I picked this book up at one of the best used bookstores I’ve ever visited, ABCD in Camden Maine (though my Great Uncle Frank Piskor, a huge bibliophile, used to say they had “New York prices.”). It’s a MoMA book from 1961, and Uncle Frank was right; it was $6.50 new, and $75 used forty years later. I’m going to let the jacket sum up Futurism for you because I would use up all of my blogging hours for the month trying to do it myself and I would not do half as good a job:

The Futurist artists…set out to create an art as exhilarating as Marinetti’s promise. They translated the kinetic rhythms and the confused, intense sensations of modern life into potent visual form, creating works of art of extraordinary emotional impact. The Futurists’ approach to art, their manifestos and demonstrations set a pattern for many art movements which followed, such as Constructivism, Dada, and Surrealism…and the sympathy between certain Futurist procedures and current endeavors is largely responsible for the growing interest in Futurism.”

-Joshua C. Taylor

The Futurists looked to the past to rebel against it than to be inspired by it, and they had a tinge of anarchy running through their movement. Alright, enough art history, think about what was going on in the 19-teens and you’ll get it. Onto the inspiration of color, shape, movement, and composed confusion:

Severini: The Boulevard 1910

Boccioni: The Street Pavers 1911

Balla: Mercury Passing Before the Sun as Seen Through a Telescope 1914

Balla: Iridescent Interpretation 1912

Balla: Girl Running on a Balcony 1912

Boccioni: Iron Man. Just Kidding! Unique Forms of Continuity in Space 1913

Carra: “Free-Word” Painting (Patriotic Celebration) 1914

Boccioni: The Calvary Charge 1914

Hmmm, O.K., so the late fifties/early sixties are the time of the “current endeavors” Taylor alludes to. That makes total sense when you think about the art scene in the sixties and beyond. I’m seeing a lot of inspiration here for Jim Dine and Robert Indiana and Andy Warhol. Think of whatever Cooper is hanging in his office on Mad Men, think of how the space race would have effected art the way the industrial revolution and speeding cars and airplanes did decades earlier.

It makes me wonder what kind of art will come out of this tumultuous time in history. We’ve seen the architecture, we’re seeing how the fear of a crashing plane affects design, how security concerns keep campuses from planting shrubs, how we memorialize heroes and events. How are tumultuous times and technology and all of the new ways of presenting media and communicating affecting art today? Please tell me what you think as it’s kind of blowing my mind just thinking about it at them moment.

Ah, an afternoon post – I was very sidetracked as my Style and Substance: The Best of Elle Decor arrived today. I got so into it I haven’t even read David Rohde’s daily installment of “Held by the Taliban” in the Times yet, and that is a seriously riveting serialized read. I thought most of it would look familiar because I flip through my Elle Decor issues again and again and save and make tear sheets galore, but actually, a lot of it was new to me, and the familiar shots were all tear-sheet worthy. The book is set up by space – bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. They range from rustic Martha’s Vineyard bathrooms to opulent “Marrakesh retreats”.

Best of all, Margaret Russell, author and Elle Decor E.I.C. spares the reader from the usual flowery writing for the sake of having X amount of text on the page copy that is so common in such lovely, glossy design books. I mean really, how often do we actually read these books? 85% of the time, I buy interior design books just for the pictures, as they are usually worth a thousand words. Russell sticks to giving a nice introduction to each section, and “Style Guides” at the end of each section. In the guides, she pulls together what we can learn from the spaces and gives easy-to-follow, pragmatic advice about how to glean style skills from the images. This book is one I will pore over many times, and it also makes a great gift.

Who are your favorite interior design writers? Mine include Russell, Celerie Kemble, Jonathan Adler, Billy Baldwin and Dorothy Draper. Please share yours in the comments section.

images via amazon.com, from Elle Decor: Style and Substance, by Michael Mundy and Henry Bourne, respectively.

