Did Ya Know?

The Animal Print Shop

Posted by James on June 12, 2013
Posted in: Did Ya Know?, New Home. Tagged: , , , . 2 comments

Photographer Sharon Montrose found the perfect way to combine her 2 favorite subjects, photography and animals.  Since 2008 she has been offering her unique animal photographs through her online store The Animal Print Shop.

Call me a Texan, but naturally, the Longhorn Steer is one of my favorites.

Longhorn Steer over Bed

I just don’t think there is a more majestic animal.

……and yes, I understand the irony of having a severed head hanging in my garage.

Longhorn Steer

Her American Buffalo photograph is equally as beautiful.

American Buffalo Styled in Bedroom

Looks like it stepped right off the nickel.

American Buffalo

The most popular subjects are the little darlings series…….an assortment of baby animal portraits.

They are just about absolutely perfect gracing the walls of a modern nursery….and y’all know how we love multiples of anything.

Baby Animals in Nursery

Just look at how sweet these little things are. (it’s gunna blow Kylie’s mind when she sees that lamb)

Little Darlings Collage

Starting at just $25, (ya gotta admit that is a very DO-able price for art) these photos are guaranteed to make your home.

Sharon’s animal subjects are all real, live animals, raised (many of them rescued) by experienced animal keepers and handlers who take great care to ensure the animal’s welfare while being photographed. The larger animals are shot on site in their habitats and then photoshopped into the white background.

The Animal Print Shop even donates a percentage of profits to animal rescue organizations.

What better reason to buy 2, or 4, or even 6.

Seaweed’s Beach House

Posted by James on June 6, 2013
Posted in: Did Ya Know?, New Home. Tagged: , . 2 comments

Doug Bihlmaier has the greatest job in the world.

(His closest of friends call him “Seaweed”, By the way)

Doug Seaweed Bihlmaier

As the head of Ralph Lauren vintage, it’s his job to shop the world to fill Mr Lauren’s stores with one of a kind vintage jewelry, concho belts, fashion, rugs, accessories, and anything else he finds amazing.

Mr Mort recently had the opportunity to visit Doug and his wife Kathy’s beach house. A beach house layered to the brim with Doug’s unique vintage finds.

Stacks of Vintage Navajo at Seaweed's Beach House

Beads Hanging off of Antlers at Seaweed's Beach House

Bedroom at Seaweed's Beach House

Vintage Belts Overa Door at Seaweed's Beach House

Seaweed's Beach House Collage2

Adirondack Chair on the Patio at Seaweed's Beach House

Stack of Vintage Batiks at Seaweed's Beach House

Beaded Shield at Seaweed's Beach House

Seaweed's Beach House Collage 1

Vintage Navajo Silver at Seaweed's Beach House

Not fussy, …casual, collected and “lived-in”,

Sort of makes me want to kick my shoes off and go barefoot……

I’m pretty sure that Seaweed does.

(all photos via MR Mort, except top photo, I think the Sartorialist took that shot)

Do You Know Charley Harper?

Posted by James on June 4, 2013
Posted in: Did Ya Know?, New Home. Tagged: , . 11 comments

Charley Harper was an American Modernist artist best known for his highly stylized wildlife prints, posters and book illustrations. He was born in Frenchton, West Virginia in 1922. It was Harper’s upbringing on his family farm that influenced his work to his last days. He left his farm home to study art at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. It was on Charley’s first day at the Art Academy he met fellow artist Edie Mckee and married her right after their graduation in 1947.

Charley and Edie spent their honeymoon traveling the country, mainly in the west and south, being able to do so because of the Stephen H. Wilder Scholarship the Academy awarded to Charley for post-graduate travels. The first scholarship of its kind that the school had awarded. Harper later returned to the Art Academy of Cincinnati as a teacher, but eventually, the couple and their son Brett formed Harper Studios.

During his career, Charley Harper illustrated numerous books (most notably The Golden Book of Biology) and magazines like Ford Times. Because his subjects were mainly natural, and mostly birds, Charley often created works for nature-based organizations, among them the National Park Service; the Cincinnati Zoo; the Cincinnati Nature Center; the Hamilton County Park District; and the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania.

In a style he called “minimal realism”, Charley Harper captured the essence of his subjects with the fewest possible visual elements.

Just brilliantly,

Charley Harper Birds

Charley Harper Cardinal In the Snow

Charles Harper, Mid-Century Illustrated pool

Charley Harper Herron

Charley Harper Lady Bugs

Charley Harper Sea Gulls

Charley Harper Own and Scorpion

Charley Harper Barn Owl

Charley Harper Calico Cat in a Limb

Charley Harper Editorial Eagle

Charley HArper Collie with Hat

Charley Harper Penguins

Charley Harper Tortise and Hare

Charley Harper Manatee

Charley Harper Sand Pipers

Charley Harper Otters

Charley Harper Purrfectly Perched

Charley Harper died on June 10, 2007, and the world hasn’t looked the same since.

