Here you will find a gorgeous array of lyrical work splashing out from all angles by illustrator Mari Kanstad Johnsen. Her studio is full of a curious naive and sophisticated visual poetry straight from the heart of Norway. I love the bears peaking out of mountains in her Illustration for Norwegian outdoors-magazine Norrøna Magazine. As to the Manhattan girls; it’s just genius in a jovial brush or three.

The Illustrations for the childrensbook “Barbie-Nils og Pistolproblemet” (Barbie-Nils and the Problem with the Gun), written by Kari Tinnen, published by Gyldendal will make you want to go out tomorrow and learn Norwegian. And if you first pick up the childrensbook VIVALDI, written by Helge Torvund, published by MAGIKON the images are equally and whimsically poignant.

They were big and little creatures. Some were hairy with long, thin tails, and some had noses long as pokers. Some had bulging eyes and some had 20 toes. In they came — crashing through the door, sliding down the chimney, crawling through the windows. They shouted and cried. They banged pots and pans. They twirled their tails and tapped their toes upon the wooden floor.

This is the Kanagawa Biennial World Children’s Art Exhibitions‘ noble philosophy.

To look at these works from around the world is to gain some small insight into the clear and open vision of a child’s eyes, where hopes and dreams have not yet been tempered by the realities and hardships of life. Every two years from 1981 this exhibit has drawn works from around the world.

The work above was one of those exhibited this year. I’m proud to say that this is also my own nephew’s work, but also proud that it is just one of thousands of created pieces from children just like him around the world.

To simply ‘do’ is that immediate process of putting pen to paper and expressing one’s inner realm that communicates something of substance to so many. Whether looking at these works reminds us of our own childhood thoughts, or of our dreams long established or long buried, the works have effect on a universal, and global, scale.

The Beits, for all their wealth, were also generous philanthropists, involved in various charitable endeavors. Living in, and loving such a house for 24 years one can only surmise that the Beit’s priorities were of a grander  proportion than those issuing from pure material pleasure. It must have been a difficult place to remove oneself from with so much heritage and beauty to enjoy on a daily basis and yet they did so with finesse.

It is a large and rambling estate, surrounded by meadows and canopied by vast and fascinating ceilings. The green of the music room, with it’s Caucasus rug, grand piano and domed ceiling is memorable. The scaglioroli table in the reception space is a lovely example of the Florentine master trade. The plaster reliefs of the stairwell, in contrast to the sharp geometry of the Entrance Hall ceiling, crawl up the walls in a playful manner. Befittingly they lace their way from public rooms to the family room upstairs with it’s vaulted windows and central access to each bedroom.

The Beit’s favorite room, it is rumored, was the library. It is warm, charmingly decked out as it was when vacated; replete with books from the 50′s and 60′s, with griffins at all corners underfoot. The abundance of yellow and the wall-to-wall tomes in a square room of not too large a scale make it very cosy. Having said that I think I would want to be sticking my head around the door at the Picasso, Gainsborough and tapestries in the sitting room next to it; not to mention that music room.

Works from his later career and time in New York are fascinating in their simplicity and sparseness. White canvasses carry a large dashing brush mark of black and splashes of red. They are perhaps as minimal as expressionism could ever be.