• 4th Annual Arts & Crafts Chicago show & sale

    Just got this press release in my inbox. If any of you go, please send me photographs! And remember, the Frank Lloyd Wright home & studio is in River Forest, too, so you could easily make a nice weekend out of this:

    The 4th Annual Arts and Crafts Chicago Show and Sale is coming back to
    Concordia University in River Forest on Saturday, May 30th and Sunday,
    May 31st 2009. Focusing on mission furniture and accessories of the
    American Arts and Crafts Movement (approximately 1890-1920), this show
    will truly be one you won’t want to miss. You’ll find 20th Century
    Decorative Arts including furniture, metalwork, pottery, textiles, art
    and lighting; everything from Stickley, Limbert, Roycroft, Rookwood and
    much more. Over 50 of the nations leading dealers will be on hand to
    answer questions and advise on how to decorate your home. This
    specialized event has proven to be one of the premiere antique and
    contemporary shows in the Midwest.

    Dealers attending this year’s show are coming from all across the
    country. We have dealers from Massachusetts, New York, California,
    Texas as well as the best dealers from the Midwest. JMW and Crones
    Collectibles from Massachusetts will be featuring high-end pottery from
    the Northeast such as Grueby, Saturday Evening Girls and Marblehead, as
    well as furniture and accessories. Jack Papadinis Antiques,
    Connecticut, will be showcasing some of the premiere lighting in the
    country and David Surgan from New York will offer the best Heintz
    Collection for sale in the country. Paramour Fine Arts, which
    specializes in arts and crafts era woodblocks and art, will be on hand
    showcasing some fabulous artwork from the era. Local dealers such as
    John Toomey Gallery will be exhibiting as well, highlighting Midwest
    artists such as Frank Lloyd Wright, TECO and Jarvie.

    Not only is this an antique show, but the weekend will showcase the
    highest quality contemporary craftsfirms as well. Ephraim Faience
    Pottery, Door Pottery, Arts and Crafts Hardware and Dard Hunter Studios
    will be in attendance, just to name a few.

    With the success of the show over the last three years and with the
    rich tradition of bungalows, as well as the Prairie School heritage of
    Frank Lloyd Wright, Chicago has proven to be a perfect fit for this
    specialized show.

    Homeowners interested in educating themselves as to the appropriate
    furnishings for their turn of the century bungalows and craftsman style
    homes shouldn’t miss the 4th Annual Arts and Crafts Chicago Show and
    Sale, Saturday May 30th, 2009, from 10 am – 5 pm and Sunday May 31st
    from 11 am – 4 pm at Concordia University at Geiseman Gym in River
    Forest, Illinois. Admission price is only $7 each. Free parking on site
    in a 5-level garage. No parking on Monroe.

  • more library card catalogs & other storage – craigslist

    Filecabinets

    I know people love these things. I do too … I just don’t have anywhere to fit more furniture in my house, especially not with the step tansu that I’d like to wedge into the living room somehow. Here are several I’ve found this week on Craigslists around the country:

    west coast

    midwest

    east coast

    • petite tabletop 6-drawer card file in Ithaca NY: $50enormous, ex-built-in 19th-century dark wood
    • 72-drawer library card file near Boston MA: $1200
    • 14-drawer library card file (5×8 cards) with two missing drawers in Browns Mills NJ: $45

    south & southwest

    • tabletop 2-drawer Remington Rand oak card file in Crawfordville FL: $80
    • wood and plastic 60-drawer & 3-shelf library card file in Jacksonville FL: $650
    • two large four-drawer wooden file cabinets from Library Bureau SoleMalers, early 20th century, near Orlando FL: $335 each
    • 15-drawer, 2-shelf tabletop library card file, includes table, near San Antonio TX: $200

  • Martha Stewart’s Arts & Crafts Christmas dinner

    Marthastewart
    Reader Bob Sindelar of Sindelar & O’Brien Antique and Design imagines the following bit of holiday humor: Martha Stewart’s planner for a very special Arts & Crafts Christmas dinner…

    DAY I: Build pavilion for the dinner — something in a bungalow motif. Use native woods. Strive for a Greene & Greene look. (Use original hardware from the collection if time gets too short to hammer my own.)

