Maude Paquette-Boulva

Being self-employed, I like to go with whatever flow gets defined by current projects. I enjoy their unpredictability and how they unknowingly manage to stretch or compress time to accommodate each other, or sometimes my own need for space. These past few weeks have welcomed the latter and given me time to enjoy Montreal’s warmer days. I’ve been going to the market a lot where local produce and florals have made their way to their permanent summer stalls. Current favorites are Homefield Farm’s purple tulips and Miette’s sourdough bread (paired with fresh heirloom tomatoes).

I love discovering new brands and this past month’s standout is the Australian ceramics company Softedge. My appreciation for them goes beyond their products (which I incidentally don’t own) and stems from the pleasure my brain gets from perusing their photography. I love everything from the shapes, textures, and colors to the overall art direction and curated environments. I highly recommend following on Instagram for a weekly intake of brightly colored eye-candy.

I recently found out about Piet Oudolf, the landscape architect behind the gardens of New York’s Highline or Copenhagen’s Noma (to name the only two I’d seen in person). I ordered the book ‘Piet Oudolf At Work’ and have been fascinated by the artist’s profound sense of observation to achieve such natural-looking environments. Regardless of the season, the gardens evolve in harmony with each plant’s life cycle, creating an ever-changing painting of perennials.

Bixi While many cities enjoy year-round bike weather, mine does not. Montreal removes its Bixi stations (think Citibike / Lime / Bird / [insert latest startup]) in November and reinstalls them in the spring to allow snow clearing of the streets. Although I could get one of my own, I love using public bicycles for the freedom they offer. Nested between the Saint-Lawrence River and Lachine Canal, the south side of Montreal has amazing bike paths and is the ideal spot for waterfront picnics (tips for tourists and locals alike). I keep thinking I’ll get over how much joy Bixis bring me but we’re now two months in and I’m still constantly talking about them. (I’ll stop, I swear.)

Lastly, I’ve been somewhat fixated on the color red and wanted to share my favorite applications as of late. [1] The Poster Club’s red wood frame. [2] The Frama x Dry Studio collaboration cutting board. [3] Apohli’s Typo collection. [4] John Zabawa’s ‘Tomatoes for J.G.’.