an abandoned men's club gets a new, neo-gilded age life

This started out as a door of the day.  I stumbled across and fell in love with the above photo on tumblr, then, determined to find its source (call it my latent grad student tendencies, but I hate posting anything lacking proper attribution--plus the artist always deserves the credit) I ran it through TinEye (a reverse image search engine and ohmygoodness my new favourite thing), which took me to this incredible house tour and I fell in love all over again.

The Harmony Club was built in 1909 by a prominent Jewish businessman in Selma, Alabama and established as a social club.  It spent the 20th Century as a men's club, serving as a meeting place for the local Elks chapter before being boarded up in the 1960s.  In 1999, it was bought by David Hurlbut, a man who describes his aesthetic as "neo-Gilded Age steampunk," which is the most incredible thing I've ever heard.  It was a shambles when he moved in, and I love how he's carefully maintained the original elements, going so far as attempting to preserve the flaking paint on the walls rather than painting over it outright.  The result is cavernous, yet somehow cozy.

The place still has its social club moments.  The third floor ball room is used for movie nights and an annual Beaux-Arts Ball (and doesn't that sound like the best time?). "A lot of people call us the Studio 54 of Selma,” Hurlbut says.  Awesome.

Original article on Yatzer, and the NYT.  Photos by Robert Rausch for the Times.

golden age

Oh my goodness this blog.  I will never get anything done ever again.

Illustration by N. C. Wyeth, from Bullfinch's Legends of Charlemagne.

Virgina Frances Sterrett

Stop the presses, I've fallen in love with another illustrator.  I've spoken about my love of gilded age illustrators before, particularly Kay Nielsen, so it should come as no surprise that as soon as I read the phrase "female Kay Nielsen," I started googling like crazy.  Virginia Sterrett was born in 1900, and diagnosed with tuberculosis at the age of 19.  She lived to be 31, and her body of work dates entirely from those 12 years.  It breaks my heart that we have so little of her gorgeous work by which to remember her.

She's known for her illustrations in three publications: Old French Fairytales by Comtesse de Segur, 1920 (available in its entirety here), Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1921 (illustrations here), and Arabian Nights, 1928 (illustrations here).

The following, published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch following her death, seems imminently appropriate: "Her achievement was beauty, a delicate, fantastic beauty, created with brush and pencil. Almost unschooled in art, her life spent in prosaic places of the West and Middle West, she made pictures of haunting loveliness, suggesting Oriental lands she never saw and magical realms no one ever knew except in the dreams of childhood ... Perhaps it was the hardships of her own life that gave the young artist's work its fanciful quality. In the imaginative scenes she set down on paper she must have escaped from the harsh actualities of existence."

 You can read her biography on her website, or the short stub on Wikipedia.  I discovered her via A Journey Round My Skull.

If you're interested in learning more about female illustrators, I highly recommend this new blog.  His focus is the mid-century, which is a bit later than my interest in illustration goes, but it's an extremely well-written blog.

rewriting history

All art history undergrads have to take a survey of Western art (at the two schools I attended, anyway), but because of my transferring and switching majors twice, I never actually took one.  My transcript gives me the credits for one of the courses I took at my first school--it was actually American Art through 1600.  Yeah.  Never really figured that one out.

So I actually started my art history education pretty squarely in the Renaissance.  I took later courses in ancient Greek, Roman, and Chinese art, but I never really studied cave paintings and other stone age relics.  Maybe that's why this story gets me really excited.  Of course, it might just be because "Many people think that it changes everything…It overturns the whole apple cart. All our theories were wrong."

Yeah.  It's big.

va photobooth hunting

My love of photobooths is no secret, but there's a pretty sad dearth of them in my area.  I wait until I can visit Laura in Brooklyn, and then I go nuts.  So to say I was excited by the most recent location updates on photobooth.net is a bit of an understatement.  Not one, but two booths in Virginia!  One is in Blacksburg, and the other is in Richmond.  I think it's safe to say that you can expect a visit, Aunt Anne!

i am the lemon zester of destruction

It was actually at Christmas when I was first introduced to Mystery Science Theater 3000, by my rad cousin Ron.  He stumbled across a marathon while channel surfing and, as I recall, had the rest of us glued to the wood-paneled RCA and laughing like loons for hours.  So it seems appropriate that Hulu choose Christmas to gift us with episodes of MST3K.  Thank you, Hulu!

My favourite is still the MST3K take on This Island Earth, which was also their theatrical release, although The Pumaman definitely ranks up there, too.  What's your MST fave?

tauntaun sleeping bag

This is by far the geekiest thing I have ever seen.  And do you know what kind of competition a statement like that has?  A LOT.  But this wins--hands down.  I wish there was someone I could give this to, other than me.  Its zipper is a light saber.

