I came across this *beautiful* image on a new to me blog Abbytryagain. I want to find the book Stockholm’s Apartments. Lust!
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Top Left: Pillow Top Sette from Urban Outfitters, $550
Top Right: Dream Tent also from Urban Outfitters, $79
Bottom: Knoll Sette, Craigslist.org, $650
As we wait for our sofa to come (6 weeks to go, if all goes according to plan) we yearn for a small sette that could transition into the bedroom when the real couch comes…. PS How fantastic is the dream tent?
Upper Right: Art for Transit Book, Transit Store, $45
Upper Left: Glasses, Urban Outfitters, 5 for $10
Mid Right: Mosaic Pillow, Urban Outfitters, $12
Mid Left: Towels from Anthropologie, $4 - $24
Bottom: Whale Poster, Transit Store, $25.95
This Dillon Chair from Crate and Barrel in sapphire blue leather might not look like much, but boy it is perfect for my 5′2” little body. I could sit here for hours, days, weeks. I did some detective work and it turns out it is made by Mitchell Gold — the Perry Chair and cost some $300 dollars less from Mitchell Gold retailers.
I spent some additional time looking at the Sotheby’s auction of Margaret Weston’s photography collection which all highlight our continuing fascination with nature and the challenges of capturing the fleeting vitality of the natural world. The upper right photograph captures the lacy silhouette of trees against the sky, something that is easy to see with our eyes, but hard to capture on film. T. asked me to marry him underneath just such a silhouette of a tree. The luminosity of the water lilly, the sinuousness of the fern print, the simplicity of the still life of fruit are all delicious.
These photographs are offered for sale at Sotheby’s April 25th auction of photographs from the private collection of Margaret Weston, one of the first photography dealers, and a major force in the development of the international market for fine art photographs. Starting in 1975 she exhibited photography in her gallery in CA, long before it was de rigueur in New York and London. According to the auction catalog, her passion is for 19th century photography of which the above are a small sample. I’m drawn to these early nature photos, although I’m hard put to explain exactly way — they are beautiful, a little ghostly, and oddly innocent. In any case, check out the rest of the online preview at Sotheby’s — it is a chance to see some of the most highly coveted (and expensive) photographs in the world before they are snapped up into someone’s collection to never be seen again.
K. at work turned me on to this visual feast of a magazine focused on textiles in interior design. One standout was the work of Japanese textile artist/ textile and color historian, Sachio Yoshioka. As a student of design and history, I’m completely smitten with the idea of a color historian.* Not to mention Yoshioka designs lipstick for Chanel. Glamorous! As A. at school would say — I have a crush on Mr. Yoshioka.
I love discovering new magazines, esp. international ones full of fresh images like these. My mother dyes clothes/fabric all the time much to my awe and, when I was younger, actually had a number of Japanese influenced books from the 1960s on the subject. Funny how everything old is new again. I especially like the colors on the image in the far left: so soft, vibrant and full of life.
* If you’re interested in the history of color, check out Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finley. I was enthralled as she traced the history of various colors around the world.
Highlights of Sotheby’s Property from the Estate of Samuel P. Reed Auction: April 28, 2007
Upper left: Lot 22, Debra P. Bermingham, Across the Pond. Estimate: 1,200 – 1,600 USD.
Upper right: Lot 26, Georges Michel, Fireworks around Paris. Estimate: 1,000 – 1,500 USD.
Lower left: Lot 61, American School, Blue Bowl with Fruit, Berries and Leafy Vines. Estimate: 7,000 – 9,000 USD.
Lower right: Lot 44, A Louis XVI brass-mounted walnut and ebonized tall commode, l.18th century. Estimate: 3,000 – 5,000 USD.
Samuel Reed, whomever he was, had great taste in art (and well, everything). Overall, his style is a little bit fancy for me, but then again, what to expect from an estate being sold at Sotheby’s — fancy. Looking over the contents of his home, seeing how he must have put different objects together, is a small window into the man. In his art collection in particular, an outline of the man appears. For some reason I think he must have grown up in the country, or spent time there, as there is a fecund quality to the images that reminds me of Vermont and my childhood.
