Architectural Boxes at Art Access Gallery 2012 Holiday Show November 16th - December 17th

Above:  A preview of some of my work.

Above:  Details of Palladio, The Roman Forum, a French Chateau, the Cathedral on the Island of Murano near Venice, St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice and more.

Above:  Fragment of a map of Rome, pencil box with birds eye views of Florence, details from ancient  Roman buildings, the interior of the Pantheon, the Arch of Septimius Severus.

A good range of prices that will make holiday gift giving easy.  I'm still working on more...

Art Access Gallery -230 South 500 West #125 • Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 • Phone: 801-328-0703

Tenor Madness

I developed a design for and make saxophone neck pouches for all sizes of saxophones and suitable for different configurations:  With mouthpiece attached or not.  The pouch pictured above is made for a Tenor neck with the mouthpiece attached.  See more about my saxophone neck pouches here, or just click on the tab at the top of this blog:  Saxophone Neck Pouches.

Have a great week!  ~Sparky

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Above:  Yellowstone, Toni Youngblood

Kurt Ostervig - Mid-Century Modern Designer Chair

Now and then  I run across some surprises in my furniture travels---Such as the chair pictured above.  I responded to a craigslist ad for a wooden desk which I thought would make a decent table for my sewing machine.  I'd been using an unusual antique desk for my sewing table and thought I needed something a bit less precious and more functional.  So I went to look at the desk, a sturdy no-name piece from the 1950's and decided to buy it.  The couple selling the desk had been using this chair with the desk and said I probably wouldn't want it but was welcome to take it...no charge.  I already had a chair to use with the sewing machine, but I liked the design of the chair, though it was a bit wobbly.  I took the chair, too.

Many, many, many months after having the chair sit in the garage, I decided I'd take a look at replacing the worn out vinyl seat cover and fixing the wobble.  I removed a few tacks from the dust cover under the seat and saw the label and stamps shown in the photo above.  Now, I was certain there was good reason for the appealing lines I saw in this chair.

A bit about Kurt Ostervig:  Kurt Østervig 1912 - 1986.  (from http://www.caleassociates.com)

Kurt Østervig was educated as a ship building engineer at Odense Stålskibsværft, which soon led to his employment as a furniture designer with one of the leading furniture producers during the 1930s and 1940s - E. Knudsen's Design Studio, Odense, .

In 1947 he opened his own studio becoming a freelance furniture designer.

During his career he developed all types of modern furniture and worked with many of the leading Scandinavian furniture factories of the period.

In the 1960s one of Kurt Østervig's design was accepted for exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

His search for challenges resulted in many original design solutions for specialized furniture used in rest homes, ships, hotels, and movie theaters.

Kurt Østervig's favourite material was oak, especially in combination with leather. He was well-known for his unusually detailed and perfect drawings, which resembled pieces of art or coloured photos than working drawings.

Today his designs are produced by Tranekær Furniture who have taken control of the production of designs previously manufactured by the company K.P.Jørgensen.

He is in good company with other great Scandinavian furniture designers such as Hans J. Wegner and  Arne Jacobsen.

My chair has some joinery problems.  I don't think this particular chair design was one of Mr. Ostervig's best.  It is probably an early one and can explain why I can't find this chair anywhere on the internet.  I think the rest of them didn't hold up well and were most likely discarded.

Above:  Seat padding and vinyl cover removed.

Above:  The stamp on  another seat bottom from Kurt Ostervig chairs on the internet

Above:   These are six of his "butterfly" chairs that have this stamp on their seat bottoms.
Stunning Kurt Ostervig Rosewood Butterfly Dining Chairs
Stunning set of 6 dining chairs designed by Kurt Ostervig for Brande Modelindustri circa early 1960′s. These sculptural chairs are done in incredibly grained solid rosewood with subtly curved butterfly backs and tapering legs and stretchers. The upholstery is original off white Turkish cotton.
These chairs are the only examples of these chairs that we can find and are truly one of the better designed dining chairs that we have ever come across.

Measurements Height: 19" x Height2: 18" x Width: 19" x Depth: 20"

Price Sold

Above:   1st Dibs has this set of six chairs listed at $5000, with three parties interested.

I still like the lines of my chair.  I am repairing the joints and plan to replace the padding and stretched out exhausted seat cover.  I'll use it with the three other Mid-Century Mod no-name chairs I already have and love, shown in the photo above.

Full Story - Beginning a New Painting Technique - Rescued Nightable

This is a story of a sad little night stand in need of some TLC and a decorative technique I've wanted to use.

Above:  Inspiration - A small mirror framed with an intriguing cut wood motif.  This is actually a scanned image of the mirror which was small enough to fit on my scanner's bed.

Above:  I applied green painter's tape to the area on the nightstand where I wanted the shape to appear.  I printed out the scanned image of the frame to use as a pattern.  With scissors I cut out and then tacked the paper pattern over the tape.  Following the lines of the shape with an X-Acto knife, I incised through the paper and the tape.

Above:  After incising all the outlines of the motif paper pattern, I removed the paper pattern from the tape and began pulling tape off the areas of the nightstand that would receive paint.

Above:  More tape removal.  In this particular project, I wanted more than just the outline of the pattern, I wanted to include the openwork on the original frame.

Above:  More tape removal keeping in mind which areas to block the subsequent paint and which will receive it.

Above:  The desired masque in tape remains.  Note that I gave the entire nightstand a sanding beforehand to roughen the surface for better adhesion of the paint.

Above:  I used a burnishing tool (a spoon works well for this) to press along the cut edges of the tape masque to secure them against paint seepage.

Above:  Painting begins...

Above:  The first coat of paint.

Above:  After the final coat of paint dried, I use the X-Acto knife once again to incise around the edges of the tape masque.  This time the incisions were made to freshen and create a distinct separation between the tape masque and the paint and prevent the paint from pealing off with the tape.

Above:  All the tape has been removed.  I gently feathered the edges of the design by sanding thus preventing a harsh paint line.  I did not paint the top of the table, as I wanted the top and the new motif to match in finish, but I did sand, stain and apply clear coat for durability.

Above:  A big part of the necessary TLC on this piece was the modification of the front panel on which the decorative motif was applied.  When the nightstand came to me, the original drawer box no longer existed and the drawer front was very sloppily glued to cover the drawer compartment.  We carefully  removed the glued drawer front and cleaned off all the messy dried glue from it and the compartment surround.  We dug into our stash of antique hardware for the two hinges you see in the photo above and installed them on the original drawer front to make a fold-down panel so the compartment can still be used for storage.

Above:  A new life begins for this little piece...

Beginning a New Technique on an Old Nightstand