Rocky Neck

I went to Rocky Neck - billed as "America's Oldest Working Art Colony" - or maybe it's just "America's Oldest Art Colony" - but no, I do think there's a qualifier in there somewhere. Anyway, the point is, Rocky Neck hosts monthly events every late Spring through early Fall, with open studios, lectures and music. Rocky Neck has a shabbiness that ranges from the slightly deranged to the genteel, but all of it is interesting. And like all places with personality, the people who live there seem to really, really love it. Reminds me of the goon docks in "The Goonies" (which I just re-watched) and I mean that as a compliment. The moon was full over the harbor that night and it was pleasant beyond words. I even bought a painting, a small study by Eugene Quinn, who is at the genteel end of the spectrum. Great work. I stood in his studio staring at his work for a long, long time like a child counting her pennies at the candy counter, trying to figure out how to make the most out of a severely limited budget. He graciously makes his studies affordable for the rest of us. I would include an image of the painting but my photography skills don't quite measure up to the necessary standard.

If you can handle my sub-standard picture-taking abilities (not quite as important for the following photo), here's an image of a Sycamore Hollow tripod lamp in its habitat. I never get tired of seeing where pieces from the shop end up. This one is in a friend's lovely summer home in Rockport. I wish I was sitting on that couch right now, reading a book (okay, maybe a newspaper. Or a magazine) by the light of that tripod lamp.

More Strange Vintage Lighting

Last time I featured a homemade star (see previous post), and in keeping with the offbeat, today I'm showing off a vintage lighthouse lamp that an ambitious person with a nice sense of scale created with plaster (for those realistic-looking boulders), wood and - best of all - the top of an old lantern. This lamp is not for those of you who are shy about their lighting. It measures 25" tall with a base of 8" in diameter. Still, it's not imposing. Just a friendly lighthouse that would work as a conversation-piece, bedside lamp, a welcome beacon in your window, et cetera. And to add to its appeal, the lamp has been rewired. Check it out at our online store. Clearly I can't get enough of vintage lighting, but there are worse things to be addicted to.

She's a Star!

I was in Ohio visiting my family when my mom, an inveterate flea marketer, auction-goer, and yard sale huntress, presented me with this star. It lights up! It's handmade! It's vintage! It's perfect! My mom is convinced that I am, in her words, hard to buy for. It's not that I'm hard to buy for, exactly...it's just that there is not a lot of stuff in this world that is worth having in your life. If you have an abundance of space and a lack of preference (or taste, to put it less charitably), you can fill up your surroundings in no time. But how much more enjoyable the process and the end result when you take your time in the world of home decor, picking and choosing what you actually want to live with? Case in point is this star. While it won't actually be living with me in my home (I have sacrificed it to the store), it certainly makes the cut, in my opinion. Some enterprising fellow, or lady, crafted it out of plywood long ago (if 40 years counts as long ago) and I like to imagine the Hanging of the Star became an annual family tradition - just before this same family trouped off into the back 40 to cut their own Christmas tree. Of course I'm just making this last part up, but that is part of the fun of acquiring vintage pieces. They all have a story.

Whale Trunk + Artist's Living Room = Great Decor

It's feeling festive in town today, as the holiday weekend has arrived - or maybe it's because the economic news hasn't been all bad lately (for a change). Perhaps reporting on the demise of life as we know it, economically-speaking, was not nearly as fun for news outlets once they themselves started becoming victims of the tanking economy... Whatever the reason (and I'm skeptical that the reason is based on facts), the news has been slightly sunnier lately, with hints that things might not be as bad as we thought. The tourists and locals wandering around town seem to sense this, and are deciding that buying a cup of coffee, or a throw pillow, or maybe even (whoa!) a painting does not make them bad people. Just people enjoying a holiday weekend in a small town. Speaking of not-bad people, Karen Tusinski, an amazing artist who happens to have a gallery across the street from the shop (www.karentusinski.com) sent me a couple of photos of her latest Sycamore Hollow acquisition, a small rustic trunk painted with a whale motif. I felt honored that she put it in her house!


Top left corner shows a little of Karen's work.


The tripod lamp next to the couch also came from Sycamore Hollow.

Spring, I think.

Spring is in the air in Rockport. Hordes of people are walking around here today with their wool coats open and their scarves dragging behind them through the leftover little piles of dirty snow. Inside the shop, however, all is not so spry. The nice weather caught me by surprise, and my window display still looks trapped somewhere in mid-January. Dark looming trees and lots of brown. But never fear! By next weekend Butterflies will be fluttering by and creatively crafted flowers will be blooming in my window. If you're in town, stop by. No doubt we'll have a blizzard just in time for Spring.

In honor of this weekend's time change, and the presumably longer light it will bring into our lives, here's a little sampling of a few of the lamps I have in the store right now.






Check out more at www.sycamorehollow.net

Spheres in September

September 17th, and it's my first post of the month. I think I'm supposed to be doing this every day or something. At least that's what the blogging experts tell us. The Blogging Formula for Success: a) Be sure to post on Something Meaningful every day, b) Build an audience for your Important Thoughts, and c) Bore your audience to tears. I have the last part down pat.

Okay, today we're going to talk about spheres. A recurring motif in nature, spheres are all around us. Why, the earth itself is a sphere. If I would take the time, I could give you some wikipedia-d information that gives a bit of history of man's relationship to the circle and its role as the representation of the infinite. And so on. But for the purposes of commerce I'll skip all the high-minded stuff and go right to what matters to me personally. I am surrounded by circles every day in the store. I find that I am drawn to shape again and again, as I keep buying vintage glass floats (insert mental image here), old croquet and bocce balls, and now wooden orbs composed of tiny round shapes glued to a sphere to form a festival of circle shapes. You really have to see it to know what I'm talking about. I WILL post a photo. Really!

For today's final sphere: a vintage lamp composed of a teak arrangement above an aqua colored glass ball. Huge lamp, huge statement. Very cool.