You can pick up your own piece - prints, books, cards etc - by this amazing illustrator at CharleyHarperPrints.com

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher

Posted by James on May 2, 2013
Posted in: Did Ya Know?, New Home. Tagged: , . 4 comments

A reader of ours sent a note about the Edward Sherrif Curtis biography that was just published.

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher by Timothy Egan, Amazon has it here.

Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher

“Edward Curtis was charismatic, handsome, a passionate mountaineer, and a famous photographer, the Annie Leibovitz of his time. He moved in rarefied circles, a friend to presidents, vaudeville stars, leading thinkers. And he was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave it all up to pursue his Great Idea: to capture on film the continent’s original inhabitants before the old ways disappeared.
An Indiana Jones with a camera, Curtis spent the next three decades traveling from the Havasupai at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the Acoma on a high mesa in New Mexico to the Salish in the rugged Northwest rain forest, documenting the stories and rituals of more than eighty tribes. It took tremendous perseverance — ten years alone to persuade the Hopi to allow him into their Snake Dance ceremony. And the undertaking changed him profoundly, from detached observer to outraged advocate. Eventually Curtis took more than 40,000 photographs, preserved 10,000 audio recordings, and is credited with making the first narrative documentary film. In the process, the charming rogue with the grade school education created the most definitive archive of the American Indian.
His most powerful backer was Theodore Roosevelt, and his patron was J. P. Morgan. Despite the friends in high places, he was always broke and often disparaged as an upstart in pursuit of an impossible dream. He completed his masterwork in 1930, when he published the last of the twenty volumes. A nation in the grips of the Depression ignored it. But today rare Curtis photogravures bring high prices at auction, and he is hailed as a visionary. In the end he fulfilled his promise: He made the Indians live forever.”

I think I have established what a fan of Edward Curtis I am by now. I have always associated with obsessive compulsives, more than you good people know.

We have one of his 7 foot portraits hanging in our den.

If you are like me, and you enjoy holding a physical book in your hand, buy it.

If E-books are your thing, (not judging), download it….upload it….whatever it is that you people do to read a book now.

If you liked this post, check out these as well…..

Edward S. Curtis self portrait 1899Edward Curtis Portrait free for the taking

Chief Sitting BearChief Sitting Bear in Our Den

Frankoma Pottery

Posted by James on April 2, 2013
Posted in: Did Ya Know?, New Home. Tagged: . 12 comments

When my dear friend Lenny sent me a picture from an antique store of a pottery Indian maiden with a bowl in her lap…..

I was instantly obsessed.

He, as well as I, had a vision of that bowl filled with small silver and turquoise trinkets. The kind of trinkets that I currently have non-Indian maiden shaped bowls filled with.

eBay solved that issue for me,

Frankoma Indian Maiden with Bowl

It wasn’t long before she was sitting on my desk and her bowl was filled with all these little wonderous things….

(a few small Zuni fetishes, silver/turquoise crosses, a couple Fred Harvey pins, and Hunter S. Thompson for Sheriff buttons…..you know, all the usual desk clutter)

Trinkets in the Indian Maiden Bowl

But there was still more to come.

I found this dancing Indian chief on eBay too.

Frankoma Dancing Indian Chief

He landed on my desk right next to his mate.

Then I found this groovy arrow-head ashtray….just imagine the wonders this thing could hold……

How about wrangling keys and loose change near the front door?

Frankoma Arrow Shaped Ashtray

Too bad it’s only 4 inched long…..

4 inch Frankoma Arrow Head Ashtray

Not big enough to hold much of anything, but still pretty cool.

These were all made by the Frankoma Pottery company.

Frankoma Pottery was founded by University of Oklahoma professor John Frank in 1933. He named his newly founded company Frankoma; using his last name and the last 3 letters of the state he lived in……Oklahoma. Frank originally used the light hued Ada clay for his pottery, but then switched to locally sourced brick-red clay.

Other than the native figures and ashtrays, the couple also developed china in western-themed patterns like Plainsman, West Wind,

Ranch,

Frankoma Ranch Black Dinner Plate

Native American,

Frankoma Native American Plate in White

and Wagon Wheel.

Frankoma Wagon Wheel Dinner Plate

Frank and his wife Grace Lee continued to run the company until his death in 1973, leaving the company to their daughter Joniece who was forced to sell for bankruptcy reasons in 1991. Frankoma finally closed their factory doors in 2004.

Next time y’all see a piece that looks distinctly “Oklahomian?”,

….flip it over,

Because it just might be a piece of Frankoma.

