English Country style interior decor is coming into vogue again - although really the question is, can such a timeless style ever go out of fashion? We recently helped a client move into his new Asheville home and install a delightful collection that recalled all of the best of the European art techniques... including one very fine piece by a well-known painter from China who works in the classical Western style. But first, a delightful painting of a pair of boats in a far-away harbor. What a wonderful sense of light. We recently bought a boat ourselves, so this made us positively yearn for warm summer days on the local lakes. Speaking of the arrival of Spring, how about a captivating Impressionist bouquet? But wait, there's more! When we turned over the picture to measure the height of the wire, we discovered a hidden portrait on the reverse side of the canvas. Which do you like best? I think I could happily live with either picture - although maybe the portrait is better suited to a more severe style of decor. Our client was downsizing from a much larger home, which is really common for the many retirees who are moving to Asheville. He had too many pictures and needed to get creative about finding spots for them all - but luckily the previous homeowner had installed art lights in the hallways. We were able to arrange lots of pieces in one of the corridors to make a long gallery-style layout that rewarded you for taking the journey to the furthest bedroom. Here's one of the many little gems we installed that day. Really wonderful brushwork and color, and a great view to see whenever you walked out the bedroom door. We hung so many pieces that I can't share them all, and it's so hard to choose which ones to show you. These two were very restful, with perfect color. And I never really appreciated how much a thoughtfully-chosen frame can add to an image. I'll close with the Chinese painter, Shang Ding, who I mentioned earlier. The homeowner had several of his pieces, but this was by far the most charming: a school of young ballerinas watching something that was happening off the canvas and out of our view. What a wonderful sense of mood and expression he captured! This to me is the mark of a great artist... he goes beyond the technical demands to infuse emotion and drama into his work, and gives a true human connection. The painting was really a joy to hang. If you're moving to Asheville (or just downsizing from a bigger home) and you need help curating your collection, please give us a call. We do this all the time, so we've got a knack for it.
Most of the time I blog about our art installation services near Asheville, but since I'm also the on-staff art consultant, I thought I'd show you the kind of art I make. I just finished this big commissioned piece which is called "Three Wooden Crosses." It's in three panels and is about seven feet wide. As you can see, it depicts the mountains near Asheville, as well as the French Broad River and the Buncombe Turnpike. The Turnpike follows an ancient pass through the Appalachian Mountains. It was first carved out by bison, then used as a hunting trail by Native Americans, then as a route for cattle drovers, and finally as the site of the railroad that connects Asheville to points north and south. Each panel celebrates a different aspect of North Carolina's wildlife and terrain, beginning in the first panel where we see an American eagle flying over the rapids of the French Broad River. Eagles are very common on this river; they love to fly down it in the morning and hunt for fish and small birds. The middle panel depicts a specific mountaintop near our city, with the clouds catching on it in the morning sunshine. I used old reference photos to show what the hillside would have looked like back when it was still used to pasture cattle. With the slow disappearance of the farming communities around here, more and more mountainsides are returning to forest, so it's good to honor the old ways as they pass by. The right-hand panel depicts the distant Blue Ridge Mountains, as well as a field of Burley tobacco staked out to cure in the sunshine. Burley is the variety that was traditionally grown in western North Carolina. It's a pipe tobacco and is allowed to dry outdoors before being hung up in the local tobacco barns. Many of my older neighbors have memories of the hard work it took to harvest and hang this crop. It's hard to get a sense of any painting from internet photos, so let's zoom in and look at some of the details. I really liked the way this picture took on a sunny, sparkling quality as I painted it. Since art usually hangs in your home for a long period of time, I like to add little special elements that reward contemplation through the years. In the middle panel you can see a small flock of the wild turkey that live in the area. The mountaintop also has three wooden crosses on the top, which I added at the special request of my patron. In the third panel are two white-tailed deer which we see a lot of in the area. If you're visiting Asheville in the summertime, you'll also hear the call of the mourning dove, so I hid two little doves in one of the pine trees. The whole scene takes place in the fall, when the brilliant green of summer is fading down into a warmer yellow tone. This works particularly well in homes with a lot of white, beige, or blue, or if you have wood tones in your decor. Although the original is in a private collection, prints of this piece are available, with posters starting at $39 and fine art canvas prints available as well. Just get in touch to learn more.
And if you're moving into a new home and you'd like a real art consultant to help you place your collection, please let us know. I'm always happy to help you decide where each of your cherished pieces should go. You're gonna think this one looks easy. After all, I look pretty comfortable on this scaffold, don't I? The truth is that installing these great big metal signs in a stairwell wasn't an easy job... but it sure was fun! Most of the time when we go to visit peoples' houses and see their collections, they've got a lot of variety. For example, this couple who was moving to Asheville had everything from African textiles to American folk sculpture. But today's client had one true love: vintage signs. Actually it would be more accurate to say that he collected all things related to vintage workwear, from the old advertising signs to the workwear itself. Sure, he had a few other odd signs laying around, but his true love was the workwear. I wish we could show you everything in his collection... he had an attic room that was absolutely full of this stuff. It was like a trip to a museum. In fact, that's where I got the inspiration for the headline on this post. One of the posters in the attic had "tougher than a pig's snout" as the slogan. I got a good chuckle out of that, which I suppose was the point. I also really loved this big poster advertising overalls for train engineers. Look how wide they are. (And here's a bonus picture of a sign he had hanging in his office. We didn't hang it, but he offered to let me snap a photo because I liked it so much.) I learned a lot about the history of the workwear and the signs. Did you know that Oshkosh B'Gosh had a mascot named Oshkosh B'Josh? This is him, pointing the way up the stairs. He looks like Uncle Sam, doesn't he? And notice the little "Union Made" caption. I'm really glad for the homeowner's sake that he called us in to do this, because these signs were huge and sort of awkward. I suppose they had to be big... they were made to hang up high on a wall in a crowded General store. We actually still have one of those old-timey General stores operating in our small town of Marshall, NC. It's called Penland & Son's Department Store, although it's operated by the daughters in this generation, and they still sell workwear a lot like this. They don't have as many signs nowadays, but here's a couple of pictures which I borrowed from internet, so you can imagine the kind of environment these old posters might have hung in. You can just picture them up on those walls above the shelves, can't you?
Whether you've got a focused vision for your art collection, or a comfortable hodge-podge of things you've picked up over the years, we can hang it up and help you feel at home. |
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