We are totally digging the designs over at dylan gold this week. Everything they make forces you to think “Hmmph, check out that little twist” or “Ha! That’s clever!” or “Why didn’t I think of that?” However, the piece that gives us the environmentally friendly happy glow is the one that reuses waste pieces of wood and puts them together into a beautiful piece of furniture. The Wasted #1 and Wasted #2 coffee tables are modern and clean, yet they pulled together from a patchwork of scraps, which is very apparent. It’s a great dichotomy. I also like the idea that each one they make will be dictated by which pieces they collect, and thus will be unique. There’s nothing like having a piece of furniture that no one else will ever have.

Wasted #2

Wasted #2

Wasted #1

Wasted #1

What makes it green? Materials may vary, but those shown are Europly, Marine ply, exotic and domestic hardwoods – scrap pieces that would otherwise have wound up in a landfill.
It is coated in water-based polyurethane.

For more information on where to buy and to see the entire collection, click here.

Lately I’ve been trying to make sense of Kelly Wearstler’s latest Bravura Modern designs. They seem to be in every magazine this month, as part of the promotion for her new book Hue. While they are way too much for me, when I deconstruct them, I can appreciate the pieces and what she’s getting at. Seeing how beautiful her line for SFERRA has helped me see this, as well as how much I love some of the wallpapers she’s designed. She gets a lot of her current inspiration from the 1980s. The eighties usually make me think of shoulder pads, Miami Vice, too many florals, chintz, and peach.

This week, I decided to take down an old book from my shelf, The Decorator by Florence de Dampierre. It’s fabulous. You’d never guess it was published in 1989, because the designs featured in it are so timeless and elegant. You can see how much the works of Sister Parish, Albert Hadley, David Hicks, Bunny Williams et. al. have influenced more classic designers like Michael S. Smith and Celerie Kemble today, as well as renegades like Wearstler. Here are just a few favorites from this must-have tome.

Mario Buatta mid-1970s bedroom. photographed by Richard Champion.

Garousle/Bonetti Design. photographs by Simon Kentish; sketch by Mattia Bonetti

2 preceding photos: Albert Hadley Design. Photographs by Antoine Bootz

Michael Krieger Design. Photograph by Antoine Bootz

Sandra Nunnerly Design for a Kip’s Bay Show House. Photograph by Grand Mudford

Does this one scream Jonathan Adler/Kelly Wearstler or what?

Betty Sherrill Design. Photograph by Grisby and Michael Dunn

Right now The Decorator is available used at amazon for under $5.00. Buy it! You won’t regret it! As for Hue, I haven’t previewed it yet, so I can’t recommend it, but I am heading over to pre-order it now and I’ll let you know.

first image via mirror mirror via Vogue.

Some of you youngsters may never have seen one of these before. It’s called a rake. Before everyone looked like Ghostbusters and blasted the neighborhood peace away with their stupid, gas-guzzling, obnoxious leaf blowers (thanks neighbor across the backyard, who was leaf blowing THE WOODS for AN HOUR in the THE RAIN first thing this morning – idiot!), there were these things called rakes. You scrape the ground with them and they gather the leaves. Then, instead of blowing the leaves either (a) deeper into the woods (b) into the neighbors’ yard so that they can blow them back in a few days or (c) into the street to clog the gutters, you can gather the leaves into this thing called A COMPOST PILE or you can put them in PAPER LEAF BAGS and put them by the street so that the city can pick them up for mulching for these places called PARKS.

You can find these mysterious implements at places like Ace Hardware, Target, WalMart, Lowe’s, hell, CVS probably even has them this time of year. Let me know how it goes.

Labor Day is over. This is when I start to think about switching up my bedding to cozy up for the winter – I like my room cold with lots of blankets to snuggle up in, and I find it’s the easiest way to switch things up when I get bored. Since I am trying to incorporate being more eco-friendly into my life, I decided go for 100% organic cotton and thus browsed DP’s sustainable bedding section.

The easiest way to keep your bedding different is to keep a neutral duvet cover and shams, and switch out your throw pillows, quilt, and/or blanket. Unison’s Larch print provides such a graphic punch that I’m picturing it changing up my bedding, and then once I get antsy to change things up again up there, throwing it over the back of my sofa to give my living room a new look.

