Spring break or bust
April grab bag of news, opinions, and achievable design ideas
Spring break or bust
April grab bag of news, opinions, and achievable design ideas
Kelsey Keith
Apr 04, 2025
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I’m guessing I’m not alone in that, during an especially distressing era for news, I alternate between googling “global talent visa 3-year UK” and scratching the mental itch to do something crafty, productive, or mindless with my hands. Here is a baker’s dozen of ideas for sprucing up while hunkering down at home:
Marta
, the LA design gallery near and dear to my heart, just debuted
Marta Editions
, with prints by three artists:
MOS Architects
(perhaps
this
looks familiar
?!),
Ruth Van Beek
, and
Rie Koizumi
.
Via
Lena Corwin
, SF-based editor Jay Schaefer
is selling
his mother
Shirley Plaut Schaefer
’s gorgeous paintings from her estate for $400 each. New York
scenes
,
abstract works
,
still lifes
… Some of these are huge, and they are all pretty great.
A few
other ideas
for
art for your walls
that’s not a stupid poster, a giclée, or a knockoff….
…followed by some
decent strategies
for picture and object
framing
.
Where to find
vintage art and design books
online:
Plasterre
,
Ponytail
,
Pan After
. I’ll throw in a few California recs:
Of Interest
(Oakland),
William Stout Architectural Books
(SF),
Arcana
(Culver City)
If you have kids and/or outdoor tables that need a little oomph (or even a dining table you’d like to hide), one idea is to cut
tablecloths from acrylic cotton yardage
.
Trust
me
,
it can
be cute
.
Plant your herb garden for the spring and then illustrate a
map key for the planter box
—fun for kids and adults. I’ve got gardens on the brain, so a bonus tip on
weeding
. This task is the best of all possible worlds: meditative during the act, and satisfying afterward for the visible progress.
All that flower-picking… You’re going to need
a tree frog
($10! pays dividends)
L: Acid daffodil print, tree frog, giant planter for a new citrus tree… must be spring. R: via @marisameltzer
Marisa Meltzer
is busting out the florals and bedecking her bed with vintage Marimekko sheets.
A woman after my own heart!
I grew up sleeping on soft-as-hell, nearly threadbare Marimekko florals, and while I don’t relate them to a season, per se, I think her strategy is genius.
Pick a crazy color for a giant area rug, like
Erin Pollard
and
Jason Miller
for their house in Brooklyn, featured in
Christene Barberich
’s consistently awesome
A Tiny Apt.
. If you’re not ready to commit to wall-to-wall slime green carpeting, consider this
plush
Nordic Knots
rug
in “Milano green.”
My Southern mom is going to
hate
this carpet, but I think it’s perfectly jolie laide. More house tour
HERE
via A Tiny Apt.
Erin Pollard, btw, is the person behind
Underwater Weaving
, which offers DIY
basketmaking kits
.
Here’s another source
for kits (beginners welcome). Technically you can weave out of any material, but flat reeds need to be cut in a uniform manner if you want a uniform basket—so kits are a great way to dip a toe.
The backside of these kitchen cabinets
fold down into a table surface
that can be used for dining or working. This might require some creative cabinetry, sure, but giving yourself a spatial puzzle to solve is rewarding.
There are two pieces of furniture that I believe are ridiculous to get shipped: a bed frame and a dining table. Flat-packed is marginally better, but still! These are goods that can be made capably by a local woodworker. On that note, every woodworker I know has professed curiosity about
Georgia O’Keeffe
’s plywood dining table. The last time I visited her house I got up close and personal so that you, like me, can riff on her clever idea:
Recipe is: two panels of limewashed plywood connected by hinges on the back side and laid flat, atop two inverted Vs of half-size plywood panels for table legs. More hinges.
Just about everyone I know in ~the biz~ was rocked by the recent passing of
Pilar Viladas
, a longtime design journalist whose memory I’m not doing justice to here. Thank god the
Times
has a proper obit
. (They did neglect to mention that Pilar was a champion shit talker, suffered no fools, and was a walking design encyclopedia. Pilar, you are sorely missed.)
And RIP to
Yrjö Kukkapuro
, grandfather of ergonomic design in Finland and author to some of the most idiosyncratic furniture of the 20th century.
I visited with Yrjö
, his wife Irmeli (a graphic artist), and his daughter Isa outside of Helsinki in 2014 to write
this profile
for
Dwell
. I consider his
Ateljee
sofa one of the greatest of all time.
Kukkapurro’s modular
Ateljee seating system
(1963). The suspension was inspired by the metal Heteka cot, ubiquitous in postwar Finland. Here’s a
vintage Ateljee three-seater
in what looks to be great condition available via 1stDibs ($4,400).
Here’s another
, for European buyers, in a birch lam wood frame (€3,850).
Have you noticed a
Roy McMakin
revival afoot? McMakin has always been a bit IYKYK—as in, architects love him and very esoteric people buy his furniture. I was introduced to his work in the late ‘00s by
Eva Hagberg
, who was probably the youngest design writer then championing his work. (More recently, Eva wrote an ode to Roy
for Untapped Journal
.) And design godfather
Dung Ngo
published
McMakin’s monograph
, if that tells you anything! Anyway,
LA Modern
just auctioned off 22 McMakin works from one private collection* (
lots 313-334
). More on McMakin’s line
Domestic Furniture
via gallerist Lora Reynolds
here
.
The design collector in question was the former
CEO of Jack in the Box
, and some of the McMakin furniture was made for his corporate office. Clockwise from top left:
Game Table
,
Small Three Drawer Chest
,
Coffee Table for the Foodmaker CEO Office
,
Sofa for the Foodmaker CEO Office
.
This is about the most accurate
anthropological read on East Bay Area fashion
I’ve ever encountered. Chef’s! Kiss!
OK, one more obit:
David Sellers
,
Vermont’s visionary architect
who graduated from Yale but famously eschewed his formal education for a more
innovative style
of design/build. My friend
Rob
is well-versed in the Sellers-verse and has posted
a bunch of
good
photos
over the years
on Instagram.
David Sellers Pyramid House (1968), via
Sight Unseen
That’s all for today as I’m behind deadline (sorry David!) for a piece in
FOR_SCALE
’s upcoming print issue, launching during NYCxDESIGN in May.
Sidenote: I’ll be on a panel with
Lin-Yee Yuan
and
Asad Syrkett
as part of the below-mentioned “
Shelter” fair
at the Starrett-Lehigh. That panel is organized by
Colony
’s
Jean Lin
and it’s all happening on
Sunday, May 18
.
Coming up on Ground Condition: Lessons from the best new house at The Sea Ranch, outdoor furniture roundup and a garden plan, and more.
I am unlocking access to some of my older stories for a limited time. If you like what you’re reading, please consider a paid subscription:
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Kelsey Keith
·
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Kelsey Keith
·
March 27, 2024
In focus: fiber underfoot
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Kelsey Keith
·
September 21, 2023
A brief rant and a short story
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