One of my favorite things about Fashion Week is when a designers inspiration for their collection parallels an inspiration of my own, and every tiny detail becomes a secret signifier of a favorite element of a favorite thing. Karen Walker has always been one of those designers, which explains why I spent all afternoon scouring the internets for the first sign of her 'The Village' collection, inspired by the 60s British television series 'The Prisoner', which I spent many an hour on the clock obsessing over during a youthful stint as a cult video store employee. The sets and costume design are 100 percent amazing and super over the top, and coincidentally something I had also obsessed over turning into a clothing collection once upon time, so of course I had visions dancing in my head of a carnivalesque production of canopied penny farthings, pointy parasols and patchwork capes, an imaginary army of awning stripes, schoolboy suits and rugby striped shirtdresses: The real collection, while super cute and starring the requisite piped blazer, is actually not at all like any of that (which is probably for the best) but does still perfectly capture that 60s seaside meets Edwardian holiday camp look that I so adore, and also features one of my favorite Karen Walker prints since the lollipop trees and puppies of yore... Nautical flags!!!
I think it's pretty obvious to anyone who knows my work or reads my blog that I love, love LOVE historical kitsch (though I am kind of loathe to use the term kitsch in all but the most academic of senses) so it will probably come as no surprise that I'm totally obsessed with the work of artist/designer/architect/genius Richard Woods:
His signature pop faux bois MDF panels have turned up on on many a design blog and graced many a gallery floor, but you kind of have to see the rest of his work too! Called "architectural interventions" by Frieze Magazine, his installations are one part tongue-in-cheek tribute to/pastiche of English vernacular architecture and one part pure unadulterated whimsy.
My favorite is probably the candy colored Stone Clad Cottages at Fermynwoods Contemporary Art, though I do have a soft spot for half-timbering and love that he once transformed Deitch Projects (along with a handful of collectors homes) into a Mock Tudor:
It's practically sweater weather now in Portland, and though I'll be super excited to access the 99.9% of my wardrobe that is made up of tweeds and heavy wool and sweater vests, I will be sad to see our weekly outdoor expeditions fall by the wayside until next year. I was kind of just getting the hang of this nature thing again! Last weekend we went on an epic stroll in the Columbia River Gorge that should have led to a super secret swimming hole which we never quite found. Along the way we were menaced by a tiny hissy silver snake, and, at one point, I could be found quite comically clinging to a mossy rock for dear life in knee deep rapids... But, the trail through old growth redwoods was insanely beautiful and dotted with a couple of cute little campsites tucked into the foliage that we swore to pay another visit to before the rains start for a couple of nights around a fire with toasted marshmallows and owl calls...
But first, the task of figuring out how and where to acquire the makings of a cute camp! As someone who is both secretly mortified of modern day sporting gear and not so secretly a fan of historic re-enactments, I'm kind of hooked on the idea of strictly vintage camping gear, and actually have a folder full of reference photos and ebay searches but absolutely no idea where to start! Wandervogel lutes and a cute 60s campstove, anyone?
I do know exaaactly where I would acquire my very first tent if I could so afford it, however!
For as long as I've had the internet, I've been obsessed with Past Tents, home of ridiculously adorable historically accurate vintage reproduction stripey tents; medieval, napoleonic, civil war, tudor and yes, even teepees, if you so desire!
My imaginary shopping cart is forever full of the pavilion tent in all sizes, in every combination of every sherbet-y shade in the book:
This is basically the campsite of my dreams: By Etrusia UK via Flickr.
Oh hello camping dreamland! It really doesn't get much more picturesque than candy colored tents set up inside crumbling castle walls, which is what I imagine it would have looked like if I had made it to Tapestry Goes West last year, which fell on both my birthday and the super cosmic date of 08/08/08, was going to be held in the deer park of a castle in Wales, with Circulus headlining, but was sadly semi-cancelled at the last minute! Not that I had cobbled together quite enough pocket change to get there anyway... maybe next time?
