Kitties

This is the top of a big cardboard storage box spotted at a garage sale last summer. 

Happy first day of spring!

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Yard Sale Report/ Ivy Shutters

1970's welded metal ribbon sculpture from a housewife who thought she might take up welding, and a Gerald Thurston brass pendant lamp. Photo taken in our studio. That's real ivy, but how great would it be to have year-round ivy shutters? You'd have to make them from plastic ivy of course...but oh well. That kind of carefree project reminds me of the old Diana Vreeland column, "Why Don't You...?"
Or, how awesome would spot-welded gold ribbon shutters be?

Update/Backdate:

This is the house where the ribbon sculpture came from. I took this photo last year because I loved the glass hall to the garage. Again, why-don't-you..... a glass hall?!

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Ah fixed that chaiah

Yard sale: 1962 Eames chair from an old Mainer estate with then-practical-/now-frustrating drain hole drilled into the seat.
I really don't mind though- it adds context and reminds you that these things were not made to be precious. Plus now we can keep it outside.

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Owen' More

Such a pretty shopping bag, such a terrible shopping name.

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A mass of messy Massimos

A recently acquired stack of Massimo Vignelli's plastic dinnerware for Heller. We already have more of this than we'll ever need, but these were the rare, earlier Italian-made designs, including the cup and its notoriously designed coffee-spilling handle. Messy, but still, a classic. The handle was redesigned soon after- in his book, Vignelli blames the Americans: Heller Stacking Cups, 1970:

 "The cups are stackable and the handles, conceived as a projection of the cup's walls, have a "hole" at the top generated by their form. As it happens, people in the United States tend to fill their coffee cups to the rim; the coffee would consequently flow out of the cup onto the handle, the flat saucer, and finally onto the table. What a shame! Of course this mess could be easily avoided if one filled the cup to a more elegant level below the handle "hole". That, however, was asking too much of the consumer, so the "hole" was filled. This was okay, but somehow was like pulling the wings off a butterfly: all you have left is a bug."

I think this is a little harsh, as obviously there's a difference between how Italians and Americans make their coffees. 

But it is a bummer- if the design is good enough to be in the MoMA and the Met, why do you need to change it? Although I can't imagine the MoMA restaurant ever serving coffee in them- there might be a collection reconsideration... 

But, if the lids were meant to double as candle holders, we're back in business....

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Big Bird and The Portland Symphony Orchestra, 1980

I wonder what this was all about.

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In space no one can hear you quilt.

Vintage Moebius, Heavy Metal, Promethean Sci Fi printed fabric, selectively quilted into the puffy third dimension by a boy's mom circa 1979.
I remember the yard sale where we got this, and how the now-grown-up boy was wearing a "You Are Here --->" outer space t-shirt, and seemed to be longing for his home planet himself. I loved this art, and that his mother made it for him. I remember really going on about it, which made him and his two sisters happy. We even used it and its technique as the basis for the quilted Pucci fabric jewelry box project in our book, where I tell the same story. But as much as I'd like to have it for light years, it's time for someone else to enjoy it, so it's in our awesome FAB.com sale, here.


Related, and fantastically similar, the Prometheus spacescape:



which is itself amazingly similar to the Alien trailer, notably the scream/ping/whistles:




can't wait!

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Fab.com Wary Meyers Vintage sale- tonite

The Wary Meyers shop is up on FAB.com for the next week starting tonight at 7, with some incredible new things that you definitely should check out asap. Click the flyer for an invite, if you're not a member.

Above:
"How far does a girl have to go to untangle her tingle?" A question answered in the Social Science room of Bowdoin College, October 1975. Original Flyer, printed on thick yellow paper. 10.5" long.

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Sunday Paper Carriers

L.L. Bean Log Carriers, collected from yard sales for a knock-down,
portable campaign furniture pipe dream project.

Above: from Items from Our Catalog by Alfred Gingold, 1982.
Below, a 19th c. campaign chair.

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El Feminine Producto

Am I just seeing things?

It would be a nice box to keep it all in.

(pun intended)

designed by Paul Rand, c.1950.

