Leah Giberson

Leah Giberson graduated from Massachusetts College of Art in 1997 with a BFA in painting and worked as an interactive designer and art director for ten years. She now paints almost full time, working in acrylic, digital prints and sometimes embroidery thread.

On her website, Giberson describes her work more eloquently than I ever could. She says, "I start by photographing suburban and urban landscapes and then use these prints to begin my mixed-media paintings. I work back into the prints with paint and sometimes embroidery thread to alter the setting and distill the essential elements of each image." She goes on to explain, "The lines between the 'fact' of the photographic image and the 'fiction' of the paint are blurred at times, but not denied. I am not trying to hide the process, but rather, I am investigating where fact and fiction meet and how they influence and inform one another, creating a new and arguably truer story."

You can find out where to purchase Giberson's art on her website and her blog. I know you'll find her pieces as delightful...and delightfully affordable...as I do.

From leahgiberson.com

Westlake Gold
etsy.com - leahgiberson

Westlake Green
etsy.com - leahgiberson

Edgewater
etsy.com - leahgiberson

Palm Springs Airstream
etsy.com - leahgiberson

Desert Camper
etsy.com - leahgiberson

Lift
etsy.com - leahgiberson

Three Seater
etsy.com - leahgiberson

Summer Loungers
etsy.com - leahgiberson

On Deck
etsy.com - leahgiberson

Arne Norell

Arne Norell (1917-1971) was a Swedish designer who  started his own workshop in Stockholm in 1954. In 1958 he moved the operation to Småland and started the company called Arne Norell Möbel AB.  He experimented with a number of combinations of materials, including turned wood, bentwood, leather, fabric and metal.

His best known design is the Ari easy chair in leather and spring steel. Norell died at age fifty-four and received the British Furniture Manufacturers' Showpiece of the Year award posthumously.
Many of Norell's designs were put into production after his death. His daughter Marie Norell-Möller and Thomas Möller now continue the family tradition started by Norell in the company known today as Norell Möbel AB. She designs sofas and armchairs and has won numerous awards. One of her chairs, the Ariadne, was inspired by her father's Ari chair.

From norellmobel.se and scandinaviandesign.com

Club chairs
1stdibs.com

Easy chair
deconet.com

Inca chair
1stdibs.com

Mexico sofa
deconet.com

Sirocco campaign chairs
norepro.co.uk

Ari chair and ottoman
donshoemaker.com

Ariadne sofa
norellmobel.se

Marie Norell-Möller and Thomas Möller
mobil.hd.se 

Pronunciation Guide

Just in: El Gato Gomez art

We just got in some new artwork at the store, and we think you're going to love it as much as we do. The pieces are original gouache on canvas by contemporary artist known as El Gato Gomez, and we think they're absolutely knock-your-socks-off fantastic.

2 panels - each 8" x 24"

12" x 30"

24" x 36"

In the store(s)

Yes, that's right. We still have two locations, and we're chomping at the bit to get moved, but it seems that getting inspections done by the city on the new plumbing and wiring takes longer than we could ever have imagined. As a result, we're unloading all the pieces we're buying at the new location so they don't have to be moved again, and we're selling as much as we can at the old location so it doesn't have to be moved at all. We've been offering some unbelievable prices and moving tons of furniture, and we're buying new pieces as fast as we can.

Danish dining set with pop-up leaf

Ebonized slat bench

Square walnut coffee table with upturned lip

6-foot long coffee table with upturned lip

Maybe the most fun things of all are these very cool, very large triangular fiberglass lamps encased in rattan. We have 8 of them, and they all work. We're selling these for $30 each, because they need some cleaning up...and a space that can accommodate a 3-foot light fixture. Personally, I think I'd figure out a way to make a floor lamp out of one.

Update: We only have 5 left now.  Hmmmmm...I think I just thought of a perfect place for one at my house. I'd better buy one before they're all gone.

3-foot tall triangular fiberglass and rattan light fixtures

Close-up

Another Mid2Mod giveaway

My SIL has announced another giveaway, and this one is unbelievable. Are you ready for this??? He's giving away a high-backed Carter Brothers scoop chair! The chair has been reupholstered recently and is ready to make a statement in someone's home.

Mid2Mod's latest giveaway

The rules for the giveaway are as follows:

• Go to the Mid2Mod Facebook page and find the post about the giveaway.
• Click on the Share button to share the post on your own FB wall and tell your friends and family to like our page.
• Everyone gets to share once a day, and each share equals one more chance to win.
• If you are a follower of this blog and comment on this post (in addition to the share on your FB page) you get an extra chance to win.

The winner will be chosen on Saturday, March 3. Good luck and happy sharing!

[Be sure to see today's second post below about the free vintage sofa being offered by a Mid2Mod blog reader.]

Free sofa, anyone?