If you don't know what this is, you clearly have not watched Empire Strikes Back as many times as I have (thanks for that, Dad!).

via Johnny Zeitgeist

bibliophile

When I was trying to figure out what to do after college, I thought very seriously about getting a Masters in Library Science (although I instinctively twitched considerably at the thought of getting a degree in anything "science"). I actually started out as an English major in undergrad, so that's not too surprising. And, although I am now submerging myself in all things visual, I do still harbor a great love of the written word. Hence, working at a bookshop and interning at a museum is basically the best of both worlds for me. True to form, I have been reading up a storm, people. Here's a small sampling of the fantastic books I've devoured so far this summer:Graceling, by Kristin Cashore. This is a young adult fantasy, a genre which is a major weakness for me. I picked this up on a whim, and man, I do not regret it. It's a fantastic look at how our lives are affected by the things we do best with a main character who is wonderfully refreshing in her originality. The relationship between Katsa, the heroine, and Po, her traveling companion, features a subtle and effective twist on traditional gender roles. An extremely strong debut book. Can you tell this is the one I just finished?Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine. If you've never read anything by Gail Carson Levine, this is a great one to begin with. It takes place in the same universe as Ella Enchanted, but stands on its own. It's a take on the Snow White story, and is an expert examination of what it means to be beautiful, inside and out.
The Princess and the Bear, by Mette Ivie Harrison. I read The Princess and the Hound last summer, a first book for Harrison, and loved it. That her second book was as strong and (in my opinion) even more enjoyable than the first speaks volumes on what we can expect from her in the future. Sorry for the lack of information, it's a bit more difficult to explain. Fantastic, though!

And that's that for now. I've also read a couple of great non-fiction books, as well as Nora Roberts' newest, Black Hills. As much as I love grad school, it will be very sad to no longer have the time to devote to reading for fun once classes start again.

call me ishmael

Check out these illustrations from a 1930 edition of Moby Dick. The artist is someone I've never heard of, Rockwell Kent.
I just adore the graphic nature of these prints, the incredible use of black and white. Also: whales!
Did you know that someone tweeted ALL of Moby Dick? Using only the 140 character bursts Twitter allows, it took them 9 1/2 months!This was apparently available in volumes. Sorry about the watermark, this was the only image of the spines I could find. I love the graphics here--the tail, that water! I sound like a curmudgeon, but come on: they do not make 'em like that anymore.

Now you may return to your regularly scheduled (and probably whale-free) evening.

calling all gumshoes

Hi, there--mystery junkie here. Yes, it is I, who cherish all things hidden, read Nancy Drew books (and not in an ironic fashion--heck, I've played each and every game), and treasure British mystery shows above all. Now, thanks to Jorden Ferney's post on the Cookie Nesting blog, every single birthday party I have from now unto eternity will be detective themed. Every. Single. One. Because, my God, the adorableness. These invitations are ridiculously simple, totally cute, and nail the theme on the head without going over-the-top. Which, as you may know, basically sums up Ms. Ferney's modus operandi.
Su-perb.

movie movie movie

Here are two movies I am super psyched about, for very, very different reasons.

Public Enemies

When I worked at the National Law Enforcement Museum, I did a whole bunch of research about John Dillinger, a ruthless bank robber who managed to escape from prison not once, but twice. So there's that, plus Johnny Depp! Christian Bale! Also, I love me some prohibition-era goodness.

Gigantic

Aside from the fact that it looks ADORABLE and features adoption and adoption by a single person (subjects near and dear to my heart), there's also Paul Dano who I have this nerdy little crush on. Love that boy.

entrances and exits

I haven't been a very good blogger lately, and I apologize. My classes this semester are extremely reading-heavy (one requires I read a full book a week, which it turns out I'm not very good at), and I've got a sinus infection that's spread to my eyes (no details, but it's not a happy thing). But if there's one this that gets me off my lazy behind to blog, it's doors. Fortunately, Todd Selby almost always captures doors in the homes featured. In this case, it's more than just the doors...it's the staircases, too! I love me a good spiral staircase, and if it has black and white tiles, all the better (don't ask me why, but I've always loved contrasting tile in stairwells).I would gladly climb and descend either (or both!) of those stair options everyday.

spotted

Remember my excitement over this door? Well, look what I spotted in the selby's tour of Xavier Veilhan's home: another porthole door! Oh, I do hope this is a fad. It would be fantastic.

fallen

Oh. Oh, my. With thirteen minutes remaining in Valentine's Day, I went and fell in love. Check it:
Photographer designwallah takes the best captures of urban decay and doors I've ever seen. The rusty hinges and knobs, the compositions, the colors, oh my! Please, take a gander.
Finally, for sheer over-the-topness:

london shop fronts

One of the things I liked best about London while I was there was the colorfulness of the shopfronts. Like bright, beautiful little dots on the urban landscape. As usual, I assumed I was the only one who took joy in such a random thing, and as usual I was wrong. London Shop Fronts is a blog devoted exclusively to: you guessed it. That there are other people out there as dorky as I am encourages my hope that I might someday reproduce.

via swissmiss

dispute

photo source

One of the hot topics in museum studies is, and has been for decades, that of looted items in museums. Oddly enough, despite my years of study in that arena, I have not formed an opinion on the matter. It's a subject which dwells frequently in the back of my mind, and this recent article and Op-Ed from the New York Times brought it to the forefront.

