grand ideas was to mine for clay in the ditches that ran along the edges of all the dirt roads leading out of the town. Granny and Granddad’s home was reached by one of these dirt roads at that time because they lived close to the start of the forest.
On the afternoon of the great clay mining, Cath and I spent the entire afternoon digging clay out of the ditches with sharp sticks. We stored it in a plastic shopping bag I’d ‘borrowed’ for this purpose. We had to be home by 5pm and when we arrived, Granny took one look at us and started shouting. We were filthy. We had clay all over our dresses, in our hair, and all over our arms legs and faces. Fortunately, I’d seen fit to climb into the ditches shoeless, so our shoes were not full of mud. We were instructed to go to the bottom of the garden and wash ourselves, our clothes and our hair with cold water from the hosepipe. I’ll never forget, five-year-old, Cath, shrieking with displeasure at being squirted down with cold water.
Despite being in trouble over letting my little sister get so dirty and wet, I was thrilled with the clay we had gathered. Cath and I, with Granny’s permission and Granddad’s supervision, spent every afternoon for the next few weeks creating an assortment of ‘ceramic’ goods from this clay. We made baskets filled with fruit, plates, cups, a teapot, and several other interesting figures and creations. Granddad told us to line our artworks up on the step so they could dry in the sun. Once dried, he provided us with some paints and paintbrushes so we could decorate them in vivid colours.
I think Granny was pleased to have us gainfully occupied in the backyard for this time and not running amok ‘looking for trouble’.
Picture caption: This is the jasmine this year. It smells divine. Picture caption: I found another smashing bougainvillea bush. This one is orange to me. Michael says its red. We were coming back from our Saturday art class, and I told him I need to drive to the park to get a picture of this bush. He actually laughed. I asked if he didn’t think that was weird and he said “No, Mom, you always stop to take photographs in funny places.” Poor boy has been conditioned to my weirdness. Picture caption: the entire bougainvillea bush. Or it could be a tree – doesn’t anyone know?
Hi everyone, it’s Robbie Cheadle with you today and I’m introducing my new series called Artforms and Artists from Around the World.
I am inviting all artists who engage in any and all forms of art to share your world with LatinosUSA. To schedule an artforms interview, you can email me, Robbie Cheadle, at cheadlerobbie@gmail.com. You need to title your email Artforms and Artists from Around the World. LatinosUSA only accepts art and artforms created by humans so no AI generated artworks please.
As this is the inaugural post for this series, I am sharing about myself and my cake and fondant artworks.
Robbie Cheadle, the Baker and Cake Artist
I have always been artistic and as a young girl I led my three sisters and my friends in artist endeavors. These took numerous forms including a memorable dolls house made from a wooden tomato box, paper dolls and a wardrobe, a Christmas tree decorated with homemade decorations, T-shirts painted by hand, and a few books illustrated by my sisters and myself.
As a young mother, my art took the form of cake and fondant art. I made numerous cakes in a large variety of themes for numerous occasions, some special and some just for fun.
I am going to share three of my favourite cake artworks with you today.
Thank you to Nolcha Fox of Chewers by Masticadores for sharing episode 4 of Chapter 1 of my story, The Soldier and the Radium Girl.
Thanks to my great blogging friend, Teagan Riordain Geneviene for creating this delightful banner for me:
Picture caption: clock face with luminous numbers and piles of letters
Jake Tanner
Letter from Private Jake Tanner to his fiancée, Kate Henderson 25 July 1917
My dearest Kate
I hope you had a lovely birthday on the 23rd. I thought of you all day, and wished I was with you. I am sure your ma made one of her amazing chocolate cakes to celebrate the occasion, and I am envious. The food here isn’t bad and there’s plenty of it, but it’s not a patch on home cooking.
Your news about Charlotte’s new job at the Radium Luminous Material Corporation in Orange is exciting. Dial painting sounds like decent, well-paid work, and it helps the war effort too.
