The Skinny -- The Art of Tammis Keefe

Tammis Keefe.  Photo from http://makingitfun.blogspot.com

Another two things you should know about the Blackbird girls is that we collect lots of mid-century linens (the cuter the better), and that we also collect children's illustrated books.  A designer and artist that really captures the fun of both of these things is Tammis Keefe.  Margaret Thomas Keefe was born in December 1913 in California. Although she started out studying math in college, she soon realized her passion for art and transferred to the Chouinard Institute of Art.  After graduation, Keefe worked at  the Disney studios, and then as art director of the magazine Arts and Architecture from 1940 to 1942.  After that, she was mentored by textile artist Dorothy Liebes, where she began to focus on being a print maker and colorist.

From flickriver.com by xtinalamb

Keefe's fun prints reflected America's optimistic outlook following World War II.  Bright and cheerful, her prints were influenced by her travels, animals and nature, and celebrations. While working with Liebes, Keefe designed textiles for Goodall Industries, as well as Golding Decorative Fabrics, Cyrus Clarke and Jud Williams Inc. She also designed wallpaper prints for James Kemble Mills and Katzenbach & Warren.*

nwfestival.com

Keefe's fabric and wallpaper prints for the home soon led to other product design.  She began designing hankies, dish towels, tablecloths, and even clothing.  Her designs were collectible, even in her time, and she really revolutionized the idea of the designer as a brand for their products.  Her designs for retailers like Lord & Taylor were manufactured by Kimball, and were signed "Tammis Keefe."  She even marketed to other retailers as "Peg Thomas" as a way to be represented in multiple retail outlets at the same time.  

 

From KLB Vintage Wares on Etsy

In a 1951 Christian Science Monitor article, Keefe was quoted as saying “Anything is possible in textile design, if it is done correctly. A designer merely starts with something, anything, and then develops it. To an imaginative person, practically anything suggests a starting point. From then on, it is merely stating what you have to say in design.”*

Tammis Keefe died in 1960 at age 46 from cancer, but she left a legacy in her prints.  In recent years, Michael Miller fabrics reissued some of her prints in quilting and craft cotton.  Her patterns are still as endearing and enchanting today as they were 50 years ago.  We currently have an Arabian patterned hankie for sale in our shop!

Blackbird Antiques NC

*Background and quotes from http://www.tammiskeefe.com/ and http://makingitfun.blogspot.com/2010/11/tribute-to-tammis-keefe.html.  Thanks to them for the great info!

On the Radar -- Navy Chic

Jil Sander Fall/Winter 2012

If there's one definite thing we Blackbird girls recognize about our junk lovin', is that when we find ourselves buying and picking up certain things while we are out and about, then we're going to start seeing it EVERYWHERE very soon. Not that we're trend savants or anything, but we're pretty plugged in to the design world, both through television (Project Runway, anyone?) and other media, as well as what we see in the antique and junk retail world on a daily basis. And somehow all that we're seeing and hearing about trickles through our subconscious until it just suddenly becomes clear in our mind.

This week's On the Radar post is about our rediscovery of the color navy.  We had just such a moment of clarity with navy recently. We've been absently talking about navy to each other for months and months, but didn't realize until we went on a junk buying trip this summer, that we were buying many navy things. A navy hat here, three navy dresses there -- navy earrings, a navy purse, navy scarves...you get the picture. 

Hanova Pasadena Enamel Dove Bowl from MonkiVintage on Etsy

Navy really is an amazing color.  It looks great with everything.  Absolutely everything.  It seems less scary and less harsh than black; it can be both classic and modern, all at the same time; and it can be super dark and inky, or it can be a lighter, true blue navy.  It looks crisp with white, comforting with cream, sharp with metallics, and edgy with black.  Both of us Blackbird girls grew up with the hard and fast rule of not mixing navy and black together-- you have to find navy shoes to wear with that navy dress to church! -- but mixing them seems easier these days.  We like the combination now.  White shoes after labor day...well, that's another story...

Color Block Stripe Pillow by Jillian Rene Decor

But where navy can really start to shine is with other colors.  Couple a bright color with navy and you get something that is less graphic than black-with-a-bright-color, and maybe a bit more unexpected than black-with-a-bright-color.  Try navy with kelly green or yellow.  Go monochromatic with lighter and mid-tone blues.  It looks a little more like you really know what you're talking about, that you have that fashion know-how and you're not afraid to use it!

1980s Wool Devon Hall by Robert Paul Taboh Cropped Jacket in our shop.

You can find more of our navy inspiration here, in a new treasury we made on Etsy, or in our vintage shop!  You can also follow our pins for the blog on Pinterest!

