Gather round, dear Readers, because I’m going to tell you An Embarrassing Story. It was 1997, about a year before I started Garay Artisans. My family moved into a beautiful house and despite being up North, the house had features of a typical Southern “shotgun house” — which means that it had several rooms right after the other with no hallways. I have always loved it when you can see the color of the next room from the room you are standing in and so I thought “Here’s my chance!”. Today, I know this works best with spaces that have enfilades and are not so open to one another, but that was not something I knew then.
I convinced my family I knew what I was doing, went to Home Depot and picked
a bright red, an electric yellow, a cobalt blue and a strong purple color.
There was no “testing” – I just lived La Vida Loca and bought multiple gallons.
[I know, I know -- cringe.]
I planned each room to have a different color and the result was a train wreck jaw-droppingly awful HORRIFIC. My brother, sister and I had worked so hard painting the walls that we were too exhausted to even contemplate changing the colors back to white. So, they lived with it and it became known to family and friends as The Crayola House. [I'd like to take this opportunity yet again to apologize profusely to my family for what I put them through.] That epic failure is what prompted me to take a Color Theory course immediately from Dean Sickler — my first class ever — and thankfully, I’ve become waaaay more savvy at working with colors. There is no need to close your wallets, prospective clients, I promise.
I still love the idea of multiple colors and spied these next pics on Tricia Guild Pattern, Windows, Momoy, the Furniture Store blog and Marie Claire Maison. Multiple colors in design — had to share.
(above) The dated floral pattern on the fabric and the polka dots are the only elements to give me pause but other than that…carry on!
(above) Busy, yes. But I still like it.
(above) If I had to start my day by skipping down these steps and out my front door, I believe it would put me in the mood to accomplish anything!
(above) This all works for me. You? The super high ceilings help, definitely.
I do believe it takes a wonderful professional to incorporate multiple colors well — it’s why I enjoy working with designers and helping to put it all together. Hope you’ve enjoyed this post…and my Story of Shame. I also hope I’m not alone…
Just a recap — Nibblers are bits of info all rolled up inside one crunchy candy post. [Long-time readers, that info is for the Newbies. Sorta like the "Previously on The Good Wife" and then they go into last week's montage? That was my montage. OK, onward and clearly not upward...] At the time of this posting, we will probably be en route to Tallahassee, FL for a few weeks to work on a beautiful restaurant set to open soon. I will try to blog as much as I can. In the meantime, we’ll always have this post, won’t we? Let’s hit the ground running…
1) Kass Wilson, author and fellow TalkFaux moderator is holding a free webinar for decorative painters entitled “Creating Visual Marketing Tools”. Here’s her description: “The webinar will show you innovative ways to create your own visual marketing tools to help your business. We will also be discussing interesting ways you can use your new tools to capture the attention of your potential clients.” Kass always has great ideas for artists to market themselves. The live webinar is free and it happens Wednesday, November 4th from 9 pm – 10:30 pm, EST. To register, click on this link — you’ll be sent a confirmation via e-mail and you are ready to go. BTW, Kass also has a blog, Design Visions, that you can check out.
2) Speaking of blogs, Yours Truly wrote an article on them for the Fall issue of The Faux Finisher. You can check out the article PDF here: So You’d Like to Start a Blog or if you’d prefer to see the entire issue, you can e-mail me at Regina@GarayArtisans.com and I’ll make sure to get one to you. [But remember I'm going to be out of town for a few weeks, k?] Rebecca Parsons also wrote a great article on blogging in the same issue but, unfortunately, I don’t have that PDF. Hope you get a chance to read both of them!
3) Laser Excel is having a contest revolving around the free stencils they give out at tradeshows, that are found at Stencil Cafe or that come with each issue of Artisphere, IDAL‘s magazine. They are looking for the most outstanding projects done with these stencils and the submission deadline is November 23rd. For more info and to upload your pics, you’ll need to to to their Stencils at Laser Excel Facebook page…and note that they will be judged solely on Creativity and Overall Design, so slipping them a twenty won’t work. Good Luck!
