Praise DECOR 130year Blog now UP!!

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Baer Charlton

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
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In celebration DECOR will be running a special Blog focused on it's 130 years as the industry's chronicler, educator and sometimes spark-plug.

One of the first blogs is the reprint of Gabe Kiley's great indepth look at the industry's as well as the magazine's and publisher's histories that was printed five years ago. It's a long read, but lends a great understanding that our current circumstances of economy are nothing new; just cycle of de j'vue.

And to kick it all off, lets take a look at the original issue cover.
http://decor130.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/a-special-showcase/

For those who will be in Vegas or Anaheim, stop by the DECOR booth to see the frame job in person, and say hi to Kristin. :thumbsup:
 
Beautifully done, Baer. I left a comment on the blog.

I'm printing the long history article for the flight to Vegas.
 
Hey chill people.... I didn't put the blog together... DECOR did..

It's going to be up all year with as much as we can cram into it for retrospective. And maybe some "How to" vids for maybe some old finishes or something.

But I'm with you on it.... it is really cool. :thumbsup:
 
NICE BLOG!!! sorry,I`ll stop shouting now....This will be a fun blog to keep up with. any idea when the 2010 issue will be sent out? L.
 
It really wasn't even a "Magazine" as we know it today.... with a thicker harder cover. It was more like a newspaper. I believe it was closer to 1888 when they started with a more formal cover with graphics.
 
Look I rarely pull up a soap box for somebody a second time, but ok, How did you decide upon that way-cool design?

Maybe there's a back story you would care to relate, but maybe there isn't. You don't have to answer if you don't want to.
 
OK, now I get it more so. I was thinking the Blog.... and you were talking about the frame.

The Blog is DECOR's blog and as far as I can see.... "what motif".... :D

The frame I carved is to frame the original cover from 1880, which is a very interesting time period in furniture and the applied arts. It is the end of the Victorian era and the over abundance of gingerbread, and the precursor to the Arts & Craft movements that lead to the two major "style" movements; Deco and Art Nouveau.

The Chip carving patterns are from the mis-named (or at least misunderstood) tramp art that came out of Germany around the 1860s and was popular through the midwest America up through the 1940s. These are the lattice and flower across the top, and the "Wheat Flower" in the placard upper corners.

The lattice represents the connectedness of the industry through education, and the growth that represents is nurtured and results in the beauty of the flowers. The "yin/yang" in patterns goes back to Macedonia in 350BCE; with the hard formal constraint of the the arrow matched with the life form of the egg. These also echo the twin forms of "life and death".

The stylized wheat blossoms in the corner plaques are to emphasize that this (the first cover) is the birth of a bounty. Blossoms in decorative art in Asia (huge influence to the Art&Crafts as well as Victorian) are also ornaments of good luck at the start of any journey (Who was to know this journey would be 130 years already?), as well as symbols of good fortune and bounty.


Cover02E.jpg


The unadorned side rails represent "a life yet unwritten". This speaks to the new publication, but also that at 130th birthday, the publication is in new hands, with a new understanding and therefore with a new life "yet unwritten".

The lower unadorned plinths are of "raw mud", and yet unformed. This I stole from my Masonic leanings as it is about "nothing is hardened in stone", so the the publication may change, grow, and flux and flow with the need and whims of the industry and editorial personages.
The "array" in the bottom center represents "dawn of a new day" to commemorate Kim Fagler's adopting of DECOR. The floral decoration is merely decorative.

The patterns I drew from the furniture of Thomas Wells, a former employee and contemporary of Chippendale, Eastlake, Paul Josheph Wilder, and William Lamb Elliot (best known for several Unitarian and Universalist Church interiors).
 
"DECOR gives the project two thumbs up!"

They need to borrow some more thumbs, then :)

Amazing, Baer.

I'll read the article in a bit. I'm still looking at the frame.
 
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