miserable miesian - the struggles of a sentimental minimalist

Editor's Notes

1. Welcome. What a swell looking group we have here this morning. My name is Kurt and I'm a miserable Miesian. I know. I know. People look at me funnily when I say that. Just like you are now! Let me explain. It's not that I find Mies van der Rohe miserable, quite the contrary. I appreciate his work and his design sensibility. You see that is the problem! I adore the pristine quality of a modern-designed space. I would love nothing more than acres of clear, clean surfaces and a curated range of designer furniture specimens on which to perch and lead the perfectly styled life. But alas. You see I'm just plain miserable at being a minimalist - even though I try! Some struggle with weight. Some struggle with drink. This is my struggle. This is my Barcelona chaise to bear! You may ask yourself how did this all begin? Cue the harp. What no harp? Okay.
2. Picture this. The desolate hinterlands of wild Montana.
3. A wee baby decorator is born. I know, I know. My poor mother! Springing fully formed WITH an architect's triangle! By all accounts, I thought it was a normal upbringing. But does a gold fish know he's in a bowl?
4. My childhood was spent battling bronchitis, pneumonia, a nearly collapsed left lung all while dreaming that one day I’d become an animator for Walt Disney Studios.
5. When thoughts of just what would my California home look like when I worked at Disney Studios, became more frequent and I began remodeling a home I had never seen! I realized my calling. At the ripe old age of 12, I switched career paths and never looked back.
6. I begin to read every architecture, and design magazine I could find. This was not an easy task in the hinterlands. If I could find something meatier than Redbook or Better Homes and Gardens, I was over the moon. Though I dreamed of well designed spaces, I could not escape the reality of the world in which I lived. A world of Herculon plaid sofas, wood-grained plastic laminate countertops and gun racks, lots and lots of gun racks. I spent many sleepless nights tossing and turning trying to organize my thoughts on design. Even though I was a militant despiser of wood-grained plastic laminate, my naïveté only allowed me to explain thusly "I think it is important that things be made out of what they look like." Unless the hand of man was involved in some artistic or witty way." I was fourteen. Revelation struck in design school. When I learned many of these thoughts I had struggled with actually had a name. They were called quite authoritatively - The Principals of Design. And that wood-grain laminate conundrum that I rallied against, fit perfectly under the heading Honesty of Materials . So simple, yet so eloquently put. The disparate dots began to connect. I voraciously devoured design school like a starving man at his first banquet!. But I was particularly enchanted with art and design history. If I can paraphrase that old adage, "Those who don't learn from history are destined to really look foolish when presenting a Gustav Stickley chair to a client and calling it Art Nouveau!" Here lay my keys to the universe. It was so obvious. I would learn it well. Besides it would give me an edge in Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy,
7. As with most all young designers I was seduced by Art Deco. She was my temptress. She with her enticing lacquered surfaces, book matched marble and caress able exotic veneers. She was rich and luxurious. She was aspirational. She was everything I wasn't. I was hooked. Art Deco was my gate-way design!
8. As young man from the provinces lacking a silver spoon, I was not disposed to purchase any of the furniture I was swooning over. Art Deco had already achieved collector status by the time I was introduced to it. So what was I to do? Like any other junkie, I found myself in the streets. In the gutters. Plucking through waste bins and garbage cans, diving into dumpsters. It wasn't pretty. But what I found I figured I could make pretty. And with a little elbow grease, I certainly could fix and restore these broken and discarded items. I immersed myself in old-style paint techniques and taught myself how to mimic malachite, maccassar ebony, burled walnut. You name it. I learned how to make my own paint. There wasn't a a piece of junk with a vaguely Deco look that didn't see the end of my brush. That my friends is where the Misery began! I pluck the roadways of their neglected bounty. I call my harvest Fruits de Rue - Fruit of the Streets! You see, I discovered that I am a cobbler, a tinker, design thinker that remains in a constant state of needing to create something with my hands. The avenues and alleyways provided me with an endless supply!
