Get Plastered

No, this isn't a post about what I did on election night (though I am not denying anything) -- this is about ANOTHER kind of plaster, one that I may even prefer over the alcoholic variety....may.

Over the last year or so I have had the great pleasure of getting to know a wonderfully talented local artist/designer/generally fabulous person named Tamara Codor, who with partner Sterling Voss is the brains/beauty/brawn behind Codor Design. You may have read about her from one or more of my pals here in Seattle, so it almost seems fruitless for me to try and describe or depict her work better than they already have. But when did that stop me?

I was lucky enough to get a private tour of her Seattle showroom a few weeks ago, and now I am (more) obsessed with owning one of her plaster-covered mirrors. To the best of my recollection (correct me if I'm wrong, Tamara), she culls found objects like plastic frogs, toy boats, rope, dolls and other miscellaneous oddities that make my heart sing, applies them to wonderfully shaped mirrors, and coats the entire piece in plaster to an austere, haunting effect.

Here are some favorites:

That bird!

Can you spot the toy violin (or "fiddle," as we call it in the South)?

The frog kills me. 

This one is smaller scale, and I think my very favorite. It would look smashing against one of my client's Albert Hadley black-and-white "Fireworks"-papered bathroom walls. (My English teacher would cringe at that sentence.) 

The devil is in the details.

Here's a peek at her back room:

Ironically, my favorite thing in her entire showroom is a piece that was left behind by a previous tenant. Add a coat of white paint and VOILA! A white monkey holding up some stuff.

Speaking of her showroom...

A sampling of her custom furnishings:

 

A cast-glass Louis coffee table (!)

This chandelier is HUGE and amazing, with rotating arms.

And as if all this weren't enough reason to envy Tamara's talent, she's also a talented artist... I happened to spy this pile in a corner, only to find out she had created the whole lot.

Get thee to Codor Design. Buy a plaster mirror and tell her Leah sent you.

Adult Education

I have long considered myself an art lover, beginning in college with coursework in art history and time volunteering in my university's wonderful on-campus museum, the Georgia Museum of Art. Despite majoring in journalism, I briefly toyed with the idea of attending the Sotheby's Institute of Art after graduation to build upon my developing passion. (Sometimes I still fantasize about enrolling!)

And of course now, as an interior designer, I am fortunate to work with art in varying capacities -- selecting for clients and building on and around existing pieces in their collections -- so I like to think I am fairly knowledgeable about "mainstream" artwork.

Imagine my surprise and delight when volunteering last week in my daughter's first-grade art class to discover an artist who, by all accounts, I should have been familiar with: Sonia Delaunay. The teacher posted images of her work as part of the class's ongoing study of jazz and art's relation to it (!), and many of the pieces felt as if they could have been pulled directly from a contemporary gallery. The colors and shapes are bold and energetic, yet there is also a wonderful sense of whimsy about them that I find so compelling.

Much of her work focuses on the exploration of pattern and color and clearly predicts her later foray into textile design:

A contemporary of Picasso and Braque, Delaunay was married to the better-known painter Robert Delaunay (though I prefer Mme. Delaunay's work, myself). I find the story of her life to be fascinating and would encourage you to read more about it; her husband and collaborator, by all accounts her great love, died more than 38 years before Sonia, and she went on to reinvent herself many times over -- as a textile and costume designer, car decorator (!), and clothing-design collaborator with the likes of Coco Chanel and Lanvin.

An example of her fabric design...don't you love it?

Delaunay designed for the wives of celebrated architects and designers Gropius, Breuer and Mendelsohn.

Delaunay with the Citroen she decorated. I want one!

Of her life Delaunay said the following: "I have led three lives: one for Robert [her husband], one for my son and grandsons, a shorter one for myself. I don't regret not having given myself more attention. I really did not have the time."

I love that my first-grade daughter's art teacher inspired this art-history lesson for me. A great reminder of how much there will always be to learn, no matter how old we get.

Visual Feast

Orange Mower

I am loving the new show by Christopher Boffoli, here at local Seattle gallery Winston Wachter.

Cupcake Golfer

Blackberry C.S.I.

My personal favorite, Hot Dog Custodian

Deep Thoughts

One of the many great art finds over on Strataflora.... I love this thought, because how often do we get caught up in others' opinions of us, other people WE DON'T EVEN LIKE?

This piece is by British artist Hannah Richards. I also love her "Childhood Malevolence" series:

This one is my favorite. Who among us hasn't played some part in a similar scene?

Conze Scheme

I recently had the pleasure of meeting a wonderful local sculptor whose work you may recognize from a recent Elle Decor feature -- one of his kinetic sculptures lives with none other than Karen -- I mean, Megan Mullally -- and her husband, the equally funny actor Nick Offerman.

Designer Ames Ingham (who holds a special place in my heart for these) decorated their home and smartly selected Peter Conze's Flamingo to accent the couple's wonderfully designed pool and related landscape. I love how it is positioned in the yard:

And let's face it: that pool shape doesn't hurt matters...

You're not able to truly appreciate the construction and impact of Peter's work in a static image; clearly influenced by the genius of Alexander Calder, each piece is carefully engineered to surprise and delight through movement and color.

Peter works in a variety of scales and tailors many of his pieces to specific clients and sites.

Detail of Flamingo

Anubis

Outdoor sculpture can go horribly wrong, and in my mind it requires a certain confidence to embrace it in your own home, but Peter's work maintains a wonderful simplicity and elegance that I think could work in a variety of aesthetics.

I'm already hard at work thinking of the right spot for one (or more) in a client's yard.

See more of Peter's work and learn more about his process here.

Domestic Bliss

Green Velvet, Julie Blackmon

Blogging is a lot like exercising -- the less often you do it, the harder it is to get back into the swing of things.

Fortunately, today I stumbled across something that excited me enough to lace up my running shoes and head out for a blog... that something is photographer Julie Blackmon.

Thanks to the weird, circuitous world of the Internet, I discovered Julie's work via One Kings Lane's recent sale of photo editions from Hamburg Kennedy Photographs; I quickly developed a fixation on Massimo Vitali's diptychs and triptychs, which sent me in search of HK Photograph's site. They represent some amazing photographers, and as much as I go weak in the knees for paintings, there's something about a great photograph that always stops me dead in my tracks.

Enter Julie Blackmon.

Her work combines everything I love about, well, everything: Color, humor, interiors, and family.

And now, thanks to Julie, in addition to seriously coveting her photograph entitled "Green Velvet," I feel compelled to go recover something in...green velvet.

Which is your favorite?

Tippee Cup

Family Portrait

Crystal Ball

Boar Head

Babysitter