Design Rocket: When furniture really is art

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VINTAGE EYEWEAR
Well, you can go get glasses at the local Lenscrafters, OR you can hunt down some spectacular vintage hand cut frames at your local antique shop and have them fitted with your prescription lenses. Or maybe---do both. I have some very normal, "don'-t-cause trouble" frames, and some "in-your-face" frames I like to wear when I am feeling "con cohones" and have had a drink or two. Better to buy "new old stock", if you are going to invest much in the lenses. It is not good to throw money into old frames in bad shape that will fall off your head or lose an arm and need that proverbial piece of masking tape to keep them together. Unless that is the look you crave--the look of half the boys in my nerdy seventh grade class circa 1965. If so, I have an old briefcase and a pocket pen holder I would like to sell you. I'll throw in the slide rule.
Lawn art and ashtrays
Back when guys stayed home more, listened to the radio and do other things at the same time, they probably labored over homemade lawn art, standing ashtray holders, and door stops. Usually they were made out of plywood, then painted. Look for slightly crackled paint. Many of the best of these were old comic strip characters like Jiggs and Maggie, or the ocasional Disney character. Black cats are plentiful. Also Butlers. You do not have to smoke to appreciate them.
old silhouettes
Many of these come from the 20's and 30's. You can often guess the age of the piece by the dress of the person whose portrait it is. Hung together on a wall, they have a wonderful impact.
Old cookbooks by local groups: i.e. Grange cookbooks, church cookbooks, college cookbooks, etc.
Tacky Souvenirs from old site seeing locales

When furniture really is art

To some extent I have creative ADHD, so I work with a lot different materials. That might mean that I will never be a master of any, but who cares? I am having fun. I write. I paint. I paint with different types of paint. I draw. I draw with all sorts of drawing tools. Sometimes I work digitally in Painter and sometimes in Photoshop. Now I design textiles and I 'm returning to my sewing roots. I'd do 3-D stuff if there were 48 hours in a day, but check back with me once my fabrics come out. And I really wish I owned Blick Art Supply because I'd have a field day, every day, getting my hands dirty with anything I could get my little paws on. I used to be into cooking big time, but I decided that life is not long enough to pursue cooking in the way that I would want to. And besides--even though I look like I am really into food, I have lost the fire in my belly, if not my actual belly, for making fancy meals ( can still make great pies when it's called for, however).

The other medium I most love to do is "house." "Inside house" to be specific. It's why I collect junk. To add to my house medium tools. In fact, I almost left illustration altogether a while back to go into interior decorating, but I realized that my style is so eccentric and specific (and weird), that I would have no clients except one--myself. So I hired myself.

Here is my first inside-house share, although I can't take credit for making it. I would like to present my favorite piece of furniture in the whole world. My idea of what most furniture should look like-- art. It's a cupboard that sits in my dining room, and it is made by Massachusetts artist Rick Dunbrack. Check out his web site and see what other goodies he has created. Between you and me, I would love to live in an entire house designed/built by him, top to bottom. I think that would give new meaning to living with art.