When I found out we were moving to the “furniture capital of the world”, I had no idea of the scope of such a statement.
A few weeks ago I attended the Highpoint Market in High Point, North Carolina and whoa… I think I want to go back to school for interior design. I think I DO want to know the difference between Rococo and Georgian… in excruciating detail, too :)
My pictures aren’t fantastic because I didn’t know the exact etiquette of the show… I thought a flash or our good camera would certainly bring too much attention. Around every turn a new genre of furniture and style feature… and booze. We enjoyed cheese and wine but really, I was getting punch drunk on design :)
Rachel has the catalog from this company… can’t remember the name. Their items were so wonderful. The wood was stained with deep shades of gray. Clean lines and simple design.
Amy Butler designed rugs by Chandra Rugs… I want one of each, please.
And you know the day is almost finished when your bags are full and your partner in crime looks exhausted :) Those are Rachel’s feet in one of the two pairs of shoes she carried around all day.
We actually started the day with a Designer luncheon with Michael Payne, host of the HGTV show “Designing for the Sexes”. He’s launching his new line of furniture and interiors. He was showing us pictures of cars, architecture and chairs… and from his slideshow, I do believe he may live in Pasadena (a few houses looked familiar).
Here’s one pic of him and a few of our luncheon friends. Michael explained that nothing in design is new… someone is always knocking off someone else… including mother nature. He showed several slides of leaves and flowers and how he incorporated nature’s designs into his own line.
The outside of the Market was impressive, too… gorgeous buildings… almost 150 in total in the area. All dedicated to furniture, furnishings and decor. At the end of the show, we sat on the balcony of the Showplace, sipping wine and looking down at the buildings… I could have easily been at the LA or California Mart in Downtown Los Angeles. It was great.
The interior of the Showplace building was amazing, too…
This year, the High Point market turned 100 years old… they had a Beatles cover band called 1964 The Tribute and random food in small quantities… all under a huge tent. It was fun to see all the sales reps in bad suits cut loose after the busy day ;) There were catalogs and complimentary bags strewn everywhere…
And a short video of 1964, the tribute…
The nine hours we were there felt like 20… it’s such an overwhelming experience and really taxes all of your senses. (See us getting giddy and stupid/silly at the LA Mart back in ‘06 Here). We only went for one day so I still feel like a complete newbie. I’ve been to shows, but nothing like this. It was my “first time to market” as the other designers would say.
Next time, I’m getting a hotel, bringing a pack mule to carry my catalogs and going to the market every single day.
Sidenote… I found this a little sad and strange… Every entry to every major building had a large magazine rack filled with assorted design periodicals… alas… nobody was picking up the “Rug News” as it was full in every rack that I saw. I’m sorry Rug industry!
I grew up in California… I’ve been in another state all of eight months now? They said snowing here was rare… but everyone in my neighborhood has a snow shovel, a mini snow shovel for their kids and the plow king is extra busy this season plowing the roads today.
Okay okay, it’s supposed to be gone in a day or two and every school and most businesses are closed, so that shows that this is rare. But dang it, I want my flip flop weather back ;)
It started with the frozen fountain at the mall on Saturday evening… which was totally whimsical and gimmicky… then after a few days of cold weather… we woke up to this….
I’m going to go play some more before it all melts :)
Oh yeah, I’ve been doing art, too… I’ll post that soon ;) Happy Inauguration Day!
We ventured out about 45 minutes into Sanford to visit the Sanford Antique Mall… we eventually ended up in Pinehurst for an early Thanksgiving meal for R’s Birthday :) But they had to tear me away from all of the awesomeness of the mall first.
This antique mall was HUGE. Next time I’m smuggling my camera in… but my hands were too full of glass compotes and drawer pulls that holding a camera would have been impossible. The mall was across from the cutest train depot. The buildings were so cool, and this is just a small sampling. A very quaint town that I’m going to be taking everyone to :) If you are coming out here and even slightly like treasure hunting, we’re heading here.
And… the sunset (from our yard). So beautiful and vibrant! The air is so clean here… crisp. I’ve been completely fascinated with the air and changing of the seasons. And apparently, I’m super super allergic to ragweed or some other native plant that blooms at this time. I read somewhere you should consume honey from the region you are in to build up a tolerance to the pollen and foliage. So smart. We purchased some local honey and this place called A Southern Season. It’s like the food network exploded and had a tryst with the gift show in the moonlight. It’s really amazing.
I got two kinds of honey… Lee’s Bees Raw North Carolina Wild Flower Honey (featuring Blackberry, Tulip Poplar, Tupelo and Sourwood plants) and E.L. Selph, Jr’s Sourwood 100% Pure Raw honey. I’ll report back later as I conduct operation stop NC allergies :)
Here’s a story about Lee’s Bees and the concern about his bee population dwindling. Sad :(
Oh, and it SNOWED last week. It didn’t stick… but coming from California, when white dots come out of the sky, you assume there’s a fire nearby. It caught me off guard. This cold weather is catching me off guard in general… what did I say… “Snow is a novelty! You go to visit it on vacation wearing a stupid ski hat, it doesn’t come to YOU!”
The fireworks were so close…. “I feared for my life”. They were actually over our heads and the little embers were sometimes landing behind us. One fell into the tobacco garden and drying exhibit… all was well, but could you imagine? 1982 was my last fair experience…. I will not let that much time lapse again.
Today, I visited with some of the girls from the Carolina Mixed Media Art Guild. They have a monthly meet up and a quarterly art outing… this quarter, it was at the Scrap Exchange in Durham, which was totally cool and like nothing I have ever been to before! (To Alicia’s credit… she’s been dying to take me there and we never made it… of course I get over there when she’s in L.A!!!)
