Salvador Teran Glass and Brass 1950s Mosaic Coffee Service

Beautiful Salvador Teran Glass Mosaic Coffee Service

Beautiful weekend this weekend as I stumbled into a fabulous world of brass from the fifties through the seventies ....there were casualties of course like the amazing mid century pair of candlesticks whose lines are seared into my retina but I emerged triumphant with monumental horses, stags, cranes, fish.... a veritable zoo of 70s brass mania but I am most thrilled with this beauty...this gorgeous glass mosaic and brass handwrought coffee service by Mexican silversmith Salvador Teran...ah sweet MCM happiness.....

Find of the Week - Seriously Though

Frank Lloyd Wright for Henredon Hexagonal  coffee table
photo via COLLAGE

That's right - scored a FLW for as my father-in-law calls it  "Henry Don" -  sincerest apologies but this baby is GONE already!!!!! 

Found - Russell Kagan Raku

Found - fantastic RAKU vessel by raku master Russell Kagan - the shape is beautiful and begs to be opened which makes the metallic effect on the inside a much sweeter reward than anything that the vessel might be hiding.

Frankenshimas

Once upon a time there was a young couple with a fondness for hand-crafted organic modern furniture. Though their tastes varied, his a bit more masculine and hers a bit more feminine, together, they enjoyed the discovery and adventure in the hunt.  They could not believe their eyes one day while perusing online when they spotted two chairs with the stink of Nakashima on them in a place called Cedar Hill.  In case you have never been to Cedar Hill, it has no reputation for being a hotbed of iconic furniture.  These looked exactly like the famous three legged Mira chairs (the chair Nakashima named after his daughter) ... at least the top of the chair looked like a Mira chair.  The bottom, however, had one extra leg. 

Their first reaction naturally was "I guess not" but you could feel the internment camp in this photo of the chairs.  They sat down together at the computer with squinted eyes - shaking their heads, perplexed at the extra leg in the front.  They laughed and made jokes at the expense of a hillbilly they had never met "fixin' these funny lookin' chairs with Granny's broomstick and Pa's cane." They imagined maybe times were hard and these people needed "some kindlin' for the fireplace." Their laughter faded as the husband decided to make the rush hour hall down to Cedar Hill to meet the heir of these fine chairs.  Tears fill his eyes as he flips the chairs over to find the slaughtered remnants of the third leg, stumps crying out that "Yes!," they were once legs crafted by a master.  He slumps over as he sees the remnant of the tag with that four syllable name that conjures up images of something exquisitely beautiful.  It takes all of his strength not to curse this woman's grandfather.  He calls his wife, who is also heartbroken, but clearheaded enough to advise him not to swear at the innocents but to purchase the chairs anyway as they may be able to have them repaired.
 
He heads back North crestfallen, pulls in the driveway, carries the chairs inside and sets them down less gently than he may have if they were in their original state. He and his wife sit down, squinting their eyes again like they are looking at their own ugly newborn baby and they imagine ..... to be a fly on the wall that day when the Frankenshimas got their extra legs.

Our little Frankenshimas

Hurts...Doesn't it?

The amputee

Painful yet?

Toss Up - Adrian Pearsall vs. Frank Fagan, "The Loonie"

 So this week it's a toss up and I leave it up to you to decide if the find of the week is a fantastic Adrian Pearsall barrel chair OR this 1911 edition of Selected Poems inscribed: 
"Hap" - Age 6 - Grade 4 - T'chr - Mr Crowder -
Address ggxyz Cow Alley, Fishburn
next door to Frank Fagan, the loonie. 
Both classics.

The Shoemaker

“Him that makes shoes go barefoot himself.” - Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader. P. 34. (Ed. 1887).

Look at these beauties. I traded for these chairs... it was a good trade.  She got four Russell Wrights and I got two Albinis. I did not know that they were Albinis at the time.  I was looking for something "fun" for my daughter's room.  I want to go back, to the day that I bought them before I discovered that they were Albinis when they were just cute and retro and perfect for her room.  I want to go back to the second that I clicked on the site where I saw another broken Albini child's chair with no upholstery sell online for more than my car is worth.  Because in the very next second,  I leapt from the computer petrified and stumbling down the hall just in time to witness my daughter poised one-legged on a leaning Albini trying to get a dress out of the closet. I reprimanded her for not innately knowing what whack switch had flipped in her mother while lovingly moving the pair to a corner of the living room where I thought I could "keep an eye" on them. I have spent the bulk of a very protective year now witnessing things like my naked one year old straddling the chairs like a water skier holding a spoonful of peanut butter in one hand and a grape filled metal Ferrari in the other while pounding them both on the fragile wicker loops on the back.  Screw it, it is time to sell -  they are going to perish in my home.  I am tired of my failed attempts at conveying to any overweight guest that the American Empire rocker is much more comfortable than the tiny wicker child's chair and could they please eat their f***ing Krispy Kremes on grown up furniture before they kill the iconic Albini.  They are a pair. They are a very rare pair.  They are a very rare pair of children's chairs. They are a very rare pair of Franco Albinis with the original sparkly atomic vinyl and they deserve better than this shoemaker. 

Evolution and Abdication

Paul Evans City Scape ash tray - photo via onbluepoolroad

Browsing through Peggy Wong's blog,  onbluepoolroad, it came to my attention that she recently sold a Paul Evans ash tray from his Cityscape series. After coming to terms with my initial shock,  I could almost feel her pain letting go of that Holy Grail of vintage. I am a master of abdication, I find something, fall in love and relinquish, confident that whatever it is will serve another beautifully and with purpose. But surrendering Paul Evans... I just don't know. Even if it is an ash tray.  I do not smoke, I do not plan on starting but occasionally you invite a smoker over and you want them to feel special when you banish them to the back porch.  Now that I think about it, that Paul Evans ash tray is a really good reason to start smoking. You can still order those wonderful marketing tools of the 50s...candy cigarettes, I could buy some wholesale, smoke them IN the house, fill the kid's stockings. 

