Easing into the last week of January we are pleased to see a bit of collector and designer activity. In fact, year on year, our gallery traffic for the month is, to a person, exactly what it was last year. Further, the break down is split about equally, designer and private collector. Although rainy and gloomy today in San Francisco, our dispositions are much sunnier than they were a few weeks ago.

While we enjoy our private collector business, it seems to me a better bellwether for our industry is activity associated with interior designers. Design projects always include more than just furniture purchases, so, presumably, when we see the designer, their virtual shopping basket includes paint, wall coverings, window treatments, and various other inputs, not to mention construction activity. So, in the main, when we see interior designers designing, it is akin to the flowers in spring, and we are, consequently, optimistic about future business. Clients do not spend money on design fees, and designers, like the rest of us, are disinclined to work- and shopping for antiques is work- unless a payday is in the offing.

With a mention of construction activity, I’ve tried to chase down the contractor we use from time to time and found him, surprisingly, busy, but not with new construction. He told me, though, that he has all the remodels he can handle.

So, what’s with all this? From the Chappell & McCullar first-three weeks in January paradigm can we determine any economic portends? I don’t remember much about my three semester unit class in statistics, but it is doubtful we’ve got enough data, or sufficiently organized our model, to make any projections. Let me repeat, though, our previously expressed notion of what’s going on. What we found in 2008, and something discussed in earlier blogs, was that those people who often ‘churn’ their homes were, the result of the downturn in the residential housing market, staying put. And, staying put, have often times decided to ‘nest’, adding inputs- artwork, antiques, and other movables- that they might not have acquired if the home itself was just merchandise with no long term plan of occupation, beyond the time it took for the paint to dry.

It appears, at least in the housing field, that this year has not so far seen the market revivify, and with prices closer to a nadir than the zenith, the nesting phenomenon might be expected to continue. While we’ve loved selling pieces of furniture in multiples for large projects, we are content, for the moment, to assist our good design and collector clients with the occasional single accent piece.

The current issue of the Antiques Trade Gazette has a feature article discussing the now former practice of auction houses providing consignors of stellar lots guaranteed minimums. In earlier blogs, I’ve mentioned how the major houses have lost their shirts in this practice, competing with each other to lure consignments. Consequently, when an item is put up for auction, it’s auction estimate is less a function of market price than it is how much the auction house already has invested in it.

Presumably both Christie’s and Sotheby’s got carried away, and hoped that, with the stratospheric prices guaranteed lots would have to realize, their own euphoria would infect buyers. For much of 2008, this sort of contagion didn’t take place, with Christies and Sotheby’s on the ropes as a consequence, and the Phillips de Pury, who should have known better, acquired by a Russian luxury retailer, Mercury Group, exchanging debt for equity.

I mention all this in light of the Los Angeles Art Show, organized by the Fine Art Dealers Association, previewing tonight and running through this Sunday, January 25. At all levels of collecting, this sort of fair should be part of everyone’s agenda. A vetted fair, material at all price levels, from $500 to $5,000,000 represents quality and value for money. Comparison shop, why don’t you, and then deal with the dealers. It is all for sale. Take it out to your home, see if it works, and bring it back if it doesn’t. Need to consult with one of the dealers about your collection? Why don’t you do that, too- it doesn’t cost anything and they’re all experts. And, frankly, frequently more expert than the auction houses. After all, the art inventory on the show floor represents their own stock in trade, purchased with their own money and they tend to be naturally more careful in consequence.  And, no sub-rosa ‘guarantees’ affecting prices. I haven’t met a dealer yet, at least any one who has managed to stay in business, who wasn’t careful about pricing. Items are priced to sell, but, as I always inquire of interested parties if I encounter price resistance, ‘What sort of price works for you?’

Once or twice a year, Keith and I get backed into doing a bit of interior design, usually for clients who’ve made a purchase of significant size, either dollar-wise or square-footage-wise, and need our assistance to make the piece articulate with other movables in a particular room. Not too difficult, you say? Sometimes the greatest adjunct we could have, given the size of some collectors’ collections, would be a shoehorn. More likely as not, however, the articulation of one piece of furniture leads to something else- clients always seek our advice, and, as they’ve paid hard money to us, we are hard put not to oblige.

Consequently, what starts as one thing, ends up being much broader in scope, even including whole room changouts. Even the simplest projects of this type end up filling a large three-ring binder, replete with notes, renderings, memo samples of inputs running the gamut from fabrics to door nails. As an example, we’ve sourced a set of 10 white painted Louis XVI style dining chairs for a friend/client. The chairs had a finish that, in the course of a century or so, had become somewhat distressed. The client wanted to keep the distress, but not so much. Contriving faux distress is do-able, but hard. As well, the clients have five small children (read ‘good Catholic family’) who would sit at table, so the upholstery couldn’t be too dear. What we’ve ended up doing is suggesting loose covers in a plaid that, of course, has to articulate with, but not match, sofa covers in a room adjacent. We’ve had our seamstress run up sample covers in muslin- one with a flat skirting without a gusset, the other with a scalloped edge including a gusset, so the clients could choose. The fabric has been reserved- good thing, too, as the loose covers will require 28 yards of fabric, and the fabric house had only 29 yards in stock. Now, to push the clients to make a decision before the time on our fabric reserve runs out. Finally, we will have to take the chairs, after the finish is properly distressed and whilst the slipcovers are being stitched together, to the upholsterer for an application of muslin on the existing seats and backs to consolidate the stuffing. Not to mention, one or five of the chairs will have to make a detour to our restoration studio to tighten the joints.