Vintage Boy Scout Handbook

Posted by James on March 23, 2013
Posted in: Did Ya Know?, New Home. Tagged: , , . 6 comments

Found this old Boy Scout Handbook from 1963 a few years ago.

Boy Scout Handbook with Normal Rockwell Cover

Originally titled The Official Handbook for Boys, it was first published in 1910 and written by Earnest Thompson Seton. He based his version of the handbook on Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys. There have been 12 editions and 3 more authors since the first printing. Mine is the 6th edition written by William “Green Bar Bill” Hillcourt. He was a scouting legend.

As you can see, it belonged to Larry E. Carnaher. I Googled him. No results.

If anyone knows him, tell him that I have his book.

I had forgotten that Normal Rockwell did the cover illustration. But, who else could have? I think it’s perfect.

When Norman Rockwell was 19 years old he was made the Art Editor for the Boy Scouts scouting magazine A Boy’s Life. It was here that he had his first published magazine cover. He contributed annually to the Boy Scouts calendar between 1925 and 1976, and in 1939 was awarded the The Silver Buffalo Award from the Scouts; the highest adult award they offer.

The cover isn’t nearly this beautiful anymore. There’s a raft full of multi-racial (but still Christian) Scouts, a bald eagle head, and some of the American flag.

Inside are all the instructions to be a well-rounded young man that I remembered.

Preparing for Scout service……

Prepared for Service in the Boy Scout Handbook

Tracking Animals…..

Tracking Wildlife inthe Boy Scout Handbook

Identifying animals…..

Identifing Wildlife in the Boy Scout Handbook

Setting up a camp site.

Setting up a Tent the Boy Scout Handbook

Learning to swim…..

Basic Swimming inthe Boy Scout Handbook

Merit badges….

Merit Badges in the Boy Scout Handbook

The most important lesson, Becoming a man……..

From A Boy to a Man

My brothers and I were all Scouts. We join the ranks of some pretty great men; Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Sam Walton, Bill Gates, and Neil Armstrong.

The Boy Scout’s lessons of honesty, working within a group dynamic, and always striving to do your very best have followed me my entire life.

I took my copy of this book on hikes, campouts, pretty much daily to school, and it was with me anytime there was an outdoor fire involved.

I remember reading this book to the point of duct taping the spine together when I was a kid.

Larry was much more gentle with his copy. Not a single dog-ear.

nest-ing Instincts

Posted by James on February 24, 2013
Posted in: Did Ya Know?, New Home. Tagged: , , , . 6 comments

I think everyone knows where I stand on technology.

Without Jamie I would own a flip-phone that I would have to tap the 1 key 3 times just to text a “C” on and foil covered “rabbit-ear” antenna on top of my fat, heavy TV just so I can find Family Guy every Sunday.

Jamie introduced me to the iPad, Apple TV, the Mac, and the “life-sustaining” iPhone. He made me the Apple whore I am today.

Now, we have a new device to add to the list….

The Nest Thermostat.

It’s beautiful……Designed by the same genius who designed the iPod and iPhone.

The company better known for those iPhones and iPads is now selling this high-tech thermostat. Now don’t shake your head in disbelief, because the Nest is unlike any conventional thermostats.

The Nest can learn and remember your prefered temperatures to automatically keep your house cool or warm. It actually turns itself off when your house is empty to conserve energy. Most importantly it taps into the power of remote control, letting you change the temperature from anywhere via your PC, tablet, or iPhone.

Control the nest Thermostat with your iPhone

Here’s the old one that Jamie installed shortly after we moved in.

Old Thermostat

Here’s the mess that was under that enormous bad boy.

Old Thermostat Removed

I moved the wires a few inches further up the wall, and attached plastic screw anchors to hold everything on the wall.

New placement for Nest Thermostat

Jamie attached all the wires per the directions,( I wasn’t really paying attention at this point, think I was distracted by something shiny in the other room), but it seemed pretty simple – I didn’t hear much fowl language.

Jamie Attaching the Nest thermostat

I have no rational reason for the wall changing color in every picture.

All finished with the install.

Stunning, and it actually …..learns us. It lights up every time I walk by…….it knows when we are at home.

Nest Thermostat

“Wasn’t there a big gaping hole in the wall under this thing?” you ask.

Not anymore there isn’t…..

…..check back tomorrow to see where that hole went.

Greetings From The American Southwest

Posted by James on February 16, 2013
Posted in: Did Ya Know?, New Home. Tagged: , , , , , . 7 comments

Pueblo Colorado Vinatge Linen Postcard

I collect a lot of things, but the bestest things to collect are cheap, underappreciated art forms,

Like, under a dollar, cheap.

Maybe, something like vintage linen postcards…….