I keep thinking about a conversation I overheard in PA last year with Jon and Carrie, on a rainy, grey weekend getaway where we went to a headspinning number of antique stores/ junk shops. The conversation was between a couple of guys who primarily sold postcards/old photos. They were sorting through thousands of postcards, getting ready to post the most collectible on ebay, where they do a thriving business (single card could go for $32, one said). I easedropped as I browsed, and it turns out that there is a huge market for vintage postcards — people collect postcards with images of hometowns, of their summer camps, of their favorite getaway, of the mountains, of India, of naked ladies. An amazing tangle of emotions, memory, desire and our crazy human urge to collect, to order the choas of living through organizing a collection. All the topics I’m interested in writing about: memory, collecting, photography in modern life, paper.
My mother and sister are documentary filmmakers and I’ve always hoped we would collaborate someday. Maybe this is the project?
I’m almost done with my first year at the Cooper-Hewitt Master’s program, and as much as I love the decorative arts, I realize my passion is in the area of material culture — the study of the relationship between “things” and people.
Jules David Prown’s definition in his essay “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method”:
Material culture is the study through artifacts of the beliefs—values, ideas, attitudes, and assumptions—of a particular community or society at a given time.
A further definition from “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method.” Material Life in America: 1600-1860. (via University of Wyoming):
Material culture as a study is based upon the obvious fact that the existence of a man-made object is concrete evidence of the presence of a human intelligence operating at the time of fabrication. The underlying premise is that objects made or modified by man reflect, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, the beliefs of the individuals who made, commissioned, purchased, or used them and, by extension, the beliefs of the larger society to which they belonged.Every man-made object requires the operation of some thought and design. It is the assumption of material culture studies that this thought is a reflection of the culture that produced the man-made objects.
My current research area is how we “remember”; memorabilia, scrapbooks, postcards, snapshots, diaries, formal portraits, really any ritualized celebration (weddings?). I’m also thinking a lot these days about interiors and how we construct identity through interior design.
Hours of searching on Craigslist uncovered this pair of chests: a reward of my Craigslist furniture obsession. Beautiful midcentury modern pieces with white mica tops. I’ve always associated “mid century modern” with the furniture in my grandparent’s lake house — dated, not very comfortable and not very cool. Funny that we now have a table and chests and I never would have anticipated how clean they look in our space. The other picture is of our Rico lamp in action with the orange tree bought in Chinatown. The apartment is starting to come together (although what the photos don’t show is the complete lack of organization everywhere else in the apartment (still no bookcases, filling cabinets, sofa, dinning chairs or place to hang/store our coats).
This graphic caught my eye. Recently I’ve been overwhelmed by a letterpress stationary oppression — everyone who is anyone bought a press and is printing away. Done right, letterpress is gorgeous, elegant, understated. Done wrong, it seems fussy, pretentious, expensive.
So I was relieved and surprised to see this simple card letterpress card from Crane’s — a retailer I don’t associate with letterpress at all. In fact, I most strongly associate Crane’s with the first round of thank you cards I had to write in a miserable year of looking for my first job. M. and I were in different cities but searching for job in the same economic downturn, with the same unrealistic goals: WGBH or Harvard Business Review for me and Vanity Fair or the New Yorker for her. We interviewed with anyone who would met with us and then agonized over the thank yous: what to say and what to write it on. I ended up with the first card below, a simple flat card, but not after being puzzled (which I remain to this day) with how to handle the folded card.
Eventually we landed in the right jobs for us and were relieved to leave the thank you notes behind us. Five years later, it’s my turn to receive these notes from interviewees, some painfully self conscious and some who nail it. But, I always appreciate the time, and assume when I don’t get a thank you that the candidate really doesn’t want the job. So, I suppose our agony long ago wasn’t wasted.