    Quarter-saw white oak from the stand I felled last year. Build manger. Use through-tenons and pegged construction, adding corbels to the underside (Joseph may have been a carpenter, but he was no Gustave Stickley!).

    Fume and set aside.

    DAY 2: Shear sheep. Card and spin wool. Weave. Fashion into swaddling clothes.
    Phone Dale at the Boathouse. Book time at furnace. Pick up Lino at airport. Blow life-size glass putti. (Use gold foil inclusions; the silver looked tacky in that eight-foot, sand-cast sleigh Bertil and I did last year!)

    Swaddle. Place in manger.

    DAY 3: Pluck goose. Fashion quill pen. Make red ink from the crushed skin of holly berries. Address 250 dinner invitations in a calligraphic hand.

    Design award-winning new typeface. Carve from heart pine. Set type for dinner menus. Pull 250 prints, hors commerce, and pencil sign. Illume in six colors, plus gold. Bind in limp covers. Set aside.

    DAY 4: Run off individual linen place mats and napkins on loom. Embroider with guests’ initials in original Arts & Crafts design based on the Dard Hunter sketch book I found at that wonderful yard sale last week for 25¢.

    Design and cast bronze mounts for those terribly plain, Tiffany salts.

    DAY 5: Fuel the Aerocoupe. Fly to Colorado. Select and fell Blue Spruce for the Great Room. Fashion sled from trimmed branches. Recruit dog team. Mush tree to front yard, waving gaily to ordinary folk along the way. (They will remember this for years!)

    DAY 6: Soak frostbitten toes in Weller jardiniere filled with fresh mountain spring water, to which has been added 8 oz. arctic ice. Reserve water for the ice sculpture. (Remember to wash jardiniere before serving the mulled wine!)

    Clean funky old sideboard I found on the trash pile yesterday. Paint in colorful Peter Hunt design. (I’ll need a place to put those three-color Grueby bowls for the soup.) Be sure to cover up that "R"-inside-a-sawmark carved on the back, probably by some bygone child.

    DAY 7: Melt down old copper tubing removed from Victorian house I restored last week. Pour and let cool. Roll into sheets. Radially hammer individual place card holders. Patinate and set aside.

    Hit local flea markets and garage sales. Gather enough "Ruba Rombic" in seasonal colors of Jungle Green and Ruby Red to use as party favors. (Don’t tell dealers their Consolidated "Ruba Rombic" is really Kopp "Modernistic." They don’t want to hear it. Particularly not from Martha Stewart!)

    DAY 8: Strip Thanksgiving turkey carcass; dry. Paint red. Distress. Apply gold leaf to highlight. Invert and hang on front door. Fill with freshly cut pine boughs and cones. Add left-over mashed potatoes to pine cone tips to simulate snow. Top with jellied cranberries for that festive note.

    For dinner music, record traditional Christmas melodies on period instruments, playing each myself and mixing in my studio later. Laser CDs, enough for each guest.

    DAY 9: Harvest bee hives. Make wax; color with crushed and pureed fresh cranberries for that just-right Christmas-red. Line 120 toilet paper rolls saved over past year (waste not; want not!) with wax paper. Using as molds, cast bee’s-wax candles. Remove and discard TP rolls.

    Line drive and walk with Loetz oil-spot vases. To each, add 1-1/2 cups Gulf Coast, summer sand, to weight. Insert red candles (wick up). They will look lovely, glowing warmly, against the snow! (If summer sand is unavailable, substitute winter sand, but increase to 1-2/3 cups.)

