Mint

My friend Tracy was checking out Fixed Gear Gallery earlier this week (it’s a bike nerd’s paradise) when he ran across this photo of an apparently beautiful bike hanging in a really interesting living room. Tracy sent me the link and my interest was piqued. (I also posted it on OK Great). The house is the Wheeler family residence, and Dan Wheeler was nice enough to send me some more photos and explain his interest in collections.

As you can see, the Wheeler family loves vintage paint-by-numbers pieces, and owns over 600 of them. (On a side note, I recently got a couple paint-by-numbers myself, and love the way they pop against some of my more modern, soft colored pieces. Now that I’ve seen the Wheeler’s house, I might have to pick up a few more!)

When I asked Dan how his collection obsession began, he said “Well, aren’t all our collections found when placing one thing next to another, and they start a conversation? For me, first stamps as a kid, then globes given to me when I was in school by an old girlfriend. (Ode to my wanderlust!). Black and white postcards in Italy [Dan spent 2 years living in Rome], sketchbooks, then our kids and their trophies. Natural stuff, shells/rocks, and wood found their way into a glass cureo table. My Fisher-Price manic wife (her childhood) found a couple paint-by-numbers, she/we loved the “art but not art” quality, and the cost which was cheaper than wallpaper to cover cracking plaster walls. This has led to a stress relieving past-time for a very hyperactive architect, a lead-in to cycling, speeding from site to site, to bike upon bike, to each a story but each the same beautiful, efficient form. With bikes came biking shirts, and tires and tubes. The bike rolled past a shop with a Dansk (Jens Quistgaard) pitcher in the window (remembered from childhood as the vessel for milk), leading to Quistgaard Peppermills and Bowls, each totally functional.”

“What I think I’ve learned is the collections are fine on their own, but in proximity to others new conversations crop up: of color, scale, purpose, fun. While we architects always appreciate and admire emptiness, we also are learning to appreciate the density of density!”

Since many of the photos deserve a closer look, just click on them to see the full-sized version.

Thanks for sharing your beautiful house with us, Dan and the rest of the Wheelers. Don’t forget to check out the Wheeler Kearns architecture firm (post below).

[photos owned by dan wheeler]

Today we’re getting a glimpse inside Dan Wheeler’s home, and in exchanging emails with Dan I became curious about the architecture firm he established in 1990 with Lawrence Kearns. The firm is as talented as I expected; although, as you’ll see his own home is a strong contrast (or compliment?) to the modern, minimal spaces designed by Wheeler Kearns.

What struck me most in their portfolio was the “Rocky Gap Stair” which overlooks Lake Michigan. From the Wheeler Kearns website:

“With minimal imposition on the landscape, the path is intended to accommodate the continued movement over time of the inherently unstable bluff without catastrophic failure. The lightweight wood assembly provided flexibility in the field to adjust to site specific conditions. The cumaru will remain unfinished to minimize maintenance and allow the path to become less conspicuous and continue to recede into the landscape as it weathers.”

Check back this afternoon for some amazing photos of the Wheeler home!

photography by steve hall-Hedrich blessing and bladon conner

psst… On Monday we’re going to have another giveaway, and this one will have a whopping 15 winners!

I’m sure you remember my post on the ebay shop Vintage Feathers and More from last week! The Walters family has generously offered to give Mint readers free shipping on orders of $50 or more. Just contact them before check out with the items you want to buy, tell them you want to use the “Mint offer,” and they will send you an adjusted invoice.

Thanks Walters’!

Lany Devening is a printmaking-bud of mine from college, but until yesterday we had lost touch. Then my friend Yulianna sent me a link to her etsy shop, and I remembered how much I love her work. Lany has a great sense of humor, and has some great themes to her work. The heart prints (which are on sale, buy one get one free!) are about firesetters and their varying motivations. She also has some prints about the dust bowl, 1930s slang, animal behavior versus human behavior, and even some blood splatters (“which aren’t necessarily about anything, but visually speaking, they leave out just the right amount of information”). She’s interested in science fiction and psychology – but as Lany says, “natural (and unnatural) disasters and landscape are what I tend to dwell on lately.”

I’ve always wanted one of her heart prints and the BOGO sale was too much for me to resist. So now I’m the proud owner of Utah and Alabama:

Thanks Yulianna!

Modest is a new blog written by Kate, a graphic designer from Boston. Kate has been working hard and Modest already has lots of readers and lots of design-related posts to check out.

I’m so happy to have Modest as a Mint sponsor! Please stop by and say hi – I’m sure you’ll be adding it to your daily reads! Thank you Kate!

Our invitation paper arrived yesterday. 30 large sheets of delicious Rives BFK. Time to get serious – lots of paper to tear and many hours with the gocco to come. Think we can do it all in two weeks?