March Madness Means Merchandise

Haven't even had time to photograph the stuff from all points south because half of it sold before I could even arrange it, hit two auctions last week, covered 500 miles and dug deep to satisfy everybodies' spring fever. If the media gods (goddess in this case-editor Angela at Real Detroit) decide your the "it girl," you better have the merchandise coming in daily. First up was the auction at the offices of Yamasaki famed architect of the twin towers and 50's Cranbrook modernists. With a museum in the offing (see Detroit Free Press article from last Sunday) I was lucky to get posters of projects from Dubai, Beijing and one of the big man himself. The pristine coffee table from his original office c. 1960 is all glass and chrome and too precious for the shop at the moment, but housed nearby. The real gem however is the entire collection of model miniatures from his original office and the angels sung when I opened the drawer full to the brim with 1/4 scale people in every color in the rainbow. There are people in 3 different sizes, including arabs in robes, plus buses, cars and airplanes. I'm feeling a 911 model coming on, count on me to be irreverant.

I have to confess I was pretty disappointed after the 500 mile and 16hour roadtrip to Indiana and Western Michigan. One of the hardest things about this business is the complete unpredictability of finding interesting things and the pickings were slim. Between upstairs dealer Amy Nolfo Wheeler and John Raven, we brought home a huge 1960's vase with a mermaid on it, and an assortment of toolboxes, trophies and primitives. The only thing more heinous than the items at the Niles antique mall was the road food. Remind me to pack a cooler next time. We chose Culvers over McDonalds, Wendy's and KFC because different might be better. Not. I did love the milkshake but mostly because the perky counter clerk who made it actually came to the table to see if I loved it as much as she did. Plowing through the junk at the Niles mall made us ravenous. Thank god Amy had snacks, which we consumed on her tailgate in the mall parking lot.

In between and around town, I picked up some cool industrial bits, a great marble topped table, fire hydrant (I always have to have something impossibly big or heavy) and managed to rearrange the entire shop in time to host the michigan film creative people this week. Covering all the hours at the shop means there will always be something new to see and yours truly to give you the back story, good bad and ugly.