This little guy used to be part of a lovely, fancy, high end collection.  Now he lives in our house, but if he considers it a come-down he doesn’t make a fuss about it.  Several years ago there was an on-site auction just a mile or so from Steven’s family home.  This is noteworthy because it is a very rural area – there aren’t that many houses, period, much less on-site estate auctions.

The array of items in the house was pretty amazing, although not all our style.  Very fancy Victorian and Eastlake furniture, lamps and decorative items.  A fabulous collection of folk-art toys (we liked those!)  Glassware and china and draperies.

Steven spotted this charming tiny Staffordshire dog figure during preview, and he liked it a lot.  We were not able to buy much as the prices went very high, but something happened when this little guy came up for sale.  No one bid, everyone was paying attention to other things and he just slipped by for a song, right into our collection.  Not that he is worth a ton of money, but the way things were selling that day he might have brought too much.

I was thinking he might be the smallest dog in our house (he’s only about 2″ tall) but then I remembered the teeny tiny carved bone bulldog I have.  I wonder where he is …  If I can find him, maybe he’ll be our featured fellow next week.

Steven spent yesterday in the shop, and remembered to take the camera with him!  Yay!  As always, this is in no way meant to represent our entire inventory.  Its just the things that took his fancy as he walked around.  Some of these items are ours and some belong to our partners in the shop.  All are for sale, and inquiries are welcome!

Incredibly cool giant scales.

Industrial metal barrister-style bookcase in green.

Unusual chairs with leather, made in Denmark.

Campy paint sign, great old oak table and killer ceramic lamps.

Mid-century shelving unit with lots of goodies.

Great Warren McArthur chair.

Interesting old laboratory instrument, and more.

Rattan set with pretty lines.

Antler mounts and other decorative items.

Oil painting of dogs.

Laurel floor lamp.  (Please buy things from us – our shop needs a paint job!)

Educational cow advertising. (Perhaps more than we needed to know?)

Industrial love.

Industrial rotating parts bin.  Just think of the possibilities!

Everything looks better hung on a white wall.

Unusual bent wood hanging shelf.  Reminds me of a snowshoe.

And that concludes our tour for today.  Please return the headphones to the desk on your way out, and move toward the exits in an orderly manner.  Ha ha.  But really, I hope you enjoy these photo collections and I’ll be thrilled if they inspire you to visit our shop the next time you are in Hudson.

I’ve alluded before to the fact that we love dog things – paintings, figures, folk art.  So I’m thinking it would be fun to feature one of our dogs here on the blog each week.  (A blog dog — say that 3 times fast!) It will be interesting to see how many weeks it will take until I run out of dogs – I’ve never counted them all.

First up is a funny little painting we bought at an antique show probably 10 years ago.  It never fails to make me smile.

There is a definite story being told here, but I’ve never decided exactly what I think it is.  You tell me – who is the man?  Why is he wearing those pants?  Is the dog chasing him or following him?  Comments are welcome!

None of the dog items I’m going to feature here are for sale – I’m absurdly attached to my dog collection.  However if we get any good cat paintings, chicken figures or bunny art – they will be fair game (so to speak.)

This is a story about a pitcher, a vase, and how Steven and I learn new things.

Years ago – 7 or 8 I think – we picked up this funky blue ceramic pitcher.  We thought it was kind of cool, and kind of gross, and probably damaged (had it been in a fire? we wondered)  So instead of going into stock for shows, it just sat around our house.  When our older son was really small, and learned the word “antique” (which our children do at a very young age, as in “Don’t touch that, it’s an antique!”) he decided he liked the ugly blue pitcher and asked if it could be his antique.  We said sure.  And it’s been on the shelf in his room ever since.

Then sometime last fall we came across the orange vase.  We said, “Hey, it’s like that blue pitcher!”  And so began its career of sitting around our house.  Until one day shortly before the holidays when Steve was at our shop in Hudson.  He called me to ask what the mark on the bottom of the orange vase looks like.  It turned out that one of our partners had a charger with similar glaze, which he  identified as Bouck White.

After Steve’s call, I spent some time reading up on this eccentric potter and his work, and brought the blue pitcher downstairs so I could photograph them together.  Like this:

White had quite a colorful life, and I encourage you to google him and read more.  These are just some highlights, complete with the striking ironies in his story.

