La Forêt Noire

Technical Difficulties Ahoy!

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 02:43:00 +0000

No sooner had I posted the link to this blog a few places a few months ago than I accidentally deleted nearly the entire archive, including a bunch of posts, tons of images and some of your cute comments... sigh.

On that note, please update your bookmarks and subscriptions and rss feeds and such, all new notes and rambles and updates will be posted here from now on! On the plus side, I can now employ some of the new, improved and way more functionally minimal and adorable layouts... yay!

That new address again:

http://fawngehweiler.blogspot.com

See you there!
xoxoxo
Fawn

City of Roses...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 01:38:00 +0000

My dad was in town for a couple of weeks recently, which gave us a great excuse to drive around up in the hills and explore some of the Portland sights we hadn't quite made it to yet, like the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park... who could resist five acres of perfectly dew dropped experimetal blooms?

I wasn't made for these times...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 01:03:00 +0000

Perennial flickr favorite Olga Saglo just posted an amazing link to the latest most magical time wasting device on all of the internets!

Without further ado, I present me, and my studio, circa 1969!

Disney Girls...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:07:00 +0000

Some of you may remember seeing these "behind the scenes" sneak peeks that Jeff took at a photo shoot for a friends top secret book project last summer at my favorite ice cream stand in LA:

Now the secret is finally out! This weekend was the official release date of my dear (and dearly missed!) friend Miss Jennifer Brandt Taylor's magical new tome, Vintage LA!

"VINTAGE LA: Eats, Boutiques, Decor, Landmarks, Markets & More" is the ultimate travel and lifestyle guide for vintage fashion fans, Hollywood history lovers and cineastes alike. Jennifer, an L.A. native, takes you on a colorful tour of L.A.'s best vintage boutiques, restaurants, historic hotels, and movie palaces, as well as interviews L.A.'s most artistic residents. VINTAGE LA features dazzling Technicolor photography by Jeaneen Lund."

I always thought of Jennifer and her family as some of the last true Hollywood eccentrics, and will be forever grateful that they took me under their wing when I first arrived in Southern California and shared some of the most amazing secret hideouts in all of the land, so cracking open Vintage LA will surely have me pining for long lost Los Angeles in no time! I can't wait!

Oops...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:39:00 +0000

I think I may have accidentally acquired a new eBay obsession...

Where have you been all my life Florentine enamel?

Home Sweet Home!

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:02:00 +0000

I only just realized that in all of the frenzy of the past few months, I had all but forgotten to post a few quick snapshots of our new place! Still very much a work in progress, originally dating from the 1800s and heretoforth known affectionately as the shed, it's an adorable outbuilding in a super central semi-historic neighborhood, a stable turned laundrette turned cute baby loft space and my new favorite thing ever... I secretly want to buy it and transform it into the vintage Disney set designer turned Storybook architect style faux English cottage of my dreams, half-timbering and all, but in the meantime:

Here is a beloved Princess Tina folkface pillow surveying its new surroundings...

The polished concrete floors still festooned with piles of winter rugs...

White stucco vintage brickwork and whitewashed original shingles...

Which are going to serve as perfect backdrops for all of our super colorful collections...

One of our favorite features is a row of skylights that extends through the living room and office areas...

I would love to rewire this area with all vintage globe lights, but alas, renting!

Oh, guess who else loves the skylights?

More to come as everything starts to come together, for now we're still unpacking, living in a sea of boxes, and considering a couple of summer garage sales when the sun finally comes out for good here!