Junk Love Monday: Make Your Collection Work For You

Last week, we established the fact that the Blackbird girls are junk addicts. We buy, and then we buy, and then we buy some more. You would think that we would be absolutely out of room by now, right? It is no secret within our circle that our living space is packed with junk. Most first-time guests expect to see a monstrous pile of antiques and tchotchkes, from floor to ceiling, with a pulse that vibrates beneath their feet. What they find instead is a very extensive, but carefully curated, smorgasbord of things. We decorate with our junk. It is everywhere (and I do mean everywhere--every nook and cranny in this house is considered to be real estate for the current or future display of something). Yes, we share a house that could only be classified as tiny, a 1947 cottage that seems to be shrinking by the day. But, we are experts at maximizing the potential of a space, no matter how small. We do have rules to follow. (Last week, we introduced you to the rule known as #3, or the Rule of Three, about the minimum requirements to make something an official collection.) This week, we give you two more rules.

Rule #10: Use your home as a gallery for the things you love to look at. Our strategy for artwork (or anything we can hang on a nail, really): if it's a vertical flat surface, it's available. It doesn't matter if it's three inches from the ceiling, or hanging all the way to the floor, or on the back (and front!) of a door. We hang things across the tops of doorways, on the wall beside the refrigerator, in the laundry nook, above and below light switches, and someday soon, we will probably be hammering tiny nails in a row down the exposed side of our built-in bookcase. We literally have a section of wall that is covered with artwork from the ceiling down to the baseboard with vintage artwork.

www.Lushlee.com

Rule #10, part B: use your displays to mask the defects in the "gallery." Some people use accessories to enhance the architecture of their home, which is absolutely fabulous if you have noteworthy architecture. Those of us living in homes with...flaws...can use our accessories to cover up the blemishes. If you are in physical pain at the thought of a room with more artwork than drywall, imagine how it would feel knowing that the drywall is cracked and uneven, and the painters were possibly sleepwalking when they applied your favorite, but now-discontinued, color (the one that ALL of your furniture matches, so if you repainted the walls, you'd have to reupholster everything). It is far more satisfying to cover that up (and much cheaper than having someone come in and re-drywall and paint every room in your house, which would really mean having to move to a hotel while this is done, because you have to sleep somewhere). Do you have a pesky support column somewhere, which can't be removed because it's holding up your house? Cover that thing up. Artwork, masks, a collection of tools--it doesn't matter what you hang on it. Just make it look like it was put there specifically to display something you love, and nobody will ever leave your house thinking about that ugly column again.

But what if it can't hang? This brings me to Rule #9 in our personal guidebook to happiness: Make your collection work for you. It is a beautiful concept, really. First, you get dual usage out of some of your things. Second, when you are thinking about purchasing something, the moment when you realize that you can use it to display, store, or enhance something else in your collection will bring you that most precious realization: I HAVE TO BUY THIS! You have no choice now, which eases the pain of opening your wallet and handing over the money. You have to do it, because it was meant to be! It is guilt-free efficiency. Example: She buys a box of vintage billiard balls. What do we do with spherical things, which, because our house is also not level, tend to roll all over the place? Why, I simply MUST buy that red bowl to hold them! And now that I have that red bowl? I can buy that similar aqua bowl to hold my bocce balls. It doesn't get better than bowls of balls, people! When she buys an antique optic glass punchbowl, what do we do? Fill it with her vintage typewriter tins. When I buy vintage chess pieces? Then she simply MUST buy that vase to hold them. Then, we can use that vase of chess pieces as a bookend. A teak salad bowl will hold candy at Halloween, or turned upside down, can act as a riser for a piece of pottery. A midcentury creamer becomes a pencil cup.

However, sometimes we have to find a place to store things that aren't a part of our display. Whether it is something as mundane as scotch tape, or a collectible that is being rotated out for a while, it has to go somewhere, and that is the moment you will discover that the drawer in the kitchen is already full. This is when you can really make your collection work for you--as storage units. While we may wiggle things into overstuffed closets and under furniture, nothing serves us better in the way of storage than two of our collections: suitcases and ice buckets.

respacedpdx.com

The suitcase craze comes and goes among vintage-lovers, but our relationship with our luggage is solid. Every suitcase, trunk, and vanity case that we own is performing double duty as a storage site for something. I have a round blue suitcase that holds sweaters in the off season. We have a plaid suitcase that stores back issues of magazines. Vintage tweed suitcases filled with unsightly and rarely-used, but highly sentimental, VHS tapes are stacked on a piece of furniture to serve as risers for one of our displays. Depending on the time of year, other suitcases throughout the house may hold extra blankets, board games, Christmas decorations, our heaviest winter coats, and an impossible-to-display collection of vintage cheese boards that will have their grand debut at a cheese party someday. To keep everything straight? Just tie paper luggage tags to the handles of the suitcases, with the contents written on the tag. Unless you have incredibly nosy guests, people will just think they are name tags. You can buy them, or make your own, or use the tags that came with the suitcase when you bought it. We get great storage, and the suitcases look great with our decor.