    DAY 10: The Day of the Dinner – E-mail holiday greetings to the 37 on-line discussion groups I moderate. Be sure to preface with "Off Topic." Remember to ask them to respond by PRIVATE e-mail!

    Greet guests, asking after each of their children or grandchildren byname. So as to reduce guests’ well-deserved feelings of inadequacy,carefully add a light splash of Beaujolais Nouveau to the skirt of the country suit I whipped up this morning.

    Smile modestly. Try (sincerely, this year!) to appear slightly flustered.

    Sign and dedicate 250 copies of "Martha Stewart Collects."

    Collapse.

  • Stickley on Craigslist: December 11, 2007

    This is so much easier now that I can collect these listings automatically! As usual, I make no guarantees as to the authenticity of any of these items – be careful (and note that some items described as "Stickley era" or "Stickley style" do get through the filter – I try to remove them by hand but once in awhile leave the item in if I think it’s nice enough or interesting):

  • Yahoo Pipes + Craigslist = SSS (simple Stickley searches) RSS

    Some of you may be familiar with RSS ("really simple syndication") – a way to publish "feeds" of regularly-changing information. Using Yahoo’s Pipes application, I’ve just made an RSS feed of Craigslist searches – in this case, 15 Craigslist city sites are searched for the term "Stickley," and those without images are filtered out. You may view the feed here – I hope it’s useful. In the future, I’ll build a full page of such searches, an Arts & Crafts furniture-for-sale aggregator for most American cities.

  • Arts & Crafts on Ebay: September 2007

    Lots of A&C copper, furniture & various knick-knacks of interest to Arts & Crafts collectors and aficionados up on Ebay this week. I’m not including prices since I’m writing this on Monday and by the time it goes up on Tuesday morning, the current bids may all be a bit higher than they are now; I did try to select only what I thought were underpriced / good bargain items.

    copper: Lots of copper, some nice and some crap. Ignore all the "I was told this was Roycroft but it’s unmarked" claims (or this guy, who inexplicably includes the word "Roycroft" in the name of an Joseph Sankey copper pitcher) – they diligently marked all their pieces, and while some of these unmarked pieces are nice items, they are not Roycroft so don’t be tricked into paying a premium for them. Same goes for the folks who list items as "Stickley era" or "possibly Gustav Stickley?" – they’re just using the shotgun approach to get as many people to see the listing as possible, and while you can’t fault their sales acumen, you certainly shouldn’t give money to these ethically-challenged dealers. Here are some attractive pieces which seem to be sold honestly and without the tricks listed above:

    furniture: Again, avoid the folks who have no idea what they’re selling. If it seems too good to be true (a Stickley Bros. armchair for $100?), it probably is; there are many dozens of cases of unscrupulous dealers affixing labels or making fake marks on unsigned pieces to drive the price up, so be careful. The following pieces seem to be listed accurately and fairly:

    lighting: You would be amazed (or maybe not) at the number of jerks who list their cheap made-in-China knockoffs as a "Dirk van Erp original." However, not all ebay sellers are ripoff artists:

    architectural salvage & etc.

  • September Craigslist finds, west coast-centric

    It’s interesting how some communities really embrace Craigslist and use it regularly, and some areas hardly touch it. I’ve noticed that many of the midwest and southern states use it rarely – mostly only for employment and rental advertising, while even small cities on both coasts have extremely active Craigslist communities. So, just in case you were wondering why I give short schrift to certain parts of the country in these monthly reports, that’s your answer. Meanwhile, today’s crop:

