Summer Style Contest Entry: The Slate Garden Gallery Goes POP

Sun, 07/20/2008 - 12:48pm by haze

325 Views - 14 comments

This is my entry into CasaSugar's Summer Style Contest packaged as a brief tour of this summer's major outdoor project: reclaiming our patio and refreshing our garden. This project was officially launched on May 24, 2008 at 10 AM and concluded today, July 20, 2008 at 2:37 PM

My husband, being an avid collector of antiques, is primarily responsible for acquiring the eclectic mix of mid-century pieces that are featured in the space. It was my goal, as the designer, to refurbish, reclaim, reuse and repurpose many of these items in order to create a warm and welcoming space with a unique personality.

As the project developed it began to take on the feel of a gallery and I installed 7 unique pieces of my original artwork, prepped for permanent outdoor display, that are now part of the garden scenery. This became especially important when our neighbor erected his privacy fence that spans a length of nearly 50 feet. Without the artwork this length of fence, which we backed with lattice in order to provide a more finished view on our side, would look like "The Great Wall of Bergen & Sioux Streets" when viewed from the street.

Since my most organic work embodies the feel of modern, surrealistic pop art, we thought it would be especially fitting. Our house, a very large Cape Cod style home, built in the mid 1930's supports this eclectic, reclaimed mix of styles from the 1940's - forward.

Complete diaries of the patio reclaimation and development of The Slate Garden Gallery are also available for your review, as are photos from the preparation and development of the following paintings:

The Farmer's Wife
Pomme d' Amour
Say Cheese...

Pluckin' Joyful
Ginger Glass
WallFlower
Peri Peri

A detailed "Before and After" view of the folding garden chairs is also online in the Crafty Sugars group.

Posted in Su Casa

14 comments

Report Album

MartiniLush

Haze, you are amazing! I sooooo love this redo - I just gaze at it and wish I were there! Eye-wink There is now way that this awesome work will not win the casasugar contest!

50 weeks 4 days ago

Report Comment

haze

Thank you so much, ladies. It's been a lot of work and a long time in coming but it is finally done. There will be no outdoor work this week. Believe me - I need the rest from such physical labor and so does my husband. The biggest and most unexpected payoff is how many of our neighbors are stopping by to introduce themselves and find out more about the space and how we perpetrated some of the aspects of the project. Funny: I've been in this neighborhood for ten years and know only 3 or 4 of the neighborhood families. I don't know if these relationships will continue and grow or if it's just a passing thing but it is wonderful to know that they are getting a certain amount of enjoyment out of what we have done. Of course my nerves are edged off being entered into this contest but I have my fingers crossed - and my toes - and my hair - and well... I am just full of anticipation. Oy.

50 weeks 3 days ago

Thank you, my friends. I feel so irrationally nervous about this contest. You have no idea.

demure20: One of the things that helped me pull everything together was sketching and/or digital illustrations of the artwork before it was installed. It took a lot of the guesswork out of what it was going to look like so I had confidence going into each phase that it would work. I actually posted the process in the Farmer's Wife DIY. Click the link. It opens to a new window. There you will see all of the sketches of the designs that were being considered and then you will see the digital set for each. This was accomplished in Photoshop but you can easily do it by printing your sketches [to scale] to fit into your progress photos. The WallFLower link also shows an example of one of my digitally created plans.

50 weeks 2 days ago

demure20

Thanks haze for the great tips and DIY examples. I love working on Photoshop, so I'll give it a try.... but I'll test some stuff out on a smaller scale since I'm not as talented as you are!
G'luck!

49 weeks 3 days ago