Children’s Artwork – Gallery Worthy!

The lines are our friends!

Ok, so let’s be honest with ourselves here, the lines never were my friends.  I hated the lines.  I could barely stand to stay inside the lines let alone use the standard 12 pack of Crayola crayons.

I had the 64 pack.  With the built in sharpener.  Suck it.

Anyway, if there is one thing that makes my job as a designer difficult, it is the selection of artwork. Artwork is subjective.  It’s personal.  It needs to speak to the occupant in some way shape or form.  To elicit a reaction, good or bad.  It’s a pain in the you know what.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love art.  I have a fair share of it hanging in my own house.  So much so that I ran out of walls in the principal rooms and Steve gives me that weird cock eyed stare anytime I even think about going to another fair or gallery or…. Apparently I’m just not allowed to have nice things. Or so I’m told.

The whole point is that the right artwork can not only make or break a space but should also have a connection to the homeowner.

Which is why I love children’s artwork.  Finger painted canvases.  Construction paper collages.  Books of feathers and crayon.  It’s personal.  It’s usually creative.  And by golly, what kid, young or old, doesn’t like to see his or her handiwork proudly displayed.

“I still have a book my nephew made where he was in preschool.  It’s a hot mess of feathers and crayons about the chicken and egg but I love it and will never throw it away.”

Angel Robinson, @writerobinson

But in this world of designer goodness where Architectural Digest rules the roost, just how do you get away with its display?  Personally, I’m all for treating it no different than any other piece of art.  Frame it, hang it amongst the Picassos (or is it Picassi?) and make ’em proud.

I’m not alone….

“I like to integrate my daughter’s artwork with real artwork and little vintage finds.”

Susyel dePedro Cunningham, @Tiltonfenwick

“We use the kiddo art as modern art for our home.”

Seth Fritz, @ToReplyAll

“I was going to collect as many refrigerator doors as possible, fill up an entire museum room with them and attach children’s artwork to the fridges.  With magnets of course!”

Jessica Gordon Ryan, @gimletstyle

“Even though my child artist isn’t young any longer, color blocking a wall is another way to highlight wee artist’s works of art.”

Maureen Break Coates, @MaureenCDecor

“I have a wire stretched out on a wall in the office and I decorated clothes pins with each kids name on them, and they hang their art there.  It’s great because they can reach it and they can see everyone’s art as well.”

Stacy Mendes Hargrove

Inspired yet?  Someone pass the finger paint will ya?

Show me the Carfax! The 1956 Maserati 2000 Gran Turismo Allemano Coupe

Living in California I’ve come to expect the un-expected. 

Seriously.  Things that happen here just don’t happen in other places.  Things like spotting Octomom Angelina Jolie shopping at a Ralphs with her baseball team in tow.  Like being able to surf and ski the same day (and not on the same body of water). Like pulling up to an intersection and seeing three Bentleys, two Ferraris, and a dealership’s worth of BMWs, Mercedes and Porsche At. The. Same. Time.  It happens and interestingly enough, it doesn’t phase me anymore. I’ve relatives in Iowa and Nebraska that come here, point these things out, and my response is a bland “Oh, I hadn’t noticed”.

Anyway, one of those random little moments happened on Saturday.  Steve and I are casually grazing over vehicles in search of the Beast’s replacement.  As much as I love that big black ball of steel, I wouldn’t mind a smaller car payment and something a little nicer on gas (comes back to that Walking the Walk I talked about last week). The result is that we’re finding ourselves in some random places looking at just as random vehicles.

So we thought we’d stop in to our local CarMax.  You know, the Wal-Mart of vehicle shopping.  Lots of cars but also, lots of blue polyester.  Similarity?  Hmmmm…. I’ll let you draw the conclusion. Let’s just say it’s not a place that is normally going to get my motor racing.

Until Friday.  When I spotted this little number just outside the front door. Parked by itself. Alone. Poor thing.  I snapped a photo and went on my merry way not knowing that I’d seen something VERY special.  Like one in sixty special.  Like hand built, no two alike special.

So special that it was a rather rare 1956 Maserati 2000 GT Allemano Coupe. 

Let me put it this way.  You DON’T see this car outside of the Cours d’Elegance. Certainly I talk about great vehicles here on the D.Coop Bloggie.  I’m sure you’ve all see my post about the Audi R8 Spyder. I mean, I talk about it ad naseum so you should have seen it.  Seriously.  What are you waiting for.  I’ll wait.  But this little beast, this is in a completely different territory.

