One of the things I like best about where I live is that it’s about a mile to the water, and it’s just such a great thing to be that close. As I was running errands today, I drove by the local yacht yard and nearly crashed my car.
Sticking out over the road was the bow of an amazing racing yacht with a huge red dragon on it. The red dragon is the symbol for Wales, but I thought this one had more of an Asian look to it. 
After lots of great advice from museum curators, historic house directors, historians, interior designers and my mother, I’ve come up with a final draft of the Toile de Baltimore.
We have found out that the original Toile de Baltimore/Maryland that we found was most likely produced by one of the local department stores in the late 1940’s, probably as part of an anniversary of some type. 
I am almost at the final part of this, seeing how it looks as a large repeat and deciding how large or small I want to make the buildings. Once we finalize that, we will send some files to Spoonflower and see what we get!
I am truly in shock that we’re more than half-way through August! Where has the summer gone? With everything moving at the speed of light, I am beginning to look at some dates for events in the fall.
Tracey from Housewerks and I are looking at doing our Pigtown Pop-Up Flea at Housewerks in late September. We had thought about the 18th, but Eddie Ross is going to be in town that weekend, and I gotta spend some time with him! 
I am in continuous clearing out mode, because when I finally do settle on a new house, I am going to start over with a clean slate. We are inviting some special friends with excellent taste to participate in our Pop-Up, so I hope you’ll consider coming and buying our cool things!
The next thing is the Fall Tour de Baltimore. We had about 30 people total on the spring trips, and so I expect that there will be that many, or more this time. I will be changing up the middle part of the trip, so even if you went last time, come on back, there will be some old favourites and some new sources! 
Hope to see you at either the Pop-Up or the Tour – if not before!
My friend David Wiesand, about whom I’ve written about many times, is a man of diverse and extraordinary talents. Just when I think he could not be any more talented, he pulls some creative rabbit out of his magic hat.
He’s been making the most gorgeous Baltimore-style painted Klismos chairs for a while now and they are just wonderful. Such a classical line and look!
I received an e-mail today about the chair and the shadow in yesterday’s post. It’s a fascinating chair and not just some run-of-the-mill Z Gallerie chair, which I immediately noticed.
It turns out that this little chair has quite a history, as told to me by Catherine Arthur, Director and Curator of Homewood House at the Johns Hopkins University. She was kind enough to send over a clipping from an article she wrote for American Period Furniture Magazine in 2000. There is a strong connection between this chair and America’s first female interior decorator, Elsie De Wolfe, author of “The House in Good Taste”.
Chairs similar to the “shadow chair” were made here in Baltimore by the Potthast Company in the early 1900’s. Letters and books from the Potthast Company indicate that Miss De Wolfe was a regular and steady client of the firm.
Catherine continues, “ They are a pretty rare form, mostly appearing in England. I’ve usually heard them referred to as “spider-back” because the splat treatment resembles a spiderweb design”.
Incredibly, there are some of these chairs remaining in the family for whom they were originally designed – nearly 100 years ago. The set included a dining table with five leaves, a large sideboard with two matching knife urns, a huntboard, two breakfront silver cabinets, 22 side chairs, two armchairs and one oversize “huntmaster’s” chair.
Back at the Farmers’ Market after a few weeks off and armloads of wonderful huge sunflowers. I had purchased three brightly-painted flower buckets at the yard sales a few weeks ago, and knew that they would be perfect for sunflowers. I love seeing their bright cheeriness greeting me when I step into my house!
This chair looks like it’s hovering somewhere above ground, with only one leg anchored on terra firma. 
My photoshop skills are not quite up to making decent shadows, but if I had an hour or two to play with it, I could whip up one better than the one above.
I finally worked out the best way to finish up the Toile de Baltimore/Maryland, and that was to completely get rid of all of the colours and just pull it back to black and white. Because the photographs of the toile came from such different sources and were shot in such different lights and environments, getting rid of the colour was the only way I could assure that I got the same colour.
Check out this link on Spoonflower to see a lot of other toiles that people have designed.
Here in Baltimore, we know from Bad Taste. The Pope of the genre is our own John Waters. He’s made bad taste into an art.
What would possess someone to do like the owner of this little house did and cover up their front door with aluminum siding? 
Remember this little gem? We would love your submissions of extreme bad taste. 
Once we get this little project up and running, we’ll let everyone know. Of course, if you wish to remain anonymous, we completely understand!
For the past few weeks, I have been working on a top-secret project – Pigtown*Design, the Magazine. Tada!
Please take a look at Pigtown*Design, The Magazine and let me know what you think!
After a rather boozy lunch (I was off work this afternoon), we headed to a place where we hoped to find the missing piece of the Baltimore/Maryland toile. 
I had absolutely no clue what would be there, although I suspected a little that it might be another Baltimore landmark. Never in a million years did I guess it would be the statue of Francis Scott Key, author of the National Anthem. 
