A Few of My Favorite Things

Ok ok OK. I know I owe you that painting tutorial video, and the blog post with photos of the small pieces I still have from Saturday's tag sale. But today I cleaned my workshop. Some of you have seen my workshop, so you can appreciate the Everestian mountain that was to climb. My day was crammed full of horrors; giant spiders that wanted to eat my soul and then regurgitate it to feed their hell spawn young, a semi decayed mouse body that I had to remove (which gave me a whole new appreciation for medical examiners, coroners, forensic teams, and anyone else who handles dead bodies), and to top it off I STEPPED ON A DEAD MOUSE, (this being a separate one from the decayed carcass previously mentioned) which my cat had very thoughtfully left outside on the driveway, and even more thoughtfully camouflaged with festive autumn leaves. It went crunch, but not a decent, community oriented crunch like a fresh Lay's sour cream and onion potato chip, it was a crunch/squish sound combo that will haunt me forever.

            Which is the loveliest way ever to start off this blog post about beautiful furniture. If you read my last post you know that on Saturday I spent a couple hours scrolling back through my projects of the last three years, mostly out of curiosity. And I like most of the pieces I create, custom or spec, but some, well some ever after years still make me very very proud. I always wonder about other artists, if they feel that way. If sometimes they take a step back and think, 'Oh my YES, this one's a triumph!'. It doesn't happen every time, nowhere near, but every once in a while...

 

 

 

Enough Color for Everyone

The tagsale today was a massive success. The weather held until 3pm when it suddenly and unexpectedly started raining and Jess, Brian, and I had to make a mad dash to haul everything inside, which is becoming something of an Heir and Space tradition. Luckily all my pieces are very water resistant, and it made for a splashy end to the day. It was lovely to see everyone and I'm so pleased that so many pieces found new homes!

        Things got quiet during the early afternoon, not surprisingly, so to pass the time I edited and posted a quick snap of an adorable pair of solid pine Ethan Allen nightstands that I refinished yesterday and haven't had the time to properly photograph and blog about yet. Here they are:

A few minutes later a checked back on the Facebook page and saw someone had commented, "Why always that same color blue?" Which... ok, that's not really a nice thing to say, but it's also just hilariously patently incorrect. Plus I've been up since before 6am after a handful of back to back 14 hour days. I am currently the Sass Master Supreme. I use every color of blue ever in the history of life. Blue calls me up sometimes and is like, "Yo, give it a rest". So with my ire up and time on my hands, I responded thusly:

 I'm well aware I posted that one dresser first. Do you know I looked at so many pieces of blue furniture that my eyes started to cross!

Kathy hasn't yet responded. I imagine she thought to herself, "Oh damn, that's a lot of different blues". Or maybe she only checks into Facebook once a millennia to say something mildly antagonistic to someone who she doesn't know and has done nothing ever but provide her with pretty pictures of furniture.

But then I started thinking (and yes, I hear you, I've given this all WAY too much thought) that maybe she meant I only paint things blue. And I feel like I do paint things blue a lot, it's always a strong seller, especially in spring and summer, but remember that I don't often have artistic control over the pieces either, as a significant portion of my work is custom for clients. So out of curiosity, and because I have planted myself so firmly on the couch that I may grow roots, and am wonderfully snuggled by a sleeping border collie puppy on each side, I've just spent a very pleasant couple hours scrolling back through three years of blog posts and sorted a selection of my favorite by color. I gotta say, I didn't have the patience to keep score, but it seems very VERY evenly matched.

So sorry Kathy, it's not all that color blue, that's actually the first time ever I've used that particular shade of pale duck egg blue, I know that for a fact because I mixed a single quart batch of it yesterday specifically for those side tables. 99% of my pieces are the one and only piece that are their specific and individual color.

P.S. Did you know my real name is Kathleen and for most of my life I was a "Kathy". I always hated it, particularly because I'm an insufferable motor mouth and that whole "Chatty Cathy" business, so one day when I was 22 or 23 I just started introducing myself as "Kate" instead. Everyone who had known me as Kathy was appalled, because yea, maybe that's kind of a jackass move, but now I'm Kate to everyone except my two brothers, who I rather suspect insist on calling me Kathy out of spite.

p.s. You know who really gets the shaft? Purple. I've gotten to use so few shades of amethyst, lilac, lavender, plum, merlot, and eggplant. I, for one, think that's a damn shame

And even worse, poor orange. Here's the one and only, a shade of terra-cotta.

MMMMMMmmmmmmustard Part 2

I have been covered in mustard paint all week between these two pieces and a mirror a made specially for the tag sale. I'm A Ok with that, mustard is the bomb. I'm wearing a mustard color T-shirt today. I could never get sick of it.
          This poor pine sideboard had seen better days. It had already clearly lived a long and wild life by the time it came to my door, but it's absolutely incredibly constructed, overbuilt, like a tank, and was ready for a brand new lease on life. This was a particularly fantastic transformation because it was so rough before and is so handsome now. It's going into a gorgeous dining room for a new client.
         

MMMMMMMmmustard

Mustard is the hot color of the season. In the summer it was all about pale blues and dove grays, and last spring everyone wanted a deep admiral blue I'd custom mixed and named 'Essex Blue'

         But this fall it's all about the mustard and that's just dandy because mustard is terrific. Mustard is an absolute hoot to work with, it's bright and wild and cheerful, but also has this old world sophisticated vibe, and certainly makes any room it enters and draws every eye towards it. Mustard is, in essence, that girl you really want to hate because she's lovely and young and beautiful and successful, but you can't because she also seems like she'd be swell to drink with. Mustard is the Jennifer Lawrence of colors.

            And here's this fabulous vintage solid rock maple dresser I picked up at my best friend's local goodwill in Manchester. Her goodwill puts mine to shame, the prices and selection are obscene. She actually spotted this dresser first and pointed it out to me and I was all like "Um yea, that's happening HARD". Which is how we talk and don't you judge us.

             So my other dear friend had mentioned to me not a day before that she's on the hunt for a dresser for her son's room, and I messaged her as soon as I got home cause I knew it would be perfect. We agreed on darkening the maple, keeping the original brass pulls, and painting it in a serious mustard, BUT NOT DISTRESSED, because as she explained, she lives in a two hundred year old house, everything around her is distressed. LOL.

              I ninja snuck into my neighbor's yard to steal a branch off his maple tree for staging. My maples NEVER turn pretty colors, they just fade and die. This is likely deeply symbolic of something or other.