Business up Front, Party in the Back

Come on in. I've been waiting for you. (Since 1984!)

A view of the front door from the inside.

Are you with me? I'm still in Atlanta (for the purposes of this blog only). And you and me we're going to revisit one of my early, early projects. Look at my previous post and you'll see the funky digs I called home. Meanwhile a typical client of mine lived in wild and wooly Buckhead and by wild and wooly I mean staid and sedate. So here we go back to my grisaille mural for a Neel Reid house. In the 1910s and 20s Neel Reid was the go to architect when you made a killing in cotton futures or whatever. Living in a Neel Reid house meant you had arrived. His work has impeccable lines, perfect proportions, and fastidious attention to detail and this was a great foil for my wild, organic, tropical, leafy mural.

1984 at the top and 2011 on the bottom. There's hardly any difference, an added widow's walk and some  changes to the landscaping are all I can see. Classical architecture ages well.

Work in progress and me on a ladder laboring in the shadows.

Look at those magnificent moldings! And by the way this corner was where most of my work took place.

Me, caught in the act of painting.

A signature of the designer, Jim Young's work, was the bullseye mirror. I think he managed to find a place for one in most all of his projects. Alas, Jim, a celebrated designer with a stellar client list is remembered by few today.

What else can I tell you about this project? After beginning decorative painting on a grand scale for the Fabulous Fox Theater and then the stately Edwardian lobby at The Ponce I had a series of rather forgettable projects in homes that weren't very special until the Neel Reid project came my way. Having really fine architecture to work on makes all the difference. I can still take pride in the painting I did in 1984, the colors seem right and the composition isn't bad, though naturally I could do a much better job of it today. Atlanta has a number of extant Neel Reid homes and many too of his successor, Philip Schutze so I suppose there's always a possibility I might have  a chance to revisit the experience of working in some really splendid Atlanta residence.

This is an overhead view of the Neel Reid house where I painted the grisaille mural.

A short walk from the Reid house is Philip Shutze's Swan House. Yes, this is front and back of the same house. It is!

As a sort of side note I've included a pictures of the front and rear facades of Swan House by Neel Reid's protégé, Philip Shultze. It's actually within walking distance of the house on Andrews Drive where I painted my mural. As you can the see the front and back look as if they're from two entirely different houses. Do you think the pupil was trying to upstage the teacher with this bit of daring showmanship? 

An Artist's Daring Dream House

The David Ireland article in HG magazine (1985?).

More of David Ireland's home in San Francisco.

Crash, collapse, derelict, disaster area,  in a word a wreck. That's just what I found when I ventured back to the bungalow rental home, the last place I lived in Atlanta's charming Lake Claire neighborhood. Let's be clear, when I moved in the house had not been lived in for years and had the predictable deferred maintenance but I went with that and made decadence my esthetic. In fact I had help.

An old church niche and decorative frieze inspired by it. I made the paper star on top, some  stark white and strict geometry for contrast.

A lot of decorative painting used to detract from an ugly space heater. The candelabras are fashioned out of  twigs painted white and that's a real stem of ivy on top of the mirror.

My Atlanta kitchen with pentimento walls inspired by David Ireland.

A detail of the "space heater decoration", a simple trompe l'oeil technique.

The walls are varnished "as is" and I painted the door to (sort of ) match. You can see a bit more of the mantle  painting and the frieze all based on the Victorian Gothic niches.

David Ireland pointed the way for me with his San Francisco Victorian which I saw published in HG magazine. A brilliant conceptual artist, David realized while rehabilitating his home that he needn't return the place to it original condition or conform to any conventions for that matter. He soon realized the significance of the unfinished, of pentimento, and of the mystery of the ordinary.

This was the bedroom/sitting room of my place. Notice the carved wooden curtains. There are more wooden carved pieces on the mantle and the library is actually created out of a hallway.

Another shot of the bedroom/sitting room. The birds and rings motif is based  on Etruscan mural depicting the afterlife.

Soon after I moved into my bungalow I discovered an architectural salvage warehouse just down the road from me which instigated my collection of church artifacts and assorted carved wooden forms. Also, at this time in the world of decorative architectural painting Pompeii was once again being mined for it's stunningly creative murals, wall glazes, and schemes so that was another influence on me.

This is my Atlanta bungalow. I added the yellow stripes to the  awning.

Then/Now. I painted the front door Frida Kahlo blue but currently (as seen on the right) you'll note there's no door to be found!

This Wally Aero Eagle from the 50s was parked across the street from my old house. If only my old house looked this good. It's a shame because the Lake Claire neighborhood is otherwise in great shape.