9. I gradually I began to look beyond Art Deco, more forward thinking- so to speak! I set my sights to the late 1930's moderne and the tropical deco of the 1940's with its swooping bands of rattan and dramatic barkcloth upholstery. It was fun and appropriately priced for a newly minted designer with years yet to pay on his student loans! I now had a place of my own - I had new digs in Los Angeles. I had rooms to design! Well one at least. It was a studio apartment! Boy did I have design ideas! And like any good designer, I did floor plans and elevations of every wall in preparation. I had big dreams for that flat. Tropical Deco in the style of Neo Classical English Country House! I had to account for my burgeoning design library and all the collections I was accumulating! (It was the 1980's!) Masses of cruise line menus framed in matte black where hung cheek to jowl in country house fashion. A coir rug placed over the regulation high/low brown carpet was stenciled with a map of the Hawaiian Islands. A vintage rattan sofa in florid black and pink barkcloth was piled high with souvenir scarf pillows. I was quite pleased how I had juxtaposed two seemingly divergent aesthetics. And it worked!
10. As my bachelor apartment was replaced with our first home, judicious use of paints helped transform a ho-hum tract house on a budget Nicked floors were recast as giant maccassar ebony parquet. Earthquake damaged walls were faux frescoed - though the cracks were real! Thrift shop tabletops were wrapped in coffee soaked parchment paper or embellished in faux malachite. I had a never ending canvas onto which I could experiment at whim. I was always experimenting with new ideas, but remained mindful of my set of design principals - the Honesties - Honesty of Time, Honesty of Place and Honesty of Materials.
11. Television soon followed.
12. These were the heady days of a fledgling HGTV and they needed programming.
13. I was only too happy to help them fill it! I shall be forever young in reruns! Sponging, dabbing, flogging and glazing my way into shelter television history. New projects kept me busy. And my brush with the elixir of television made me want more!
14. So I wrote a book. Centerpieces through the Year. It was a how-to compendium for table top design for every season.
15. It followed my Fruit de Rue principle. Transform stuff from around the house or your backyard in to tabletop stunners! I had just returned home from taping a studio how-to segment for Kitty Bartholomew. My answering machine was flashing. I listened the message and I immediately recognized the voice. And a face flashed before me.
16. My first celebrity client had called! Kathy had just purchased her first home and had been referred to me by the set designer of her show to help her with its remodel.
17. She said, "I want it to look like Christmas in Connecticut." When I responded, " Barbara Stanwyck will have nothing on you." I think that sealed the deal. It was a 1940's California Colonial that she had purchased from one of the Mrs. Barkers - as in Barker Brothers, the game show furniture family.
18. Following that 1940's lead, we began remodeling and furnishing the house in an ode to that 1940's Colonial style. Beadboard and tongue and groove paneling became our leit motif. We used them almost everywhere and unexpectedly as you will see! This was also my first experience with Black Hat Tibetan Feng Sui. It was enough to make any designer's blood run cold! But I was included in the ceremony which was kind of fun. This particular Feng Sui is done with colors. And the monk just painted them on subfloors so when we were finished, we were able to put down new hardwood right over it. I learned that yellow is the color of life and should be in the center of the room. So I designed cushy ottoman to be placed there. Frankly who doesn't love a soft velvety Scalamandre silk center!
19. The French fireplace surround was redesigned in a more colonial style. The 1940's airbrushed hunting scene inspired the bugles sconces and light fixtures.
20. We designed a kitchen that even Loretta Young would love!
21. 1970's diagonal siding was replaced with shellacked knotty pine tongue and groove and we pulled out the stops with plaid and paisley in the family room.
22. Kathy's dressing room got the Hollywood treatment with a vintage Lucite make-up chair and valances of diaphanous dotted Swiss! Custom struck beadboard tiles line the master bathroom walls.
23. Still flushed with the 1940’s, I explored this design aesthetic even further, decorating a small 1939 cottage nestled high in Glassel Park. This provided me with the opportunity to create an interior filled with DIY projects.
24. Inspired by 1940's florals, I created a series of happy hands at home projects based upon that theme.
25. Spray-can floral stenciled tabletops, color copy decoupaged chests and chandelier shades, and a faux finished sleigh bed.