    • library desk with shelves, interesting detail, excellent condition: $950, San Ramon CA
    • sideboard with good grain and unique round mirror: $365, Hollywood CA
    • Limbert dresser, good condition & nice hardware: $900, San Jose CA
    • armchair with high spindle back & leather seat, signed Stickley: $450, Santa Ana CA
    • partner desk with shelves and "tug-of-war" drawers: $650, Santa Cruz CA
    • pedestal / plant stand, attractive grain: $275, Portland OR
    • rocker, leather seat & nice wide slat back: $250, Salinas CA
    • rocker, slat back, with velvet seat and back: $40, Tacoma WA
    • library table & side chair with some interesting details: $150 for both, Templeton CA
    • armoire with interesting detail, mirror on door: $1850, Spokane WA
    • settle & armchair, Stickley, matching upholstery: $2500, Northridge CA
    • dining table and four spindle-backed sidechairs: $500, Molalla OR
    • piano bench designed after a 1910 Stickley design, very attractive: $450, Estacada OR
    • cabinet doors or entry door sidelights with pretty stained glass: $275, Seattle WA

  • Arts & Crafts Home: newsletter #68

    Mark Golding – owner of Brighton’s Arts & Crafts Home shop and aficionado of all things Arts & Crafts – released the 68th edition of his electronic newsletter this past weekend. As usual, the newsletter is jam-packed. In addition to ads for interesting new items at the shop itself, Mark’s loaded the newsletter with a calendar of interesting events all over the UK & elsewhere – open houses, gallery shows, lectures, special events, and plenty more. Mark also includes many useful "trade secrets" for antique collectors in this issue.

  • Craigslist: Stickley, July 2007

    Plenty of Stickley – some contemporary, some antique, and some needing a good amount of TLC – available on Craigslist this week. As always, be careful that you are buying the real deal and aren’t being taken to the cleaner; unless you are confident in your ability to discern authenticity, stick with buying from a reputable dealer.

    • very pretty rocker with Nouveau inlay design; Rhode Island – $595
    • spindle-sided Morris chair; Palm Springs – $750
    • more spindle-sided Morris chairs, these with leather cushions; Los Angeles – $650 for two
    • Morris-style rocker; Niantic CT – $850
    • rocker & armchair, cushions need work; Palm Springs – $1500
    • #729 drop-front desk; Santa Barbara – $2999
    • slat-sided Morris-style recliner with custom southwestern upholstery; San Diego – $100
    • L & JG side chair, simple design, circa 1910. Seat needs reupholstering; Reno – $385
    • #818 server / sideboard; Portland OR – $950
    • Quaint Furniture rocker, needs refinish & arm repair; Seattle – $125
    • #89 / 91-224 spindle-sided love seat / small settle; Washington DC – $2000
    • red label (Stickley Handcraft) rocker, original  seat, needs cleaning; Hudson Valley area – $350
    • Stickley Bros. metal tagged armchair, slat back, sturdy; Richmond VA – $475
    • set of 4 ladder-back sidechairs, Fayetteville stamp; Long Island – $300
    • set of 4 wicker-seat sidechairs, need refinish, partially recaned; Brooklyn – $40 each, all for $150
    • contemporary Harvey Ellis series cherry, copper & maple dresser; Albany NY – $1500
    • red / gold Fayetteville (Stickley Bros.) label drop-front desk; Pittsburgh – $990

  • craigslist & ebay: library card catalogs are great!

    I’ve always liked library card catalogs – the old wooden ones with dozens of tiny drawers. Something about the grid or all the little nooks and crannies appealed to me. As a kid, my parents had a wooden filing cabinet, previously used to hold criminal records and fingerprint files, that they had bought at a police auction; it still had a number of old mugshots in it when we brought it home, and I guess the promise of hidden treasure is another reason I like these types of items.

    If my house wasn’t already crowded with furniture, I’d seriously think about picking up one (or more) of these:

    and here are a few on ebay

    One thing I’ve noticed is that even the starting bids on Ebay are far higher than what folks selling via craigslist hope to get. Part of that is that Craigslisters want to sell to locals – they won’t deal with shipping, and don’t bother asking – and some of the Ebayers are willing to crate & ship. Another, something borne out by my own experience, is that people who use community sites like Craigslist are simply less predatory than vendors on Craigslist.