A Visit To The NC Wyeth Home and Studio

I recently went on a fun road trip to NC Wyeth's home and studio in lovely Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

The house and studio are part of the Brandywine Conservancy and Museum.  Upon arrival at the museum, you can purchase a ticket for the tour and then ride over on the shuttle bus.  Our guide (a retired art teacher) was at the house to greet us.

The grounds are absolutely beautiful.  In 1911, with the proceeds from his illustrations of Treasure Island, Wyeth purchased the land and built the house and studio.  The tour started with a walk through the house.

The photo above is NC with his wife Carolyn (known as Carol) and their five children.  None of the family is alive today.  The home and studio were passed to the Conservancy upon the death of daughter Carolyn, an artist who lived at the home her entire life and worked and taught classes in the studio.

Even after the home got electricity, NC insisted the family continue to dine by candlelight.

Carol had quite the dish collection and was clearly a blue and white lover like myself.

Upstairs are NC and Carol's bedrooms as well as the kids rooms.  Some of the rooms were built on as the family expanded.

Next we moved on to the studio.  I have to tell you, this building is enormous.  At least three times the size of my apartment!  We started in an entryway that contained books and props.

Portrait of Andrew Wyeth ( Andrew is currently having a centennial year exhibition in the museum).

We then walked into the actual studio.  It is amazing.  All the books, props and supplies look like someone just finished painting.  The museum is doing a great job of preserving the space.

It was impossible to get a good shot, but in the corner hangs NC's paint covered smock.  I wonder if anyone will want a picture of mine someday!?

Portrait of Carolyn Wyeth.

Can you believe these frames?  They are beautiful.  There were a bunch of them just hanging around.

This is the most amazing contraption.  It is so large that I could not get a photo of the whole thing.  It is a staircase on wheels.  NC used it to work on very large paintings.  He could just walk up and down and move the whole thing to wherever he needed.  Considering I'm suffering through an 18x24 right now, this is pretty impressive!

Our last stop was the prop room, which was more like the prop apartment.  The room is enormous and filled with all of the props needed for paintings and illustrations.

After the tour we went back to the museum to see the Andrew Wyeth show.  I hope you enjoyed this look into the Wyeth home and studio.  It makes me very happy to see art studios being preserved for generations of artists and art lovers to visit.   I will have a separate post up soon to show you some of the work from Andrew's exhibition.

How I Built My Collection Of Still Life Props

Recently, I've gotten a few questions about how I built up my collection of still life props.  While I will paint the occasional portrait or landscape, I am a still life artist, so that means I need vases, objects and fabrics in addition to fruit and flowers.

When I got my studio a few years ago, I started on the hunt for objects to paint.  The vase in the painting above, Lilacs, was the first piece I bought.  I got it in a vintage shop near my house.  It was very overpriced, but I liked it and have used it in several paintings, so it was worth it.  

My next big score was a lucky find on Craigslist.  An estate sale was being held at the home of a serious blue and white collector.  I didn't know about the sale until a few hours after it started, so when I got there, the seller was happy to make me a deal.  I got a bunch of items for less than the price of the vase above.  

These are some of my small pieces.  Many of the items here came in a box I won on Ebay.  I got very lucky and searched "blue and white porcelain" and came away with a box of blue and white odds and ends.  The whole box was only $27.00 and I've used the pieces in it many times over.  Ebay is a great resource for still life painters.  The search terms I use are "blue and white porcelain", "vintage blue and white", "vintage blue transferware" "vintage silver (pitcher, footed bowl - whatever you are looking for)"  "vintage delft" "vintage blue and white Chinese porcelain".  I could go on, but you get the idea.  I prefer vintage items for my paintings, so that is what I search for.  I also search from the lowest price to the highest.  Many times I will see similar items with vastly different pricing.  Why pay more for the same thing?  Especially when it is going to be used in a painting studio and has the potential to get paint on it.  

I have my larger pieces on a cart in my studio.  The items here came from all over the place, which is part of the secret to my success.  I'm always looking for props.  I look online, in thrift shops, retail shops, and my latest discovery, Amazon.  In this photo, two vases are vintage, the large vase in the middle is from The Enchanted Home Shop, the wine decanter was an engagement gift and the small vase in the back was $7.99 at the Whole Foods in Chelsea. 

So let's break this down a little bit.  I'm always popping my head into vintage or thrift shops to see if there is anything I can use.  You never know what will be available, so just pop in any time you have a chance.  Here in NYC we have Housing Works, Good Will, Junk and tons of thrift/vintage/antique shops as well as the flea market.  It helps to know what you are looking for before you go in so you don't get bogged down.  I look for vintage silver and blue and white porcelain.  I scan the shelves for those two items and if I don't see them I'm out and on to the next thing.  Also, if you have any friends who like to go thrifting or to garage sales, have them keep an eye out for things you may like.  