4) Finally, I actually came upon the only picture I have of my first project ever, 1998. It was a guest bath whose walls were painted light blue and I used the existing paint to add the same light blue to the ceiling. Then, I added a picket fence and birds, via stencils, all along the walls. [BTW, I do recall saying a few choice words at getting that stencil behind the toilet perfectly. That was the first time I thought "Well, this isn't as glamorous as I thought it would be!"] I painted clouds on the ceiling but you can’t see those, thankfully. I remember that I was so excited that someone wanted me to paint their home that I asked her if I could keep the stencils as payment after she bought them. (shaking head, smiling) Ah, young lunacy love!
You know, it just hit me that I created an indoor outhouse. Hmmm. Let’s never speak of this again…
Last Saturday, I had plans for lunch with my girlfriends. I was walking into the restaurant when they called and said they were running half an hour late. Walked right back out and went next door to my town’s small library to kill time. Asked for their interior design section and strolled over, not expecting their selection to light up the sky like a flame.
Well, color me Mistaken. They had an incredible selection — books I’ve never heard of, books I’ve been meaning to get, books that were born just to be eye candy. I suddenly remembered my New Year’s Resolution to start using the library more and ran to see about a library card. They explained about unlimited book loans (check!), being able to manage your library account online (check!) and to remember that in August they will be moving to their new location and expanding their selections (checkmate!). The new library will be housed in a brand-new 50,000 square foot building with two floors and will be the largest and most high-tech library in our county. You know those cartoons when the boy character sees the cute girl character and his eyes pop out and you can see his heart beating in his chest? That’s how I felt at that moment. Hundreds and hundreds of design books at my fingertips…I’m. In. Love.
So, I forgot all about my friends at the restaurant until they called. Oops! I ran out with only two book selections – one of them being the Rizzoli-published Casa Florida by Susan Sully and photographer Steven Brooke. It celebrates the Spanish architecture and design here in lovely Florida. Want to see some pics?
I’m glad that Serendipity chose to make a welcome appearance in my life on Saturday. I hope I’ve inspired you to check out your local library. Beautiful resources, right at your fingertips. What could be better?
Well, well, well. Today is an excellent day. You see, we’ve been working on the Snakeskin finish for a while now. The finish has four layers and I thought it would take us 5 days to do it — one day per layer and a buffer day, just in case. Yeah, well. It has taken 5 days just to do the stencil layer. Yes, you read that right: 5 days for the overall stencil layer. It is a beautiful finish (we are all salivating for the final pics) but boy is it a doozy. We’ve all agreed that we are never, ever doing this finish again…it is officially discontinued. Not an accent wall, not a niche, not even a small table top. Folks, you know I’m usually a positive person but what fun would a blog be if I didn’t share the misadventures?
Getting back to it being an excellent day. Since we knew today was the last day we would be stencilling, the crew was in high spirits. As my brother and I drove in to the site, we were happily debating the points as to who would win in hand-to-hand, face-to-face combat: a ninja or a samurai. (I say ninja.) As we worked, the team excitedly debated how we would dispose of the stencils: sacrificial bonfire, scissors or just slam dunking them into the trash can. We ordered a gigantic margarita pizza for lunch. And at the end? We were too exhausted and hand-cramped to even muster up the
(My brother just walked by my laptop and read the post. He’s like “Regina, you’ve got to emphasize the horror of the situation. You didn’t even tell them we were sent stencils that didn’t match up. I don’t think you’re explaining it well enough. What Saw is to Horror Movies, Snakeskin is to Faux. That’s what you’ve got to get across.”)
(Now, my friend Jeff Huckaby called me to talk about his day and his client’s ceiling. Man, I feel for him. I also told him about my day and he said “Well, if you were closer, I’d smack you in the head, LOL! What were you thinking?” It’s nice to know you can call someone and just vent and laugh about paint, you know?)
Where was I? Oh, yes. Well, at the end we were too tired to even entertain the idea of the celebrational bonfire or the cutting up of the stencils. We just stood around in disbelief that the stencilling was actually done and tiredly patted each other on the backs. I guess that even on the particularly stressful commissions, there is always something to be happy about – a joyful non-grumpy team, knowing you’re working with wonderful designers or just the thought that all that hard work is going to pay off into one heck of a show-stopping room. Appreciation must always abound.
