Do you ever stand on the job site and look at some wreck of a thing and just think how incredibly beautiful!! I hope so, because its something Nicky and I love to do together.
Look at the walls of this cellar in this estate in Northamptonshire….colour and texture-wise, there is a lot of visual poetry here.
One of the best places to look for picturesque ‘rot’ that I know of is in Spitalfields London- the old Huguenot houses. Do you have a favorite recommendation?
It was my colleague Beata who got me thinking about distressed walls again after she saw the Kings Speech. She is obsessed with this scene and I think may be working something up in her flat as we speak. I tried to tell her this was all the rage in the 80′s and some of us are over it…but fortunately she doesn’t listen to me - and I’m looking forward to seeing her results!
Malplaquet, the fabled incarnation of Tim Knox (Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum), also in Spitalfields is the holy grail of pleasant decay - at least to my mind. It has been turned into a veritable kunstkamer. It is p-u-r-e-m-a-g-i-c……..a sensory experience.
Obviously I am addicted to ‘Curbed’. Surely we all love houses more than anything so Curbed is like heroin - a steady stream of virtual uber-real-estate delivered daily to your mailbox. This came up recently, a house in Austin Texas with…well…those Kings Speech walls. Still looks pretty 80s to me.
This on the other hand-from photographer Wendy Bevan…this is entirely modern. Beata, I’m keeping an open mind.
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These walls have a timeless look. Very wabi sabi.
AH! Very wabi sabi indeed!!!!!! why didnt I think of that!? xc
I do! I know exactly what you mean!!!
Thanks for the link about. Curbed. Cool.
I am going to Austin in August. Driving. Boston to Austin. My son, Daryl, is going to grad school (structural engineering) at Univ. of Texas. He loves music (and food and art) so he can’t wait to get to Austin. He found a great apartment, too!
I am loving these richly aged patinas, would love to know just how to possibly achieve the fabulous effect!
Xoxo
Karena
Art by Karena
visual poetry-I love that. I think that really applies to the effect of the walls in the King’s Speech. I have tried to do a posting in honor of Cy Twombly- but How to strike the right note ” your visual poetry” laced with “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”- Wittgenstein .(King’s Speech?) what is it that makes work monumental? I am actually posting it today. I am always enriched here, thanks Gaye
Rather unpoetically this is a complicated, time consuming effect to achieve and the biggest obstacle in my path to make my dream come true is the cost which is why I just gonna have to do it myself.
My living room walls being too 80ies will be the least of my worries as the ‘visual poetry’ starts spreading around my flat; I can envisage pleasant decay just about everywhere as I embark on this experiment – paint brush enthusiastically in hand! I will keep you updated…..
oh b……screaming with laughter - lets post the pics as and when. x
Really love the look, John Saladino surely is the Guru of that look! makes everything else look so effortless…thanks!