Aw heck. Do you ever get the feeling that you're just not quite far enough ahead of the herd? Seems like every so often, I'll find some gorgeous thing mere months before it turns up on the mass market. First example: a poster of two cherubs which I saw and had to have when on holiday in Santiago da Compostela (that's in Spain). A year later, Past Times (that's a twee little chain store in the UK) had it plastered on everything from mouse-mats to tea trays. Instantly, my poster goes from cool to kitsch. Curses.
Second example - For Christmas, I bought my brother a print which I found in one of Edinburgh's coolest, clique-iest shops, a cunning Japanese woodblock-style print of some cherry blossom, with each blossom cunningly replaced by a little pink bunny! 
Look at that! Cool or what? Next to it was Hokusai's famous tsunami print with bunnies replacing all the tumbling foam. I didn't buy him that one because I lusted after it myself... and now I find some clown laser-etching it onto PowerBooks!
Blast. Blast and damnation. The thrill is gone. Guess I'm just not that far ahead of the game.
So anyway. This time I've gone to extreme measures. Admittedly, I found it on a pretty mainstream blog so it's not exactly a secret, (and they sell the stuff in the MOMA shop in New York, so it's only a matter of time before it turns up in B&Q) but I've ordered some wall vinyls from a small designer's collective in Paris.
Bit of an impulse purchase, and I must admit if I'd known how awkward the whole thing was going to prove I'd never have embarked on it: I had to pay by bank transfer (I don't know why - because they're completely clueless possibly?), which involved many many delays and jumping through hoops and actually having to go into a bank... so I'm hoping that the sheer cussed awkwardness of getting anything out of these people should ensure that I have something cool that nobody else can get. At least for a bit...
25 comments:
What has the fool done to "The Great Wave"?! He should be taken out back, put against the wall, and battered to death with an old IBM thinkpad.
I like your taste - bit like a cross between Escher and fractals.
Somewhere I've got a shower curtain with a huge black-and-white image of this printed on it which I bought in New York in the early 90's.
Weirdly enough, in the same bathroom we had a large poster of Hokusai's 'Wave' (from the views of Mt Fuji series) glued to the wall (and varnished) which I got at the Royal Academy Hokusai exhibition in 1991.
That picture above of the wallhanging thing reminded me of Neisha Crosland's wallpapers.
- H
Also, timorous beasties, who are a graphic printers just along the road from where I stay.
You need to put this up as a "caption me"
That's the one! Aargh!
In a sense, you are far ahead.... You have the good taste to recognize and appreciate these objects long before someone hand delivers them to the masses.
You're like Panasonic (whose corporate tag-line used to be "Just slightly ahead of our time")
- H
Those wall vinyls are all over the place at McDonnalds in my neighborhood.
Of course I'm kidding. Like I'd even know what the inside of a McD's is like.
I have a six-foot picture of a goldfish on my wall. And a carved alphabet by a famous typographer. Maybe we should all post pictures of our posters?
I used to have a large state map up with pins stuck in it.
Years later, nothing up but a few solved jigsaw puzzles and the family photo gallery.
[Later] Okay, so here are pictures of what we've got hanging on our walls. (If you can't see it, complain vigorously - I set the restrictions fairly tight, since these are pictures of our apartment.)
I'm ashamed to say that at the time of writing I have nothing on my walls. Oh, no, wait, that's not strictly true. But I'm at work now, so I'll have to come back to this later...
Let's see, I've got
4 "designer" mirrors (Office, entrance, bedroom, bathroom)
1 print of "Sketch for a European flag" (Office)
17 Japanese woodblock prints (Master bedroom)
1 antique Chinese door guard sculpture (Master bedroom)
3 Norman Lindsay pencil sketches of nudes (Hallway)
1 copy of a Turner (Hallway)
1 3D cartoon shark, made from aluminium and auto paint, box framed in a big "aquarium" (Son's room)
4 hand-painted canvases of children's toys (Son's room)
2 astronomy posters (Son's room)
3 boxed frames of dried roses (Daughter's room)
1 Vietnamese lacquered tray (Daughter's room)
2 canvas photos of flowers (4ft x 2ft6in) (Daughter's room)
1 fossilised Ammonite, 108M y.o. (Lounge)
1 x 9 piece set of jade Buddhist "lucky carvings" (Master bedroom)
1 Wallass Ting "Peacock" print (Lounge)
1 antique teak and iron window screen (Dining room)
25 or so oil paintings in storage
... and a couple of investment pieces, also in secure storage.
There's also a bit of sculpture around the place, including a 3 metre long fibreglass replica of a Triceratops in the kids' play area, next to their cubbyhouse.
There's something almost surreal about that.
Yeah, it freaks visitors out. We have a lot of ...eclectic stuff in and around our house. Surreal is not that uncommon for us. The shark (Bruce) is really cool, too.
Clearly, moominply needs to date and have notarized all such purchases for future proof of being a leader, not a follower in such trends. Is there a service for that?
There bloody well should be ;)
Yeah, that was my conclusion from that whole Summar Girl thing, too.
<sulkily> Now you're just mocking me </s>
(much later)...
And NOW I discover that even my NAME was only a couple of years ahead of the herd. (Check it out - fantastic bit of data vizualization. Really deserves it's own blog post, but hey.)
Not one entry for moom.
Matthew...
Yes?
No, I mean, that's my name ;)
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