On a slightly different note, with a slightly more modern day stripey tent, how cute are these pictures of 60s car camping in Germany, avec perfectly put together outfits, comfy chairs and lots of reading materials? Both from one of many amazing sets of family vacation photos taken all over Europe by photographer Harald Haeusler, also by way of Flickr.
I'm cleaning out my "archives" and set up a little temporary online shoppe for all of the goods here!
Duplicates, triplicates, long lost production samples, alternate colorways and all sorts of sometimes one of a kind odds and ends are up for grabs, through the month of September only!
The address again? http://fawn.bigcartel.com
Also, new ebay listings ending tomorrow! Farewell cute 60s floral corduroy suits, hello off the grid treehouse (Maybe? Unless my beloved Portland would like to produce some exciting projects for me to toil away at? Soonish?)
Here are a few more shots from the weekend: Mostly spent tooling around Sauvie Island, skipping from farm to farm in a u-pick flower frenzy, collecting more dahlias, zinnias, mums and gerber daisies than we could ever possibly display, even after filling practically every glass, mug, tiny novelty vase and empty bottle in the house! And of course I couldn't help but obsess over the colorsssss, collecting and photographing every perfect electric salmon pink and insanely rich velvety blood red! We were originally planning to pick a few baskets of blackberries too, but found a heaping platter of them outside or front door just a few days earlier, a sneaky gift from our next door neighbor who has one of the most beautiful urban gardens we've ever seen! Have I mentioned lately how much I love Portland in the summertime? A few more Sauvie Island photos can be found at my flickr, along with a few more recent odds and ends, including this guy: who may just be our new favorite Portland street cat ever!
PS. Bonus points if you read that last title and immediately thought of this scene (it started looping in my head and I had to find the footage, pronto!):
from Otto Preminger's Skidoo, one of my favorite movies ever made, of all time, EVER. It also stars Groucho Marx, Jackie Gleason, Cesar Romero, Frankie Avalon... no big deal, right? How about 60s supermodel and Rolling Stones pal Donyale Luna? John Phillip Law aka Pygar from Barbarella? Oh, and, costumes by Rudi Gernreich? Soundtrack by Harry Nilsson? If you haven't already seen it, do it now!
I seriously love, love, LOVE Carol Channing, and have probably never been more awestruck and starstruck than seeing her perform Razzle Dazzle (with fireworks!) a few years ago at the Hollywood Bowl!
Here's another classic Carol Channing moment, from Thoroughly Modern Millie:
Apologies for the woefully infrequent summertime updates around here. Lots more coming soon, I promise!
In the meantime, here's a quick snapshot from a birthday weekend spent wandering around the great outdoors: Now we're enjoying a little string rainy days with a cool breeze and a little hint of fall, welcoming a little time to hibernate and focus after the epic heatwaves of the past few weeks. It actually seems to be the perfect time for it to be turning a little gray, now the million projects that we have forever in progress or waiting for just the right day to get started may finally have a chance to see the light of day!
Apologies if you've already seen these next few posts on a million blogs, a million years ago, I'm just catching up with months and months of reading and need a few reminders of a few things too perfect not to commit to memory...
Like these hazy kaleidoscopic Sarah Moon-y cotton candy hair confections: ‘Backstage at Galliano’ by Mark Leibowitz via New York Magazine.
I love these shots of Twiggy (looking ever so slightly bemused) making the most of a lookalike contest photo-op avec aspiring doppelgängers:
via the LIFE photo archive.
I had a whole post in the works to accompany these images on the subject of aspiring doppelgängers (As the seemingly eternal target of one of my own, who has been ramping up her appropriations again as of late. Hello identical website and strangely familiar blog posts. Oh hi process and palettes and personal references, how interesting to see you all so out of context!) but will save that for a rainy day. In the meantime let's just pretend that scenario is even a tiny fraction as adorable and innocent as above...
