ARDSONA :: BRODICK :: ISLE OF ARRAN :: SCOTLAND : February 2014

I have already apologized several times for missing / lost photos of 1630 RVD when it was fully furnished and complete with art and accessories but I will say 'sorry' one more time! What follows are photos of many of the furniture pieces, art and accessories that we shipped from 1630 RVD over to our house in Scotland in 2010. These items are in Scotland but where possible I will show a photo - or describe - where the items were located in 1630 RVD. We shipped a bulging half container - full'o'stuff' - to Scotland. What we left behind are mainly the larger items because of their bulk and our continuing need to eat and sleep here when back in Georgia.

CHAIRS: I am an unapologetic lover of classic modern furniture - especially chairs! Below are the chairs / barstools that we shipped over to Scotland...

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*************** WASSILY CHAIR / MARCEL BREUER

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****************** TOKYO BARSTOOL / RODNEY KINSMAN

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LOVE this barstool! This was a popular stool in high end department stores back in the 1980's...I first saw it at the cosmetic counter in Rich's at Lennox Square Mall, Atlanta.

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*************** BARCELONA CHAIR & OTTOMAN / MIES VAN der ROHE

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We had this iconic Meis Van der Rohe pairing in the 1630 RVD Master Suite Lounge along with the lamp but not the Eileen Grey side table. We used our EG tables as night stands, one on either side of the King size bed, in the Master Bedroom.

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************1960's CHROME DIRECTOR'S CHAIR
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I purchased these two versatile and stylish 1960s chrome, retro directors-chairs with black leather sling back + seats in Dallas, Texas, in 1969. We used them in just about every room at 1630 RVD at one point or another. Note the other Eileen Grey side table.

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*************** HILL HOUSE CHAIR / CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH

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******************** SECONDA CHAIR / MARIO BOTTA

We used these striking and stylish chairs (below) as our dining table seating in 1630 RVD and shipped all six over to Scotland where the Seconda continues to get rave reviews.
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ART: There is so much wall space – much of it tall-wall – it presents a wonderful opportunity to display all of the art that you ever dreamed of showing! The biggest challenge will be to find the correct balance of scale and proportion. You may already have a substantial collection of a certain type of art that you want to expand - and be your ‘theme’ throughout this house.

If you have budget constraints – as we certainly did - there are many relatively inexpensive options to add visual interest to your walls. We went in part with a 1950's photo / poster theme. The large tri-section MM adds a touch of Hollywood glamour to the top of the spiral staircase - along with the smaller B&W pics of other Hollywood stars in the Office recesses. The two x 10 Great 1950's B&W action shots from the Golden Age of Boxing stir fading but fond memories in our ‘NO EXCUSES’ - ‘JUST DO IT’ gym. I seem to recall that Carol had some photos and a poster or two - including a life size one of a certain Mr. Clint Eastwood - no wonder she spent so much time in that HUGE walk-in closet! In the final analysis, we did not overdo this theme and we were well pleased with the retro look.
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This wonderful large fiber art wall hanging, ‘Ski School’, by Smadar Livne, an Israeli born artist, who now resides in Maryland. We purchased it in Atlanta at an American Crafts Fair some 15-20 years ago. We had it on the feature wall in the Great Room for sometime before moving it to the (top left) head of staircase wall location where it was a most impressive piece of art to view as one first entered the front doors of 1630 RVD. It also has to be said that it is an equally impressive piece in its new Scottish home! The mobile above 'Ski School' (above right) was also purchased in Atlanta and before immigrating to Scotland, enjoyed air space above the 'Wee Whisky Bar' (left) at 1630 RVD, where it no doubt acquired a taste for fine Single Malt Scotch and all things Scottish...

This outstanding wall sculpture, ‘Water Spirit’, by Don Stagmyer of Florida, was purchased at a CAG Fall Festival in the mid 1990’s. That was when the CAG Festival was smaller and held in and around the CAG property. Don worked on and completed this piece during the course of the festival, and though it was kind of pricey for us, we just had to have it! No regrets! It now takes pride of place and center stage on the feature Living Area wall of our Scottish house. Plenty more photos of this wonderful piece in it's Scottish location further down this post.
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I purchased two of these ‘serenity faces' in the really tall-mall at Water Tower Place while attending the Chicago Summer Market waaaaay back in 1984! They found wall space at Hollybrook Apts and in 1630 RVD before being shipped to Scotland. The one in photo was turned into a Scottish Medusa of sorts with the aid of white spray painted rubber snakes from Souvenir City in Orange Beach, Alabama, just across the state line from Perdido Key, Florida! It’s a funny small old world isn’t it?!

