Esoteric Survey

Up until recently, there was only one known Alvin Lustig house and that was the June Wayne House .  Now,  there's two.  Through the detective work of the house's new owner, Andrew Romano , and the previous owner,  Andy Hackman,  there seems to be enough evidence to prove that Lustig designed the above house in Silver Lake  for  William H. Thomas,  who ended up running   JBL  (a company Lustig did design work for). If it wasn't for Andy, who has been a vanguard in the California Modern arena since before I probably even knew who Charles Eames was, and Andrew, who brings his impressive   research skills and obvious passion for Lustig, this major find might have never come  to light.  I'm really looking forward to  seeing  this story unfold.  Andrew will be documenting the project here:  Lustig House The Lustig-designed bathroom tiles in the house....

• PAPER CLIPS •   RUBBER BANDS

Allied Craftsmen Today at the Mingei The Allied Craftsmen of San Diego have been  around in one form or other since  the 1940s.  This exhibition is sort of an  update to the Mingei's 2011  San Diego's Craft Revolution, which was curated by Dave Hampton.  Beginning with  work by a group of artists who were also in Craft Revolution, the exhibit also includes contemporary members of  The Allied Craftsmen. All the work has been created within the last two years.   Joe Nyiri Erik Gronborg Ron Carlson   Kathy Miller  Soil and clay over rebar,  Jennifer Anderson   Josh Herman Managerie , from the Mingei's permanent collection The bird on the right is a Shoji Hamada water dropper Nakashima

Some jackasses have been stealing pieces of copper off the   Claire Falkenstein  "Three Fires" sculptures  at the  Fulton Mall in Fresno. According to Eric at Save the Futlon Mall, the City plans to remove all three sculptures. This reminds me of what happened in San Francisco,  here .  Source: Save the Fulton Mall I hope they figure out how to get the sculpture back where it belongs. 

Stacking tables/stools by Fran Hosken Fran Hosken was a Boston-based architect, urban planner, designer, feminist, and social activist.  She studied under Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer  at the Harvard School of Design.  With husband James, they founded Hosken Inc., in 1947.  Although their designs were shown in a large  list of  publications, and selected for  MoMA's Good Design and the Milan Triennale, the company folded in 1951. Read more about Fran in this article , by  Larry Weinberg . THINK, Published by IBM, 1962 with Harry Bertoia's Modern Man sculpture on the cover.

Malcolm Leland gates leading to the San Diego Museum of Art sculpture garden . Is that Claire? Accelerated Point by Claire Falkenstein Yeah, it's legit. There's the signature.  What's not legit is the missing George Rickey sculpture.  This is what it used to look like. It turns out that they moved it to put in some new grass. I hope it's back soon.  The Timken Museum of Art - The greatest piece of modern architecture in Balboa Park. Interestingly enough, it doesn't have any modern art it in.

  g.colton ,  a  brand & shop in Los Angeles, does a project it calls Guest Buyers Series. They ask people who inspire them to go out and buy cool stuff on g.Coltpn's dime. They document  the purchases and half the proceeds go to a charity when the items sell.    In this case, they asked Objects USA to do the shopping and the Museum of California Design is the charity. Check it our here David Stewart Ceramic Bowls

Sharp Tackett for Freeman-Lederman

This weekend is  CicLAvia , for Modernists.  Wilshire Boulevard will be closed to  cars, so t his is a rare opportunity to explore Wislhire  on  by foot, bike, skates or  other non-motorized transport.  As part of Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A., CicLAvia offers  The Modernist's Guide to Iconic Wilshire Boulevard .   Read more about the June 23 CicLAvia here . Go check out that Malcolm Leland designed façade . Yes, LACMA is going to rip this down. More here . You should get off your bike at St. Basil Church to get a closer look at all the Claire Falkenstein work. I did, here .

And some weekends, the pickings are slim.  Though that is a cool waste basket. Braun ABW 30 clock by Dietrich Lubs

Good news- the Henry Ford Museum  purchased the Eames World's Fair Pavilion that was in the last    LAMA Auction . I can't think of a better place for it to end up. Here's the press release . The post I did on the pavilion is here . It will be in good company with some great Eames items already in the museum's collection.  The collection includes the  Eames fiberglass shell chair on the right f rom John Wills, the boat builder  who  produced the first prototype. Here's another photo of it . Photo: Flickr

Charles Eames would have been 106 today.