Border Lines

Part of the inspiration for a recent chair project came from revisiting Melanie Acevedo's photos of artist Konstantin Kakanias' house (House & Garden).

There actually are no slipcovered pieces of furniture in the pictures I saved, but a chair and a few tables are casually covered with printed fabrics, some of which have pretty borders. It was the general breezy, open-to-the-garden feeling of the home that served as the muse.

[Directly above, a detail of Melanie Acevedo's photo from House & Garden.]

And I have a weak spot for grand old spaces (you may remember the 1920s building was once actress Barbara Stanwyck's ballroom) given new life in a less formal way.

To capture that endless summer quality, I asked my upholsterer to cover a chair's existing silk seat and arms with unlined linen -- PD' s Kashmir Paisley in peacock.

He cut the border to emphasize it, not just on the seat, but also on the narrow arms and ties.

When the lawn is green again -- really green -- I hope to copy the other shelter mag story, the one that provided initial inspiration and offered tangible guidance, and photograph the whole chair outside in the sun.

[Lisa diStefano, Green Sky with Hill, mixed media on paper, 12 x 16 inches, courtesy Ann Connelly Fine Art.]

Looking at Lisa diStefano's abstracted Louisiana landscapes, too, it's easy to daydream about horizon lines, sunlight, subtropical breezes, and the great outdoors.

[Lisa diStefano, Untitled Landscape, mixed media on panel, 30 x 30 inches, courtesy Ann Connelly Fine Art.]

[Lisa diStefano, Untitled, mixed media on linen, 6 x 6 inches, courtesy Ann Connelly Fine Art.]

In Baton Rouge, Lisa is represented by Ann Connelly Fine Art.

Oh, and for those of you who are skilled enough to do your own sewing, the current issue of Selvedge highlights more artisan copper scissors. These are for sale online through London-based Plumo, meaning that for U.S. residents a pair isn't available just down the road, but I read that the scissors are made by hand in a fairtrade women’s association, and are currently discounted, so I decided to share. If I come across something similar made in the United States I'll update this post with that option too.

Eyes Wide Open II

[Melanie Acevedo photo of Kelly Wearstler's vignette, Domino, October 2008.]

In a comment on the previous post, Balsamfir speculated that the trend toward large, and often dramatic, lamps seen during the last 10 years may have had something to do with our visual craving for sculpture.

This made me pay more attention to all sorts of decorative pieces that may not be fine art but nonetheless bring a certain depth to a room. For example, I've always gravitated to boxes, which can sometimes be quite sculptural, and to animal figures. Sculpture is such a dominant element in Kelly Wearstler's projects that I think many design junkies are aware of it there, however I know I'm guilty of being less tuned in to more subtle uses of the sculptural. My art studies always focused most on painting and drawing, and my personal passion is textile design. Guess you could say my world has been flat.

[Photo courtesy Lisa Borgnes Giramonti.]

For January, I've given myself an assignment: look for the sculptural at every turn and start refreshing my memory of the numerous sculptors I learned about in art history classes and at museums.

[Melanie Acevedo photo of artist Konstantin Kakanias' house as seen in House & Garden; picture below also by Acevedo.]

[Below, Kathryn Ireland's design for House Beautiful's 2003 showhouse benefiting Children's Action Network.]

[Below, Peter Dunham's design for House Beautiful's 2003 showhouse benefiting Children's Action Network.]

Whether three dimensional or two, there is plenty to explore this season. In February at Cole Pratt Gallery, an exhibition of sculptures and drawings by Sylvaine Sancton will open. Sancton's work incorporates various media, including bronze, cast glass, stone, and wood.

[Sylvaine Sancton, Horse, 15.75" x 17.5 x 6", bronze.]

Throughout 2009 we checked in with Shannon Morris, museum curator at Georgia College, as she put together the soon-to-open contemporary art exhibition, Transitive Geographies.

[Annie Butrus, Peach Tree Trail: 4 Winter Culp ’07, 28” x 50” x 1.5”, acrylic on panel, 2009.]

[Annie Butrus, Shadow Study 1, 21”x62.5”, ink wash on paper, 2009.]

[Annie Butrus, Parade of Homes Greystone Trees, 11”x 14”, oil on panel, 2001.]

Shown here is a sneak peek at just a few of the pieces to be on view. In all, 21 works including paintings, ink drawings, photographs and mixed media installations from artists Annie Kammerer Butrus (Birmingham, Alabama), Cynthia Farnell (Conway, South Carolina), Donna Mintz (Atlanta, Georgia), and Michel Varisco

(New Orleans, Louisiana) will be featured.

