If the lady in the picture here woke up, I would be the first thing she saw. She is opposite the small secretary desk in the Crocker boudior, facing the bed.
When I first saw her, she was gloriously, radiantly adrift in the arms of sleep on a wall in the Ponce Museum Of Art in Puerto Rico. I must have stood there for an hour, admiring how Lord Frederick Leighton captured her flowing, gauzy gown, the blasting heat of the sun on the sea, the way she’d pulled her hair off her neck as women do when it’s hot out, and her luxuriant curves and classic Greco/Roman features. It was one of the most beautiful paintings I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’m a grizzled veteran of The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, The Louvre, and The British Museum.
I just fell in love, right then and there, and had to have her.
The bulk of the artwork in Casa Crocker is by original artists and has been collected over time, on trips or at local art fairs. I’ve never spent more than $500 on a single piece, but they are worth a great deal more to me. See, I am not artistic. I have lots of pretty ideas in my head, but I lack the ability to move them to canvas or clay. Someone who can do that gets my eternal admiration. And if they are still living, they get raspberry-lemon cake, too. Cake I can do.
So, I implemented The Crocker Method Of Acquiring Fine Art. Note that I’ve only done this three times. I… bought a print of the very highest quality I could afford, and had it professionally framed.
Oh, it sounds terrible, I know. But with decent matting and a well-chosen frame with a glass cover, it really, truly works. June (I have to call her that) has a very thin pale green mat, followed by an ivory one, followed by a much wider one in a fawn color that picks up the brown of the blanket she’s lying on. The frame looks very vintage – 1.5 inches of subtly scrolled wood finished in gold and antiqued with verdigris. Since the walls of the room are a sage-y green, the orange of her gown really pops. Everyone who comes in asks why she’s hiding out in our bedroom. My answer is that she makes me smile every day.
The second piece I’ve done this with is here:
This one is called – unimaginatively – “A Magnolia On Red Velvet”, and was painted by Martin Johnson Heade sometime in the late 1800s. So why this?
It has an elegant simplicity that I love – somewhat reminiscent of Georgia O’Keefe’s flower paintings, but more. Here, the artist took something that was lovely on its own, gave it a worthy setting and captured it forever with his brush. The contrast of the creamy white petals, the many shades of green leaves, and the luxuriant red velvet was exactly what I was going for in our dining room. This one got a green suede mat and a gold carved frame rubbed in red. (The furniture is British Colonial, so it’s sort of the right era, too.) By candlelight, it’s just… well, let’s just say that you’d never know our condo’s dining room used to be the nurse’s office of an elementary school.
Writing this has made me appreciate some other items in our collection as well. In the wee entryway to our master bathroom is a colorful photo by a photographer from Sarasota. The subject is a brilliantly yellow public bathroom on a boardwalk. One door has a picture of a laughing woman, the other, a Williamsburg-hipster-y guy. Painted on the door under the woman is “Sit N’ Wiggle”. Under the man? “Stand N’ Shake”. And yes, Cap’n picked that one out, and yes, I love it – and him.
Note – Michael’s craft store can do custom frames, and while they are every bit as expensive as a regular frame shop, their coupons for 50% off can be a godsend for this. Go for it!