Meet Ze Monsta

Happy Halloween!

Vintage Pucci towels

so cool

garage & basement

Rupert Jasen Smith

Mystery solved! After a long year of wondering who made this awesome diamond-dusted silkscreen Linda bought at a flea market, her intermittent Googling has finally paid off. Rupert Jasen Smith (not "Papa Josabeth" after all-phew!) was Andy Warhol's silkscreener/master printmaker/art director from the mid 70's until Warhol's death in 1987. Smith introduced the diamond dust into Warhol's silkscreens, and Warhol's line about that was "the diamond dust fell off Rupert's paintings and stuck to mine." 

a bio:

Rupert Jasen Smith was born in 1953 in New Jersey and died in 1988. He was raised in Palm beach, Florida. Smith received his bachelor of arts degree from Pratt Institute, New York City in 1973, in painting and printmaking. Shortly thereafter, he was offered the position of master printer at Tamarind Institute in Los Angeles, but declined, deciding to work independently in New York. Smith had spent most of his childhood intrigued by the tropical, lush surroundings indigenous to Florida and began painting and studied under the American landscape painter, A. E. Bakus. Surface quality became a significant aspect of his paintings and he experimented with illuminating a dimensional source within and on top of his canvases, eventually leading to the application of diamond dust particles onto his surfaces to enhance the prismatic properties of light and color. In 1974, Smith met Andy Warhol and assisted him with his hand-painted flowers editions. Smith was accepted formally by Warhol as his master printer and art director. Their collaborations expanded and Rupert worked with contemporary notables including Rauchenberg, Jenkins, Stella, Johns, and John Lennon. In 1975, Smith worked on the Merce Cunningham set for "Summer Space", designed by Rauchenberg and Johns. While continuing his position with Warhol, Smith devoted more time to developing his own art career and had numerous shows in prominent galleries, both in the U.S. and Europe. Elegant colors that remind one of the abstract expressionist paintings of the late 50's combined with a photo-pop transfiguration spiral Smith's works into a shimmering display of real and simulated lighting. A partial list of private collectors of his work prior to his death included: Julie Christie, Halston, Jenkins, Mick Jagger, Grace Jones, John Lennon, Rauchenberg, and Warhol.

 So it was a pretty fun discovery, worth the wait, and far more exciting than a Papat Jambul.

Wary Meyers Painting Pillows

Off the wall and onto the sofa! Our latest project is a collection of hand-painted (by me) and sewn (by Linda) down-and-feather-filled painting pillows. The first collection is all Abstract Expressionist, inspired by the works of Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline. Approximately 18" square, the acrylic paint is thick in parts (like the actual paintings) and nicely pliable. $145 each.

Click here for the entire gallery and order information.

I know someone who knows someone who knows Allen Jones quite well. Or, Kitchen Trophy

A few years ago British interiors photographer James Merrell was up for a weekend photographing our apartment for Domino magazine (here, here, and here), and among the things I (possibly pesteringly) kept pointing out was our kitchen trophy. At this he said, "Yes No! I did see it and love it- and actually the only other time I've ever seen one is at Allen Jones' house.  ...Roger Dean and Yes and I would be hanging out there and we'd always see that knifey jumble on his kitchen wall."
Totally excited to have this connection I was all, "this makes us all mates now, right?!?"

Anyway, above is our kitchen trophy as of the other day, basically a collection of kitchen utensils piled together on the wall like a sort of heraldic crest, including my grandfather's corkscrew, a Stelton bottle opener, an old Zig Zag corkscrew, Dansk knives, a beat-down cleaver, a Danish gnome cheese-cutter, an Adidas tennis racket bottle opener and some other stuff. 

Allen Jones, from the Pirelli calender, 1973. Photographed by Brian Duffy and airbrushed by Philip Castle.


Jones with his sculptures Table, Chair, and Hat Rack, in his apartment, 
from the book 70's Style & Design.


The Jones Residence via Google street view, with quite coincidentally yet appropriately a leather-booted bird strolling by directly across the road.

Key Party

Subliminal Seduction. As a 16 year-old I don't think I ever went into the High School library without nonchalantly taking this book off the shelf and then staring spellbound at the ice cube pictures, trying to see how the Ad Men embedded the T&A.

Top: the Monogrammed Key project from our own book, which, if my own ice cubes are working, you should be ordering right about now.

just initial your OK

perfect.

Collagical

Collage, signed "RC '76" from a yard sale.