Due to popular demand (the previous run of green shirts has now sold out), here's a new version of the "Stickley Says Relax" shirt, this time printed-on-demand on a blue American Apparel short-sleeved shirt. $20, perfect for the American Craftsman aficionado(s) in your life.
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:
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.
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):
I got over a dozen emails from those of you who found our Stickley-on-Craigslist aggregator (a page that lists all the Stickley items for sale in 15 major American cities’ Craigslists, filtered for those that include photographs), so I not only wanted to remind those of you who may be shopping for a major holiday gift for your Craftsman furniture loving spouse, but also to introduce something new…
I’ve made variants of the same pipe for a few other search terms. Remember to bookmark this page, as these aggregators will always show the most recent entries for these terms, whether you check them today or next year:
And remember, if you use Firefox or Safari (now available for Windows, too!) or another browser that lets you use live bookmarks, you can simply drag the rss feed right into your menu bar – or add it to your favorite newsreader or start page.
Also, while I was playing around with Yahoo Pipes, I created a news aggregator – similar to Google News, but this one not only pulls in news stories, it also illustrates them with new and hopefully related photographs from Flickr:
Plenty of interesting furniture, metalwork, glass & more on Ebay this month, with more than the usual number of small gift items available:
In the venn diagram of life, there is a small intersection between Frankie Goes to Hollywood Fans and aficionados of Craftsman design. This shirt is for those people – or, really, anyone who likes to sit in a comfy chair. Also, please let me know if you’d like to see it in other colors (the artwork, the text or the shirt) – I can indeed accommodate you. The shirts are quite affordable and are now available from my new Bountee store, and other designs are coming (and I’m always looking for suggestions, too).
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.
This month, there are more knicknacks than you can shake even the fanciest stick at over on the mother of all online auction sites. The following aren’t necessarily excellent deals, but everything here is at least interesting.
As usual, I’m avoiding everything labeled misleadingly (i.e., "Roycroft era," "Stickley style," "maybe Stickley?," etc. … I’ll have plenty more up next week and the week after.
Andrea Valluzzo, over at Antiques & The Arts Online, has the full story:
Holbrook, MA: It’s not every day a Stickley desk like this comes along.
On a recent house call to look at some collectibles, a
cannonball, a gun and similar merchandise, Kelley Auctions’ appraiser
Michael Lynch spotted the circa 1904 desk with original ebonized black
finish and rare Grecian urn inlay and asked the owner about consigning
it.The woman, who was selling some of her recently deceased
parents’ items to finance some needed car repairs, suggested he buy it
outright for a few hundred dollars.Instead, the specially made Stickley desk was consigned
to auction and after weeks of presale advertising and building
interest, it crossed the block on September 5, attaining $214,500,
including premium. The desk, now one of six known examples to exist,
was unknown prior to the auction. Each desk is numbered; this one is
marked #3.
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.