“What is love?

To solve that riddle with just one answer is bey­ond me, for love is many dif­fer­ent and con­tra­dict­ory things.

In the early stages love is excite­ment and breath­less­ness, it is the ache of sep­ar­a­tion and the com­fort of togeth­er­ness, and it builds inex­or­ably to that moment when ‘I’ becomes ‘we’.

Later, if blessed, love becomes a stronger, less trans­it­ory thing, a found­a­tion for two lives lived as one.

It is all around us, there for the tak­ing, yet to seek it out is futile.

It can­not be bought or stolen or given.  It can­not be avoided or denied.

Love is the beau­ti­ful, won­der­ful, mys­ter­i­ous mor­tar that binds two souls together and I first heard its voice on the day I met you.

It has been with me every moment since.

This is what love is.”

Love Birds card cour­tesy of Ruby Wren

Writ­ten by Coulson Macleod.

Coulson Macleod has been invited to sell via the very hip and trendy mydeco boutique. How lucky are we?

The main site of mydeco is a home décor portal, cre­ated by Brent Hober­man and Martha Lane Fox, of last​minute​.com.  mydeco “brings together the country’s widest range of home fur­nish­ing products from over 700 retail­ers into one place. From high street stores like Heal’s and John Lewis to niche retailers.”

Within the site is mydeco boutique, which “aims to show­case a lim­ited num­ber of lead­ing inde­pend­ent design­ers that mydeco feels rep­res­ent the UK’s innov­at­ive design talent.”

Coulson Macleod will be sold along­side such huge names as Atelier Abi­gail Ahern, Kelly Hop­pen and Celia Birtwell. Swoon!

‘It’s the indi­vidu­al­ity and char­ac­ter you get that make designer pieces spe­cial,’ says says interi­ors expert Rachel Moses from Design Nation. “Most of the beau­ti­ful items you spot in mydeco boutique are hand­made in Bri­tain. They are all bang on trend, ori­ginal in design (no cheap imit­a­tions here), pro­duced in small batches, and well respec­ted in their indus­tries.” Yep! that’s us.

Keen to find some­thing unique that you won’t see on the high street? Then mydeco boutique is for you. An “exclus­ive treas­ure trove of avant-garde, inde­pend­ent design­ers at your fingertips.”

IMPORTANT NEWS: As of 1^st Septem­ber 2010 Coulson Macleod will be a little bit more expens­ive to buy. Sorry.

We’ve been debat­ing this for some time now here at Coulson Macleod HQ. Basic­ally we don’t want to put our prices up. But if we want to con­tinue grow­ing, then we have to.

For any reg­u­lar read­ers of this blog, you’ll have been fol­low­ing our pro­gress as we grow and learn, the way you do when you launch a new business.

In Septem­ber Coulson Macleod will be 18 months old. It’s been a fant­astic 18 months. When we star­ted the busi­ness we had no idea just what a global brand Coulson Macleod would become. Of course we hoped that people would like our art, and that some would become customers.

As the busi­ness has slowly grown we’ve made little tweaks here and there. And occa­sion­ally we make some whop­ping changes. Over the course of 18 months, we’ve had three com­pletely new web­sites, can any­one remem­ber the first ver­sion? We’ve cre­ated then deleted entire col­lec­tions. And we’ve talked end­lessly about where we want to go in the future. Some­times to each other, some­times to any­one who’ll listen.

The out­come is always the same. That in order to sell through stock­ists, and online mar­ket­places, and to go to trade fairs, and to cre­ate new and excit­ing col­lec­tions, (and then there’s some­thing called VAT, which I don’t under­stand and Coulson gets fed up try­ing to explain!), our prices are just a little too low to make this a long time viable and prof­it­able business.

Our plans don’t involve char­ging Damien Hirst prices so we can retire to a villa in Anti­bes (although that would be nice). When we set out we wanted to cre­ate afford­able art that we loved. This will remain the same. But you’ll just need a few more pen­nies (oh OK then, you’ll need a few more pounds).

So if you fancy own­ing a won­der­ful and unique piece of art at their cur­rent bril­liant prices, then I’d sug­gest buy­ing your Coulson Macleod before 1^st September.

Our latest typo­graphic col­lec­tion ‘Words’ is now avail­able to buy online at Coulson Macleod.

Coulson Macleod’s oak-framed typo­graphic art. £125

Coulson Macleod’s oak-framed typo­graphic art. £125

Coulson Macleod’s oak-framed typo­graphic art. £125

Our ‘Words’ col­lec­tion is made in the exactly same way as our hugely pop­u­lar ‘Love’ col­lec­tion. Gor­geous chunky hand­made prints. But only half the size, just 29cm x 29cm x 8cm.

We’ve kept the lovely vintage-style, with a rough-sawn solid oak frame sur­round­ing a white-washed oak panel prin­ted with dis­tressed typo­graphy. All hand­made with love in the UK.

Our ‘Words’ col­lec­tion is unlim­ited in print quantity.