I digress... the point my friend if there be one is that Paul Evans rarely falls into your line of sight with a reasonable price tag attached. It is masculine and visceral and begs to be touched. If there is one piece in the room, it is THE one. So I have one word for Peggy Wong, R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  I don't know how you did it. Probably some universal convergence like developing an allergy to the red dye they use on the tips of the candy cigarettes.  I hope you disclosed the risks to your prospective buyers.  Maybe you were getting "smoker's wrinkles" or perhaps you were putting on a little weight. If you were venerating the Evans ash tray like you should, you would be "smoking" about 3 packs a day. I did a little research and each pack of candy cigarettes has about 10 pieces at 8 calories each so that is an additional 240 calories a day.  Anyway, if you want to let me in our your evolutionary secret to abdicating something as wonderful as a Paul Evans anything, I would sincerely appreciate it.

Candy cigarettes - photo via Mamapop.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul Evans and Andy Warhol - photo via spenceandlyda.wordpress.com

 

 

 

 

Paul Evans sculpture - photo via blog.ounodesign.com/tag/paul-evans/

Vieux Covets Locally

Kirk O Day Chest of Drawers at Sputnik Modern

Pair of Edward Wormley for Dunbar sofas at 20cDesign

6 foot tall 3 panel wood screen at b.gover limited

Four Score

Yabu and Pushelberg's Carlisle Chair

This week my sweet husband scored four burnt orange Nienkamper swivel Carlisle chairs designed in 1992 by George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg whose work includes includes the lavish interior of  Las Alcobas Hotel in Mexico City, the Four Seasons in Tokyo and several Manhattan hotspots including the glitzy renovation for Tiffany & Co., Blue Fin restaurant, as well as the interior for the Carolina Herrera boutique just to name a few.  Two are at Lula B's now and two are waiting for a couch to move.

Alvar Aalto Alternative

French Art Deco Table available at Jean Marc Fray Antiques on 1st Dibs

The Wolf's Table

Alvar Aalto's Classic Design

There is joy in the hunt, setting out to find the unknown.  It is like a first date when you already know you are going to fall in love with the chap.  I go out and I find things, wonderful, beautiful, unexpected things.  That being said, if I am looking for something in particular, I rarely find it.  I have been looking for the "perfect" kid's table for my one year old for six months.  I had grown weary of watching my one year old perpetrate a smorgasbord of sins on the meals I placed before him. After wiping up the spills from juice glasses filled with noodles, I would climb underneath the table to wipe off the butter soaked toe print abstracts.  Having watched him climb atop the glass table on numerous occasions obviously trying to commit baby suicide, I came to the conclusion it was time to ground the little fellow.  

I kept my eyes open as I scoured estate sales, thrift stores, tag sales and craigslist positive that the perfect table would present itself. It did not. Chairs sure...tables, no way.  I considered breaking into surrounding churches and schools from the fifties. I was feeling tiny vintage challenged and none too excited about going to jail when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a ridiculously fantastic art deco side table hiding right in front of my face. The perfect height, size and shape with a bonus tier for things like paper and crayons. By hiding I mean that in my very focused little brain, the table that had been sitting in my home for months was a project.  I had great plans for it.  I was going to ebonize the top and bottom and keep the fantastic patina on the legs. It was patiently awaiting its next life in limbo with its fellow refinishing projects.  I promised the table that one day it would fulfill its destiny in a magazine photographed by a skilled photographer in perfect light in someone else's home.  I apologized profusely for what abuse it would incur over the next two years and then with enormous relief I sat my sweet Wolfie down with his bowl of noodles ... and watched him climb on top and fall off, noodles in toe.

Mid Century Modern Word Salad

Monumental C. Jere Birds in Flight available now at Lula B's Riverfront

word salad - noun - incoherent speech consisting of both real and imaginary words, lacking comprehensive meaning and occurring in advanced schizophrenic states.

Gintzing, skintzing, and skanking. These are variations of a host of words I use to describe, well, getting screwed out of something.  Gintzing is a milder affliction, something like a barista forgetting your whip cream. Skintz is a little more serious, akin to someone not giving you back the correct change and skanking is most definitely intentional deceit with the purpose of taking something that belongs to someone else. Mens rea at it's most culpable dear reader.  My fellow native English speakers may have noticed that none of these words has ever graced the pages of Merrriam Webster. To date in fact, they have only made the short trip from my vernacularly liberal lips to the irritated ears of my husband.  I confess I feel a little guilty as his face fills with the concern of a man who is witnessing his life partner exhibit the early signs of schizophrenia.... C'est la vie!

Anyway, I imagine that Curtis Freiler and Jerry Fels must have partaken in at least one helping of word salad before coming up with their nom de plume, Curtis Jere. I watch shoppers struggle through the halls of Lula Bs trying to remember the name of that French guy who did all the metal sculptures.  I imagine that in their heart of hearts Curtis and Jerry hoped that they would never be found out.  You can feel that whimsy and playfulness in many of their designs.  I have considered trying to mold my Texas Spanish Florabama transplant interpretation of "Yarray" into the intended French Jere complete with accent aigu but I think C and J would have enjoyed a good laugh standing behind me and watching me struggle with my early onset schizophrenia.  

Either way I am enjoying my favorite C. Jere that for now brings a bit of playfulness to my den and I am not feeling gintzed, skintzed or skanked. Freiler or Fels, Francofiles or Throne of Lies...it is marvelous.

Marvelous C. Jere whimsy in the den