26. color copy decoupaged chests and chandelier shades
27. and a faux finished swirly burl sleigh bed.
28. Vintage floral ruled the day! I had hoped this would provide me the portfolio for my own how-to show on HGTV, but alas it didn't. But Willard Scott did come calling and featured it on his Spring Almanac TV show for HGTV.
29. I was exploring a more reductivist bent when I redid this townhouse. Inspired by a recent trip to Sweden, This was the beginning of what I now refer to as my Birch Period. I painted a set of Fruit de Rue twig chairs in a striped birch pattern.
30. I wanted to use traditional Swedish elements in new ways. If you notice the floor, I used classroom vinyl tile as an outsized gingham pattern and a tea height coffee table. And yes, that is the chaise from the Spring Almanac House recovered in a fresh ticking stripe! t was during that time that I met a leggy Nordic blonde with a delicately curving back and lithe sensuous arms. I didn't really think too much of it at first, but gradually she began haunting my dreams. There was something familiar about the experience, but I just couldn't put my finger on it.
31. De ja vu. More like De ja Art Deco! I was falling yet again. But this time it felt different. More mature! It wasn't like before. The satin padded bosoms of Art Deco with her rounded and burled shoulders seemed so matriarchal now. This was new. She was lean and sexy! There wasn't much there, but what was - was exhilarating. She introduced me to her mid-century modern friends. I was smitten. I felt a See Change taking place. From that day she has been influencing my design choices.
32. Our first Palm Springs house is evidence of this. Though it was completed on a severely tight budget, it was bursting with Fruits de Rue , nearly everything in it was found in the streets, garage sales or thrift shops. It was the culmination of finished projects!
33. The drapery - wide bands of chocolate and Doris Day blue polyester ultra suede edged in dingle ball fringe was $3.00 a yard. My seamstress threatened to fire me if I ever gave her material like that again to work with. The sewing caused such static electricity that sparks would fly every time she touched the stuff!
34. And for the first time in my creative career, I had a pristine home.
35. Albeit a weekend home, it was a home without the detritus of home offices and a garage full of projects awaiting completion.
36. I was in heaven.
37. At least for a couple months.
38. We sold it fully furnished to a Los Angeles designer. And though I couldn't get it published, 6 years later the living room was featured on the cover of Metropolitan Home.
39. The pedestal bucket chair and her twin shown here were orphans found in the ditch on Wilbur Avenue in the San Fernando Valley. Now dressed in Jackie Oh hounds tooth plaid, no one would suspect these cover girls of their street urchin origins.
40. Mid-century went high fashion when I was asked to create showrooms for Billy Blues, a high-end women's clothing line.
41. You can see the nods to my mid mo inclinations. It is spare and clean with panels of wood and boldly colored plexi glass.
42. I couldn't help myself. The waiting area has several of the classics - Eames compact sofa, Noguchi's coffee table and a pair of molded plywood chairs also by the Eames.
43. I felt like I was hitting my stride. I was getting published! Our house was featured on the cover of the Home Section pullout in Palm Springs Life. It was a spare arty shot, but a cover none the less!
44. We were living in properly designed rooms at last! Sitting on furniture that someone else had designed. In rooms painted by professional painters. I would draw it up and someone else would build it! I was beginning to like this grown up business. Though I did miss ever so slightly working with my hands. Be careful what you wish for!
45. Because along came this! One wouldn’t think that this of all places would hone my modern design sensibility, but it did. Looks can be very deceiving! This is the 9 Mile Schoolhouse. And yes, it is in the far hinterlands of Montana! Like some perverse Western rope trick, it lassoed me and pulled me back after nearly 30 years!
46. It was home to our Bed and Breakfast and Christmas Market. We resurrected a holiday market that I remembered as a child. Damn sentimentalist!
47. Each year, we would pick a country and spend Christmas there. I would translate those specific holiday traditions and our experiences into a product line for the next year's Christmas market. And since I was doing the translation, they all had a very heavy modern Scandinavian accent!
48. Each year I would design 25-30 new ornaments, 20 different holiday decorative items, a fabric print that would be turned into aprons, napkins, tablecloths and other soft goods and all the graphics for the market. I sought economy of line when designing my holiday collections. Simple geometric shapes.