Long before email, postcards were the favored form of communication in the 19th century, but they didn’t have pictures until 20th century printing processes made them possible to produce economically.

The “Golden Era” of linen postcards is considered from the 1930′s through the early 60′s. Not actually made of linen, these postcards were printed on a cardstock with a high rag content making them more permeable to the bright saturated inks. It’s the rough linen-like texture that gave these cards their name.

Juarez Vintage Linen Postcard

A lot of collectors prefer the linen postcards of the Curt Teich company. They were known for the highest quality cards with the best colors and a striking creative flair. In the Curt Teich artist’s visions – buildings, monuments, and landscapes appeared even more beautiful and colorful than they were in real life. Daytime skies were always the brightest of blues and grass the greenest of green. Even desert scenes, normally greys and tans, were filled with intense oranges, browns and reds.

Somewhere along the production line, a Very wise artist had a vision to incorporate several monuments of a locale onto one postcard. Each sight of interest would be drawn inside a letter from the name of said location (following me so far?)…with a “Greetings From” heading hovering over the top. These are refered to by collectors (deltiologists, BTW) as “Large Letter” postcards.

Denver Vintage Linen Postcard

I have a couple of hundred.

Like any good hoarder…..a single 100 is never enough.

I thought I would focus on postcards from my favorite locale…the American Southwest.

Starting with Texas…..of course,

Vintage Linen Texas Postcards

Vintage Linen Texas Postcards 2

New Mexico is another of my favorite states….

New Mexico Large Letter Postcard

Vintage Linen New Mexico Postcards

Vinatge Linen New Mexico Postcards 2

How cool is this University of New Mexico card with the vintage looking football players?

Vintage University of New Mexico Postcard

Here are just a few more favorites from my collection…

Rocky MTS Vintage Linen Postcard

Vintage Linen Southwest Postcards

Vintage Linen Southwestern Postcards 2

I think this one is my absolute favorite, and that’s a hard call to call.

Vintage Linen Tijuana Postcard

I know, ……Tijuana?

Technically not part of the American Southwest, but I’m just crazy about that sombrero.

It almost makes Tijuana look like a place where you would actually want to spend a vacation.

That’s some talented art form.

George Nelson Saucer Lamp

Posted by James on February 3, 2013
Posted in: Did Ya Know?, New Home. Tagged: , . 13 comments

The George Nelson Saucer lamp, the most iconic lamps in the history of modern design, is part of the Nelson Bubble lamp series designed by George Nelson in 1947. Their pleasing shapes, based on Chinese paper lanterns, are fashioned in sturdy, light-weight steel with a special woven white polymer plastic over the top.  With about a dozen other shapes to choose from, Nelson Bubble lamps have maintained the same level of popularity for almost 70 years.

George Nelson Lamps

I’m wild about the U.F.O. shape.

Almost a “Close Encounter of a Ceiling Kind”. (laughs to self)

They weren’t created just for sterile environments. They should be mixed into a room.

Here are a few interiors that I think “mix in” these lamps just perfectly.

Looks just as natural hanging over a farmhouse table as it does mixed with kitschy 1950′s furniture. Even floating over a Hudson Bay blanket, which is more our style.

That’s what I love so much about these things. There is more than just a “Mid-Century” coolness vibe too. A little campy and Sleek Modern at the same time.

So why the big TOO-DO about Nelson Saucer Lamps?

Because I got one!!!! Happy Birthday to me. (yeah, that was a few months ago - just now posting about it  – so sue me)

Picked up a small one for our guest room. After a little deliberation, we decided that we don’t need a ceiling fan in there. In Texas, all the bedrooms have ceiling fans. Our guests might miss it….but what the heck? We won’t. It’s nice to have one unused jewel-box of a room.

Here’s what’s hanging in there now….

Pretty uneventful, Right? You should have seen the monstrosity that was there when we moved in. At least now, all the fans in the bedrooms match.

We have a theory that if your ceiling is white, the fan should be too.

The box had this awesome seal across the top.

It was honestly a little hard to cut through it. Not literally, figuratively. But at the same time, it felt like opening a present.

If you have ever wired a light fixture then you know how easy it really is. I’m not going to bore anyone with the details…….and just show the spectacular results.

Guest Room with Nelson Saucer Lamp

Like a little “Mid-Century” space ship hovering over the bed.

Nelson Saucer Pendant

I was worried that the light bulb would be visible from every angle, but you really have to stand right under it and look up to see it.

Like so……

View of the Center of the Nelson Saucer Pendant

Sidenote: When our dear friend, and more than occasional houseguest, Ivan saw the box,

he squealed with delight, ” I hope that’s going in the guest room !“.

I’m guessing that he doesn’t miss the ceiling fan either……