Blog reader Chris in Nashville, Tennessee, emailed me yesterday with an offer that's going to make someone really happy. He has a vintage sofa he'd like to give away, but he wants to be sure it goes to someone who will appreciate it.

The sofa was manufactured by the Stand-Built Upholstery Corporation, which was a small company formed in 1946 that mainly dealt in textiles, but in the 1950s they produced a line of furniture by designers such as Ben Seibel and Charles Stoll. (A Stand-Built chair by Charles Stoll was recently sold on 1stdibs.)

The sofa measures 98" from outside arm to outside arm and 71" from inside arm to inside arm. The arms are about 13 1/2" wide. The back height is 30 1/2" and the cushion depth is 24".  It needs some cushion restoration and new upholstery, but Chris and I agree that it would be gorgeous done in a solid color. (Can you picture it in a nubby orange or turquoise? Wow!) If you're seriously interested and are in Tennessee or are willing to drive there to pick up the sofa, contact me at dana@mid2mod.com. I'll forward your email to Chris, and he can take it from there.

Stand-Built sofa--offered free by reader Chris

Massimo and Lella Vignelli

Massimo (1931- ) and Lella (1934- ) Vignelli both studied architecture in their native Italy. He came to the United States in 1957 on fellowships from Towle Silversmiths in Massachusetts and the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. In 1958 she received a fellowship from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and joined Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in Chicago as a designer in 1959.

In 1960 they returned to Italy to form the Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture in Milan. In 1965, he became the co-founder and design director of Unimark International Corporation, and she was the head of the interiors department in Milan and New York. They established the office of Vignelli Associates in 1971 and Vignelli Designs in 1978.

Their work includes corporate branding, publication design, architectural graphics, furniture and product design and has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York, the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Montreal and Die Neue Sammlung in Munich.

From vignelli.com

Vignelli chairs for Heller
3rings.designerpages.com

Dinnerware for Heller
materialicious.com

Bernini desk
vignelli.com

Convertible sofa for BK Italia
vignelli.com

Handkerchief chair for Knoll
vignelli.com

Sigaro light fixture
antiquehelper.com

Creso table
vignelli.com

CEO Cube table
bonluxat.com

Fungo table lamp for Venini
forbes.com

Pronunciation Guide

Vera veggies

I know that several of you have collections of scarves and other items designed by Vera Neumann, and I have always admired their beauty. When I saw that a series of archival Vera prints had been released exclusively to Crate and Barrel, I was eager to see them.

The diminutive artist, simply called Vera by most of her fans, believed that good design should be available to everyone. Moreover, she thought art should be worn and incorporated into household surroundings...and hers has been for six decades. Her products have included scarves, apparel, home linens, dishes, wallpaper and umbrellas.

Neumann had over 8,000 designs copyrighted in the Library of Congress and produced over 20,000 scarves in different colors from the designs. Her work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution, and her life and designs are the subject of the book Vera: The Art & Life of an Icon.

Now Crate and Barrel is making her beautiful kitchen designs available to those of us who don't hit the thrift stores often enough to find them. Take a look at these stunning pieces.

From theveracompany.com

Canning dishtowel
crateandbarrel.com

By the Pint dishtowel
crateandbarrel.com

Insalata dishtowel
crateandbarrel.com

My favorite is the Insalata. Those are the colors in my kitchen, which is long overdue a facelift, so I'm going to grab several and hope they inspire me to get that last room finished.

If you need information about how to date the Vera pieces you find when you're out thrifting, you might enjoy taking a look at the Fuzzielizzie Vintage Clothing website. According to that site, the original designs for these must date back to the 60s when the ladybug got significantly smaller than the signature.

Spring will be here...eventually

Although there will inevitably be more cold weather to come, even in the mild climate of North Central Texas, spring will eventually arrive, so it's time to start making plans for outdoor entertaining.

My SIL recently found a beautiful Salterini patio set that sold before I was even able to get this post written. Still, this photo of it is inspiring me to get my own Russell Woodard set sandblasted and powdercoated before springtime officially arrives.

Recently sold Salterini set

Maybe one of these sets will make you want to clean the barbecue grill, begin to think about what kind of flowers you want to put in big pots on your patio and maybe even start the search for that perfect set of furniture.

Woodard tete-a-tete
1stdibs.com

Richard Schultz set
diamondbeachcondorental.com

Salterini double chaise
ironrenaissance.com

Woodard spun fiberglass patio set
ebay.com - galleryanderson

Woodard Sculptura set
psmodernway.com

Salterini set
ironrenaissance.com

For about three years, I've been trying to identify my patio set, which I bought on Craigslist on the super cheap. I had just about given up on finding out who manufactured it, but as it always happens, I ran across a company that restores vintage patio furniture, and they had a set. According to their identification, it's a rare Woodard set, which I suppose is why I've had such a hard time finding pictures of it anywhere.

My Woodard patio set last fall...now in desperate need of a new paint job