an pop art-style picture
The Pop Life
When thinking about how to memorialize your kids or give the gift that keeps on giving, two influences come to mind: the pop art of Andy Warhol and the interior design tastes of Liz Taylor. Well maybe not, but graphic artists at photowow.com have been working since 1997 to create colorful, singleand multi-paneled photographic representations on everything from professional-grade canvas to leather handbags. And because these creations fancifully draw on Warhol's distinctive style, they have either been purchased or given to Hollywood luminaries like Taylor. Photowow.com works with you to customize images; they'll even do photographic collages and Roy Lichtenstein-style comic-strip renderings. After you've chosen the style and colors you want and submitted your photos, photowow.com's graphic artists create a proof and e-mail it to you. If you like it, they'll print your design on canvas or transfer it to another product, then submit their work for your final approval. Instantly, you become both artist and critic. The company prides itself in using only the best materials, from UV-resistant ink to high-grade paper. Canvases are treated to resist moisture and UV damage and come custom-framed; prices vary depending on size, process and frame style but fall between $120 and $1,000. Visit the website to get inspired by the various samples offered for perusal, or give photowow a call at 800-453-9333.
—Cory Schneider
What's In A Name?
Forget decorating your house—Martha Stewart wants to build it. Well, not yours, St. Louis. The domestic diva and queen of the slogan “It’s a good thing,” has partnered with KB Homes to conceive a cadre of branded communities in select cities, but it could be a long time before we get a Martha makeover. (“Market research” yet to be considered and “buyer demographics studies” yet to be conducted are the obstacles at present, a KB spokesperson told us.) Raleigh, N.C., is the first locale to get the homes (modeled after Stewart’s own estates and decked with products of her picking, from light fixtures to closet organizers) with Atlanta to follow, but we ain’t mad atcha, Martha. We’ll just brainstorm some synergistic settlements of our own.
Celebrity Brand: Donald Trump
Design Aesthetic: Contemporary castle with masses of marble and mirrors—lots of mirrors
Product Placement: Gold-plated flat-screen TVs in every room, running a constant loop of The Apprentice reruns
Slogan: “Trust us—it’s gonna be ’uge.”
Celebrity Brand: Diddy
Design Aesthetic: Mafioso villa meets boardroom sophisticate meets thug-lite lair; big rooms, big windows, big speakers
Product Placement: Exclusive Sean Jean-label faux-fur pillows, “Diddy’s diamond-encrusted dog bowls”
Slogan: “We bring the bling.”
Celebrity Brand: Armani
Design Aesthetic: Monochromatic, minimalist and nothing but straight lines; black, white and barren all over
Product Placement: Industry-first “A”-frame doorways, completely impractical “X”-shaped shelving units
Slogan: “Come home to geometry.”
—Matthew Halverson
The Plain Huth
Caroline Huth's knack is bric-a-brac
Her shadow boxes are filled with ephemera, including giant copper upholsterer's thumbtacks, ticket stubs from French circuses and map fragments charting countries that no longer exist. She constructs her collages with a surgical hand, and so flawlessly they seem to be held together with magnetism rather than glue.
What you don't see in her work is as compelling as what you do: She'll deliberately obscure the face of a woman in an old black-and-white snapshot with the scroll of a skeleton key or carefully snip out text from an old book, only to hide it behind a Bingo token or a crossed pair of parakeet feathers.
"I look for the stuff most people would just throw in a bottom drawer," Huth says. "I love broken jewelry or paper that's been written on, that has some endearing little note on it. I like finding someone's life in little scraps that are left around the house. That's my favorite thing. I assemble it and make a new story out of it."
When Huth applied to show at Venus Envy in 2002, she was working as a graphic designer. She created a grid of 35 shadowboxes in 10-inch-by- 10-inch frames and ended up selling 22 of them during the show (her first). That was followed by write-ups in the paper and an epiphany: "It was time to figure out how to quit my job." Though she laments time lost during her 9-to-5 gig, her art career since Venus Envy has been anything but slow: In 2004, Huth won Best of Show at the Shaw Art Fair and last year was one of the few locals accepted by the St. Louis Art Fair in Clayton. She says she's just mastered the soldering iron, and "in 2006, it's going to be all about lights and motors—that seems to be the next logical step ... literally bringing the pieces to life." Catch Huth at the Laumeier Art Fair May 12-14; for info on her weekend collage workshops, call 314- 863-5955 or visit www.carolinehuth.com.
—Stefene Russell
Where Do I ...
Get Venetian Plaster for My Walls?
You know that quaint and humble church, the Sistine Chapel? Well, its surfaces are covered in a decorative wall accent that's all the rage right now: Venetian plaster. St. Louisans Cliff Gokenbach and Keith Lively of Atmospherics specialize in this technique, which uses limestone-based plaster composed of about 40 percent marble dust and 50 percent slacked lime that's been crushed, burned and aged underwater for 20 years. Known for its durability, the style can be seen all over the exteriors of homes in ancient cities. "It's soft and it's timeless, and it allows you to do something other than pastels and whites," says Lively. "You want it done in an impact area--entranceways, kitchens, living rooms--where you want to make a statement." Venetian plasterwork runs from $4 to $20 per square foot, but its rich history and luminous appearance make it worth the cost. "Plus," Gokenbach adds, "it makes your walls yummy."
—Cory Schneider
Setting the Stage
Ever walk into an empty house or condo for sale and get flummoxed about where the furniture should go? According to Peggy Shepley, Realtor doyenne with Dielmann Sotheby’s International Realty, it happens all the time.
“It’s across the board,” Shepley says. “Nobody can visualize.” And, she adds, there is a second reality: “If something is on the market and it isn’t furnished, it sits.”
