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Montage: 45 Rooms with Sculptures (Plus My Own)


My husband and I have quite a bit of art—oil paintings, drawings, watercolors, pastels, photography—but not much in the way of sculpture. In fact, he said last week we should consider adding some to our collection. (OK!) We have a few pieces, which I’ve included photos of here, and at the end of the post. The above image (next to the Cynthia Packard) shows a little sculpture that my son made. (Most of you know I never gush about my kids, so indulge me this time.)

Boston sculptor/potter Steve Murphy has a daughter my sons’ age, so they’ve been treated to a special pottery-making sessions. Mercifully, Steve has the kids finish with a green glaze, so the clay  emerges from the kiln resembling patina-ed bronzes. My favorite is an abstract from the preschool years. (Subsequent years’ attempts at representational pieces were not quite so successful.) It’s been on our mantle for years, not out of misplaced maternal pride, but because I rather like it. (Aesthetics prevail around here.)

Here’s a shot of my bedroom bookshelf. (Excuse the low brow reading material.) The pieces aren’t exactly artfully arranged, but a few are quite special. Starting from the left:  black & white flower ‘Fusion Foto Bloc’ by Debbie Krim purchased at her SoWa studio; one of my most cherished works, a Romolo Del Deo bronze nude from Berta Walker Gallery in Provincetown, a holiday gift from my mother-in-law because I’ve always admired hers. Another gift from my mother-in-law, a miniature wooden Degas ballerina from the Met Museum gift shop. Her mother-in-law (my husband’s grandmother) gave it to her. She passed it down to me this past December. The two chairs prints I made a couple of summers ago after taking a class at Castle Hill. The small rock is a chunk of pyrite and the large rock on the right we found on a Truro beach. Finally, the outstretched ballerina on the right is a piece I’ve had for much of my life, passed down from my grandmother, who was an antiques dealer. It is bronze on a green marble base but don’t know anything else about it.

Now that you know plenty about my own collection, here are 45 more refined rooms with many spectacular sculptures, starting with a Dubuffet.

Designer Frederic Mechiche’s loft via Door 16
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Katie Lydon Interiors
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Trip Haenisch & Assoc. – Photographer Simon UptonElle Decor
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Kelly Behun   |   Kelly Wearstler, Metropolitan Home
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Photographer Pernille Kaalund
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Ashe + Leandro Architecture + Interior Design  |   unidentified
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via Desire to Inspire
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David Scott Interiors
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Designer Frederic Mechiche’s loft via Door 16
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Elle Decor
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The Selby
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Mercedes Perez de Castro
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Delphine Krakoff, Pamplemousse Design
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Photographer Warren Heath   |   Photographer Simon Watson
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James Harb Architects – Photographer William WaldronElle Decor

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Delphine Krakoff, Pamplemousse Design
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Geoffrey De Sousa Interior Design
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Photographer Stellan Herner   |   unidentified
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Photographer Pierre Jean Verger
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via The Brickhouse    |   Weitzman Halpern Design
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Jennifer Post Design – Architectural Digest
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Eric Ceputis Design – Photographer Nathan KirkmanElle Magazine
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via The Brickhouse   |   Robert Passal Interior & Architectural DesignTraditional Home
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Hotel Particulier
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Kriste Michelini Interiors   |   Jennifer Post Design
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Luis Bustamante Arquitectura de Interiores
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Charles de Lisle Workshop    |   Marc Jacobs’ Paris apartment by Paul Fortune Design
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unidentified
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New York Spaces
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Wendy Blount, Blount Design
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Jennifer Post Design
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Weitzman Halpern Design   |   David Scott Interiors

Kelly Behun
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Duane Modern Gallery   |    Adam Bram Straus Interior DesignLonny
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A few other shots of sculptures in my own home:

Left: Chaim Gross sculpture, a gift from my in-laws, It is bronze on a wood base, and very heavy.
Right top: A wooden sculpture of a mother and two children that I bought at a gallery in Wellfleet on Cape Cod when my children were about those ages, and always wanted to be held. It’s dark-stained wood. I can look up the artist if anyone’s interested.
Right bottom: A close-up shot of my son’s abstract clay sculpture, circa 2005.