Built between 1955 and 1957, the Allemano Coupe was considered the last of Maserati’s coach built vehicles.  Maserati had initially turned to builder of choice, Pinin Farina, to clothe the last of their hand built machines.  But alas, Farina had already committed to Ferrari (bastard). The result, a trifecta of boutique Italian coach builders were selected as the principal des vestements.  Ultimately this little twist of affairs made the coupe that much more rare.  Allemano produced only 2+2 bodies, better known as the coupe. Frua, whose influence can still be seen in today’s BMWs, produced Spyder bodies.  Zagato (Aston Martin Vanquish Roadster anyone?) turned out spectacular competition race bodies.  What this meant was that because only 60 Maserati 2000 GTs were ever produced, the Allemano Coupe is only one of 21.  Total.

There are more people that win the lottery each day then there are Allemano Coupes.  And of course, you’d probably need to win the lottery to afford one. A “fixer-upper” went to auction in 2006 and sold in the $180,000 USD range making clean, perfect, d’Elegance examples fetch numbers that would make four years at Harvard seem affordable.

But alas.  Just as any other dream, this one was short lived. After a short tour around the Wal-Max (or Car-mart) parking lot, the GT had vanished leaving me wondering “Just what WAS it doing here?”.

Will I see it again?  Probably not.  But it’s sighting I can chalk up to my Big Foot Bucket List.

Minus the footprints.  And the hair.

Images via: D.Coop, Maserati-Alfieri

There is always an exception to every rule

So ok… yes, I posted the diatribe Monday about those damned Keep Calm and *please shoot myself in the foot* posters floating all over every website known to man (and some that only dogs can see) but as with anything else, there is always an exception to every rule.

This is said exception….

Many thanks to The Yankee Hipster for producing and providing the only exception.

Keep Calm. The Poster Equivalent of Herpes.

Pass the Valtrex.

It was pre-war 1939. The British monarchy, in the event of an invasion (turns out they were right) sought to boost public morale.  Since the internet didn’t exist at the time and they couldn’t viral post pictures of kittens hugging to every British citizens’ Pinterest pages, the government resorted to the next best thing. Posters.

This wasn’t just any poster.  No, Bon Jovi was not present and there was no one dancing on White Snake’s car. Not even Pamela Anderson in all her… um… glory would appear on this poster.  Instead, an unknown designer (who is now rolling in his or her grave) coined a simple five word phrase meant to be a sort of hug from the King. Keep Calm and Carry On.

Fast forward about sixty years when one of only two known copies of the poster surfaced in a second hand bookshop in Northumberland.  Seeing that copyright had expired (dammit) about a decade before, the owners, innocently enough, sold copies of the poster. Turns out between 2001 and 2009 some 40,000 copies were printed and sold.

Let’s not get out the pitchforks just yet. Actually, maybe you should dust them off because at some point people stopped Keeping Calm. You got it.  I’m all for a version or two but somewhere, someone thought that changing it up a little and using most of the words from the Oxford English Dictionary (and some that might not have been appropriate for the OED) they could make a little spending cash.

Keep Calm and Call Batman

Keep Calm and Potter On

Keep Calm and put Bacon On (a personal favorite)

Keep Calm because I’m Legal

The list goes on and no, it doesn’t get any better.  The question is who the hell took what was a great example of War-time British propaganda and turned it into the Herpes of the graphics world?  Seriously.  I think we’ve seen more versions of this poster than were meant for human consumption. You know that somewhere, six feet under British soil there is a graphic designer turning in his or her grave. Poor soul.

Do you think he (or she) dies a little every time someone “thinks” up a new version?

Anyway, readers, dear readers. Keep the original; burn the rest. Enough is enough and like the newest “Shit *insert boring person here* Says” fad, this one needs to die a quiet death.  No more Pinterest pins of “Keep Calm and Go Shopping”.  Erase “Keep Calm and Fake a British Accent”.  Kill the “Keep Calm and Plan to Marry Harry”.  Actually… send me a copy of that one first THEN you can burn the rest.  Cause Harry is a hottie.

I’m stepping off my soap-box now.

Images via Wikipedia, Marele,  Genius in the Making

Did Someone say Give-a-way?

