The Upham Hotel, Santa Barbara, California

This trip is a quick one. Only four days which is not,at least for me, even enough time to adjust to the new time zone. The Upham Hotel www.uphamhotel.com is a funky collection of cottages built around a main structure, originally built in 1817. It is private, quiet and within easy walking distance of State Street which is the main shopping area in Santa Barbara. We first heard about it from the Harvard Club in Boston when we asked them whether they had an arrangement with a club in Santa Barbara. They didn't but recommended The Upham. We've been very satisfied with our stays here although I confess that I am intrigued by Montecito, a little glitzy movie star type town, a stones throw down the coast south of here and might try something there next time we come west.

Sharaton Dining Table $12,000

We got this lovely early 19th century Sheraton dining table from the estate of a prominent family in Greenwich CT. It consists of a center drop leaf and two "D" end tables making it a most versatile piece of furniture. It is 9 feet long and 4 feet wide which means that it could seat 10. The condition of the piece is excellent. Here in Maine business such as ours are blessed by having a competitive advantage over our our big city cousins because our overhead is so very much lower. In fact we live in our store. This edge entered into our thoughts about pricing. Here's our thinking. In New York a table of comparable quality and form would be $32,000. In a smaller city like Boston it would be $22,000. Here in mid-coast Maine we can fairly sell it at $12,000 and everybody wins.

Erotic Peach Pits $350 each

There was a tombstone carver in Deer Island, Maine who was a very fine whittler. Quite a while after he died one of his heirs sold his whittling work to a local antique dealer who then passed them along to us. Most of the work we got consisted of traditional whittling forms, ball in a cage, lovers knots and the like. In addition to the usual forms there is a bible, praying hands, the right hand of the carver (he was missing one finger) plus various animals and Masonic symbols. Looking at all that work one could easily assume the carver led a quiet, ordered, untroubled life except that is for the peach pits.
Tucked away in a little bag among all the usual carved forms were 14 peach pits carved front and back with male and female figures in all kinds of sexual positions and attitudes. They resemble as much as anything scenes from Dante's Gates of Hell. The quiet tombstone carver from Deer Island was portraying an inner life that most certainly was anything but conventional. These peach pits are fantastic.
We have added 14 carrot gold loops so they can be worn as a pendant. Hanging from a gold choker necklace against a black velvet blouse they are stunning.

Brian White Show until October 7th

Our current show is of the latest work of Brian White. For those of you who don't know Brian's work, he is a local artist who burst upon the scene 4 years ago with a show that featured full scale women's dresses made out of sea shells. That show, his first ever, resulted in two museums getting his work, something almost unheard of in the art world.
The show that is now going on has a marvelously diverse collection of things in it. Among the items on exhibit is a full scale wedding ensemble of dress, veil and shoes all out of shells. This piece is scheduled to be on display at the Peabody-Essex Museum in 2008. There are two lobster men's shell shirts, an American flag out of antique mirror glass, a wedding dress in a big blue Tiffany box and a suite of English pear sculptures the artist took from a old book of botanical prints.
It is hard to adequately describe the scope and diversity of such a show, suffice it to say that those who see it will go away knowing why Brian White is such a popular attraction in these parts.

T. Allen Lawson August Show

As a gallery owner, I’ve always felt that art is more than just a noun. Art informs our daily lives in many ways, and colors the unique path we each follow. Art is a process. It is how we choose to live and at its best, art can be who we are.

Really good painters are often eloquent explaining how art permeates the process of what they do. Tim Lawson is one such artist. Talk to him for a time and it becomes clear that while he always starts with an exquisite sensibility to the existing natural world, his art is not complete until he finishes a delicate dialog with the myriad creative elements that serve to connect him to his work. He works slowly, meticulously, and this creative dance can, and occasionally does, take years.

“I start with the recognition that if the painting is high key, it’s the darker areas that become important. Or if the scene is dark, it’s the lighter areas that matter. That’s my jumping off point.” Lawson goes on from there to demonstrate how design elements change with each successive drawing or thumbnail sketch of a scene, and how color, texture and hue get amended as he paints.

A tree loses a branch on one side; it grows back on the other. Certain windows in a house disappear. Shadows lengthen and darken and move slightly left. The white trim on a seaside cottage at dusk begins to glow in the gloom. A moon that once rose in the sky over a Maine lake finds itself hovering over a riverbank in Missouri. Tim Lawson slowly and carefully amends the existing environment and, when he is finally done, we are treated to a transcendent new world brought into being by his considerable talent.

Finally, there is a unique aspect of Tim Lawson’s work that deserves special mention. Because he does his own matting, framing and gilding to complement each particular piece, be it painting drawing or pastel, the harmonic emphasis that each frame gives to a Lawson work is pitch perfect. No commercial framer could ever have such intimate knowledge of what the artist is trying to say. Lawson’s skill in presenting his art is unrivaled.

What you are about to see will give you much pleasure. Enjoy the art.

John Ames

2007 New York Winter Antique Shows

Sarah and I just spent the better part of last week going to the 4 major winter antique shows in New York. For my money the hands down winner was The American Antiques Show in the Metropolitan Pavilion on 18th Street to benefit the American Folk Art Museum. Not that the grand dowager Winter Antiques Show at the 67th Street Armory show wasn't impressive, it was. It ALWAYS is. However, for me, seeing small displays of choice Americana beats big shiny Regency anytime.

We didn't get much (2 signs and a cane) until Pier 91 on the Hudson River opened on Saturday. Then we had fun and did a lot of buying. The Pier show is enormous with hundreds of dealers from as far away as Lyons, France and Santa Monica, California. The new "thing" this year seemed to be metal furniture from defunct factories. We bought a very heavy small square steel cart, quite low and with a great patina, that was used in a tannery to bring the newly cured hides to the tables where shoes were made. It will make a great coffee table for someone. In the same vein we also bought a very small working safe that will make a great side table, not to mention a terrific spot to keep one's single malt scotch out of harms way. Probably my favorite purchase of all was a long very simple two board console table from Belgium on lovely turned thin iron legs. Sarah bought a great collection of Lea Stein pins from from some very nice english dealers. (See photo)

The weather in New York that week was, as they say in Maine, wicked cold. I am reminded however that here at home fisherman and loggers have jobs where bad weather can kill them whereas in the Big Apple a winter storm makes it hard to get a cab. By the way if you haven't checked out the Whole Foods market downstairs at the Time-Warner Center on Columbus Circle you should. It's worth seeing how brilliant the art of selling good food can be and I am delighted to report that by the time you read this there will be a new Whole Foods market just opened in Portland, Maine. It would seem we're getting mighty "big city" around these parts lately.

Big Green Squirrel

The fun thing about folk art is its childlike unpredictability. Has anyone ever seen a green squirrel? No matter, the creator of this charming piece has. This great squirrel was done from a single log and it is large! (Almost 2 feet tall.) It's probably between 50 and 80 years old. Lord knows where it was carved. We got it from a Kentucky dealer. He said he got it in New England.

Somewhere in your house there is a shelf or a beam or a mantelpiece (in the living room or kitchen perhaps) where a large green squirrel would feel right at home. He can come live with you for $650.