I'm showing a little wall of new paintings as a guest artist at Compound Gallery this Thursday, kind of a mini preview of a new series in the works, a tribute to Regency ragamuffins, dollies and dandies with a little bit of Buster Keaton thrown in for good measure: I'll be exhibiting alongside a selection of artwork from the book "Pink Attitude, Contemporary Female Creativity"
Opening Thursday, July 2nd at 7:00pm Compound Gallery 107 NW 5th Ave. Portland, OR
For more information please visit: http://www.compoundgallery.com
For pricelist or other show info please contact: matt {at} compoundgallery {dot} com (This show is my first experiment with new depression era pricing, so get them while you can!)
Sorry it's been so terribly quiet around here, I've been taking a little bit of an internet hiatus for art making! Here are a few tiny peeks at a new little batch of paintings coming very soon: I know at least a few people reading this will be excited to hear that I've been revisiting the process that had pretty much become interchangeable with my signature over the years; enamels on glass and plexi, most commonly known for their uncanny resemblance to boiled sweets! I had all but abandoned my favorite materials for a bit in favor of more traditional paintings on canvas and panel partly due to gallery requests for less shattery artworks, and while I still love the idea of veering in the direction of revisionist portraiture forever, I was never able to recapture the perfectly perfect hyper flat candy colors of my dreams in any other medium, and have been quite happily picking up where I left off...
Which might have been with this Baby Lemonade show, circa, oh, 2007? Yikes!
It wasn't until I left LA that I realized there was something quintessentially LA about my chosen materials, specifically the translucence, flourescents and candyflake stripes of the mid-to-late 60s Ferus Gallery stable, probably lodged into my subconscious somewhere between divesting the school library of all of its Pop Art and Color Field books in high school and experimenting with casting and pigmenting my dads surfboard resins.
There are surprisingly few pieces to be found online, but here are a few of my favorites from the LA Glass and Plastics and Finish Fetish crews: Craig Kauffman
Billy Al Bengston
Norman Zammitt
I've been super nostalgic for both Los Angeles specific and late 60s-specific art movements lately, and have have been revisiting both via these amazing books: Practically on permanent loan from the Portland Library. Thanks guys!
I've been slowly but surely posting a few more of the dreamy summer dresses, flapper revival sailor sweaters and perfect summer suits that didn't quite work out in my wardrobe to Ebay for the past few weeks: And so far, this has been the hardest thing to part with. I was hoping to channel something of a "David Hockney goes to Malibu" look for the summer, and this candy colored seersucker suit, which has been languishing at the back of the closet waiting for its day in the sun, would have been absolutely perfect, if only it wouldn't have needed to be tailored half to death in order to fit me quite right! I'll be pretty sad to see it go, but know that it would probably love to be taken out for a stroll!
On a tangentially related note, I think I may be newly obsessed with these Madras and raw silk bow ties by heritage haberdasher J. Press: Brought to my attention by preeminent menswear blog A Continuous Lean.
A few weeks ago I woke up to a long awaited parcel containing possibly the final, final sample (fingers crossed!) of the first in my series of 3 signature vinyl toys for the Necessaries Toy Foundation!
Here's a sneak peek of the first girl, who is on her way to production as we speak:
And an even sneakier peek at her mini dollhouse box:
The packaging for each doll will be a mini abode that suits her imaginary lifestyle, from tiny pink Patisserie to vintage Victorian to Cape Cod cottage (yes, a little sailor girl!), all of which were so fun to design and draw up! The whole set, based on a series of paintings from 2004 called Sundae Girls, has been more than a few years in the making and I can't wait to finally see them all in person!
Keep an eye on the Necessaries Toy Foundation site for the definitive release date, and be sure to check out their other offerings, from the first ever Mark Ryden vinyl toy (due out any day now!) to the super amazing set of Camille Rose Garcia girls, Fafi girls, and Enid from Ghost World!