Yesterday I mentioned reading an article and I could not remember where I’d seen it. When I picked up today’s New York Times I remembered that it was in the Home section last week. Dan Phillips of East Texas builds homes from the castoffs of others. One of my favorite move was how he made this beautiful ceiling from leftover frame shop samples:

To view the entire article and the fascinating slideshow of his creations, click here.

photo by Michael Stravato for The New York Times

Today is recycling day in my ‘hood. This got me thinking about a man I think of as the ultimate recycler, Mr. Thomas Wold. Thomas has a fantastic feature in ReadyMade where he struts his creative repurposing stuff. The most recent project was inspired by this pile of salvaged pieces:

With a little magic Wold-dust, some Thomasvision, and some elbow grease, this was the result:

Bravo Thomas! To see the whole story and Thomas’s process, I highly recommend clicking over here. As a side note, ReadyMade magazine has always been cool, but lately the content has been off the charts. They feature so many ingenious and do-able D.I.Y. projects, as well as the hip and innovative people who come up with them. I especially love the features on creative types’ abodes. You can get a taste of ReadyMade right here.When I clicked over today, they had a two year subscription for the price of one special! To shop Thomas Wold’s other creations, click here.

Do you have anyone you’d like to nominate as the ultimate recycler? I just read about someone this past week who makes houses from recycled materials that reminded me of Rural Studio and Samuel Mockbee – there was an entire ceiling crafted from recycled framing store sample frame corners. As soon as I remember where I saw it, I’ll provide a link. If you know of any great links to creative recyclers or stories of your own creative recycling, please let us know in the comments!

photographs from Thomaswold.com; first photo by Thomas Wold, second photo by Markham Johnson.

One of the most inspiring books on my shelf is Mid-Century Modern by Bradley Quinn. Though I picked it up a few years ago (2004, about the time this blog began to come together), I pull it down again and again to admire the textiles, furniture, accessories and even the wood paneling. It’s just a perfect tome – this is one every modern library should have. Here is just a little schmear of proof:

Sultry Panton S-Chairs-OOHLALA!

A Killer Sputnick Light Fixture Adds a KAPOW!

This is such a great mix: The wide pine boards on the floor are so 1800’s New England, the room seems to have Georgian/Deco traditional detailing, the Persian rug is straight out of some Yale professor’s office, the light fixture and chairs are totally mid-c-modern and the biomorphic Paul Frankltable is totally stepping out into bravura modern – YOWZAH!

all photographs from Mid-Century Modern. Top photo by Verne Fotografie, second by unknown , third by Ray Main/Mainstream

Green Idea of the Week: This week after spotting a massive dust bunny under my sofa, I thought about how much work would have to be done to make my home photoshoot-worthy. It depressed the hell out of me. I looked around at the excess tables that don’t I don’t really have a space for, checked out some of my art that was out of rotation, realized I’d had two extra chairs sitting in my dining room that I couldn’t even walk around, and that I had USPS boxes stacked under my desk that needed to be stowed away. It seemed a major makeover was in order. Unfortunately, I was in too much of a Hoarders-inspired frenzy to take time out for “before” pictures, but in a nutshell, I rotated art and furniture in and out of different rooms (kids, don’t try this at home without some Clariton and a dusting cloth on hand), and felt like I had a whole new interior. My point is, you can completely redecorate and freshen up your home without consuming any more products (besides the aforementioned Clariton). Do you even know what you have stashed away in the nooks and crannies of your home?

That being said, it’s probably hypocritical to pick a favorite green product to tempt you with, but I’ll tell you why I feel comfortable recommending the STAACH Cain Collection Bench. It’s made by two hands with two tools right in New York, and it’s made from certified sustainable wood sourced in the U.S.A. The reason I thought of it after reflecting upon my makeover frenzy is that this is a multipurpose piece. You can rotate it in and out of any room in your home. In the living room, it’s a coffee or side table that doubles as an extra seat. In the kitchen, you can use it to boost you up to the high shelves. In the bedroom it can serve as a bench at the foot of your bed or as a nightstand. In the bathroom it can hold folded towels next to the bathtub. If you choose black, gray, maple, poplar, or white, it will go with almost any color palette.