Come Up To My Room recap

So the Come Up To My Room event that I had mentioned in a post a few days ago is now over. I went to the Gladstone on Saturday during the day to check it out and I was pleasantly surprised. There were some rooms there that I really liked and others that I was not really that fond of. I took a few pictures (but not many) that I'll put up as well.

I just want to briefly mention a few things that stick out in my mind of all the things that I saw there.

The room done by the designer DB Johnson was by far my favorite of all the rooms there. The artist is "a self-taught cabinetmaker and artisan of furnishings and objects of wood". This definately shows in the room that he designed which is pictured below. You can't see much because there were too many people there to be able to take a good picture.



Basically the room has a giant nest (you can see it in the picture) that was resting on a part of a tree that was brought into the room. The nest is obviously the bed and there was a small ladder against the wall that people could use to climb up in there. According a friend of the designer who was sitting around when I went to visit, the nest can comfortably hold up to two people.

The nest itself is made out of random branches and pieces of found cloth very similar to what a a giant bird the size of a human would make its nest out of. Having this nest-bed elevated off the ground freed up some space in the otherwise tiny room. The space under the nest was using as a sitting area. There was a bench there with a small table facing into the room. The table held a small bowl of soapy water, a shaving brush, some shaving cream and a razor. Against the wall opposite was a much larger desk, also beautifully made. Down into the little space left in the room (where all those people seem to be walking towards, is a tall shelf with decorative items everywhere. The lights in the room are fairly dim and there are feathers hung on the walls and above the desk.

There was just something about the room, the moody atmosphere that it evoked or the earthy smell of it from all the oiled wooden objects in the rooms that really made it special. Where all the other rooms has thoughtful placement and meticulous construction of their items, this room was completely different. It was organic in construction where the nest kind of just build itself. There were no blueprints and measuring tapes, carefully chosen patterns and textures. Like the overflowing ashtray in the corner or the leftover mess from a morning shave this room seemed real. Some bird-loving naturalist created it but not to be mass produced and consumed but by simply as a byproduct of living in a small room of that size for a long enough time.

Again, it was so very different from all the other rooms which may be why it left such an impact. But really I feel like its more because most interior designs are venturing away from that kindof organic-feeling and chaotic design that seems to have a makeshift and DIY feel. They are all about clean lines and smooth curves.

Anyway, enough about that. There was another room that I really liked by Jacques Bilodeau. It was a simple white room with a long log-like seating. The seating looked like log but curving, slightly snaking against the wall of the room. It had depressions along it that were made to mold around the individual that sits on it. In the middle of the room was a pole that was covered strands of what looked like wire. Most of the strands had their black covering on but certain strands, every here and there, were stripped of their covering and a clear wire underneath exposed.
The pole looked strange, like the wires were hair in a head of really thick hair. It had a strange and dark affect, especially with the mirrored floors and the dark, tar covered, transformed log-like seating bench next to it. I liked it.

There were many other things there that I liked as well. I was walking by Magic Pony around a month ago and I had seen a really cool couch in their font window display. It was a really old-looking antique couch with artificial mushrooms stitched onto it. I liked it a lot. In the room that Magic Pony did at the Gladstone they had a similar armchair that I took a picture of.
I really liked another room done up by group of people called This Is Collective. Their room included a bed under an animal trap. The bed itself also had very many small holes which you can look through. Each one depicts a scene. I didn't get to look through all the holes in the bed, but I saw some good ones: another miniature room, a scene right out of Saturday Night fever, a movie projected on one side of the wall .. etc. It was fun.
There are some other images that I took while I was there, not to mention other designs that were displayed out in the open space. When I have some time in the future I'll post them up.