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1953 NCO DCM

January 1953 Eames DCM (Dining Chair Metal), originally belonging to an NCO (Non Commissioned Officers) Mess Hall. It came into our hands with a 25 cents sticker on it, from a weekend yard sale- but- no one bought it, so it was left on the side of the road with some other stuff and a "free" sign. Our landlord spotted it on a Tuesday, and put it in his truck. After doing some work at our place I walked out with him and said "Woah!" then I traded a lamp for it, which, as Linda tells me, we had already given him a couple years earlier. Crazy!

I love Eames, and I also love old Army stuff, and typography, markings, etc... so the bottom of the chair is especially cool. I'm not sure what the Eames "0 #7" -stamped above "1 53"-means, or the  Army (Navy?)"1 35". Or the masking tape on the rod in front of the "DCM" embossment. The biggest mystery though is why no one bought it for a quarter. Is it a Magic chair that had to make its way to us? The Force?  That aside, imagine what that Mess Hall looked like!

Related- Fort Bragg NCO mess hall in 1954- cool, but not as cool without the Eames:

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Francine

Vintage denim chore/ doin' time jacket. Looks like it belonged to the baddest dude in the yard, but actually has the name "Francine" written inside.

Related:
also from Maine, the old Thomaston prison to be exact, this 1940's Bilt Well denim work apron.

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Revenge is a dish best served with a glass of milk.

The Xeroxed Mrs. Fields' cookie recipe made the rounds as a chain letter from a duped and vengeful woman in the late 1980's. Linda and I found this one filed away inside a cookbook we bought at a yard sale. I had no idea about this, but Linda said it was notoriously scandalous, and that her mom got one, all her friends' moms got one, everyone got one. Mrs Fields herself got one and then had to issue a disclaimer saying "that's not my recipe!" (but it totally is).

Proof being what's left of our batch (above) which made our kitchen smell unquestionably like the mall. 

If you make them yourself change the 6 minutes to 11 minutes -actually that was probably Mrs. Fields' way out.

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Striped cubism

New old lamp! 

Made of stacked anodized aluminum colored blocks.
Like the Superboxes of Ettore Sottsass and the sleeves of The Ritva Man.

related: here

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recent fåvorites.

Top: Hershey's Syrup clay pot with cactus. The woman said she bought it (without the cactus) 25 years ago from some Amish kids on the side of the road near Hersheypark. This is the kind of thing I wish I'd thought of.
Gunnar Cyren teak peppermill with Peugeot grinder, for Dansk. Usually you see just the Jens Quistgaard peppermills, so this was a rare find.
Giant canvas and leather bank bag from the old Porteous department Store here in Portland. It was bought out years ago by an unscrupulous new owner who heaved all the great old history into the dumpster. The woman we bought it from said she had to climb into the dumpster to retrieve years' worth of all their old hand-drawn advertisements, which are now in the historical society. Also she lugged out her old desk, which the Scrooge-like new owner made her pay $100 to keep.
Lastly, Richard Scarry's Engelsk Ordbok (Storybook Dictionary) in Swedish/English, making the decision of what second language to teach our son an easy one, albeit impractical and likely confusing. But you never know!

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Priorities

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Barn

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The Four Seasons

Linda and I were at a neighborhood yard sale a couple years ago, and though there was nothing at this lady's driveway setup, it did make for a neat photo, especially with the amazing Japanese maple. So I asked, "Do you mind if I take a picture? Your Japanese maple is really beautiful."  The woman was so excited to hear this she said "Oh please do! But wait- let me show you something and also wait til I shut the garage door before you take the picture." Then she proudly came out to show us these portraits of her tree in each of the four seasons, taken from the same spot in her driveway. I thought this was so great. Sometimes the best things at yard sales are things you can't buy. No, I'm kidding. but I love that she loved her tree so much.

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8 Time Champion

Old stock Champion t-shirts from a thrift shop.
I think the little stapled card tags dates them to the mid-70's.


Related: old stock iron-on letters from the Ft. Lauderdale flea market last month.
Eight "If dogs run free, why not we?" t-shirts? why not?!

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