Blog

Introduction to Paragon of Design by Skrocki's blog.

Our blog is based on the short stories we write that inspire the pieces, where we get our inspirations from, travel/history, stones and our pieces, how-tos, our lives etc.
The entries, travel photos or posts about products are not in any chronological order. We post the pictures as we sort them or as we make new items. Some of the pictures or products are from before we started as a business, but it shows the inspiration behind a certain items that we make now. 
 A lot of the information we include with our pictures was gleaned from historians, tour guides we encountered or what we have read about in the museums. We try to back it up with Wikipedia, credible websites or books.

The picture below is one we took in Rostock, Germany of a small church not far from the Schwerin castle. Rostock is along the Baltic Sea area and we visited this city after making a brief stop in Warnemunde. 

The Schwerin Castle is now a museum and it has one of the most amazing, almost, modern dragon carvings we have seen to date. Please see my following post regarding dragons for more information.

A person can see a lot of the gothic quatrefoils while visiting Europe, but we didn't make these earrings until after we returned from this trip. We also incorporate the quatrefoil into our own made up cathedral window designs as well.  According to Wikipedia; "The word quatrefoil means "four leaves", from Latin quattuor, four, plus folium, a leaf) and applies to general four-lobed shapes in various contexts. It is also used as a heraldic charge and possibly it's roots are based on Islamic architecture." (1)

On the left: Brass earrings with the quatrefoil design. Right: Copper pendant with the quatrefoil design. 

This picture from the Great Hall in the Edinburgh Castle contains one of the few quatrefoils in the designs throughout the room. It has inspired several new items that we will post in 2015.   

The focus of this site was the architecture and the structure of the Edinburgh Castle ( a fortress) rather than artefacts, furniture or elaborate carvings. 

Christchurch cathedral in Dublin, Ireland is the oldest of the city's two medieval cathedrals. The cathedral has various medieval patterns, however, since it was heavily restored during the Victorian time it is difficult to determine which designs were original. Whether they are original to the cathedral or not this beautiful quatrefoil faux wall caught our eyes. This site has  inspired multiple items that will be included on future posts.

The picture below shows the quatrefoils decorating a wooden chair in Rakvere, Estonia. This fortress was inhabited by the Templars and, later, the Teutonic knights during it's long history. 

One last photo of a quatrefoil, from the Utstein Abby located on the island of Mosteroy in Rennesoy municipality in Norway. This is Norway's best preserved medieval monastery and it was established by 1160 and founded during the reign of King Magnus VI of Norway. To get to this location we had to take the highway through the Rennfat undersea tunnel (the world's longest and deepest subsea road tunnel) for 30 mins! It was worth the long drive to see such a beautiful site and hear a recital (of Edvard Grieg's music: who "used and developed Norwegian folk music in his compositions") on the more recently installed organ residing in the chapel on the monastery grounds. As many of our customers know we are fans of classical, opera, flamenco and other world music. Below the picture of the  window is an Edvard Grieg piece to listen to. This video happened to be filmed in the "Rock Church" in Helsinki which we have also visited.