This was in the window of the Wally. 

It's a little ironic that when I left Atlanta and moved to San Francisco I couldn't wait to paint all the walls stark white. I'm still pretty much that way. I like a neutral background. That's my dream house. Actually for the past several years I've been into traditional Japanese architecture, dark stained wood against white. What do you like?

Less is Bore.

One of the most pronounced characteristics of postwar Modernism was its apathetic approach to interiors. ...unthinkable to earlier architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles Rennie Mackintosh who believed that the design of the building, inside and out, is an indivisible unity.



So writes Martin Filler in his 1984 HG piece on Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. It's a revelatory article on Venturi and Brown, for me anyway. I knew of Venturi from the iconic house he did for his mother but beyond that little. At the time of the article Post Modernism in architecture was exploding and Venturi was getting a lot of attention for what he'd been saying for years. At the same time the whole decorative painting field was exploding as well. At least I was getting a lot of attention. If only I had clients as smart as Venturi and Brown who brilliantly layered seemingly disparate elements into a messy vitality!





Even if I didn't have clients like the Venturis I did have some fantastic opportunities to paint on architecture. It began with a job working at the Fox Theater (restoration) in Atlanta, an Egyptian-Moorish theater palace. Directly after that I moved across the street to The Ponce , a 1913 Edwardian building that was restored after decades of abuse and neglect. Decorative painting was integral to those environments as it should be to interiors in my opinion. Whether you live in a cave or a modernist apartment there's a mural for you. The separate profession of interior designer grew out of the fabric industry so most interior designers are overly obsessed with fabrics I think.




Around 1983 I began working with a couple who were building a house in Atlanta inspired by providential French designs. They called me when their house was hardly even a scribble on a napkin. Not a moment too soon really. They understood the importance my work as a decorative painter would be. I worked with them for more than a year going from room to room in their house. The children's play room on the second floor had a tray ceiling for which I designed a Viollet-le-Duc inspired motif.





I was into Goth a little ahead of the curve. My Atlanta clients' place wasn't Gothic but Eugene Viollet-le-Duc is a central figure in Gothic Revival and he was my springboard. He and I share a birthday too for whatever it's worth. My last residence in Atlanta was just down the street from an architectural salvage place. Once I discovered it I went slightly nuts. There were so many pieces within my budget. A number of the pieces I bought were from a Gothic Revival church. Eventually all those antiques moved with me to San Francisco where I created an environment for them.



Since I didn't want to leave my work behind in my rental flat I painted on burlap and muslin. The textured fabric was more like a tapestry anyway which was the effect I was after. My apartment was my testing ground for so much painting. My place was published in a local design magazine just months after I moved in and several times over the years after that. I kept adding to or changing things so there was always another story to tell. And so it goes. On to the next blog post.

Into the Woods

Looking down from any high rise structure in Atlanta clearly shows a city built in a forest. Atlanta loves its trees and gardens. It definitely took edge off city living and attracted me as a student in the late 70s. I later found out Frederick Law Olmsted of Central Park fame had big influence on the city's tree culture (starting in 1890). In fact his namesake landscape architectural design firm lasted for nearly 100 years in Atlanta.



In the early 70s I remember obsessing over the super graphics (painted walls and furniture) and giant photo murals I saw in shelter magazines. By 1976 I was in London and I had the chance to see two of my obsessions together in one place: Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth. It's amazing to see such contrasts together in one place: a forest in a room with an extraterrestrial (David Bowie).



By the early 80s I had finished art school in Atlanta and was starting a career there as a decorative painter. An early assignment was to propose a mural for a new restaurant. Actually it was the newest restaurant for the local (highly successful) Pleasant Peasant chain. They had acquired a beautiful beaux arts building which I realized would make a great frame for whatever I could come up with. I designed two landscape inspired works: one representational, the other abstract. One is based on a 19th c British watercolor and the other a painting by Arthur Dove.



I was new at the game and let the designer John Oetgen present my work to the client. It may not have made much difference had I presented it myself but it left me feeling that much more bereft when I learned I didn't get the job. John assured me they liked the work -the abstract one even better. Steve Nygren, the owner, was undoubtedly very thrifty and as is often the case money was an issue. Still, Steve did drive the fanciest Mercedes and he may have even at that time been saving up to buy his own town (Serenbe) which he subsequently did. And John Oetgen might have liked to design and paint the work himself which he has subsequently done for more that one of his interior design clients.

In the end I'm left with my sketches which I still like quite a lot. I'd totally forgotten about them and the whole incident until recently sorting through my flat files. I think I'd propose the very same thing to day and feel either one would make a very handsome mural.