I'M BACK.......................

I haven’t written in the longest time …Well Let me tell you, it’s not been because I have nothing to say. I have been really busy and trying to get my head around my current situation…I have been trying to figure out what to do with myself now that I have moved to Austin TX. I feel like 2 years is long enough to get myself acclimated to my new surroundings and yet I’m still trying to get used to the lifestyle here. It’s very laid back in almost every way, every thing seems more casual than the most casual places I’ve been. …Not that I’m some formal kind of guy running around in a tuxedo and drinking out of Baccarat at every meal. I don’t even think I can lay my finger on my exact point and maybe I don’t need to. What I need is a JOB I need to get myself into a retail situation where I will meet 3 or 4 people a day. I need to decorate a house locally and get some people talking, have some one say” I love this’ …It’s been a while and we all like being appreciated. I also need to own up to the fact I have been dragging my feet coasting along on my DC clients, there has been enough business to keep me afloat but it would be nice to be swimming up stream instead of just floating.  My trip to DC this past week or so was both good and bad somehow I managed to mix up my meeting with an important client that will now  be postponed until later in the year. This can be an extremely slow and very time consuming business in the end the rewards are wonderful, but sometimes getting there can be really slow. I did meet with one of my favorite clients and select drapery fabrics after a year or two of looking. Some really fantastic poly silks in great colors and designs, not for the faint of heart I must say, but will be very cool upon completion….By the way these beautiful poly silks are really great they give the look and feel of silk taffeta and will NOT rot in the sun, and hold there color a lot longer than the real thing. Of course they are NOT the real thing but sometimes the REAL THING just isn’t practical and if a fabric rots after only a couple years how great is that………….  

Couldn't Hurt

I love Sheaf of Wheat Tables. I also love the lamps, chandeliers, candle sticks and anything else Sheaf of Wheat. The sheaf of wheat signifies fertility, strength,” the bounty and beauty of life”. So it would be quite wonderful that one would have these decorative items in there homes, may bring these things to one: Couldn’t hurt.

In the Paris apartment of Coco Chanel, there sits a Sheaf of Wheat Table low with a glass top finished with a brass edge: I think, for what reason I don’t know. This may have been a gift from Salvatore Dali…Or maybe just the painting of wheat. I can’t remember anyway it makes a good story. I carry a photo of the apartment ( the table is in the shot) I have carried it in my appointment book since I ripped it out of a magazine in 1996.Needless to say it is quite tattered I will slip it into a zip lock bag (another thing I love, how did people live before them) before putting it away. Anyway these tables and other decorative items became extremely popular during the last of the sixties and thru the seventies. Many of them were imported by a company still in business today: Decorative Crafts. I talked to them this morning no one there seems to know the exact story of the table.  I bet it had something to do with the Chanel table. I have sold many of these tables and other items from Decorative Crafts.

 The tables sold were all vintage from my previous store in Virginia. It was of course  called JAK. All of these pieces are very desirable and indicative of a very glamorous time in the decorative arts. Sometimes they can still be found sitting in someone’s garage but more than likely one will pay a hefty price for these items today…And if you want to really glamour them up, my friend, Toni says a bit of BLACK spray paint will do just that!!!

the most beautiful place in the world

The day I left Kalamazoo for Grand Rapids and The Kendall School of Design was one of the most exciting days I can remember. We all have those days, ones wedding, the birth of a child etc. I drove to Grand Rapids by myself having gone up several times before with my parents or friends.  I would be living in my own 2 bedroom apartment. Can you even imagine the thrill of having your own apartment when you were 18 years old? The apartment was in a house at 508 North Street NE in kind of a down at the heel neighborhood. It had its own side walk and entrance on the side of the house with very steep inside steps that led up into the hall of the apartment. The living room had an extremely large window that was obviously not original to the house .I had an array of furniture mostly stuff my Mom no longer wanted along with a few thrift shoppe buys and I thought it was wonderful. I had a big round rug with knotted fringe just like the one Mrs.Riggin had in her foyer except my came from Green Stamps NOT The Vogue Shoppe. The rug was a kind of cadet blue.  I found some fringe almost the same color I pined and glued to the edge of the old draperies left in the apartment…Interior Design at it’s best, I had arrived. I started entertaining as soon as school started even having Harry Hansen one of my instructors over to drink and smoke with the rest of us .Oh how sophisticated it all seemed. My best friend Wainwright sometimes made it and some times not. She lived at home the first year and drove those treacherous miles even in the snow and could it snow…and could we drink.  

