you have been here sometime: melrose design district

....
the melodies in my mind (2011)

Galerie Half is a transcendent place. It is a store that blends American primitive works, with the lines of great Swedish, Belgian, French, and Danish furniture works. Galerie Half is for those that believe that rooms need a soul and a sense of history and purpose. On trips to the store, I've come across stunning works by Jean Royere, Kurt Olsen, Poul Henningsen, and Borge Mogensen to name a few. For those that read YHBHS, Galerie Half wrote one of my favorite Card Catalog entries last year for the site. (read it here.)

When researching furniture/design, songs are often in my mind. I see shapes and lines that will remind me of a melody, that slowly turn into muted colors, that eventually become a room. These images were taken by Marco Annunziata, a photographer based in Italy and L.A. who specializes in architecture/interior photography.

Galerie Half 6911 melrose avenue los angeles CA 90038

Zhang Huan 'Ash Painting No. 4' 2007, ash & incense

Underneath our feet, Crystals grow like plants
(Listen how they grow) I'm blinded by the lights
(Listen how they grow), In the core of the earth
(Listen how they grow)

(crystalline, listen here)

I've been looking for your touch.
I've been looking for your touch.
I've been looking for your touch.
everything, you touch....

listen here: holy other

Don't ask me when but ask me why
Don't ask me how but ask me where
There is a road, there is a way
There is a place, there is a place
I know places we can go babe
Coming home, come unfold babe

(I know places... here)

Do you feel any better now?
I'm trying to follow what you told me,
A little, lost colony from the start,
We never see what only you can say

(Relocate, KAUF, here)

Galerie Half
6911 melrose avenue los angeles CA 90038

Photography by Marco Annunziata

....
"There are your good friends and I like them fine.
'Cause they are your past and your present time.
But would you even be the same if you left them behind?"

- Kathleeen Edwards

all photographs by Marco Annunziata

Gerard O'Brien's store Reform on Melrose in the heart of Los Angeles tells a specific story of craft & design. It is here in this store that I have been firsthand introduced to the works of J.B. Blunk, Howard Werner, David Cressey's ceramics, Gerald McCabe's sculptural furniture, Tanya Aguiniga's felted works, John Kapel, only to name a few.

For collectors or design geeks like myself, Reform is what I might call a "temple of the hands." A place where the lines are blurred between craft + art + design. Gerard's enormous collection of books in the back room is the best public archive of this sort that I know about here in L.A. I've spent many hours of the afternoon speaking with Gerard about the current state of craft in America , as well as attending the store's events. Last year he hosted Leslie Williamson for her book, Handcrafted Modern, and spoke recently at LACMA on The Legacy of California Design. Designers such as myself are extremely grateful for Gerard's dedication to telling the story of Southern California's design, and encouraging a new generation to work with their hands. Please take time to visit Reform. - David John