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CARPET DESIGN / ART: As stated previously, we really did not have a whole house theme but I had some loose plans based on a carpet-design-as-art inspired collection in part tribute to our ‘Carpet Capital of the World’ hometown. One option that I considered - but never did get around to - was to design a highly textured custom rug to hang on a 1630 RVD tall-wall. Still worthy of consideration. We did have a Rya Rug hanging on the feature wall for a while that was the correct size but never looked quite right. Maybe the fact that it was an imported Scandinavian rug troubled my conscience here in the 'Carpet Capital'! Over the course of a near 50 year career in the industry I have retained a small but significant collection of designs. Some from my long ago art school night classes are of particular interest. Not because of nostalgic reasons – though that too - but their small scale made them ideal to frame and hang in a large group collection. The two designs below are 'Rya' - or 'Norsk' - patterned shag rug designs from the mid-1960's.

I also intended that this ‘loose plan’ incorporate certain carpet design manufacturing methods that sometimes had the potential to be wonderful art forms in their own right - if they could be adapted to home or commercial use. I spent (too) many long hours of my life and at all times of the day and night in carpet manufacturing plants when introducing or evaluating new product designs. Time that often left me with lengthy periods of wait'n'see downtime to muse over the unintended aesthetic beauty of various manufacturing methods. The following will likely pass over the heads of most of you but could well be of interest to anyone who has been involved in carpet manufacturing over the past few decades as well as those of you with an inquisitive, creative mind.

HI-LO SCROLL: This patterned carpet tufting process starts with a design painted on an 18” x 36” piece of clear acetate or Mylar using opaque vinyl paint. The paint was always black but in reality any color would suffice - it only had to be completely opaque. The painted acetate pattern was then taped around a clear plastic revolving drum containing photo electric light cells on a carpet tufting machine. As the drum rotates, the light cells trigger two levels of hi-lo pile carpet based on the black area of the design (usually) producing the high pile and the clear areas the low pile. When looking at these countless patterns over the years, backlit from the tufting machine drum, I always thought how striking some of the better designs looked in a graphic wet look way. In fact, they looked much better than they ever did in carpet form! This inspired me to eventually interpret this process using black cartoon paint on 1/8” thick clear flat sheet acrylic. My favorite work is a 1984 interpretation of an extraordinary pair of eyes and is titled: ‘The Eyes of Carol Staten’. It first adorned a wall in our old Hollybrook Apartment in 1984 - moved to 1630 RVD in 1986 - and on to our Scottish house in 2010. Still looks great!

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In the Hi-Lo Scroll design process I commented on the aesthetic appeal of the black on clear pattern backlit by the photo electric light cells. As it turned out, the ‘Eyes’ artwork looked best without being backlit. To explore the backlighting concept further, I had a large recess area built into the wall above / behind the bed in the Master Bedroom in our 1990 re-model. This is about 18” deep and houses a series of canister spotlights on six light tracks - controlled from six individual switches on a wall switch panel immediately above the bed. In several of my other works (sorry - no 1630 RVD photos) the backlighting looked great!

This (unlit) large photo montage, 'CAROL36', covered the entire recess allowing the hidden multi-color back lights to enhance the piece with soft, subtle accents glowing through the canvas. This was a long time before LED tape lighting made hidden mood and accent lighting easy and relatively inexpensive. Even back then I felt that lighting would become one of the most important and creative element in home and - especially - commercial interiors. (I think I'll give myself an 'A' for that bit of wisdom'n'vision all these 25 years ago!) So with today's availability of LED tape light strips, and the ability to program them into changing color sequences, there is endless opportunity for creative exploration.

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The following series of 8 photos from our Scottish house show just how versatile and dramatic LED accent mood lighting can be: whether down or up or under or back or out!*********************** ******************************************..................................................................

The most obvious carpet manufacturing process – at least to me – that lends itself to art or interior design is rotary screen printing. Or more precisely, the patterned nickel rotary screen used in the process. Simply looking at them it is clearly apparent that they will make fabulous decorative pieces. When used to house lighting (above right and below left photos) they make dramatic sculptural light towers!

We have two – one tall (3M) and one small (1M) - both courtesy of my good friend Wolfgang Jaekel of Euromac - Danke schön Herr Wolf! Both screens are in fact textile rotary screens where the smaller diameter makes them better suited for residential interiors. In some of the photos you can clearly see the textured open mesh pattern on our sculptural-light-towers. .................................. Nickel Screens from Euromac : Large glass bottles from TJ Max / Dalton : L'homme et la femme iron figures from Toscano / Chicago : Coffee table from Dwell / Glasgow : Black sofa and chaise lounge from Ikea / Glasgow : Acrylic shag rug from Grants / Glasgow.

It was also my intention to produce an oversized (48”W x 84”H) piece of art for the feature tall-wall in the Great Room as per initial rendering in left / right photos. I had hoped to have this made from a flat vari-mesh version of the nickel rotary screen. This artwork features Scotland’s Warrior King, Robert the Bruce, who gained a decisive victory over the army of Edward II of England at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. My creative instinct was that the vari-mesh process would provide a wonderful varied textural quality along with a true feeling of medieval armour through the nickel medium while retaining a distinctively contemporary look. Alas, I never did get the flat nickel screen

version made as, after years of procrastination, it continued to prove too costly for my budget. Instead, I simply converted the rendering into a two color (blue and black) format and had it printed on white canvas. We are well pleased with the super sized (48"W x 84"H) print and it now looks very dramatic and striking on the high stairway wall of our Isle of Arran, Scotland, house.

