Design Rocket: Time to share new art, the new kitchen, and the house. In the end, it all blends together for me.

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Hot Junk to Get

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

February 04, 2013

Time to share new art, the new kitchen, and the house. In the end, it all blends together for me.

I am posting shortly over at Cats and Jammers Studio, my waxing philosophical, often verbose blog. I'll be writing about my journey as an artist and how important I think it is that we allow ourselves the opportunity to shift directions, materials, venues, etc. That post is meant to coordinate with an interview I did recently with Monica Lee over at Smart Creative Women via Skype. The interview will go live very soon, so I thought it might be fitting to share some more material and images on this blog and also the other blog to add to what Monica and I spoke about. Also, for a tour of my studios from last year, take a look at this post.

In a nutshell, what I hope comes across in that interiew is that one needs to be open to new directions as an artist, and follow where the wind seems to blow, no matter where that may be. My own latest adventure began with having artist Richard Dunbrack do an "installation" in our kitchen. We'd loved his art for years and after acquiring a number of his pieces (see if you can spot them in the pictures), the next logical step was to have him redo our kitchen which was bady in need of freshening up. And so he did, using our existing cabinets and his inimitable style. The result just knocks our socks off, if we do say so ourselves. So much so, in fact, that I even enjoy cooking again! Rich was the subject of the very first post on this blog. You can see it here.

But, it didn't stop with the kitchen. Working very closely with Rich as he transformed our kitchen, led to my next gear shift as an artist--collaborating with him by having him take the many antique dough boards I had collected for painting and making them into special "frames." In this assemblage approach, I am happy as a clam. I get to combine two loves: antique junk and painting. Take a look. I think two heads can be even better than one. In progress: about 25 more of these pieces that I hope to share soon. Some of these are still availble for sale. Email me for more info. Gallery show in the works, soon, too.