The ice bucket collection has become a resting place for smaller items: spare batteries, tape, business cards, and the super important Pizza Delivery Fund. Have you ever put something in a "safe place," and then spent six months looking for it? If you designate the ice bucket collection as a series of safe places, it cuts the search time considerably (and you don't end up emptying, and then re-filling, every drawer and cabinet in your house). Yes, I might forget which ice bucket holds the AA batteries, but trust me, it only takes two seconds to lift the lid, gaze inside, and move on. No digging required. Plus,  ice buckets are cool.

moodindigonewyork.com

The Skinny -- Lilly Pulitzer

Photo from fashionistapalmbeach.tumblr.com

Many believe that the fashion designer, Lilly Pulitzer, created the resort wear industry back in the 1960s with her iconic printed cotton shifts.  Lilly created summery dresses, pants, and other pieces that spoke to her Palm Beach lifestyle year round, and never saw the need to expand her line to include fall/winter clothing.  According to Lilly,  "It’s always summer somewhere.” 

Lilly Pulitzer found inspiration for her dresses in her everyday life.  Needing a hobby to occupy her time, she started working at her husband's fruit juice stand in 1960.  She soon realized that clothing that could hide juice stains and still look fashionable was a must.  Picking out some bright cotton prints, Lilly worked with a seamstress to develop her basic shift that allowed her to stay cool and cute, as well as incorporating side slits that allowed for bending over.  People wanted the dresses, and she started selling them at the juice stand.

Photo from machelpenn.com

Her shifts became instantly famous when the First Lady, Jackie Kennedy, a childhood classmate, was pictured in Life magazine wearing one of Lilly's dresses.  After only one year, she opened Lilly Pulizter, Inc.

Lilly worked with Key West Fabrics to create her classic prints. Using Palm Beach as her inspiration, she made funky and whimsical prints in bright colors, and she became especially known for her pink and green combinations.  Her name, Lilly, is worked in the design of the print, usually in more than one location. 

 

In our Etsy shop. www.etsy.com/shop/blackbirdantiquesnc

  In the late 1960s and early 70s,  Lilly expanded the line to include menswear, accessories and other off shoots.   She created a junior line and a girl's line, named for her two daughters.  She started to include cotton blends, as well as polyester and cotton knits.

Lilly retired in 1984, but the rights to her company were bought in the 90s and the product lines revamped.  She consulted on the new lines, and it has had a rebirth in popularity.  People still want to wear fun, comfortable clothes, but more importantly, clothes that feel like snapshots of American fashion history. 

Two great resources to date and authenticate your vintage Lilly Pulitzer clothing is the Vintage Fashion Guild's label guide, found here: http://vintagefashionguild.org/label-resource/pulitzer-lilly/ or Fuzzy Lizzie's site, here: http://fashionsfinest.fuzzylizzie.com/lillypulitzer.html

Photo from jezebel.com

 

On the Radar -- 60s and 70s Geometric Prints

Prada. Photo from http://blog.brandsexclusive.com.au/

 On the Radar is our weekly post where we get to talk about what we, the Blackbird girls, think the next big things are out there in design.  We have this problem, you see.  It never fails that about two months to a year after we start talking about what we like and what we want to feature somewhere -- in our Etsy shop or in the antique mall window -- it shows up in Country Living.  Or Martha Stewart.  Or on HGTV.  Now, we know everyone out there in "Design Land" drinks the same Kool-Aid and feeds off the same inspirations.  However, our process tends to be a bit more internal, organic, and dare I say it, vintage inspired!  As you probably already know, we LOVE vintage and antique things, so we get most of our inspiration from that.  

Michael Miller. Photo from http://www.trueup.net/

This week's post is about something we have always loved and have always been drawn to...1960s and 70s Mod/Geometric prints.  There's just something about an optic print that pulls us in.  Bright colors, neutrals -- doesn't matter.  It's all about the repeat and the graphic joy of a cool design.  We've noticed it popping up everywhere -- home fashions, high fashion, and even the craft world.  This chair, for example, has been recovered in Michael Miller quilting cotton, designed by Patty Young.  Fabric like this is accessible -- mainly because of price point.  Cotton crafting prints are a great way to maximize your design without spending tons of money.  These exact fabrics come in under $12 per yard, making them ideal for throw pillows, art projects, and even sweet little cotton dresses!

When we opened our Elle magazine for August, we were bombarded with images of suits and dresses made from 60s geometric prints.  Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu, Etro, and Prada are just a few of the designers featured.  Not only did they make individual, stand alone pieces, but they combined multiple prints. Layering pattern on top of pattern takes skill -- but the effect is dynamite!  Printed bags, shoes, dresses, jackets -- nothing is overlooked.