You’ve heard it through the grapevine.  And by grapevine I mean Twitter. Yes kids, I said Give-a-way!

As some or most or none of you may know I’ve really taken to photography as a creative outlet. I’m old school though.  Sure digital is awesome and there are so many great things you do with it.  In fact I’ve fallen in love with the Instagram app for my iPhone …. you’ve probably seen some of the results over on my other blog, A Boy And His Camera. But I’m mostly about film. Real bona fide black and white film and a two decades old Minolta.

The result is that when I’m out and about I’m like a Japanese tourist snapping photos with my big bulky piece of equipment.  Each photo, to me, is a moment captured in my timeline.  A small snippet of my life on paper that serves as a reflection of a time past. I don’t liken my photos to being “good”, just being Me.

So today, dear readers, I’m parting with one of my moments.  I was in New York last September for FashionWeek and spent a little time in Central Park just before it was wheels up and back to San Diego.  This particular image struck me as being a moment of realization that there really is an end to the tunnel, a beaconing light to better things ahead.  It means a ton to me considering my journey over the past year.

Anyway… on to the good stuff.  Want it?  Do ya?  The image has been printed (professionally by my friends at Chrome in San Diego) to archival water color paper, matted and framed. Image size is 9″ x 12″ and framed to 14″ x 18″.  But you can’t win it here… you have to go to the Writerobinson page to pick it up!  She’s got all the instructions! You’ve got until Friday, February 3rd.

Course if you don’t win and still want a copy come back here and maybe I’ll make another…..

Good luck!

Mother Tested – Peta Approved

Once upon a time there was a cabin in the mountains.  It was a great cabin.  Two rooms with a giant stone fireplace and hardwood floors. I think the house might have been made of logs and looked like it would be more at home in a fairytale storybook than a clearing in the woods.  I’m sure you have a visual in your  mind now of this particular cabin.  There is probably a little plume of smoke coming from the tall stone chimney. A stack of cut logs tucked under one of the eaves. A no girls allowed sign on the door.  Wait?  That’s not part of your cabin?  Oh.

Anyway, in this cabin of yore there was probably hanging over the rough hewn mantle, the relic of someone’s hunting trip.  A full size souvenir of The Big Tale between a grandfather, an uncle, a dad and an eight-point elk.  Unfortunately this was not the one that got away.  It’s there.  Hanging in all it’s glory.  Dark beady eyes staring down from it’s permanent spot.  I swear the one my grandfather had was begging for food.

Let’s fast forward to now shall we.  To a PC time where we don’t eat meat, try not to get drunk (I said try), and our cabin is now off-grid with dual pane gas filled windows, a solar system and thermal heating.  Sure it might look like it’s made of logs but the reality is there is some serious insulation in those exterior walls. Let’s just say that the taxidermy of yore probably wouldn’t look so hot above the mantle in this particular modern marvel.  No no.  Some hairy, beady eyed beast just doesn’t work anymore.  You yearn for nostalgia but don’t want something that will give the kids the heebie jeebies.

Fear not!  Have I got a few heads currently on the chopping block for you. Wait, bad pun right?  I thought so. How about I just show you the goods.

Pink Young Buck by Rachel Denny

Not quite an eight-pointer but seriously, pink cable knit!  It’s like grandpa’s young buck has been hidden in a sweater. I’d recommend not trying to fit a real buck into a sweater. That might not go over so well.  Let Ms. Denny do it for you.

Contact the artist Rachel Denny

Polygon Double Deer #2 by Kohei Nawa

Don’t reach for your glasses.  This buck really is in two form.  The reason I love this is you have the very graphic qualities of the polygon portion of the deer juxtaposed with the real shape. And when you’ve been drinking too much they meet back in the middle.

Available through Artnet

Coney Island Deer Trophy by Mosstika Urban Greenery

You can’t get more natural than moss. Meant to be graffiti, this would replace the Banksy you currently have scribbled on your gallery wall.  I’m not sure if they do housecalls but I it would be great if they did.

For information contact Mosstika Urban Greenery

Origami’s Hunter by Sistudio

Who doesn’t love something that serves TWO purposes?  Nostalgia and a light source.  I’m officially hooked.

For information contact Sistudio

All Images Copyright the artists. Log Cabin Image via Pinterest. 

D.Coop received no compensation for this post.