FreshMD

Decorating with vintage records

I covered one of Saskia's bedroom walls with vintage record covers.

Collected one or two at a time over a year of thrifting, they cost 25 to 50 cents apiece. Most of them are from the 1950's and 60's. The art on some of these is quite wonderful, and I'd admired them for years but couldn't think of a use that would justify relaxing my efforts to stem the flow of goods coming through the front door.

I keep getting asked how I mounted these to the wall. I drove a nail through each one. All those years of renting as a student, where pounding holes in walls was expressly forbidden, make pock-marking my own walls that much more satisfying.

Now I have a drawer of LPs that I'm sure Saskia would enjoy, but no record player. I don't want a 70's one with giant speakers, but I don't want one that's meant to hook up to a laptop, either. Sony makes this attractive option, but spending $90+ US for a machine to play these two-bit records seems a little self-defeating.

So, another corner of Saskia's room done, another one with which we're equally happy. Really, I should be focusing on the adult living spaces: removing wood paneling, getting some hardwood floors installed, finding a couch. But somehow that feels so much more like work.

More Charley Harper love

I ordered some Charley Harper prints today. Vigilant Vireos for the living room:

Cozy Chipmunk for Leif's room, which is a similarly sloping, brown-sided space:

And The Sierra Range - my favourite - future hanging destination yet undecided. (Thanks to reader Elizabeth for alerting me to the Charley Harper posters available through the US National Park Service for a song.)

Total cost: $85.00 plus shipping. 

I have a crush on Charley Harper

This is my current favourite children's book:

I ordered it for Ariana for Christmas. I postponed wrapping it for a week so I could look at it every night before bed. The images are that gorgeous and soothing. Now it resides in the little turquoise backpack Ariana uses to store and transport her prized possessions.

Charley Harper (1922-2007) was an American artist known for his geometric, stylized depictions of wildlife. He commented once that while some artists counted the feathers in the wings, he merely counted the number of wings. His images are simple, playful and brilliantly coloured.

Harper grew up on a farm in Cincinnati and enjoyed wildlife from an early age. I find stories of nature-loving children who grow up to become artists/naturalists immensely appealing. It seems so pure. And what better blend of art and science? (Robert Bateman's story is similarly pleasing - now there's someone who counts every feather in the wing.)

So now I'm trying to pick a print or two for our home. My job would be easier if the man weren't so remarkably prolific and talented. I will soldier on.

Nativity set

I've been looking for a nativity set for ages.

Several years and many Internet shopping excursions later, I've collected the ox and the donkey. That's it.   

That's because the options out there are these:

Virus doilies

Reader Rosa recently alerted me to these virus doilies by Laura Splan, a New York-based mixed media artist and phlebotomist.

 
 

Clockwise from top left: HIV, Herpes, Influenza, SARS.

The doilies are computerized machine embroidered lace mounted on black velvet, based on digital images of the viruses.

When I turned thirty my Oma, the giver of unusual gifts, gave me thirteen crocheted doilies. I'm going to have to take a closer look at those; maybe the gift was more complex than I realized.

Splan says in her statement:

My work explores perceptions of beauty and horror, comfort and discomfort. I use anatomical and medical imagery as a point of departure to explore these dualities and our ambivalence towards the human body . . . I often combine scientific images and materials with more domestic or familiar ones. The . . . design of a doily lends a sort of relief in its familiarity and pleasing pattern. This juxtaposition creates a response that fluctuates between seduction and repulsion, comfort and alienation.

Her website features a number of other interesting medical projects. Check out the latch-hooked Prozac, Thorazine, Zoloft pillows. Splan explains, "These soft, oversized anti-psychotics and anti-depressants provide a different kind of comfort than their prescription counterparts."

Or the Blood Scarf, which "depicts a scarf knit out of clear vinyl tubing. An intravenous device emerging out of the user's hand fills the scarf with blood. The implied narrative is a paradoxical one in which the device keeps the user warm with their blood while at the same time draining their blood drip by drip."

 

Makes my own fall plans to knit a vest for Leif seem rather dull.