sneak peek...lisa solomon

it's a week of lisas as sneak peek continues with artist lisa solomon. lisa's home was every bit as beautiful as i thought it would be- what follows is a description of her space in her own words. [click here for full sized photos of lisa's home]

"First I feel like I should clarify that I have a split design sensibility [I’m a libra after-all]. Part of me would LOVE to live in a very clean modern perfectly stylized house. But in reality – we have pets [2 dogs and 2 cats] and we collect lots and lots of stuff.... And I also love peeling paint and things with history and character... So our house design sense has more of a lived in, vintage inspired, long hard collected look..... I dream of someone asking me to help them put a space together from scratch.... It’d be so fun to try out different sensibilities

I thought I should start with the living room. Two walls are chocolate brown.... On the right – funky found metal cart – clockwise the art around the cart: the baby is kimberly austin, then alex ambrose, genevieve walsh. Red painting : aurora robson, and some cool lou reed flexidisc that someone gave us. On the left– an old TV cabinet that we put our new TV in... Our treasured TV lamp kitties, old empty bowling pin booze bottle, vintage gun [not loaded] and a whole sheet of wacky packs [does anyone remember those?] framed.

Continuing in our living room: on right – found salvage mantle... And things that match in color/age/style....On left – great mission style chair from my father in-law, gorgeous pillow [with an L for me!] by lisa congdon, big painting by my friend and mentor katherine sherwood, small piece by chris johanson, repro vintage fan courtesy of restoration hardware, flea market find pedestal lamp, 2 small footstools [I have a thing for all items mini] and yes... The orange fringe pillow is an ikea special of course!

This is our dining room – I love our fake grass placemats [another gift]. I pretty much leave them out all the time to giggle. My husband collects and plays mostly vinyl and our record player is in the dining room [in an old pie case – the green piece on the edge of the photo above. There’s the current rotation [he stores over 2000 records upstairs]. Painting is an old one by me... Drawing of our dog is my husbands. There’s also my basket full of softies...From wendy crabb, hammer and daisy, and jess hutch, as well as my nara ashtry by cereal art - a recent and well loved gift! I also like to set up little still lives [or vignettes as lisa c so aptly put it] this sits in a nook in a hallway. So you are probably starting to notice – I like to match things by color. There are 2 adorable bird cups there by rori zendack- everything else is found, given, and/or painted to match.

And lastly our bedroom. yes – we watch that TV – and yes – it’s black and white – and yes – we listen to records in here too! can you tell I have a thing for old luggage? On the left of the wardrobe is a framed art quilt by amy karol, the cute green felt purse is by gwen/bugheart - she also supplied the fabulous green luggage. I don’t know why, but I just love the old window pane. Even that it’s broken.... Above the red chair is the newest edition to my art collection a piece by alyson fox, next to the bed the shoes are by kimberly austin again, and above the bed is the vintage czech bead headress I wore for my wedding.....In putting these pictures together I really realized how lucky I am to be surrounded by art and things that I love – made by people I love and admire. They all make me feel like I’m home. And that is a very lucky feeling. Hope you enjoyed the peek! Lisa"