(…it’s still getting discontinued, though.)
You must forgive me if you find some typos…my right index finger was bitten by something over the weekend and now it’s swelled up, red, painful and itchy. I’m typing with my other fingers so…this oughta be fun.
Well, Saturday — the first get-together by the Wallnuts (nee The Fauxtastic Four) — was a blast. We had projected meeting from 10 am to 3:00 pm but everyone cut out of the studio close to 6pm. We would have continued our party on to dinner but we had a rather large (and loud) lunch. (By “we”, I don’t mean just the four of us. Husbands were there, siblings were there, family was there…what a fun day!) To put it all together will take a few more days than I expected but I hope it will be worth the wait. The four of us were really surprised at the end of the day when the men came in to set up our podcast. We thought we were just going to talk into the laptop or something but nooooooooooooo…there was microphones and stands and mixers and stuff I can’t even pronounce. As we were doing our chosen recipes during the day, we were gabbing and laughing and having a great time. I really hope the podcast caught some of that energy. It’s our first one so I’m sure we’ll get more comfortable with it as time goes on. Here’s two teaser pics of our day:
(Left) Prepwork: Books, Materials & Coffee (Right) My microphone…a bit daunting
Well, we’re off to prep for Tropical Storm/Hurricane Fay. It doesn’t feel like a bad one but you can never be too overprepared. I’ll try to post more cool stuff in the meantime, if the weather (and finger) permits. I hope you are having a beautiful, sunny day!
Well, folks, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t posted since Sunday and there is a reason for that. Some might actually think that I have mad computer skills since I do write a regular blog, but nothing could be further from the truth. You see, my sister, Suzanne, has moved Far Far Away and now works remotely for Garay Artisans — so she rarely comes into the studio office anymore. When she did, I would hand her pretty pictures that I would find in magazines/books and ask her to scan them for me so that I could include them in my blog. Not only would she do this but she would place them in a nifty computer file I could easily find called “Pics You Made Me Scan for You”.
Well — fantastic sister that she is, she walked me through the whole scanning process and I diligently wrote each step down in my notebook. I have since left that notebook at my friend’s house, ergo leaving me without any scanner capabilities. Everytime I try to get the courage to try and scan something without the instructions, I feel like I’ve walked into a Western ghost town and Mr. Scanner and I facing off and having a High Noon moment (dust balls, eerie music and everything). It ends up with my scanner victorious and me silently skulking away.
I could try to use some photographs of our work (which are readily available) but since I’ve already included some on the last few posts, I want to change it up a bit. So, until this weekend (when I get my notebook back or until my husband is able to set up a scanner for me at home), you are all stuck with me just writing away.
So, what shall we talk about? Oh, I know — SALI being the big buzz this week! The 23rd Annual SALI Convention is being held from July 21 – 26 in Charleston, SC and registration started this past Monday (April 28th). The convention attracts decorative artists from around the globe and they have world-class teachers heading up some amazing classes along with great seminars, get-togethers and a fun shindig to top it off. The way it works is that you register for the classes you’d like to take and it’s first come, first served. (There’s usually a mad rush because class sizes are seriously limited — you’re talking hundreds of attendees and each class holds 20 people, sometimes less.) It’s now five days since then and ask me if I’ve even looked at the catalog — noooooooooo. Hopefully, I’ll be able to take some classes I’m interested in.
(It doesn’t help that my friends are all calling me going: ”Did you register? Do you have a roommate? You haven’t registered? Regina! What are you doing? Get on the horn, girl! You’re gonna be sitting pretty with no classes available…Well, what classes do you want to take — maybe we can sit together. WHAT?!? You haven’t even looked at the catalog? Regina!!!! What are you doing? Girl, you need to sit down, take a break and make some class decisions. Tell me this, did you even book the hotel room? My word! What is going through your head?”) Well. I’m sleepy but I guess I should take a quick look at the class brochure and start planning. Wish me luck! I’ll be back on the weekend with some new posts and nice images to look at. In the meantime, check out the SALI website if the convention and classes sound like something you might be interested in.
All I ask is that you just cut me a break and hold off on registering for those classes ’til after this weekend, ok?
Until the next batch of misadventures,
Faux Girl