Born in 1874 in upstate NY (not far from where we live.)  Graduated from Harvard and Boston Theological  Seminary.  He held a number of pastoral positions, ending up at Holy Trinity Episcopal in Brooklyn.  While there, he wrote several books with distinctly socialist views, including The Call of the Carpenter which portrayed Jesus as an agitator and social revolutionary.  Holy Trinity let him go, and he started his own church.  White was a member of the American Socialist Party, but they removed him because of his religious beliefs.  Irony:  he got fired from church for being a socialist, and then fired from the socialists for being religious.  Rich!

Later he spent time in Europe, and brought back a 19-year-old girl to marry.  He mistreated her, however, and the townspeople where they lived had him tarred and feathered.  The marriage was annulled.  He settled in New Scotland, near Albany NY, and built a primitive castle out of local limestone.  He made a living selling “Bouckware” pottery, with a new glazing technique that did not require heat.  In 1940 a fire destroyed the living quarters of his castle (catch the irony there?)  He later suffered a stroke, and died in an old folks home in 1951.

His adult life is brilliantly summarized by Paul H. Friesen

“Bouck White drifted through the Methodist Episcopal ministry, the Congregational ministry, and a stint as an Episcopalian lay youth worker, before founding the Church of the Social Revolution and exasperating all socialist and ecclesiastical organizations he encountered, before descending into notorious eccentricities in the mountains outside Albany, New York.”

Here is a close-up of his innovative, if strange, glazing technique:

This whole experience has pointed out to us so clearly how we operate.  We find something, like it, buy it, and then learn about it (unless we sell it quickly, in which case we learn about it after the fact.  Not always good.)  And we have acquired a lot of knowledge in our 12 years in the business.  But often it is just the look, the feel, and our intuition guiding our buying, and then the knowledge follows.  I am not necessarily recommending this as a business model, but it works for us.

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After I had written the first part of this post, we discovered that another of our partners in Warren Street Antiques has some nice examples of White’s pottery, as well as some interesting paperwork.  Andy and Laurie Geller of New Scotland Antiques were kind enough to send me some pictures to share with you.  They also currently have a few pieces of Bouck White pottery for sale on ebay, here.  Andy was telling me a little more about White’s heatless glazing technique, and mentioned that it has asbestos in it!  So we agreed — don’t feed the children off of it.

These are a couple of photo postcards, one of the potter and one of his “castle.”

Here is a sales brochure of Bouck White pottery:

And here are a several of the pieces that Andy and Laurie own:

And I did find a couple of pieces on 1st Dibs, including this gorgeous lamp:

The other day Steven and I went to Cooperstown to hang out with our old friend Bob Graham.  He is an antiques dealer and lighting designer, and I wrote about him here last year.  We delivered some merchandise that Bob bought from us after seeing it here on TA&D (ah, it’s working!)  Our afternoon together was great fun, with lots of stories that started with, “One time I stopped at this flea market, and…”

Alex and Ika’s, across the intersection on Main Street, is where we had lunch.  Wow, give me any excuse to eat there again!  Fabulous, tasty, interesting food in a cozy little setting.

I took some pictures in Bob’s gorgeous shop, and talked to him about doing an interview here on my blog sometime soon.  He graciously agreed, so now I have to work up some intelligent-sounding questions.  He doesn’t know that I’ve never done this before, so don’t tell.

Remember that great modern magazine rack with glass sides that we picked up in North Carolina?  Here it is in its new environs, holding an appropriate publication:

Stay tuned for more here on Bob Graham, and in the meantime check out  his fabulous inventory on VandM.

As I have mentioned here before, I love vintage CathrineHolm enamelware.  For me the forms, colors and patterns totally evoke the whole mid-century vibe – kitschy and fun, and at the same time clean and elegant.  All I have to do is catch a glimpse of a bowl or pan, in a pile of ordinary kitchenware at a thrift store or in an auction lot, to make my heart beat a little faster.

I have a bunch of it photographed and ready to go on ebay in the next couple of weeks.  I took these group shots to share with you here.