I mentioned that the vase in the middle was from The Enchanted Home shop.  The Enchanted Home is a design blog started by Tina, a lover of all things blue and white.  She had so many inquiries about items in her home, that she ended up starting a shop.  Though her items are new, they have that lovely vintage look about them.  These pieces are beautiful, so they go back and forth between my house and the studio.  

Both of these paintings feature porcelains from the shop.  If you keep an eye on The Enchanted Home website, you can get great deals when a new shipment arrives.  There is a pre-sale happening tomorrow morning and I will definitely be checking it out.  

Wedding/engagement/home gifts.  These are things I already owned that have made their way over to the studio.  I've been married long enough that they are in the vintage category at this point, so it made sense to use my own things rather than buying more stuff.  And it is not only my own cabinets that I raid.  I have many things that I have pilfered from my Mom's china cabinet as well.  

The candy dish and the embroidered napkin in the painting above came from my Mom's house.  If you have a still life painter in your life, nothing is safe!

I mentioned above that I got the small vase for $7.99 at the Chelsea Whole Foods.  I bring this up because you never know where you will find something you can use.  The small round vase as well as the cylinder above were bought when they were getting rid of some of their glass vases and I got these for a steal. I think the glass cylinder was round ten dollars.   Even if you don't use something right away, if the price is right, grab it.  If you paint as many still lives as I do, you need a large amount of props to rotate through out your paintings.  

Check out Amazon using the same search terms as mentioned for Ebay.  They have a nice selection of blue and white and the prices are good.

The other part of my still life set ups are the fabrics.  While we have a ton of fabric stores here in New York City, many of them are chaotic and require hunting through a ton of fabrics to find what you want.  That is not my thing at all.  I use muted red, gray and green backgrounds and I'm not interested in taking all day to find them.  I happened upon a store on Long Island, Carle Place Fabrics, where they have all their items displayed.  I was able to immediately point out to the sales woman what I wanted and have the fabrics cut into one yard pieces.  

Check out the local fabric shops in your town and don't forget about quilting shops.  They often have a good selection of fabrics at decent prices.

I hope this was helpful to any of you who are looking to start a still life prop collection.  The most important thing is to know what you want and always be on the lookout for it.  If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments.  I'm happy to expand further on anything mentioned here.  

* My usual caveat.  I paid for everything mentioned here.  I was not given any perks by the shops listed.  I just wanted to pass on all of my sources in case anyone here can use them.  

A Visit To The Florence Griswold House And Museum

This past weekend I went on a visit to Old Lyme, CT to see The Artist's Garden exhibit at the Florence Griswold House and Museum.  The exhibit was beautiful and I have so many photos that I will give the show it's own separate post, but today I want to talk about the Griswold Home.

Miss Florence, as she was known, ran a boardinghouse in Old Lyme, and it became the center of the American Impressionist movement.  Artists came to Old Lyme for the summer to paint the landscape and stayed in the house.

The house is a national historic landmark, as it should be.  I'm so happy that the place has been preserved and we can see how these artists lived and worked.

I was dying over the pink glass in the window frames of the front door.

This is the front hall of the house.  There are beautiful paintings on the walls and lovely antique furniture.

A portrait of Miss Florence.  I don't know which of the artists painted it.  Since this was her home, there are no tags next to the artwork.

This room was originally the parlor.  It was transformed into a bedroom and studio, and this room was reserved for the most special guests of the house.

Apparently, it was quite festive in the evenings.  This parlor is where everyone gathered after dinner.  There was music and games and conversation.

Another beautiful bedroom.

Miss Florence had quite the blue and white collection.  You know I wanted to abscond with all of these beautiful pieces!

Finally, we made our way to the back of the house.  The whole house is beautiful, but what I really wanted to see were the famous painted doors.  The artists that stayed in the house painted the door panels.  This is one of the many reasons I'm so happy that this place cannot be torn down and replaced by condos or something equally awful.

The above photo is in the dining room.  The painted panels in there were incredibly beautiful.

The gardens outside the house are as beautiful as the inside.  In a few respects, they reminded me of Giverny.  Not surprising as the exhibition noted that many of the American Impressionists spent time there.

check out this busy bee

I hope you enjoyed this look at the Florence Griswold House and gardens.  If you find yourself near Old Lyme, please stop in and check it out for yourself.  A really amazing place.