Antonia
Spriggs:
floral explosion!
Ahhhh, the windows that Lucy creates!
Lately, her blog has become an obsession, and I find myself driving
down Silverlake Blvd just to she what she has created next!
Not to mention the bookstore, the perfect place for
lazy afternoons, looking at vintage and new design/art books.
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This month she gives us Floral Explosion, just in time
for the late spring here in Los Angeles.
I asked Lucy some quick questions about her windows
of Lawson - Fenning (amazing furniture store!) and
the books she curates for Ivanhoe Books.
Thanks Lucy!
In a past life you were?
A taxidermist.
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Floral Explosion, What was the inspiration? How long will it be up? Talk about this madness!
Haha! The inspiration was really just Springtime - I never have a solid idea of what the final installation will look like, I tend to just start with one component and take it from there. With this window display I knew I wanted to make flowers and preferably out of paper, because that's my favourite medium to work with, so I started with that. Each window is generally up for about 2 months - it takes me around a month and a half to create them. So once I finish, I give myself a couple of weeks off and then start again. I think the next one might be monochromatic butterflies or a rainbow of cushions. I like looking at the photography of Tim Walker for inspiration too - he always has such fantastical sets built.
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Materials you used for this window?
This one is hand painted paper (I use gouache and acrylic paint), tissue paper, Ikea net curtains and green spray paint (I spray painted the curtains to get the grass green colour - I was going to dye them but the dye I got wasn't quite the right colour).
One secret about you no one would guess?
I have overwhelming love for Phil Collins.
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Morning or night person?
I am basically a big sleepy sloth and like sleep all the time. Unfortunately my small dog Dexter has an inner alarm clock that wakes him up every morning at 6.50am so I often grumpily get up pretty early and stare blearily at the birds in my garden while he runs about going bananas. I often want to turn him into a pair of slippers.
Ivanhoe bookstore. One of my favorite small art/design bookstore in Los Angeles! I recently bought some used books, and that Roy McMakin book, that I can't stop drooling over! Any favorite titles at the moment or current obsessions in the world of books?
Difficult to answer because I have so many favourites and May is a month when a lot of books are published. I just got a new Deborah Turbeville book in - "Past, Imperfect" - her photographs are insanely gorgeous. I've also got a bit of a thing about old nature illustration books at the moment - Ernst Haeckel's "Art Forms in Nature" is one of our bestsellers and one of my top titles. I also just got in "Gardens in Perpetual Bloom: Botannical Illustration in Europe and America 1600 - 1850".
It's bonkers!
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Ivanhoe Books, go here..
1618 Silverlake Blvd, LA,
CA 90026. "
The books cover all aspects of art & design and are carefully curated by Lucy Spriggs. Lucy honed her book skills working in the art sections of various bookstores in her native United Kingdom, through her post-graduate studies in art history at Sotheby's Institute of Fine Art in London and as a member of the editorial team of the British contemporary art magazine ArtReview. Lucy maintains the Ivanhoe Books blog which highlights favorite titles.
Lucy
Antonia
Spriggs:
floral explosion.
thank you!