I realized that I know next to nothing about the origin of these classic wares.  So I did a little research.  (Really, just a little.  But enough to get you started if you are curious.)  What I found was a designer named Grete Prytz Kittelsen, who was responsible for much of the iconic CathrineHolm pieces.

She was the granddaughter of the great Norwegian designer Jacob Tostrup, born in Oslo, Norway and educated in Paris as well as the Art Institute in Chicago. Renowned for her work with stainless steel and enamel for Cathrineholm, her design has brought her numerous awards. Her jewelry designs in silver are particularly desirable today. Her success as a designer is no surprise given her family tradition in the field. Grete and her husband Arne Korsmo were a major factor in the rise in popularity of Scandinavian Modern design in the 1940s and onward.

Now I am dying to find some of her jewelry designs.  I love the enamelware, but it is not as rare as some things.

I found this article on chow.com that made me laugh.  The author, Michele Foley, is talking about her love for mid-century cookware and says, “It seems appropriate to start with Cathrineholm of Norway since my first purchase was a single blue stockpot from its Lotus collection. Not surprisingly, Cathrineholm is the gateway drug for many enamel cookware collectors.”  So true (as a result of it not being the rarest thing in the world) and such a witty description.  She then links to leiferik2008’s amazing collection of photos on flickr.  Totally worth a look.

Through my friend Scott of ars longa (he of the impeccable taste in chairs) I found a flickr group dedicated to Cathrineholm designs.  More wonderful eye candy.  Like this:

So if you haven’t started your CathrineHolm collection yet, you can buy some from me on ebay.  I’ll let you know when its listed.

Someday, I am going to learn to print on a letterpress.  It is something I have wanted to do for years.  Tucked away in my in-laws’ attic is a wonderful antique cast iron press that was used to make shipping crate labels when their homestead was a working farm.  Someday I am going to haul it out, dust it off and learn how to use it.  Someday, when I have time…

But for the moment, I am captivated by the growing variety of letterpress design that is available as artists and designers rediscover this fabulous medium.  I was especially struck the other day by the website of a shop out of Seattle called Smock.  I love their work, their site and especially their photos, which really capture the tactile, dimensional qualities of the products.  Here’s a taste:

Visit their site for a lovely variety of products, from greeting cards and gift wrap to gorgeous custom work for weddings and other occasions.

We are getting organized to travel home from North Carolina.  I took a break from packing and took a bunch of pictures of the antiques we bought while we were here.  We found some wonderful things (in addition to the giant H of the last post) including mid-century lamps, Blenko glass, cool industrial, mercury glass, Eastern European enamel signs and more.  Hope you like:

Sshhh…  Can you keep a secret?  You can?  Great.

Steve and I are in North Carolina, visiting my mom.  We will be driving home in a couple of days, and we will travel the whole 750 miles with a gigantic “H” tied to the roof rack.  How cool is that??

While we were down here for the holidays we attended our favorite flea market.  We bought a bunch of cool stuff, but the coolest (and biggest) is this metal sign letter.  It measures 5′7″ tall and more than four feet wide.  Its really big.

I would love to keep it (H for Hilary, you know) but the scale is way too big for my little house.   Luckily, we have a shop in Hudson where it will look fabulous in the window.  Surely there is a market for a big H in Hudson.

The answer is: a lot!  Here are some pictures I took in the shop the other week, before the holiday tidal wave completely overtook me.  They don’t come close to capturing the range of merch available, they were just the ones that caught my eye as I wandered around with the camera.  Enjoy!

I love this WPA-era painting – there is something about the colors and the simple forms that gets me.

Awesome worktable with drawers.

A vintage sign letter ampersand – what could be better?

Very cool wrought iron furniture – 4 chairs and a settee, with terrific colorblock cushions.

Antique US Navy leather medicine ball – big, heavy and gorgeous!

A veritable forest of lamps – and wait til you see the ones we bought this week!

A corresponding forest of stools.

Gorgeous mid-century modern bedroom furniture.

And a stunning mid-century chair.

Interesting bench with all mortise and tenon construction, plus pottery and more!

And last, but not least, another big beautiful demijohn bottle.  Remember my post about these last summer?

So come in and visit us at Warren Street Antiques in Hudson, NY.  Between Steven and I and our partners in the shop there is a huge variety of merch.  Must be seen to be believed – really!