"Pink Worlds and White Icing" at AfterModern SF

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:18:00 +0000

Hello everyone!
I have a 2 person show with Dana Carlson (one of my all time favorite contemporary painters!) on view this month at Aftermodern in San Francisco:

Pink Worlds (and White Icing)
An Exhibition of Recent Works by
Fawn Gehweiler and Dana Carlson

Opening Friday, May 23rd, from 6 to 8:30
On exhibit May 23rd through June 28th, 2008

Aftermodern Fine Art Gallery
445 Bryant Street
San Francisco

For more information please visit Aftermodern.com

About Pink Worlds:

Taking a cue from the show's namesake "Pink Worlds and White Icing", a collection of poems written by a 12 year old girl in late 60s, artists Dana Carlson and Fawn Gehweiler each present a collection of recent works that take a turn for the pastoral, pop and pretty, albeit with a dash of dark comedy thrown in for good measure. Awash in preteen nostalgia, strangely baroque and alternately naive, precocious, and deeply introspective, these tiny poems about "color, the Beatles, bubblegum, nature, and the universe" lend both a perfect title and a perfect backdrop to their respective candy colored dreamscapes and imaginary narratives of head-in-the-clouds teenage psychedelia.

Some installation shots taken just before the opening...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:17:00 +0000

Some of my new stuff...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:16:00 +0000

And last but not least...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:15:00 +0000

Some great photos of the opening by Alan Bamberger, borrowed from Artbusiness.com!

Work in Progress...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Sun, 18 May 2008 00:57:00 +0000

Dutch Wonderland!

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:59:00 +0000

I have this cute end table available at Urban Outfitters right now, and it turned out so much more amazing than I ever expected!
In their words:
"Smooth enameled metal gives this pedestal side table a touch of black glossy glamour"
And it really does! Yay!

Happy Easter!

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:35:00 +0000

Semi creepy (considering) Sharon Tate Easter photo via Girlfriday 2 by way of Flickr, one of my favorite mysterious random image collectors!

Raggedy Ann Eyelashes...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 02:43:00 +0000

After a few weeks of nonstop house hunting and catching up on long overdue projects, we were super excited to set aside a leisurely weekend last week to run around town taking in all of our friends newer, bigger, better gallery spaces, and ringing in the month long Robert Altman fest at the Portland Art Museum NW Film Center with a screening of one of my favorite movies of all time:

Brewster McCloud! I've been toting around a decaying video store copy of this film for decades, eventually upgraded to the laserdisk, but have never, never seen it on the big screen!

With an original screenplay written by Doran William Cannon, who was also responsible for another top ten favorite, Otto Preminger's "Skidoo," and starring the always perfect Mister Bud Cort and the magical, elvin and otherworldly Miss Shelley Duvall (Probably my number one vintage muse - as you can probably tell by the girls that I paint! Spider lashes, bunny teeth and ears poking out of stick straight hair? Check, check and check!) in her first ever movie role, personally discovered by Altman, who had this to say about his first impression:

"When I first saw her, she had painted long eyelashes on her face, and I thought "Here is a girl who is trying to make me think she is a Raggedy Ann doll." It was only years later that I realised that she WAS a Raggedy Ann doll."

Images and quotes via the Shelley Duvall and Brewster McCloud fan sites, both of which are amazing resources for interviews, articles, and ephemera about the film.

Check out the NW Film Center website for the rest of the festival calendar, maybe we'll see you there!

Crack in the Cosmic Egg Lamp...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 02:15:00 +0000

Via Centre de Recherche sur les Arts du Feu et de la Terre by way of France Magazine by way of Design-Milk, I'm now completely obsessed with this Ingo Maurer porcelain Broken Egg lamp from 1996:

I can totally picture it in our new place, perched high atop the Kraut section of the record shelves!

Boating Stripes and Bow Ties...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 02:17:00 +0000

The first of the imminent deluge of David Hockney inspired Spring editorials is out!

From Another Man Magazine
Starring and Set Design by Gary Card
Photography by William Selden
Styling by Nicola Formichetti

There's also a childrens version!

From Milk Magazine

Via Style Bubble, Diane Pernet, Sarah Colette

Now it's going to be even more impossible than ever to find a pair of those glasses (My first and favorite prescription, they fell apart in the mid 90s and I've been searching for the perfect pair again ever since) again! Though I suppose I could also shell out for the surely forthcoming Paul Smith version? Sigh...

Recent Acquisitions...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:48:00 +0000

We've been finding entirely different categories of super common cute vintage stuff in the Northwest and have been accidentally starting lots new collections in the process... Oops!