Sarge was one of the first men here at Camp Keyes to get a watch. He showed it to us last night, and we were amazed at how brightly the numbers and hands glowed in the dark. We’re all hoping to get one.
By way of background to this haibun, erosion in the Inxu Valley, Eastern Cape of South Africa, is a significant environmental problem, primarily in the form of widespread and severe gully erosion. There are many physical factors that have resulted in this situation. This haibun is, however, about a local myth that attributes this extensive erosion to the cure of Nonqaba.
The Curse of Nonqaba (haibun)
2,000 Years ago, the Bantu-speaking Mpondomise people arrived in the Inxu Valley of the Eastern Cape. Here, they encountered a strange and elusive people comprising of scattered families. These people are now known as the San (previously Bushmen), and they were traditionally hunter-gatherers. The Mpondomise had good relations with the San until the early 1940s and there was a lot of integration between the two groups. There were, however, San people who loved nature, lived in rock shelters, and could live entirely off the land. These independent San were regarded as the masters of mysterious powers by the Mpondomise who were dependent upon their crops and domestic animals for their survival.
The Mpondomise recognised the San as the first owners of the land and provided them gifts of grain and livestock. The San were also regarded as ‘rainmakers’. During times of extreme drought, the Mpondomise elders would send a deputation to the San respectfully requesting them to make rain for the people. This relationship between the San and the Mpondomise based on rain-making and reciprocity continued for centuries until the 1940s.
By 1943, missionaries had brought Christianity to this area and conflict arose between the Christianised Mpondomise who preferred to pray for rain in a church and traditionalists who still made use of the San rainmakers. When the chief of the Mpondomise died, his second-eldest son, Lushetu, was appointed acting chief while his older brother was being educated by the missionaries in London. Lushetu felt threatened by the rainmakers’ powers and was jealous of their popularity. During a large beer festival held in the Inxu Valley, Lutshetu approached the rainmaker, Nonqaba, aggressively demanded rain from him and then proceeded to beat him up.
Subsequent to this public disgrace, Nonqaba called all the San in the area together and recommended they leave the Mpondomise as a group. Before they left, however, the San cursed the land of the Mpondomise.
Following the disappearance of the San, it ceased to rain in the Inxu Valley region for three years. Gradually, all the lush vegetation disappeared and the Mpondomise’s cattle died of starvation. This terrible period of extreme drought was followed by tremendous downpours of rain which washed away the topsoil for hundreds of kilometres, depositing it in the ocean. Sheet and donga erosion set in and the once fertile valley was transformed into a desert. Many Mpondomise people were forced to leave their traditional homeland and travel to the cities in search of work. The curse of Nonqaba is stilled blamed for the devastation of this area.
Thank you to Sally Cronin for her wonderful Smorgasbord New Book Spotlight on my latest art, poetry, and baking medley, Something Fancy, A Winter Wonderland Celebration Book One.
Thank you to Nolcha Fox for sharing the third episode in Chapter 1 of the work in progress, The Soldier and the Radium Girl.
“The Soldier and the Radium Girl Part 1: The Bloom of Youth, Chapter 1: Enlist in haste, repent at leisure (cont. 2)” by Roberta Eaton Cheadle
Jake Tanner
5 July 1917
Jake spent most of the day watching train after train pulling into the station at Camp Keyes and disgorging its weary cargo of men. Staggering through the smoke and dust, the recruits formed themselves into straggling rows.
His company’s train had been the first to arrive, shuddering to a stop just as the first strokes of pink, orange, and gold stained the early morning sky with the bright tones of a child’s painting. A pall of sleepiness still lay over the station as they’d disembarked quietly and lined up ready to march.
The air had a cool freshness as the men covered the mile to the camp, but by the time they’d arrived and been allocated to their tents, the sun’s invasive rays had dried the dew on the grass and leeched the coolness from the shadows.
The men were fed, watered, and shown around the camp, and then they were deemed ready to start working.
Thank you to Kaye Lynne Booth for hosting this month’s In Touch with Nature post which features warthogs (also now known as pumbaas – thank you, Disney).
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