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Filed under . REGULAR FEATURES, Art, Home Accessories, Montage, Rooms

Site Spotlight: Room 68

Nick Siemaska, Eric Portnoy, and Brent Refsland in their shop, Room 68.
Photo: Laura Barisonzi for Boston Magazine

Design shop Room 68 is Boston’s answer to Matter (heaven, on the edge of Soho). Owned by three bespectacled design hipsters in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts (an outlying area of Boston), the gallery-like shop opened this past fall. I cringe to say I haven’t actually been (it may be Boston, but it’s a 25 minute drive from my Back Bay sofa). The guys have garnered plenty of press (no surprise, as we get hot and bothered by new design outlets), including write-ups in Boston Magazine, Boston Globe, and Apartment Therapy.

I am familiar with a number of the Boston-area designers whose work if for sale, including furniture maker Jacob Kulin, who I’ve had the pleasure of working with, accessories designer/architect Susana DeVoe of Make.Good Studio, who I met last year at the SoWa Open Market, Debra Folz, a New England Home 5 Under 40 winner, who I met at the party, and Nervous System, a design team with degrees from MIT and Harvard.

Textile designer Cary Hewitt is a new find . . . her reversible rugs look delicious. I love the wood vases from Seth Rolland, and  Pelrine + Durrell Design’s Lobster Trap Table is an excellent contemporary interpretation of a vernacular monstrosity.Many of the designers are local, but not all. Room 68 recently launched its online shopping site. Below are the above mentioned items, and more, complete with links both to buy and to the designers’ own sites.

 

S H O P P I N G

Lobster Trap Table by Pelrine + Durrell Design, $1,500 (Boston)
Comfort/Conform Pillows by Make.Good Studio, $150 each (Boston)
Reaction Cups designed by Nervous System, $60
Lotus and Jasmine Wood Vases by Seth Rolland, $115 (Seattle)
Balancing Blocks designed by Fort Standard, $80.
Turned Leg End Table by Pelrine + Durrell Design, $700 (Boston)
Procession Reversible Rug by Cary Hewitt, $750 (Boston)
Concrete Idea by Kaza Designs, $15
X-Stitch Stool by Debra Folz, $1,600 (Boston)
Twist A Twill Blanket by Tina Ratzer, $140 (Copenhagen)
Spool by Jeb Jones, $450 (upstate New York)
Blossoms on Cherry Reversible Rug by Cary Hewitt, $650 (Boston)
Single Leg Coffee Table by Jacob Kulin, $3,500 (Boston)
Beam Bench by Jacob Kulin, $2,000 (Boston)

Room 68 • 68 South Street • Jamaica Plain • Boston

Photo: Apartment Therapy Boston

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ARTmonday: Maissa Toulet

I came across these glass dioramas by Parisian artist  Maïssa Toulet when I was sifting through Flickr photos for a story I was doing  The Inside Source about displaying white collections. I was immediately drawn into her quirky little worlds, in which mice wear suits, ducks have arms, and where Marie Antoinette finds her fate.

Toulet cites the assemblies of the American artist Joseph Cornell as her initial inspiration. She is drawn to the “eclectic jumble” of curiosity cabinets—the disturbing dimension, sometimes morbid, cabinets of curiosities, which accumulate stuffed animals, skeletons, and organs preserved in formaldehyde.

She views her pieces as miniature museums, and says that though nothing is classified with apparent logic, each object has a distinct place; none are interchangeable. Her most recent works are moving away from the concept of curio cabinets towards pieces that are self-contained stories.

I find them to be part science project, part crazy collector, part artistic effort; all intoxicating.

Ecographie
2007
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A Rodent Trap
2007
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Les Végétaux
2008
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Oral Hygiene in Adults
2008
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View
2008
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The Autopsy of Marie-Antoinette
2011

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The Menagerie
2011
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Under the Sea
2007
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Souvenirs of Youth
2011
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Jeune fille, que vous faut-il pour le printemps?
2010

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Saturday Say It: Facebook Friends

Jenny Theisen Illustration
$12, Etsy

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Covet: Left Humerus Bone Pillow

Left Humerus Bone Cushion
Deborah Shavlik 2011
Design in sepia brown wool thread on hand-felted cashmere, backed in brown linen.
$297, The Future Perfect

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