They had bins and bins of just odds and ends. Little tiny bottles, plastic flowers, test tubes, fabric bits, bolts of fabric, stickers, wallpaper, wallpaper sample books… with every turn there were strange new treasures! Oh, and each item was totally cheap…
Random old mailboxes, rolls of sticky plastic contact paper, butcher paper… mirror, glass and wood scraps… old 16mm films for like, 75 cents. All in neat little buckets and on shelves all in a row.
The guild rented a crafting room for the day. Some people browsed the Scrap Exchange, others visited and many others made Artist Trading Cards. And did you know that Strathmore now makes Artist Trading Card Blanks (Hey, Babs, these would be AWESOME traveling mini-canvases!)?!? Canvas, bristol, illustration board, watercolor paper, all in trading card/baseball card size… wow. I got 2 free packs courtesy of Jerry’s Artarama in Raleigh, which I must totally check out immediately. From what I understand, you can make ATC’s, submit them via the Carolina MM Art Guild and your card(s) could possibly be chosen to participate in a gallery show. The pressure :) hehe. I know that Sue T. has had her ATC’s travel the country… and it’s oh so very exciting!
Speaking of Sue T., she’s been sending me some carefully picked antique jewelry care packages which are chock-full o’ inspiration. I hope to breathe some new life into those clustered clip-on earrings and other shiny goodies everyone’s grandma had piled in a box and forgotten somewhere. It’s a touch of creativity and engineering because you need to find out how these puppies will attach to each other securely, yet beautifully. Because, you know, I would like to say…”nice to meet you, I’m a jewelry structural engineer”.
I met so many nice and creative people today… as I get acquainted with the guild (just joined over a week ago), I’ll post blogs and info… yay!
Otherwise, just doing art, loving that the weather is cooling down and I cleaned all evening. Holly understands the pain of cleaning ;) (Check out her blog because… it’s quite nifty).
Okay so now my “to do” list is just really shorter than it was:
1. Buy house
2. Open cute little store (again), only a few miles from said house
3. Plant random wings (see Sandy’s blog) every 3 miles… or put them in every Starbucks, (same thing).
Last weekend, we wrangled our California friends and went to see the Architects of Air Sculpture at the Artsalive Raleigh, err… area in front of the performing arts center in downtown Raleigh.
Didn’t know quite what to expect… I thought… large hamster habitrail meets moonbounce. So, after some interesting interaction with the line nazi, we paid our $5, took off our shoes and went inside.
First, you enter a small area go and get a little history of the piece we are about to enter. It’s been to 39 countries and it was completely man-made. That last part made us chuckle.
The performing arts center adjacent to the huge magic moonbounce…
The line was quite long when we got there…
From the outside, the structure looks something out of an anime cartoon… grey with primary colors and bubbly round attributes.
While inside, it’s dark and the color is minimal, nothing like the pictures above. Seeing the pictures is like having magical eyeglasses that show you new dimensions… I’m so glad we took our good camera, these really are quite awesome!
They were playing a soft instrumental yet futuristic soundtrack inside… but outside of the structure, they were playing Abba, Kool and the Gang and other party hits. It was a nice juxtaposition of mood music. We wandered around for about 20 minutes. People were hanging out in the little chambers, relaxing and enjoying what $5 could get you on a Saturday night.
And, being that it is a small world, we ran into more friends inside… which was sort of magical :)
In other news, I tried pilates today. There is a reason that thing is called the “reformer”. I’m curious, no, terrified, to see how my muscles are going to react in the morning. My muscles are honest and will tell me if they would like to visit the reformer again any time soon. I think the last time all those muscles were used I was in a step class. There was needless bouncing, an abundance of Reebok logos, sweat, mirrors, confusion and an extended dance remix of “Jump” by Kris Kross. That was the night they took my membership photo… I was beet red and out of breath…. but somehow, still perky. 1992 was a good year.
I have a new zip code, a new routine which is slowly forming, new things to see out my office window (oh, and an office window), a new bed (which is really taking some getting used to)… really…. most everything is different. It’s scary, frankly.
We were able to visit the Raleigh flea market over the weekend… I was semi-impressed after a good walk around. I took pictures but then found out I had a bunk memory stick in my camera. So, we got a new memory stick then visited Revival Antiques in Raleigh.
Oh. Mi. Gosh. They had AWESOME stuff at California Swap Meet-ish (give or take) prices. They had about 10 old built-in cabinets from the early 20’s from an old apartment building in Knoxville… one woman was buying 3 of them for her store. I was jealous.
They had two shop cats which were adorable and climbed into Nathan’s lap. Now, with my photographer distracted and your blog host distracted by gobs and gobs of awesome furniture, we didn’t get more pictures of their other warehouse which is about 10 times as big as the one above. No kidding. There were stacks of chairs, rows of built-ins, towers of desks and dressers, all of them waiting to be taken home… like a furniture orphanage. Joe, the owner, said that it was a side business that just took off so he quit his day job. Awesome. They have all sorts of stuff… mostly farmhouse-looking antique pieces in need of love… and they refinish them. The hot color right now is black, which I chose for our dining room table. I was going to get something smaller but I got whisked into the adventure and excitement that is Revival furniture and ordered 10 shield back chairs from the 1800’s and a table (similar to the one in the link although those aren’t ours) that matches… and they are painting them black for us. Wow. So cool :)
So, we’ll be able to entertain everyone we know in North Carolina… in one room ;)
