Esoteric Survey

  Inside the Design Center at Mingei International Museum There is another Dave Hampton curated exhibition coming up at Mingei. Todd Pitman and I are also lending a hand. Ilse and Lloyd Ruocco’s Design Center, located in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego, was a foundation for the modern design community of the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. Inside the Design Center brings to life a vignette of mid-twentieth century interior, lighting, and furniture design, featuring pieces by significant California designers, manufacturers, and craftspeople as selected by Ilse Ruocco for her 1950 showroom. This exhibition offers an immersive, revelatory window into San Diego’s culture of modernism through the lens of architecture, design, interior decorating, home goods retailing, landscape architecture, graphic design, and photography. Historic images of the Design Center set the backdrop for over 30 original pieces of modernist furnishings. Works by designers such as Ray Eames, Charles Eames, Greta...

  The Bailey House by Kendrick Bangs Kellogg made it to the Architectural Digest Unique Spaces video series. And our boy Dave was part of it. Hopefully he won't get too mad that I posted a picture of him. He did a great job talking about Kellogg, like no one else can. Watch it here.  Check out a recent post I did on the house  here . More about the house and short-term rentals and photo shoots can be found on their website:  https://www.baileykelloggresidence.com/about

  Our buddy Dave Hampton will be giving a talk on Kendrick Bangs Kellogg at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library November 6th at 7:30pm.  More information and tickets, here .  Bailey residence, 1983–1989; photo credit: Chad van Herpe

Jack Rogers Hopkins, California Design Maverick Curated by Katie Nartonis March 1, 2024 - September 28, 2024 Jacobs Education Center Gallery at The Sam + Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts The fact that much of this material still exists is credited to this exhibition, which has been in the works for several years. The Hopkins family home in San Diego was destroyed by a fire in 2018. A large amount of the work Jack made for the family was lost. A large number of drawings, notebooks, photos and jewelry pieces were in the possession of the curator at the time and therefore spared from the fire.  Sam Maloof's house in the foothills is a the perfect setting for the exhibition. Hopkins and Sam were both in the sphere of Millard Sheets in Claremont. Sam worked for Sheets until 1949. Then Hopkins studied under Sheets and earned an MFA from Scripps College in 1958. Jack would also go back to teach at Claremont in the summers of 1964 and 1965. After receiving his MFA, Jack moved from Bakers...

Lot 123 Jean Balmer, Untitled Balmer, Boyd & Stewart By Dave Hampton Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the work of June Schwarcz, Kay Whitcomb and the Woolleys was exhibited repeatedly in the Pasadena Museum of Art's exhibition series California Design .  Jean Balmer Terrace Bottle, California Design 9 Pacific Beach-based potter Jean Balmer exhibited ceramics in California Design 9 . For California Design 10 , held in 1968, the prolific San Diego potter David Stewart contributed an elaborate handmade chess set. Described as a "limited production" item, it had ceramic pieces rendered in green and white animal forms on a tile surface playing board. David Stewart Chess Set, California Design 10 Stewart was studying sculpture at San Diego State in 1959 on the GI Bill when he saw a show of Marguerite Wildenhain's pottery organized by Martha Longenecker in the campus art department. He chanced upon Wildenhain in the parking lot and chatted with the Bauhaus master potter b...