A Christmas Note

I'm so sad to see Christmas go. I love having life focus around the birth of Jesus Christ in all of the different forms that we choose to celebrate this time of year. From Christmas carols, to crafts and decorations, to service projects and everyone having goodwill toward men.

Christmas day for me has consisted of spending all day with my family going to church, changing back into our PJs, then opening presents, eating our traditional Christmas breakfast, taking our Christmas naps, and waking up to devour an amazing homemade apple pie. Now we're all watching Home Alone (my personal favorite) while I do a little net surfing, which is when I came across this very cool artwork by Christopher Broyles. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and merry Christmas to you all!

Source LA

I was at the LA Mart with some of my clients today and was conveniently able to take a sneak peak at Source LA happening on the 12th floor. Things were still being moved in and moved around and the walls were still being painted, but from what I saw it's going to be pretty cool.

So what is Source LA exactly? It's "a fresh, gallery-inspired collection of custom design furnishings, unique home fashions and accessories, hand-crafted objects, and original works of art from the region’s most progressive interior product designers, artists and craftsmen emerging on the cutting-edge of California design."

Head over to the opening reception happening tomorrow, November 11 from 6-9 pm (RSVP to 213.763.5813 or ltsironis@lamart.com), or stop by anytime from now until January 11, 2011.

Below are some of my high quality iPhone photos of Source LA in progress.




www.BrittanyStiles.com

Art History Thursday - Modernism in America

I'll keep this brief, but one artist that really stuck out to me from yesterday's art history lecture (the beginning of Modernism in America) was Richard Diebenkorn. Influenced heavily by Matisse, Diebenkorn (and many of the other early American modern artists) focused on pushing modern art further by creating tension in his works. I found this really interesting. Probably because in my interiors, I don't like things too pretty or too perfect or too planned (I'm realizing more and more that I'm also like this with music and fashion); if something is a little "ugly" or awkward, I tend to like it more, and I find it a lot more interesting.

Diebenkorn created this tension through a few different avenues. He created an illusion of space, while also emphasizing the flatness of the canvas. His paintings would also show tension between abstraction and representation. The loose, sloppy, and tactile quality of his painting technique also creates a tense or awkward sort of quality. I love it.

In this painting, there is an illusion of space as if you can look off in the distance, beyond the painting, but the perspective is a little awkward and forces the viewer to also recognize the paint as just paint and the flat canvas as a flat canvas.


Girl with Plant. This is a good example of abstraction and representation existing in the same painting. You can see a girl with a plant (hence the title), but she has a very abstract quality about her and the space around her.


Ocean View. The same tension causing elements apply.


www.BrittanyStiles.com

Watercolors

I love watercolors of interiors. Here are a few from the talented Victoria Molinelli.





Victoria was also commissioned by Coleen & Company to create a series of fabulous vintage watercolors. Check them out here.

Bullseye Update

Do you remember these little guys?


I couldn't decide for a long time if I should try and find a ready-made shadow box frame, or if I should have them professionally framed. I recently came across a shadow box frame at Crate and Barrel that I thought would get the job done. I thought it turned out swell and even used it in last week's photoshoot. Here's the finished product...

Joan Mitchell

After perusing "Artful Approach" from March's issue of Elle Decor, I became obsessed with the artwork of Joan Mitchell (1925-1992). There was something about the painting (shown below) that I fell in love with.



I started to do a little more research on Joan and fell more and more in love her work. 2 weekends ago my friend Paula and I went to the LACMA and viewed the Renoir exhibit, but I was even more excited when I saw in their contemporary art gallery an original Joan Mitchell, "East Ninth Street" (1956) (no photography allowed). Here is a little collection of some of Joan Mitchell's beautiful abstract expressionist paintings.






I've decided that one day I'll own an original Joan Mitchell, but until then I've had a couple of friends suggest just recreating one with my own canvas and paints. I haven't decided if I'm going to attempt it yet, but if I do, that would definitely be a post worth blogging about - whether to laugh at my failure, or applaud my success. (Something tells me that it will probably be the former.)