What I’m saying in my longwinded exemplar gratis is that interior design is a complicated business that we have neither the desire nor the patience to do on a full-time basis. I particularly admire people who are able to do jobs that I never could- that fairly long list includes grade school teachers and police officers. As I think about it, features in these two named professions might be useable in the design trade- patience, of course, and the power to push when required.

Mercifully, we have a number of interior designers who are excellent trading partners. Our business would be the poorer for them, in real terms, because they do occasional place a few bits of our stock in their projects. But less obvious is the interference they run with clients who would otherwise be seeking our advice. Believe me when I say I would rather refer someone to a designer than do design work myself.

How sorry we are to hear that not only is the art and antiques trade having tough sledding, but from what we can see, the interior design trade is in profound distress. Locally in San Francisco, there exists no firm of which I’m aware that has not either reduced staff or the working week, or both. Distress, too, because so much of the good advice, and, frankly, hand holding that the designers provided their clients may not take place and might be- horrible thought- required of the notoriously impatient principals of Chappell & McCullar. The design distress noted in my blog title for today is, therefore, two fold.

We always enjoy an event at Ed Hardy’s eponymous showroom adjacent to the San Francisco Design Centre and Ed is a wonderful host: openhanded in the best tradition, and always has in attendance a cadre of fascinating people. And, if failing in actual fascination, catty here, at least fun to look at.

Ed played host to all of us a couple of evenings ago, honoring the release of Stephen Salny’s new book Michael Taylor: Interior Design. A busy man, Stephen has now released three books in about as many years, the first a monograph on architect David Adler, the second on Adler’s celebrated sister, interior designer Frances Elkins. Appropriate, then, that Stephen’s most recent book chronicles the working life of Elkins’ ardent protégé, Michael Taylor.

Stephen is doing important work, not so much as a keeper of any particular flame, but to make certain that aspects within the ephemeral world of interior design are documented. With our societal mania for fashion, design obsolescence is perceived by modern fashionistas within, not decades, not years, even, but often over matters of months. Too many fine interiors survive, woe betides, only in books.  I wish this country would adopt a mandatory listed buildings scheme akin to that in England. Keith McCullar and I are, just at the moment, particularly mindful about if not historic then at least aesthetic preservation. Our favorite Frances Elkins interior, the lower lobby of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, is, as I write this, undergoing renovation, along with the rest of the facility and scheduled to reopen in the next couple of weeks. What will we find when we return? I am by nature replete with trepidations, but this one does point to something worthy of consideration. Specifically, Elkins, in her work at the Royal Hawaiian, was doing something important in endeavoring to develop an aesthetic that coordinated a number of influences, and not all of them visual. In the first instance, her brief was to create an impressive, comfortable, functional space in a luxury hotel. Doubtless her own experience informed her use of European palace hotel prototypes; although not the Georges V, her commission was the Royal Hawaiian. And, as the Royal Hawaiian, Elkins sought to integrate local motifs into her decorative scheme, including floor screens with overscale cutouts in brass of tropical vegetation, and wall lights in their imitation of curling vine tendrils, utilizing the same theme, albeit in stucco. The effect could have been kitsch and quickly become as dated as Bing Crosby’s singing Mele Kalikimaka, but Elkins’ deft handling of cultural disparate motifs yields a successful synthesis. Overall, Elkins’ execution is more successful in capturing an Hawaiian aesthetic than that of her brother in the Mission Revival design, replete with bell towers and arcuated porticoes, of the hotel’s exterior architecture.

As with Elkins, Michael Taylor’s interior spaces beg accessible documentation, and, over 2 decades since his death, the timing might be considered appropriate for their critical assessment. Though I might be accused of aesthetic simplism, my own criterion for success is to gauge how fresh the design appears, by which I mean, in cruder terms, how well it’s aged. This is probably unfair, because the flip side of this methodology would term design that, at first face, appears emblematic of the time it was created, as less than successful. I have to remind myself that originality that was a conscious reaction to and a rejection of what went before is an important phenomenon. Michael Taylor’s bold use of color and the introduction of a only a very few key pieces in an interior was as innovative in its way as the movement in the fine arts away from recondite abstract expressionism to intellectually accessible pop art.

An interesting irony here, in that, with all the peripheral discussion at Ed Hardy’s about the effect of the economy on the art and design trade, I was reminded of the brooding pessimism of a Rothko painting. What a bright spot it was, amidst this, to find Stephen Salny signing his new book. Sympathetic magic, perhaps, but I’d like to think of Michael Taylor: Interior Design as portending brighter days ahead.

It was announced today that Norman Adams, the venerable Knightsbridge antiques dealer, will close up the end of this month. This saddens me more than any of the other bad economic news we’ve had to date. Admittedly, sentiment is mostly to do with it, as Norman Adams was the first showroom we ever visited in London, and, in some manner or other, we’ve tried to pattern ourselves on the Norman Adams model ever since. Quality through and through, we’ve been fortunate enough to handle material that had once graced their premises, and we always considered it a selling point if the piece still bore the gallery’s ivorine label.