One upside to the aforementioned Epic Computer Fail of 2009: finding a million projects that I had either abandoned or simply forgotten all about nested in all the wrong folders on my hard drive.
It's a little known fact that I try to sneak collages of kittens into practically every design project I'm asked to work on, which, aside from a couple of googly eyed cats that made their way into a couple of compilation books and fashion editiorials in, oh, 2004 or so, has nearly always been to no avail. Here are a few of the collection still waiting for their forever homes:
Generally, the more desperate the financial situation, the more I tend to fancy it up, breaking out bowties and spats as everyday wear, and eating anything and everything on the 'good dishes'...
This set of tea cups and cake plates created by artist Laurie Simmons is still one of my favorite decadent purchases of all time, and absolutely perfect for splitting a late night ice cream sandwich, yes?
Still in the throes of Spring cleaning, I've been trying to round up another batch of clothing to eBay, but seem to have narrowed the selection down to a closetful of things that I may never ever wear, but just can't bear to part with. Oops.
The perfect example of this phenomenon is this extravagant puffball of a mini that I found a few years ago to wear to an abandoned 1920s mansion garden party/photoshoot that I ended up not attending after all, which has been languishing at the back of the closet waiting for the perfect occasion ever since:
My obsession with dresses like this basically knows no bounds, despite their being absolutely wrong for me, and I've been eyeing this perfect trifecta of the 60s/70s novelty print, multicolored smocking and mock-Edwardian high collar for months on end: By way of Vintage-A-Peel, one of my favorite vintage sellers of all time.
The very epitome of the dollygirl look, from the dolliest corner of the British Boutique Movement set, is, of course, probably Dollyrockers by Sambo, the king of perfectly puffed bishop sleeves, just the right bits of velvet, ruffles and bows, Liberty florals, crocheted bibs and tiny candy buttons. These dresses still turn up every so often, and are usually insanely reasonable which always makes them all the more tempting. I still regret passing up this absolutely perfect Dollyrockers frock from Iron horse Vintage, even though it was probably over a year ago: Yeah, I still can't get over it!
Just making this post has me thinking that a garden party might be just the thing to kick off our first real Portland Spring... croquet and tiny sandwiches, anyone?
I've been absolutely preoccupied with creating new Spring color palettes lately, with the very first sample of my dusky mauve, banana yellow, salmon, and muddy chartreuse obsession seeing print just this week, in my latest ad for Screaming Mimis out now in the March issue of Paper Magazine!
Here's a sneak peek:
The weather here has been teetering wildly between sunshiny and mini snow flurries, and I've been trying to dash out into every temporary sun shower for a tiny bike ride. I'm so excited to finally break my beloved rickety French bikes out of their winter deep freeze for good, and I can't stop peeking at cute bike blogs for vicarious adventures in the meantime. I love love LOVE this cute girls on bikes photo story that one of my current favorite photographers Gemma Booth shot for the always adorable and art filled Amelia's Magazine!
Little bits and pieces of the Spring palettes of my dreams have also been creeping into my Winter wardrobe, with my all time favorite so far being the lavender, tangerine and strawberry pinkish red that two of my most cherished vintage finds of all time just happen to have in common!
Fawn Gehweiler's signature character based paintings, installations and works on paper have exhibited in galleries around the world and appear in a number of prominent private collections. Originally from Hawaii and currently based in the Pacific Northwest, her work combines the influence of a bohemian upbringing, sartorial escapism, and her own family tree.
Once described by The Face magazine as "the visual equivalent of candyfloss peppered with broken glass, delicious yet dangerous" and widely considered
a major influence in the recent explosion of young feminine art in the United States, her work hinges on a delicate balance of past and present, building obsessive narratives through personal artifacts that reflect the imaginary worlds of little girls, treading the fine line between wide eyed innocence and dark fairy tales.
Posts