Photo from http://patternbank.com

1970s Blouse from Blackbird Antiques.  Ross House Boutique.

We still say that vintage is best, though.  If you wear vintage or live with vintage housewares, you know that your items are more one-of-a-kind.  Unique.  There may be more of the item out there, somewhere buried in an attic or a thrift store, but you can pretty much guarantee that nobody else in your town will have it!  The thrill of the hunt, and knowing that your item is special, can make ownership of vintage items a special thing.  Especially when you are right on trend, and just as fab as Prada (without the Prada price...)!

Junk Love Monday: For the Love of Junk

We are the ladies of Blackbird Antiques, lovers of all things vintage and fabulous. (This is a polite way of saying that we are addicted to buying old junk.) It would be fair to say that we love everything we buy. This love may vary from the innocent "I want to save you from someone else's garbage can, so I will take you home with me" type, to the soul-searing Lord of the Rings-style "my precious!" kind of attachment, the "I will cut you if you take that" kind of lust. As roommates and business partners, we cultivate 50+ separate collections between us, and this doesn't really factor in that magical unicorn known as the crossover collection, which will be discussed in a future post.

Why do we buy? People have different reasons, which we have observed out of  anthropological curiosity over the last decade of working in the antiques business. Sometimes, the need to buy comes from the good day/week/year that you are already having. You feel on top of the world, and cheerfully reinforce that with a slight junk-buying buzz. This is what gives you the opportunity to blissfully browse and purchase, without remorse, something that is interesting, pretty, or complimentary to what you already own. A pair of embroidered pillowcases, perhaps, or a nice, but functional, pottery dish.

Then there are the times when life is not going so well, when the baggage that you carry becomes a mountain that you have to climb up every day to make sure that it really is daylight somewhere (dramatic, huh?). A voice, just a whisper at first, starts to nag at you--buy something and you'll feel better. You try to resist, then you pretend to try to resist (don't be ashamed, we've all been there), and finally, like the true junk addict that you are, you say "well, maybe I'll just look around for a minute." This becomes "well, I'll just get this one" and moments later, you feel the buzz. It's a much tamer version of an illicit affair. You satisfy a craving, make yourself feel better, and then at the end you've still got a fabulous pair of smiling tomato salt and pepper shakers, which you will work hard to convince yourself and everyone else that you are actually going to use, because you really did need some shakers.

A collector buys with the intent to continue curating. We can now subdivide this into the casual collectors and the true collectors. The difference? A casual collector buys occasionally, but never seeks out. These people leave it all up to fate, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is a low-stress, low-maintenance way to accumulate things that you love, and collections made in this way are fabulous, regardless of the effort or expense it took to get there. What we call a "true collector" is a more aggressive sort. Regardless of personality, true collectors all have a Type A individual lurking in the back of the brain, one who will relentlessly pursue ownership of an item based on what is almost a primitive urge. These are the collectors who are always, always, on the hunt for that perfect example, the missing link that will elevate their collection to the ideal state. Wouldn't you love to have the World's Most Extensive, or even better, The Definitive collection of something? People would write books about you and your things! Museums would woo you! You might be on television!

And sometimes, every now and then, we have no idea why we buy. The stars align, an opportunity presents itself, and it happens to be on sale. Something unexpected catches our eye and calls our name. This is how new collections are born. We have a rule in the antiques business: three makes a collection. If you own three things connected by a common thread, then you are a collector, whether you want to be or not. Three slide rulers? Yep. Three or more rotary telephones? Sure. Three green glass vases, all of different shapes, sizes, and makers? Sorry, but you are officially a collector of green glass. Don't worry! Collections can be general or specific. Sometimes, they are both. We Blackbird girls are currently cultivating a collection of tiny tins. We don't care what the tins are for, which makes our collection general. The one unifying criterion is that they are smaller than 2 inches, which makes the collection quite specific. We have also added an addendum to the rule: if you buy one, with the intent to buy more, it's a collection anyway. Some things are harder to find than others. You could throw a rock in an antique store (not a good idea, because you might get arrested) and hit a dozen Coca Cola items, but what if you fall in LOVE with a single Eskimo figurine? In our part of the country, you don't find Eskimo-themed items very often. But if it whispers sweet nothings in your ear and you want nothing more than to take it home and build a shrine in its honor, then you are now a collector of vintage Eskimos. It may be five years before you find a second one, and another five before you find that third, but you can call it a collection in progress from the moment he winks back at you from your bookshelf.

For us, a vacation means stopping at as many thrift and antique stores as we can in a day's time. We have a "free love" kind of relationship with the junk we find. Approximately half of the items we buy for resale end up charming their way into the house instead. Our house will probably collapse under the weight of it all someday, or we'll have to buy houses next door to each other (we can't separate some of these collections!), but our junk brings us joy, and we wouldn't have it any other way.