[Michel Varisco, City Park 4, digital dye pigment print on vinyl, 8’4” x 6’11”, 2008.]

[Cynthia Farnell, Tobacco, 79” x 39”, pigment print on silk, 2009.]

Here is an excerpt from Morris' statement about the show:

As the South continues to transition from its agrarian past into an increasingly industrial future, the region that served as the setting for the novels and the short stories of renowned writers like Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy has become a fractured remnant of its past. While the loss of this bygone era receives mixed reviews from natives, newcomers and observers, the landscape remains a creative inspiration for both writers and visual artists. Featuring the works of four female contemporaries, "Transitive Geographies" seeks to understand this transition that reveals itself upon the landscape and along the waterways of the region by connecting the past to the present through imagery and relics. Their visions reference a region where a sense of place is connected fervently to identity.

[Donna Mintz, Lighting the Sun, installation comprised of found glass objects, 2007- present.]

Following the Georgia College premier in January, Transitive Geographies will travel to the Rebecca Randall Bryan Gallery on the campus of Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina where it will be on display from July 15 to August 27, 2010, and then to the Alabama School of Fine Arts’ Vulcan Materials Gallery in Birmingham, Alabama.

Again, an opening reception is scheduled to take place at the end of the month on January 28, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., at GCSU in Milledgeville, Georgia, and the show will continue there until May 8.

Project Runway for Chairs

[Michael Smith design photographed by Michel Arnaud as seen in Michael Smith Elements of Style.]

Chair slipcovers with feminine dressmaker details were especially popular in the 1990s, and obviously in many circles they've never fallen out of favor (Suzanne Rheinstein is a fan), but by nature they are breezy and laid-back and therefore, some might say, at odds with the clean-lined mid-century-modern aesthetic and high glamour that dominated the last decade.

Although I'd say the Michael Smith-designed slipcover shown here is as chic as a Vera Wang. (Note the expansive window in the image at the top; this L.A. house was designed by architect Paul Williams.)

[Above, Dan Carithers, Caroline Ritter and Mary Elizabeth Stevenson photographed by Deborah Whitlaw for Southern Accents. Below, a Cheryl Dalton photo from the same issue.]

Cotton or linen slipcovers are very Southern too. Historically they were used during long hot summers to make heavy velvet-upholstered furniture cooler to the touch. Since they are also typically associated with the country house look, slipcovers sometimes get the granny label, but again, if you think about all those discreet slits that reveal a hint of the chair's frame, they are kind of sexy.

Apart from the potential to be easily washed (if a slipcover is made from machine-washable fabric it can be laundered frequently at home), slipcovers have appeal because they can lend a softer, yet impermanent, dressed-down appearance to a fussy piece. For example, an ornate damask-covered gilded chair inherited from a great aunt that just isn't your style.

And they allow you to change a room's look without buying new furniture.

Just know that, depending on the amount of fabric needed and the couture details you may choose, having a slipcover made can cost the same as (or in a few cases more than) full on upholstery.

For Christmas my parents gave me some Peter Dunham fabric, Kashmir Paisley in peacock (not going in the blue room seen here). To maximize the print's border, I'm going to have a chair seat slipcover made, as well as little covers for the arm pads. Like choosing a dress, pondering all the options is half the fun -- even if in the end the decision is to go with something really restrained.

While scrolling through this post, if you've been thinking the pictures look familiar, yes, they were cropped from very dogeared tearsheets: Cheryl Dalton's photographs of chairs on the Swan House lawn. All of the slipcovers were designed by Atlanta-based decorator Dan Carithers, and Lydia Langshore wrote the story for Southern Accents. Deborah Whitlaw shot the indoor pictures.

Above, a grainy view of a Windsor Smith slipcover cropped from Vogue Living, fall 2006. As mentioned in the previous post, Windsor never abandoned them. Below, New Orleans' own Ann Holden and Ann Dupuy used a lushly textured slipcover on a chair in a glamorous red-lacquered powder room with a brick floor. It does bring a certain looseness to the room.

Now, for an about-face. As much as I love the relaxed country house look, as well as Jane Scott Hodges' heritage chic highlighted in Victoria, October 2001...

and let's not forget gallerist Timothy Tew's cosmopolitan Southern style seen in Atlanta at Home, published by Wyrick & Company, 1994...

I still completely appreciate the fantasy and explosive drama of Kelly Wearstler's Hue, so excuse me while I get lost for a while in the powerful colors (and the children's books).