For any­one inter­ested in know­ing just what goes into a Coulson Macleod wooden art piece… the oak panel is cut and sanded by hand before being covered with a coat of diluted white lac­quer wash to fill the grain, and then sanded and re-washed with the lac­quer a second time. The panel is then over-printed with UV ink. The mitred frame is hand­made using rough-sawn solid oak with a shadow rebate on the groove. We pur­pose­fully retain any defects in the oak to add to the charm and char­ac­ter of the piece. These can include knot holes, warps and water marks, so each frame is totally unique. The prin­ted panel is then encased into the frame which is then glued and pinned, ready for hanging.

Inspired by a cus­tomer who wanted a ‘Love’ print, but just half the size. And we loved it so much, we just had to cre­ate some more. Let us know if you like them!

Thought I’d just tot up where in the world we’ve shipped our art to. So aside from the UK, Coulson Macleod prints now hang in homes in the fol­low­ing countries…

Aus­tralia, Canada, Fin­land, France, Ger­many, Greece, India, Ire­land, Italy, Neth­er­lands, New Zea­l­and, Nor­way, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United Arab Emir­ates, and of course from the east to west coast of the USA.

How very, very cool!

Our latest col­lec­tion, ‘Winter Trees’ is now online to buy at Coulson Macleod

‘Thick Blows My Frosty Breath Abroad’

‘Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind’

‘The Roar of Trees and Crack of Branches’

‘Freeze, Freeze Thou Bit­ter Sky’

We’ve hand­made the frame and pan­elled back­board from reclaimed antique Vic­torian roof tim­bers, the same tim­bers that we use for our ‘Zodiac’ frames, because they are just so gor­geous. The planks all vary in size, so no piece is identical.

We then hand paint the boards and over-print it with dis­tressed image and typography.

‘Winter Trees’ is unlim­ited in print quantity.

Coulson Macleod is fea­tured in this month’s issue of Easy Liv­ing Magazine.

Our art­work ‘Love Makes The Ride Worth­while’ is on page 11 on the Editor’s let­ter page. Susie For­bes says, “Finally — this Coulson Macleod panel (£149) with its sweet and poignant mes­sage takes us right back to feel­ing the love — and let’s face it, there’s noth­ing quite like it!”

So thank you very much Susie For­bes, Editor of Easy Liv­ing. You have great taste!

Since launch­ing Coulson Macleod a little over a year ago (we star­ted the busi­ness in March 2009) we’ve updated our web­site twice. Actu­ally updat­ing is incor­rect, we’ve com­pletely redesigned the web­site twice.

And now we’ve just launched our third version.

Each time we strip it back fur­ther for an even more uncluttered look. We love sim­pli­city. And we totally love our new ver­sion, which was designed by us.

Would love to hear your comments.

OK we couldn’t wait any longer. We’ve not even put these online yet as we’re wait­ing to show­case them on our new web­site (we’re beaver­ing away as fast as we can on this). Any­way, intro­du­cing you to the latest art col­lec­tion ‘Zodiac’ from Coulson Macleod…

‘Zodiac’ fea­tures the per­son­al­ity traits of each zodiac sign. We’ve used dis­tressed typo­graphy (of course!). But this time prin­ted onto solid lime­stone. Yep. Gor­geous solid creamy lime­stone. Our lime­stone tiles have been tumbled (a pro­cess that pro­duces an aged appear­ance) as we wanted an uneven pit­ted sur­face along with broken edges and roun­ded corners. Don’t tell any­one, but we’ve been doing an unhealthy amount of strok­ing, the lime­stone feels that good.

Our ‘Zodiac’ prints are open edi­tions, which means there is an unlim­ited print quant­ity. So, because they are not lim­ited like most of our art­work, they are also a little lighter on the purse.

We’re selling them either framed (see our Capri­corn print above) for £99. The framed size is 48cm x 28cm x 4cm.

Or unframed (see our Aquar­ius print above) for £49. The unframed size is 40cm x 20cm x 1.2cm.

The unframed prints look totally fab simply lean­ing on a book­shelf nestled between books. Or of course the framed ver­sion can be hung on a wall.

The frames are hand­made as is the Coulson Macleod way. Again we’ve used reclaimed antique Vic­torian roof tim­bers (like our Calm Brit­an­nia col­lec­tion). This means that each frame is actu­ally unique. The wood is full of lovely defects. Some come with knot holes, or nail holes, warps and water marks.

Hope you fall in love with these like we have.

Coulson Macleod’s latest col­lec­tion of lim­ited edi­tion prints… Calm Britannia

Dis­tressed Union Jack flags prin­ted onto nat­ural, coarse-weave, unbleached linen and then encased in a chunky sand­wich of reclaimed wood.

Three dif­fer­ent quotes.

Each print costs £169.

The frames are all hand­made using reclaimed antique Vic­torian roof tim­bers. We’re totally lov­ing all the nat­ural defects in the tim­ber too, they just ooze charm and char­ac­ter. Bring on the knot holes, nail holes, warps, and water marks!

We’ve fallen head-over-heels in love with these prints. So unique. And we par­tic­u­larly enjoy see­ing the linen slightly waft when you open a door!