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HI-LO SLAT: Another way of producing Hi-Lo patterned carpet is via the slat tufting method. A carpet ‘slat’ is basically an aluminum version of flat narrow wood molding. Where there are low areas in the design, corresponding pieces are cut our from the slat. Each slat controls the Hi-Lo in a single 36” wide row of carpet. My memory is somewhat dim as it's almost 40 years since I last designed a slat pattern. However, I believe that we based our designs on an average of eight (carpet pile) stitches to the inch making a full 36” repeat = 288 slats. These were then mounted on a series of chains x 4 for 12’ wide carpet and 288 slats high for 36” length of repeat. The height increased proportionately based on a (memory guesstimate) of 288 x 1/8” slat thickness + 288 x ¼” gap between each slat in the chain sequence. You can do your own math! ! Apart from more slats meaning a higher initial cost, our friends in manufacturing always liked smaller repeats as slats were cumbersome and hard to handle, towering high above the tufting machine. A designer’s concern is always that a smaller pattern repeat increases the chance of hated pattern lines / bands. Pattern lines / bands = seconds = claims = designer stress - but I do digress! Again, spending too much time at all hours of day and night, in manufacturing plants, left me lengthy periods to muse on the unintended aesthetic abstract beauty of these ‘aluminum slat sculptures’. This was when working in the old E&B Riverside plant in Dalton but ‘conveniently’ located (1969-1976) in Dallas, Texas, a mere 800+ miles away! I have never got beyond the drawing / planning stage of this ‘interpretation’ as it will be a very time consuming project to do this ‘sculptural piece’ with no great confidence in my own mind that I will be totally satisfied with the outcome. Mainly because visually - the manufacturing slats were located high above the tufting machines – well above eye level. So they were always viewed from an acute angle and I am just not sure how satisfactory an interpretation of this process will look full-on at near eye level. That said, I have not totally given up on this manufacturing inspired art concept for our house. It is still highly relevant because it would certainly be a unique sculptural piece of ‘Dalton-Inspired-Art’, and the dimensional height, would well suit a 1630 RVD tall-wall. So if I can find my 'conceptual work' for this project I will photo copy it and add it to this segment and then let my mind wander and ponder...

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ACCESSORIES: Our half-container shipment to Scotland included many carefully packaged boxes of fragile statuary, pottery and accessories, along with a slightly more sturdy collection of historical Scottish weaponry and collectibles...

The Viking helmet (above) represents Norse influence and then ownership of the northern and western isles of Scotland until Alexander III, King of Scots, defeated Haakon IV, King of Norway, at the Battle of Largs in 1263. Interesting fact: The Isle of Arran, where our Scottish house is located, was then a Viking possession. Prior to the Battle of Largs, 20 miles up-river on the mainland, the large Viking fleet was moored in Lamlash Bay just a few miles from our house.
Top left and above right: The distinctive Scottish 'targe' (round shield) was, apart from it's principal defensive purpose, also a highly effective offensive weapon with it's deadly long center spike. Targes often had intricate Celtic imagery embossed in the leather cover and further embellished with metal studs.

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This fine collection of Raku pottery (below left / Dalton) was purchased over the years from one of America's foremost Raku potters, the late, great Don Nisbert of Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is now spread throughout the house in Scotland where all items are very much admired.

Paintings: above / below: We were pleased'n'proud to export and show the works of well known Dalton artist and former colleague, Paula Plott Gregg, in our house in Scotland. The wall plaque is a numbered, limited edition cast by Alexander Stoddart, Scotland's pre-eminent sculptor. On an international level, and of particular interest to Georgia residents, Alexander Stoddart won the coveted sculptural commission for Atlanta's highly prestigious Millennium Gate project.

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It’s time to end this blog and what better way to do so than admire this distinctive Roman numeral 40” wall clock? An oversized wall clock is a nice functional – when it works – decorative piece for any tall-wall. This one told mostly the wrong time when hanging over (hangover?!) the ‘Wee Whisky Bar’ at 1630 RVD!

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Well that's all folks - thank you for visiting our 1630 Rio Vista Drive photo-info blog! We hope that you enjoyed your visit to this site and that it helped provide some new information and answered some unasked questions that you may have had. If you need more information, please contact Julie Sane ( 706 271-7965 ), or you own agent. If you did enjoy this blog, you may want to take a full photo tour of our house in Scotland, via the top blog link below. Then why not visit our Perdido Key condo site via the bottom link? Thank you again!

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NEWS FLASH! We just returned from Florida last night and woke up this morning to an amazing winter wonderland! Check it out: 1630 RVD WINTER WONDERLAND 2014

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SDH Studios & Gallery open to public every Feb.29th. http://sdhstudiosgallery.blogspot.com

Eden E603...the place to be...at Perdido Key! http://alex-alexcarol.blogspot.com

ARDSONA :: BRODICK :: ISLE OF ARRAN :: SCOTLAND

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

ART - ACCESSORIES - FURNISHINGS