The most famously contested collection in a museum are the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum, removed by Thomas Bruce, Lord Elgin, from the Acropolis during the early part of the 19th Century. The trouble is, of course, that although Elgin may or may not have obtained permission from the Ottoman Empire, said permission does not have the support of the Greek government. In fact, the Greeks very much want them back.

I see both sides of the issue. The marbles are unquestionably Greek, and certainly represent a great chunk of Greek history. However, had Elgin not absconded with them when he did, they might very well not exist. The Turks stored gunpowder in the Parthenon, which had already gone kaboom once before. So, 200 years ago, the marbles became a piece of British history, controversial though they are.

I have a bit more of a bias when it comes to Italian antiquities, likely by virture of having lived there Not that I don't believe they represent a part of Italy's history--on the contrary. The trouble is that Italy just has so much history. The amount of art there is staggering, but the funds necessary to maintain are limited (it's a country, after all, not a museum). Additionally, a great amount of the art is exposed to the elements, which is frustrating especially in the cases of Pompeii and Ostia Antica, when nature did such a wonderful (if tragic, in Pompeii's case) job of preserving frescoes and mosaics (like the fantastic Cave Canem, or "Beware of the Dog" fresco, above).

So. That's my rant. Of a sort. I do recommend reading the Op-Ed, which is about museum treatment of artifacts of contested provenence, and is quite good. If anyone is interested in additional information on this topic (say, for example, the Italian restorations of Leonardo's Last Supper and Michelangelo's Sistene Chapel Ceiling, or who really made the Venus de Milo), let me know! I've got a ton of this stuff rattling around in my head.

looking for signs

More things I love! Earlier this month, Anne had a lovely post of Austin's neon signs, and today Diana had a post FULL of mural signs--my favourites! The post has lots of commentary from Walter Grutchfield, a self-proclaimed "archaeologist of signs." I want to join that club. Awesome.

"He has set himself the task of photographing every old sign in Manhattan between 14th and 42nd Streets, a 300-block area containing some of the most densely inscribed buildings in the world.

Mr. Grutchfield's specialty is what he calls the wall-painted sign—what others call mural signs or "ghost signs"—which are advertisements painted in huge letters across buildings. Most of these advertisements were painted more than 50 years ago."

guaranty

Warning!: extreme dorking out ahead! Please secure your life jacket before continuing.

L: Circa 1900, R: 2006

An article in the New York Times today brought the city of Buffalo, NY to my attention. I knew it was there, of course, I'd just never had any reason to learn more. Boy, was I missing out. Turns out, after the completion of the Eerie Canal started to bring people in, it became a positive mecca for great Gilded Age architects: Henry Hobson Richardson, Frederick Law Olmsted (of Central Park fame), Louis Sullivan, and Daniel Burnham (of Chicago's Columbian Exposition in 1893). I'd really love to prattle on about all out them, but this is a blog, not an architectural history class, so I'll stick to one: Louis Sullivan, and his Guaranty building.In 1894, a Buffalo businessman commissioned Sullivan's firm in the construction of a new office building. After he died suddenly, the Guaranty Construction Company of Chicago purchased it, followed by the Prudential Insurance Company. Both "Guaranty" and "Prudential" are on the building, so you'll hear it referred to by both names.The exterior is covered in gorgeous terra cotta depicting art nouveauish foliage and geometric patterns.

Look at that scrollwork! Love!

Let's take a look at the interior!So it turns out that I get as freakishly excited about old iron elevators as I do doors. Who knew? Aren't they fantastic?

If you're interested in learning more about the Guaranty building, other buildings, or historic Buffalo architecture on the whole, check out Buffalo Architecture and History (h/t to historic preservationist/jewelry designer/fellow dec arts student Amy Poff). I pulled most of my images from them.

For more on Gilded Age architects, I highly recommend reading Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, about the Chicago World's Fair, the men who put it together, and a rather nefarious individual who took advantage of it. It's nonfiction that reads like fiction. Trust me, I hate nonfiction.

There. Done. It is now safe to remove your jackets. I don't do too many of these because I worry about boring people, so if you enjoyed this little discovery as much as I did, let me know!

cramming out with my dvr

I've discovered that watching television can be useful in my studies, at least for my class on 20th century furniture. Why? Because designers for television dramas evidently love mid-century modern. I don't blame them, I love it too, but it never ceases to amuse me. I've mainly spotted iconic pieces on CSI (like the Barcelona chairs and couch in the victims apartment in the latest episode), but last night I found another. House has a Wassily Chair in his office!See it there in the background? It's an iconic chair out of the Bauhaus, and extremely expensive. On a hospital budget? Yeah, right. Maybe House brought it from home.