Like adorable hand carved wooden owls:

(Note: the one with pink felt googly eyes was $1 and according to it's reluctant previous owner "about to be firewood!")

And booth upon booth of 70s novelty steins:

The gonk era Magic Mountain stein with a wizard for a handle is one of my new favorite things of all time!

Cute Clutter vs. Creative Chaos...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 20:17:00 +0000

So we're officially house hunting again as of a bit later this month (Hoping for one of the last huge adorable affordable houses in all of Portland!) and it has me thinking a lot about studio decor and studio practice, since this is the first time besides a handful of ill advised moves to the Midwest in search of a) the easy life and b) bargain basement rents on giant crumbling Victorians (Done and done, by the way!) that I could potentially have room (We've spotted triple car garages and basements and woodshops galore!) to spread out and actually create the kind of space that I'm convinced is totally necessary for happy, stress free art making! I can't wait!

Left to my own devices, my creative spaces usually teeter wildly on a scale somewhere between the (barely) organized chaos of Francis Bacon:

Marie and Marie (via Ester Krumbachová, quite possibly the most amazing Art Director/Set/Costume Designer of all time) :

or Julie Verhoeven:

The slightly less unruly creative cacophony of Yoshitomo Nara:

or Sofia Coppola:

Or (ideally) the cute clutter of Victoire de Castellane:

Black Magic!

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:50:00 +0000

Happy Valentine's Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 08:17:00 +0000

Here are a few of my most recent lovey dovey projects!

New Screaming Mimi's ad, out now, in the latest issue of Paper Magazine!

And, more of my little homewares collection for Urban Outfitters is in stores now...

Canvas Critters Wall Art!

I love how they had these printed on raw linen rather than the standard glossy digital for a loose approximation of Scandinavian textile prints!

Also online!

xoxoxo
Fawn

Jazz Baby...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 08:56:00 +0000

Allow me to introduce my first absolute favorite find of 2008 so far:

The most adorable and ridiculously comfortable 20s/30s/70s oxfords ever made!

Cue the cobbling together of outfit ideas from the acres of piles and files of clippings scattered across my desktop:

Bows and spats via eBay, of course! Bloomers and argyle via the fashion blog of a cute Japanese shoe store with a Tyrolean fetish to match my own, but the link to which I seem to have misplaced, and the amazing, amazing silver sequined bowtie is somewhat of a mystery, but if it belongs to and/or is familiar to you, please let me know because I might NEED one!

P.S. Also, think Polly!

xoxoxo
Fawn

Odds and Ends...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:03:00 +0000

Now that we're settling in, I'm slowly but surely, and finally, organizing and updating my website, and, in lieu of a pending major overhaul for now, will be adding new stuff practically every day. For starters:

Some drawings and studies and odds and ends from a few recent shows are finally up for sale HERE!

And, even more exciting for the budget conscious, a whole new slew of prints have been posted to my SHOP!

Here's to a magical new year!

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 01:43:00 +0000

We finally made it to the Northwest with all of our worldly possessions intact and are now safely tucked away in a thicket of trees just outside of Portland! Our neighborhood is about 95 percent German and 95 percent cute old ladies, with a sausage place on every corner, so of course I kind of love it!

Come Spring we'll be looking for a place to call our own, but in the meantime, here's a shot of our first tiny snowstorm in our new temporary backyard...

Note: This fairytale shed is possibly my new favorite thing ever!

Please Stand By...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 10:14:00 +0000

Things should be up and running here in a few weeks!

In the meantime, please ignore the mess while I relocate a million different posts from a million different locations on the internets, and in real life, pack a million crates, then suitcases and cat and car and ourselves for relocation to the Northwesternly woods! Yay!
More sooooon!
xoxoxoxo
Fawn

Some installation shots of the "LIttle Lost and Innocent" show...

noreply@blogger.com (Fawn) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 17:44:00 +0000

Courtesy of Outre Gallery and the lovely miss Gemma Jones!

More info about the show HERE!

Thanks guys!
xoxoxo
Fawn