So hello, I haven’t written in awhile. I have been side tracked with some other little things, like helping Charlotte with some fabrics and a bit of other decorating stuff. I wanted to get back to the Jacobson’s years:  it really was quite a bit of my young career.

Kalamazoo isn’t a very big city. It was larger then but still barely more than a hundred thousand ; so to support a store like Jacobson’s with those few people was really quite something. I want to stress the kinds of things we had in the store. Baker Furniture in the 70’s was the ultimate to the retail client, of course there were other lines like John Widdicomb, (however they were not common to the retail shopper). We did have a piece here and there but Baker and Henredon were household names Baker being the Cadillac of furniture. It was not uncommon to see 5or 6 Baker settings on the floor at one time and even more Henredon. Then there were lines like Drexel and Heritage to sort of pick up the slack and lots of beautiful promotional upholstery as well. We had our own custom line of bedding with beautiful covers sold in the bedding dept. as well as the furniture dept. and many beautiful lamps mostly Chapman. In those days those lamps were very expensive maybe 250-300 dollars and that was a hell of a lot of money.

When I started there the Design Director was a man named Jim Beck he was a couple years older than I was. He had a very European Flair about him in his manner as well as his dress. We often went to dinner on Wednesdays the one late night we had to work. He would strut down the street in a big cape like we were off to the Ritz:  hell we were off to the Olympic Diner where we’d all order eggs because they were cheap .Nancy, Jim, myself and Rosemary all jammed into a booth smoking, drinking coffee, and laughing.

Nancy was one of the smartest women I think I’ve ever known she had a mind like a trap and a wild sense of humor. We were friends from the second we met. She spent many evenings at my house playing scrabble her favorite thing to do. She had an annoying habit of clicking her long fingernails on the table while her opponents were trying to come up with a simple word like sit then she would quickly and calmly make three words from that one  and collect a ton of points. She had a million stories. Her father’s name was Jack Ball.  He owned a restaurant in Saugatuck on Lake Michigan. When she was small her mother would enter her in Little Miss Shirley Temple look alike contests:  she was made up to look just like Shirley and she did. Once she was supposed to jump from a plane because the real Shirley was too valuable to do so but her father stepped in and said NO to that. Nancy died one evening while watching TV. When she didn’t show up at the store by noon they sent someone to her apartment...  there she was DEAD with her ever present cigarette sitting in the ashtray all burned down. Well at least she didn’t have to get old…..

Rosemary...Actually

Actually, I only worked at the Vogue Shoppe for one year. Mrs. Blow had retired by the time I got there and working for the new designer was just not what I had bargained for. I went from there to Jacobson’s Store for the Home a very high end complete home store. They carried everything from expensive teaspoons to a Baker sofa. The concept of the store made it very easy to work:  one could do the entire house from the can opener to the Kindel Dining Room. We had everything at our fingertips from the best fabrics to the most beautiful wall coverings. The store itself was quite beautiful the first floor was referred to as HOME DEC. with bath& bedding, kitchen, china, crystal, and gifts actually more accessories than gifts. Working there was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life.  The people that worked there all seemed to LOVE the Store. There was a pride I’ve never experienced. It was the friendships one developed there as much as the Store itself that made those years so special.

