Double Dutch

Running a blog is funny business.  I've spent the last 30 20+ years practically peeing my pants over racy interiors and beautifully made furniture, I figured I would slap a bunch of pictures of well designed rooms up here and expect the whole world to swoon.  My taste is exceptional, right?  But whenever I go to put together a post I find something totally out of left field (thanks to this clunky interweb thing) and end up doing a post on the most unexpected thing ever.  I mean ever. I was all prepared to show you the latest in hot hot neon yellow home-goods (stay tuned for that tomorrow) until I saw Erin's post yesterday on the Gramercy Park Hotel. I just couldn't stop thinking about the Dutch inspired guest rooms and my very favorite Dutch artist, Jan Van Eyck.  Thankyouverymuch4yearsofarthistory.  Man that class could really bore me sometimes, but, like the guest rooms, I always remembered Giovanni Arnolfini and his Bride.  The lush colors and insane detail blew my twentieth century pot smoking* college mind.  

*long since over the pot smoking

Let us quickly review a pic from her post yesterday compared with Van Eyck's painting before moving on to some (insert fantastically witty adjective here) dutch inspired goodness for the new millenium:

hi, hello, yes, i love you. Can you believe how much those Christmas colors are rocking your world and not looking Christmasy at all?  How insane is it that the room looks EXACTLY like the painting? It does not even appear as though the people are missing, the guest room IS the couple, it IS the background.  Can I ever ever aspire to create such a grande homage if left up to my own devices?  If someone would like to give me a room, a check, and a new piece of artwork I sure as hell would love to try.  Any takers?

Since I don't have a room to layout just yet (I'm counting on you people) I spent my time cruising the net finding other modern day reincarnations of the 15th century.  I know it was easy to start with a Dutch company, but there's no denying the sexiness in holland porcelain's latest ad campaign:

yep.  That pretty much says it.  So, I'm not always one for subtlety.  I also get all hot and bothered when a stodgy old company isn't scared to sex-up their image.  The nod to the dutch masters with this modern twist is such a perfect way for Holland's porcelain to rebrand their goods.  It also doesn't hurt that they invited designer at large Marcel Wanders to create a few gems for the collection.  

More images from the campaign:

a scuba diver?  perfection.

Then there's artist Desiree Dolron who uses her camera and some mad photoshop skills to echo the masters:

look, you could totally hang that on your wall, this is still an interior design blog.  Drink from those porcelain cups and stop your complaining.

anyway... no that is not a painting, yes it is photography perfection.  My husband likes to tell me that photography is not art, I like to show him images like this and laugh in his face.  Thoughts?

Here are some more:

Do we even need to discuss how girl with a pearl earring this is? (or how much Scarlet Johanson is annoying us these days)  How about instead we dream about how great this will all look over my fireplace.  Right next to the yellow door I'm going to tell you all about tomorrow.

No Mercy

I just finished watching The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a movie about the former editor of Elle magazine who was paralyzed by a massive stroke at the tender age of 42. It was such an amazing film, so luminous and unexpected, that I was curious about what other projects director Julian Schnabel might be currently involved in. I already knew he was a famous painter and respected film maker -- having seen Basquiat I was expecting great things from his latest movie and I was wholly undisappointed -- but I didn't realize that he had also extended his creative pursuits to interior design. Now I know hotels are usually Karly's forte, but since I'm nursing a mental crush on Schnabel, I thought I'd check out his take on the newly renovated Gramercy Park Hotel in New York:

Is it just me, or does the (grand) entryway look like it belongs in a Harry Potter book? I think it's the script on the custom designed carpet... I have to admit I've always wanted a checkerboard floor, though.

Here's a better look at the hotel's art collection which rotates some pretty heavy hitters. Although I'm not familiar with the particular pieces, I'm pretty sure that's a Warhol on the left and what must be a Cy Twombly on the right. Schnabel also included several cast bronze pieces he made, including that creepy Beetlejuiceified lamp.

There are plenty of bars in the hotel, which suits the decor well since bar design seems to lean toward the theatrical anyway. Of all the rooms, I think these two are my favorite. The Damien Hirst spin art painting on the left is a great counterpoint to that amazing pendant light display and the red curtains, and I love the pink walls with the gold Warhol Rorschach painting on the right. The Beetlejuice bronze definitely looks better as a chandelier than as a floor lamp.

The rooms themselves are a little... different. Instead of relying on art as decoration, they almost look like paintings themselves. This suite is very Vermeer, I think.

The penthouse is similarly jewel toned, with extremely bold color choices. I wonder what it would be like to actually sleep there, not that I'll ever have cash enough to find out.

When talking about his paintings and films, Schnabel claims that he's "aiming at an emotional state, a state that people can literally walk into and be engulfed." It's funny that his movies, not tactile in the conventional sense, do exactly that, but that his hotel seems superficial in comparison, despite its obviously tactile and luxurious environs. I think it's a little cartoonish, sort of like Disney meets the Whitney Museum, and that it misses much of what makes his films and paintings great: a sense of scale and proportion, a willingness to mix real with surreal, and enough grit to take the shine off the decorative.

What do you think? And I being to hard on my new hero? Does adulation always doom the adored?

Color me bad

My dear sweet ma is still in town, which has done wonders for my household organization but is really putting a damper on my blog posts (I'm thinking of starting a "while guests are in town" category, just to put all the sad, weak posts in one pathetic little corner).  Don't get me wrong, the pictures you're about to see are ever so delightful, but my humor really isn't up to par (especially following Erin's great bathroom post yesterday). Tomorrow my mom and I are going to be hanging some floating shelves in my living room, I have long planned to organize my books by color, so these photographs by artist Helga Steppan from her series, See Through, jumped right out at me:

Notice how she has, like, hardly any pink?  I don't blame her.  Red is great until it becomes pink.  Also, notice the last picture, all the miscelanious stuff:  I have been wondering what to do with all my books that have several colors, should I just throw them in a pile and take a picture of them?  Maybe I can force someone to blog about them for me.

In other news:  my new couch fabric came in today so I'm hoping to have a big fat couch after post soon.  I also got some deluxe black and white striped fabric for my bedroom curtains (sorry erin, I'm going with a printed curtain).

that's all, time to go watch sad sad HGTV design shows with mom.