Thus the rise in the business of staging properties for sale. Shepley has launched her own staging company, Peggy Shepley Presents, but, unlike others, she has added a charitable institution to the mix: Her friend Robert Fletcher of Robert Fletcher & Associates volunteers the decorating, and Evelyn Newman of the Little Shop Around the Corner is loaning the furnishings. Fletcher picks out what he wants, the homeowner pays to have a mover bring the pieces over, and Fletcher arrives to arrange, hang art and accessorize. If a prospective buyer happens upon an item they must have, they can purchase the furniture (tax free) from the shop, where all proceeds go to the Missouri Botanical Garden. The only caveat: Buyers can’t take anything for two months or until the property is sold.
“We need to develop and support the resources we have in St. Louis,” Shepley says. “I will continue to work with Evelyn and others in charities because that is very important. That is the whole point.”
—Christy Marshall
Fabric of Life
Hazelnut, a little shop on Magazine Street (otherwise known as "Street of Dreams") created their signature New Orleans Toile fabric three years ago. Designed by co-owner Bryan Batt and drawn by New York artist Sonia O'Mara, it comes in five color schemes (cafe au lait, magnolia, claret, delphine and palmetto) and bears images of the Vieux Carre, a St. Charles streetcar, the steamboat Natchez and St. Louis Cathedral. The fabric's been so popular that the shop expanded from the original two patterns to five, and now sells toileprinted accessories such as tea towels, napkins, throw pillows, lacquered trays and even ice buckets. After Katrina ravaged New Orleans, owners Batt and Tom Cianfichi decided to donate 10 percent of sales from their popular toile to Second Harvest of New Orleans and other nonprofits working to rebuild the city. "We were very lucky--we're in the uptown area of New Orleans, and we did not flood," Cianfichi says, "so we felt we needed to do something to help." So far, the response has been "terrific," though Cianfichi urges those of us who want to help our neighbors down the Mississippi to consider buying New Orleans toile ($36 a yard, www.hazelnutneworleans.com or 504-891-2424) in person. "Our economy was all tourism, so we need people to come visit us. And every scene depicted on the toile," he says, "is still intact."
—Stefene Russell
Poster Passion
Old World panache has a friend in St. Louis—one who's willing to share the affair. John Hecht, a 20-year collector-turned-dealer and owner of Eurografico, hand selects vintage European posters advertising life's pleasures—bottled spirits, travel locales, fashion--in vibrant colors. Original advertising posters were hung from the days when ladies wore bustles (1890s) until bell bottoms flapped while doing the Hustle (1970s). Commissioned turn-of-the-century artists like Leonetto Cappiello etched intricate designs on series of stones—one for each color of ink used--with precise alignment for printing posters one after another. By the 1950s, offset lithopresses were the method of artists such as Rene Gruau.
Hecht (314-517-7999) shows his lithograph collection at The Framery in Soulard twice each year--in spring and fall—and by private appointments. The bookends of Hecht's price spectrum: Gruau's work begins in the hundreds; for Cappiello's, an exceptional find may fetch $20,000. In between, a number of artists and prices pacify collectors with the jones for exquisite art.
—Adam Scott Williams
Webster's Illustrious Lustrons
Now that IKEA and Dwell magazine have introduced their own hip versions of the prefab house, the original modular home—the Lustron—is back in vogue. In the past year, membership in the Lustron Yahoo! group has doubled, and the history of Lustrons is now documented in print (The Lustron Home) and film (Lustron: The House America's Been Waiting For). If you've never heard of them, there's a reason: These ingenious little houses were manufactured for only 18 months before the company went bankrupt. Twenty thousand orders were placed; only 2,500 were filled, and about 200 of those homes have been demolished. Created during the postwar housing shortage of the late '40s, the metal and porcelain houses came in six pastel colors and were advertised as "rodentproof, fire-proof, lightning-proof and nearly maintenance-free." The National Register of Historic Places considers them to be significant structures, and Webster Groves has one of the greatest--and highest quality--concentrations in the nation. "We have had a re-occupancy inspection program for a long time," explains Webster building commissioner Michael Harney, "so all of the houses in Webster have been maintained, including the Lustrons." For more on Lustrons, see Webster Groves resident (and Lustron owner) Angie Boesch's site, the Lustron Locator (home.earthlink.net/~lustronlocator/). Boesch is undertaking the Sisyphean task of mapping every Lustron in America, but in her spare time also posts interesting Lustron history and news.
—Stefene Russell
Imported from Israel
When Rebecca and Igal Alom opened Mavrik Jewelry—the word mavrik means "shiny and brilliant" in Hebrew—the moniker referred to their jewelry. Now they've expanded to include home decor, including hand-painted furniture and wooden "carpets" from Kakadu (pictured above) and glassware from Andreas Meyer. Both lines are imported from Israel; Mavrik Jewelry is the exclusive St. Louis retailer. Kakadu is a husband-and-wife duo, a carpenter and a painter, who create elegant, whimsical painted pieces decorated with flowers, birds, leaves and fish. Andreas Meyer (also known as Nahariya Glass) is a nearly 50-year-old designer-glassware business that specializes in fused glass (which means the underside of a piece is just as pretty as the top). Their plates and platters are works of art, but completely functional. The company also produces fun little decorating pieces, including glass cacti and clocks. The store can place special orders from both companies (and in the case of Kakadu, you can indicate color and pattern preferences). Mavrik Jewelry is located at 7352 Forsyth (where they sell the home furnishings) and 200 S. Kirkwood; call them at 314-862-1828 or go online, www.mavrikjewelry.com.