49. We were a cottage industry, I endeavored to merge the cottage with the industry in any way possible. I was searching to create the modern handicraft - that intersection were technology meets the handmade. Our products were laser cut wood or metal, but hand painted. At first glance they may appear to be very simple, but upon closer examination they were quite intricate.
50. After a Christmas spent in Tuscany, I was inspired by the delicate Florentine papers. So, we used them instead of hand painting the Italian Collection.
51. These handmade papers also found themselves on modern nativity scenes. The simple shapes of the wise men were inspired by of all things, the Aboslut Vodka bottle!
52. When springerle cookie moulds served as the design inspiration for the German holiday collection, I designed all the detail to be laser-cut. All I had to do is spray paint the ornaments one color.
53. A line birch trees at the schoolhouse inspired the bjorklund fabric pattern. It was a never ending learning curve. Each year provided wisdom for the next. I learned very quickly. Red sells at Christmas. Yellow doesn't!
54. Needless to say we used loads of red. Like here on the Cortona Stripe fabric inspired by the flags of the Palio tournaments in Tuscany
55. and the Blackforest print with its bright red cardinal.
56. Green also proved a good seller for the fabric. This is our Provencal Pine pattern inspired by the plane trees of Provence. After four years, we geared up to take our little operation nationwide. As misfortune would have it, the economy began to crumble around us.
57. We shuttered the schoolhouse and closed the gates. I returned to Southern California to resume my interior design career.
58. Something I could have never foreseen, our move to our fair desert, has provided the opportunity for this mid mo to embrace his mcm sensibilities and interpret them across a whole spectrum of different projects.
59. I’ve done interior design. Here is a condo redo inspired by the client's 1960's artwork. It gave way to a Pop- Art inspired interior.
60. You can see my Nordic blonde muse also made an appearance!
61. I’ve done light staging for realtors to give potential buyers an idea how a given space might work.
62. I’ve continued with my furniture design. I used mahogany planks that were fashioned into the crates that my grandparents used when they returned to the states from Panama in 1947. The now are a pair of matching consoles. I kept the saw marks which I think add a wonderful texture but also retains the history of what this wood was originally used for. They were humble crates.
63. Little cocktail tables made from tiles commissioned from Lubna Chowdary, a London tile artist. And we all know, one can never have enough drinks tables in this town!
64. Tigra's Stairs are cantilevered and folded stainless steel steps that I designed for our elderly cat. These were designed to work with our set of bedside tables.
65. Who knew that prototypes created for the 9 Mile Schoolhouse Christmas Market would foster two whole new collections here in the desert – Here is the Mad for Modern Collection. 15 laser-cut views of mid century modern furniture.
66. The Cul de Sac Collection is 12 different modern homes. Printed on clear plexi-glass, they evoke the modern glass homes found in every neighborhood here in Palm Springs. Before I knew it, I had 27 different ornament designed for Modernism Week.
67. The Voyeur Collection. These works are inspired by the peek-a-boo views through hedges and the brise soleils of our fair city.
68. I've also done a collection of illustrations of iconic houses and buildings for Modernism Week.
69. These illustrations can be found on greeting cards, coasters and placemats.
70. I'm still harvesting Fruit de Rue as well. And doing the whole gestalt.
71. I’m rehabbing and repairing wanton street urchins and giving them the Pygmalion treatment. This MCM gem was found in the north end of Palm Springs. As a testament to her past, I designed the fabric pattern as an ode to her previous condition. If you look closely you can see her silhouette leaning at a rakish angle, just like I found her curbside.
72. Perhaps the greatest unexpected thrill lies with being tapped to create the set design for an upcoming performance at the McCallum Theatre. Though I've not designed a set since college, I have dove in headfirst! And what could be more exciting for a MCM devotee, than to design the set for Stephen Sondheim's, A Little Night Music - set in Palm Springs in the 1950's!
73. As I enter into my mid-century, I continue to look forward, but draw inspiration from the past. But I strive to interpret through experiences with an economy of line. I am after all, a sentimental minimalist!