Rooms with a View

The 21st interior design celebration, Rooms with a View, took place in Southport recently. Conceived as a brilliant church fundraiser under the auspices of the famed Albert Hadley (designer for the Kennedy White House, the Rockefellers, Astors and Gettys to name a few notable clients), each year the show embraces traditional and cutting edge design. Each of the twelve invited designers is given a space of 5′ x 8′ to create a vignette. They have a week to”build” their room,  which comes quite simply with three walls and wiring for electricity. Then, the magic is on display for the weekend.

This year was personally exciting to yours truly because the design team, Tracy Dwyer and Patrick Briel, from Westport’s Parc Monceau had asked me to paint a floor cloth that would be used in their vignette, The.Diving.Room. Too cool for words, I assure you.

First, take a look at the room’s view.

My rippling water over sand design painted on a canvas floor cloth is easily seen through the Lucite coffee table.

Here is another view of the room.

Here is the rug by itself.

If you’ve never been to Rooms with a View, plan to next year. I’ll see you there.

The concept of creating a room with a view is also one of my favorite approaches for mural designs.

Here are a few of my favorites.

This view is painted standing in the butler’s pantry. You can see a tiny piece of the doorway to the kitchen and see the architecture that I replicated in the painting. The view is exactly what you might see on the patio. There was a wealth of items to include to make it believable: the mosaic tabletop, the slate, the ironwork, to name a few.

Here is a close up

This master bath captures the memories of a special trip taken by the owners.

Another approach is to include the beautiful  landscape of your surroundings. In this case, the serenity of the Catskills is featured in this charming mural in  Warwick Village, New York.

This stairway landing always brings a smile.  Is it unconventional in its subject matter?  Certainly. But the design includes the special members of the owner’s farm and what could be more welcoming than that?

Below is the view I created in the basement of a home.  It is exactly what you would see if you were looking out the window one floor up.

This last example was a solution that worked perfectly for the awkward wall left by a grand kitchen renovation. Hanging a painting felt forced. I created “window” that matched the window moldings in the home and filled the view with more of gracious landscaping so beautifully seen through the windows in the kitchen.

Is there a space begging for a view in your home? Architecturally, it’s so much more fun to create it in paint.

I’ll finish with this. If you are reading this (and especially if you got to the end, not just looking at the pictures LOL) I sincerely appreciate your interest. I thank you for your time. If you have ever commented on something in my newsletter, I am indebted to you. As an artist, I spend entirely too much time lost in my own thoughts. Thank you for connecting with me through my work. It means the world to me.

I wish each of you the happiest of Holidays, a Merry Christmas, and a healthy and exciting New Year!