Frame Anything

I've been getting more and more excited and interested in artwork lately. I'll admit when I first started designing, artwork sort of terrified me. I was always a little nervous that what I selected was going to be too bold, or too boring, or too generic and kill my beautifully designed room. I'm a lot more comfortable with it now and am a firm believer that you can pretty much frame anything interesting and turn it into art.

We're nearing the ending of the dining room design for my client in Huntington Beach, so naturally, that brought us to artwork. She showed me these simple, but cool, wine box tops and asked if there was anything we could do with them. I knew they would instantly become classy and interesting pieces of art once we had them matted and framed! We both were really happy with how they turned out and especially how they helped finish off the room.

{Before}

{After}

The room is almost finished, we're just waiting on the espresso hexagon wainscoting for the walls. Normally I wouldn't have hung the artwork up so high, but the wainscoting will start just a couple inches below the bottom of the frames, so it won't look so awkward once it's all completed. I can't wait!

Custom Benches

Today I was finally able to deliver 2 custom benches that I had made for my clients' entry in Newport Beach. We had to have the iron base fabricated, then custom painted with a silvery/taupe/slightly antiqued finish, then we had my upholsterer biscuit tuft the top leather. I threw some throw pillows on top and a rug beneath and created a little photo shoot. I love the color of leather that we finally decided on. You can't really tell from the photos, but it has a slight metallic look to it.






















Another recent addition to the same house was a couple of picture shelves on the piano wall in the living room. My clients had a bunch of cool photographs from San Francisco, so I framed them and had our wood worker build two thin picture shelves to set them on. Here was my inspiration photograph:



The room still isn't quite finished, but here are the finished shelves with artwork. (Please excuse the horrible lighting, clearly I don't have this photography thing down quite yet.)



Their house is really coming along, I can't wait to finish up with lighting and accessories and then share the finished project.

Original Art

I'm a firm believer that every room isn't finished until you hang artwork. I especially enjoy the depth and originality that original artwork can bring to a room. There are so many different resources out there for obtaining original art, and whether your purchasing a Picasso at an upscale auction, or scouring the racks at your local thrift store, there is original art to be had by all.

This month's House Beautiful mentioned a great website for original art, Lost Art Salon. You can search art by artist or subject and art comes in a period frame or you can also purchase unframed art. Prices range from $350-$1000. Here are a few favorites that I saw while browsing around today:

Another great place for affordable original art is, of course, the flea market. Below are some flea market finds that I couldn't pass up. Each piece was from $15-$25. A lot of flea market art comes framed, but reframing is always a good way to tie different pieces of art together in a grouping or manipulate the piece to fit your room by putting a contemporary frame on a traditional piece, or vice versa.

A line drawing by artist, Masti; a pencil portrait from an unknown artist; and the bottom 2 are etchings from Europe.

It's always hit or miss with me and artwork at thrift stores, but I scored this oil painting done in Mexico in the 70's at a second hand store. I loved the colors and texture.

Of course it's always fun to get a client who appreciates fine art and either already has an art collection or is interested in investing in some serious art pieces. Two Chrismas's ago I decorated Dr. Jerry Buss's home for the holidays and got to see, up close, some of his extensive art collection. Below is a photo of his living room mantel, complete with an original self portrait by Van Gogh.

For more original art check out these other sources:

eBay.com (Never underestimate eBay!)
www.abell.com (A.N. Abell Auctions is a great auction to check out for those in the Los Angeles area.)
aafnyc.com (AAF contemporary Art Fair is great for beginning art collectors. This art fair showcases emerging artists and their affordable works. Locations in NYC, San Francisco, and London)

Bullseye

I don't really know what these are but I kind of love them. They're little vintage wood pieces, but the lady I bought them from doesn't know what they were suppose to be used for. I'm going to mount them, frame them, and turn them into art. Stay tuned.