The most lasting of all of the friends I made during those years is a very special person: fellow designer Rosemary Greer. We have been friends almost 40 years. I met her one afternoon in the store. She was a customer having just moved to Kalamazoo from New York State. We became friends almost instantly. Within a very short while I had convinced her to come and work at the Store. I don’t think she was ever sorry I can’t think of anyone more memorable in my years there. She is an extremely capable designer and I have learned much from her over the years. I remember her loving Judd Scott wallpapers and her use of those bold prints was wonderful I’ve never seen anyone put them to better use. She also introduced me to Louis Bowen Papers (both lines I believe are gone today).

 In those days we were always dressed to the nines and had a certain image we had to keep up.  Jacobson’s had an idea of what we were to be and look like and we were! Rosemary always wore beautiful clothing. In the winter a full length mink coat remember in the 70’s we could still kill anything…she loved big dark glasses and of course we all smoked. It was considered a good idea to smoke with one’s clients: it relaxed them and kept them buying longer. We had such a wonderful time both in and out of the store we were all very socially intertwined. Rosemary lived in an enormous ultra modern house in a posh neighborhood and gave wonderful dinner and cocktail parties. To this day I can give a party at a moment’s notice with what I learned from her. Rosemary has been ill for the past few years and I miss our constant decorating chats very much. There is no one who has ever filled those shoes no one ever could……….

Oh How I Have Missed You !!!

As previously mentioned, I have done Interior Design professionally for almost 40 years. Over these years I’ve had many clients; some years as many as 30. While working as a retail designer for a now defunct, very glamorous company, Jacobson’s of Michigan, we had very large client loads and sold a high volume of merchandise. That’s when I learned to make my job easier. I had to shut up and LISTEN: every client knows what they want they will tell you if you listen. I absolutely loved Jacobson’s. I worked with the most wonderful group of people every one a story in them selves’ .I stayed 8 years and only left because I needed to experience a big city. I chose Washington DC, where I worked for W&J Sloane. But it really was Jacobson’s were I learned how to put together rooms that worked for the clients who bought them. I had some wonderful clients. Among them was Madame Curtineas.

She was the tiniest French woman I think I’ve ever met, and spoke with a halting accent. She drove around in an especially equipped Eldorado so could reach the pedals. She lived in a fantastic big mansion (there were very wealthy people in Kalamazoo at that time) . Her living room was huge and had French doors all around and big double doors at the entrance. The foyer was huge and the halls were probably 5 feet wide, there was a  winding stairway in the foyer that led to bed room after bed room The master bedroom was the size of the living room One could have held a dance in there. There were servants’ quarters but no longer any servants. According to her the house was built by her mother in law. We had a really crazy time together she had her ups and downs .She was probably in her 70’s when we met .I would be her best friend one minute and the next she would treat me like a commoner, then she’d apologize profusely.

 Jacobson’s designers were not allowed to dump a client. After all, they were really not our clients but the stores’ and it was very costly to get them through the door. In the middle of decorating the big house she suddenly became ill (she thought she was going to perish at any moment) and she set me off with Fritz, her husband to find a new house, I was told he was not capable of finding one by himself. Hell according to her he couldn’t find the door! Fritz was very nice and extremely handsome in his old age .I had seen photos of them when they were a beautiful pair in their youth:  he tall and blond her tiny and dark. But the years had gone by need I say more.  We found a suitable house in a very uppity gated community with lots of nouveaus riche.  Madame of course hated it but bought it anyway and we set off once again to decorate it. We upholstered all of the furniture and purchased some new. The most difficult part of the job was fitting all of what had to be kept in the new house that was half the size or less of the big house. Now I like lots of furniture and stuff so in that way she and I saw eye to eye, but this place was really full. She actually loved it and we finished on good terms,  until she invited me to some kind of affair for some reason I could not attend:  I became a guttersnipe and she disappeared for years. Then one day in another Jacobson’s she spotted me and called out across the room as though we were long lost lovers.  “Jak, how I have missed you!!”  I never saw her again…….