April 12, 2011

PAWS Party on the Patio

Posted by gadorawilders under ANIMAL PRINTS | Tags: , , , |
[2] Comments 

Gadora recently donated an Animal Print to a friend at work. It was displayed at the Tiniest Bar in Texas in conjunction with the Great Dane benefit PAWS of Austin (also known as the Central Texas Great Dane Rescue), with hopes of garnering bid buzz. Party on the Patio offered Margaritas, with proceeds benefiting the non-profit organization, performances by Alon Bernstein of More Cowbell and X, and plenty of over-sized pooches who no doubt appreciated our efforts.

Benefit portrait...

The benefit drew many devoted dog lovers and their horse-sized side-kicks, and plenty of gawks from passersby as we inched our way through the tiniest patio.

Squeezed in.

The guy on the right had the biggest head Gadora has ever seen. Ever.

One. Big. Dude.

And this one declined his photo opp. An aside: this is my favorite color palette a dog can possess. Reminds me of the over-sized Bull Mastiff I dearly miss. Man, I love dog paws.

No photos please.

PAWS’ mission is to prevent cruelty to animals by promoting humane standards through education and example. They also stress the importance of spaying and neutering. PAWS took in 88 dogs in 2010, 68 were Great Danes. With their Party on the Patio, they raised more than $2,000 (and Gadora’s print fetched $80 from the highest bidder… making it the highest bidded on item at the auction!!)

Naptime for Pooch.

Thanks friends for accompanying me to the event. Thank you big bid winner — whose pet I’m eager to paint. And thank you PAWS for doing your thing. We had a great time amongst your gentile giants.

Gogo, Felice and Gadora at Party on the Patio.

• • •

According to the ASPCA, while it’s impossible to measure, it is estimated there may be 70 million stray cats living in the US alone. And here’s a sobering fact: FIVE out of TEN dogs in shelters and SEVEN out of TEN cats are destroyed simply because there is no one to adopt them.

ASPCA ~ The first humane organization in the Western Hemisphere
PAWS of Austin ~ Protection of Animal Welfare Services, Great Dane Rescue

The Austin Area Great Dane Meetup Group ~ with extra pictures of the evening’s beneficiaries

 

March 24, 2011

From rags to riches: recycling magazines

Posted by gadorawilders under Inspiration | Tags: , , , , , , |
[3] Comments 

Mustered a bit of spring cleaning recently and rounded up a large load of magazines. There was a time when they simply arrived. I must have filled out some survey, somewhere, and soon there weren’t enough hours in a day to peruse my glossys. So, they accumulate. Upon any visit, a guest may find an assortment on the coffee table, a special pile of Dwell’s in my room (of which I’ll never disassemble), a stash in the bath and this catch-all pile in the office.

Stack o mags.

Mostly home magazines, Gadora can’t bear to part with them. Sifting through my stash — sadly, some are still confined to their plastic sheaths — I’ve ripped out some pages for projects I want to emulate, cut up fonts and images for decoupage, and pulled a few sheets for my inspiration board. The rest remain in an ever-growing pile that I refuse to discard.

What to do?

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February 20, 2011

Apple Green ladderback chairs…

Posted by gadorawilders under BEFORE & AFTER | Tags: , , , , , , , |
1 Comment 

MONTHS ago Gadora and Sandra set about Austin with a few bucks and a mission: hit up some garage sales and blow our wad. We had a ball, and late in our day we hit the mother load. A lovely lady was selling the farm and we scored a funky rug for $5 and four ladderback chairs for $2.50 a piece. That’s practically free, we thought.

4 ladderback chairs…

They sat in the garage all of the fall and most of the winter. Staring at me, sometimes I stared back. Once in a while I’d give them a close inspection. No markings, they appeared to be handmade. A little wonky, the front legs were longer than the back. But they’d make someone a nice set, and surely we’d recover our $10 investment.

Profile.

The seats were tightly woven jute, soft and pliable, and in really great shape.

Jute seat.

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February 20, 2011

Love letters…

Posted by gadorawilders under Inspiration | Tags: , , , , |
1 Comment 

A long-time devotee of doodling, the kiddo Gadora spent many an hour practicing cursive, trying to emulate my Dad’s near-perfect Architectural lettering and scribbling my name in notebooks. I hadn’t a clue one could actually make a living manipulating letters. As a professional, I eventually made a living with my own letters – not as a graphic artist, but as a writer. And in the magazine biz, I happily brushed shoulders with folks romantically fanatic about their favorite fonts. They did pretty things with letters I never could.

With Valentine’s Day in the rear-view mirror, and my Sugar 1,127 miles away, I write an ode to letters – inspired by the much appreciated love letters Gadora recently received in the mail. Letter writing is not a lost art. Nor is decorating with them…

During one of our Skype dates, The Valentine forwarded this DIY project idea. Oooh, I like the way you’re thinking… It’s dreamy and touches on so much of what Gadora digs: reusing and repurposing stuff otherwise ready for a landfill. Dana of house*tweaking gives us a how-to turn an old fence into a fancy new headboard.

The Love Bed by house*tweaking

And here, how it looks all dolled up.

Love bed in the room...

Gadora never embraced the latest letter decal craze. Sure, I loves me some stickers, but they’re reserved for my bumper or metal tool box, but definitely not my wall. That said, this font wall, from Italian company Wall & Deco, is actually a fancy wallpaper. Wallpaper is making a comeback. Thanks Tidystuff for posting.

Letterpress wall.

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January 7, 2011

Bouldin Creek’s new home… A bittersweet gulp.

Posted by gadorawilders under BEFORE & AFTER | Tags: , , , , |
1 Comment 

When Gadora first moved to Austin, I maneuvered my new city by mapping out consignment furniture stores and set sail. Navigating new (to me) boutiques, I rated them on a very serious four smiley-face scale. 1 “=)” was given to mediocre stores of which I’d already seen enough and 4 happy faces were awarded shops with discerning taste—those I’d recommend to friends. On one such outing, Gadora and Paige the Wonder Wagon happened upon an empty building at the busy intersection of Mary and South 1st.

An empty nest.

Ooooh. It was fun. The cinder block walls and flat roof line immediately drew me in. The building reminded me of so many of the mid-century buildings that littered Tampa’s palm-lined streets, it simply felt like home. I parked and stuck my nose in every window it had. Who owned it? Why was it empty? Oh, wouldn’t I turn it into something marvelous! I pitched the notion to my GF—together we were sorting out how to turn “Gadora Wilder” into a viable source of income—but she just couldn’t see it. It was dingy. Lackluster. And needed work. With a little imagination, and with a few strokes of Photoshop, I reworked the building into this…

Gadora Wilder ~ June 2009

I’d paint the thing Gadora’s favorite Chartreuse green. Working with the building’s original metal awnings, I also envisioned adding a teak pergola along the street-facing front. As I’d use the space as a workshop-of-sorts to refurbish furniture, its garage doors were perfect for throwing open on those rare days the Texas heat let up. I showed my partner that pic, she immediately got on board. We mentally carved out every square inch of space: allocating room for my wares, a roomy workshop space, a place for gathering and learning and even fathomed a coffee spot. That was more than a year and a half ago now…

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