Happy Earth Day

Make it every day.

Meow mix

From our catalog of cat books

From Cat People (1978): Shelly Smith

Jane Pauley

Seymour Chwast

From The Photographed Cat (1980): Edward Gorey

From Catwise (1979) and Cats are like that (1984):

From the Penguin Handbook Cats (1957):

Mackworth Island

Closer than the grocery store.

Our summer plan is to hang out here at least once a week.

Tensor's Floating Disc? Check.

Found pieces

Saturday's yard saling stuff:

From the top: The Missing Piece by Shel Silverstein, with his wonderful inscription to a girl named Sarah. Now in our son Fletcher's growing collection of things inscribed, but not to him. :(

Vintage toddler's SnoPeak arctic bomber jacket, with boiled wool hood trim and slight lining-of-an-old-backpack patina. My hope is that he'll wear it this winter, but with our novice size forecasting, it'll probably fit him next July. (much to his grandmothers' relief).

A little Puppenhaus-size Rya rug. More likely made to be a pillow by a 70's crafter, but our first thought was that it definitely could be a Finnish salesman's sample.

Two large enameled industrial factory lamps in perfect condition- the stuff that looks like a chip is actually old plaster which just chips off, but we'll leave it there. These will be hung on cable and retracticle cord above a kitchen island in the guest apartment we're working on this summer.

Lastly there's a stylized brass hippopotamus box.

Total, $13.00- the lamps were 5 each.

One Buffalo Boy gone 'round the outside

R.I.P. Malcolm McLaren. Sex Pistols manager, Bow Wow Wow creator, shop owner, genius, and the inspiration behind our boombox.

:nytimes

Le Man

Steve McQueen in Le Mans (1971)

How awesome is the Porsche 917?
If I weren't going to paint our front door in the Push Pin graphic style of 1984, I would definitely use these great old Porsche colors, and put our number inside the white circle. And how do we turn that headlamp design into a pendant lamp that would turn on as fantastically as McQueen's do during the dusky hours of Le Mans.?
Sometimes I think I find more design inspiration in cars than anywhere else.

Spring cleaning

Orange-oiling day.

Alexander Girard

Some fabric designs from the 50's and 60's

It's Spring!

16 year old Californian Jan Smithers (Bailey Quarters)

on the cover of Newsweek, March 21, 1966.

Eames faces

Two old Eames chairs and five faces, from a yard sale.

more Eames faces

An old Eames House of Cards, from an estate sale.

Fashions by Linda, age 11

What fun to discover my (now) kooky notebook and crazy paper dolls I made when I was 11. It was the early 80's and I was just discovering fashion. I had a love for all the era's usual suspects- Chic, Jordache, Calvin Klein, Sasson, Gloria Vanderbilt, Bonjour, and yes, Jones New York (?!?).

I was also totally into Punk and New Wave.

Knitted Landscapes

Two fantastic projects- the picture sweater and landscape rug- from the 1978 British book

The Needleworker's Constant Companion.

Liberty Studios

The great facade of Anthony Lover's Liberty Studios, NYC, with its perfect mix of industrial age iron work, Gill Sans Extra Bold (a typeface) and supergraphic American Typewriter (this blog's typeface) number. And the beautifully poetic and patina'd window.

Sometime crashpad of our errant carpenter, the studio is more noted for creating the amazingly detailed HBO Starship intro back in 1982. (link)

Giant (airquote) shrimp (/airquote)

Claes Oldenburg in his studio, 1965.

The O.C.

Great old cast iron O.C White task lamps, from a yard sale.

4 swimming pool designs by Claes Oldenburg