Vignette Arranging With Shrine Sale Goodies at the Beach House

Remember this photo? The shelves themselves have since been completed, but I have not been back yet to our beach house to work on the styling. As I was literally walking out the door in December, I threw a few things up there to shoot a vignette for a post, including the French watercolor that inspired the bathroom in the first place, some nicely tarnished brass finds from Singapore, shell and coral collections the girls are gathering, and a shallow patterned kashigata (Japanese sweet mold) that reminded me of starfish and sand dollars.

Here’s a close-up.

Since then I have been gathering inspiration photos to help me crystallize my thinking. There is no one better to turn to for artful display than John Derian and I have long loved this photo with its giant sponge, shells and mercury glass.

A more recent photo from The New Victorian Ruralist is more regimented, but I love the mix of baskets, silver, white ironstone and glass.

And of course I can’t forget the vignette master herself, Joan from For the Love of a House, with this beautiful shelving array from her master bathroom.

All three photos share something in common, which is groupings of like objects contrasted with other groupings in different materials, usually about three kinds, including something natural, something metal and something glass. More than three gets busy and less than three has no animation. Without being too literal about this formula, I would like shells and coral, aged wood and old brass to be part of my display. My recent purchase of more kashigata with shallow relief patterns might just provide the touch I need. What looks to be coral fans is more likely lotus or some other botanical, but to my eye they read like oceanic plants.

I find these circular patterns irresistible too. They are double-sided, with different motifs on the reverse.

I think this classic Japanese pattern of little plover birds with waves is adorable for a beach house!

In addition, I have a friend who has also been buying kashigata with shells and sea life on them for her beach house on Long Island so I am hoping to get a look at them in situ this summer.

As I am not limiting myself to wood, but planning on complementing the unlaquered brass bathroom fittings with some aged brass display items, I was so excited to find this adorable set of brass cookie cutters with scalloped rims and a rolling crimper. Not sure yet whether I plan to use them on the bathroom shelves or save them for the kitchen. Speaking of the kitchen, Camille from The Vintique Object and I have been having fun brainstorming how to improve it without actually spending any money on it. I do eventually plan to renovate the kitchen completely, but in the meantime I want to take the ugly edge off. There will be much more on this project coming later, including the bleak photos of its current state, but one idea I have is to use warm brass and copper to help it along. If you are interested, she and I have a shared Pinterest page going where we exchange photos and ideas. It is such a great way to work with someone long distance!

And I’ve also got boards going for copper and silver on Pinterest, but with my obsession with aged brass, I think I need to start one for that too.

Image Credits:1-2, 6-9. me, 3. Martha Stewart Living September 2009, 4. via The New Victorian Ruralist, 5. via For the Love of a House

Mar 18, 2012 By tokyojinja in Interior Design, Metals, Renovation and Decoration Report, Shrine Sales and Flea Markets 16 Comments Tags: bathroom renovation, beach house, cookie cutters, Japanese, japanese antiques, kashigata, shelves, shrine sale, vignettes

Kawagoe Shrine Sale Never Disappoints

Thursday was the 28th of the month which means that it is time for the Kawagoe shrine sale. We have had a lot of rainy 28ths lately, so it was lovely to wake to a warm sunshiny day. I went with every intention of not buying anything (ha!), which of course proved to be an impossible task. The market felt a bit quieter than usual, but there were plenty of Tokyo folks there.

The theme of the day was clearly baskets…

I was dying for these amazing huge winnower baskets, imaging them hung on a wall in the den of a country house. I know I’ve seen a recent photo of a similar basket display, but can’t remember where. When I do, I’ll add it in here.

Addendum: I didn’t find the photo I was thinking of, but I did find this one with a symmetrical display of Vietnamese fishing hats…

and this one from The Bootstrap Project (more on that in a later post) of handmade Zambian baskets displayed asymetrically.

These baskets would be perfect in a bathroom with one closed holding extra toilet paper and the other open with extra towels.

I didn’t buy any baskets, having just found this one last week. It is just perfect for holding magazines.

But there were some things I couldn’t resist…

I have a weakness for Japanese bellflowers, so this katagami stencil came home with me.

A couple of Tokyo friends got lucky and bought big Japanese fishing floats from this dealer. I got a bunch of small rolling pin or roller floats, all slightly different in shape and size, but roughly around five inches long. I figure I can’t get my big floats back to the US anytime soon, but a handful of these in a basket in the bathroom might do!

Speaking of the bathroom, I thought this kashigata looked like a sand dollar and a starfish and would be perfect to display alongside the bowls of the real things collected by the girls.

Gorgeous shape and color, but it was the glass screw top that sold me!

Is it a stool or a table? Either! This was my favorite find of the day.

Remember this post from a couple of days ago? Patina over perfection…antiques with flaws can be very affordable. I didn’t need this big Seto pot, but it was a lovely one, fishbowl style with a finished and glazed interior. At first glance a 30,000yen (about $300) piece…

…at second glance, this repair brought the price down to 10% of that. For 3000yen ($30) it came home with me.

Friends scored big time too. The sake jug on the left came home with M, as her birthday present. I was so happy to find it after another friend got the one on the right last October.

M got this amazing roof tile cap from Nagano too.

And these 3 smaller inban hibachi (transfer printed charcoal brazier), probably from tobacco sets.

Another friend bought these gorgeous late-Edo period covered bowls. I want to research the unusual painted pattern as I know I have seen it in a museum collection somewhere. Just so modern!

We finished with our usual post-antiquing repast. Indian food! Their keema curry is super-delish!

Apr 30, 2011 By tokyojinja in Glass, Porcelain and Pottery, Shrine Sales and Flea Markets 14 Comments Tags: baskets, flea market, glass bottles, japanese antiques, Japanese glass floats, kashigata, katagami, porcelain, Seto, shrine sale

Kashigata at Kim Raver’s

Today I went hunting for kashigata (sweets molds) at a few shrine sales and got lucky at Tomioka Hachimangu. A utilitarian but charming folk craft easily found and inexpensive to collect, most of the readily available molds are from the Showa era (1926-1989), and most are not particularly old at that. In use since at least the Edo period, the higashi (dry sweets) made by them are not what we would consider oishi (delicious), but they are very pretty. They were designed to last long periods of time and to suit a very different palate. Because they were sometimes left as funerary commemoratives, some have designs and writing to honor the departed. Other common designs include fruits and vegetables (great for kitchen display), fish and turtles (rarer and harder to find), and botanical motifs (plum, cherry, lotus, pine), as well as more unusual shapes (figures, kamon, etc).

Today, a number of dealers had bins of medium quality molds in common botanical motifs.

This dealer had a few unusual ones, such as the fan in the lower right.

In this picture you can see a fish, most likely tai (sea bream) and a turtle. These are highly covetable motifs.

A friend displays her fish on a small easel, with the cover resting in front.

Amy Katoh’s Japan: The Art of Living has a great photo of a kashigata grouping hung on the wall in a more traditional Japanese style house.

I have one older kashigata, in a stylized chrysanthemum pattern. I have been waiting, holding on to it, thinking I needed a group like that above to display it properly. Then I came across actress Kim Raver’s charming “undecorated” Bridgehampton home that she shares with her mom and family. Propped on the rustic brick fireplace is a single kashigata. Hard to see, but peer very closely at the mantlepiece…The fireplace is original to the 100+year-old house and where the first residents did their cooking.

I can’t resist adding one more photo of this home. I always love mismatched chairs and tables in a dining space and these bentwood ones painted blue are so charming with the scrubbed pine and simple kilim. The key to this house is that it has been assembled over time by Raver’s mother. “She gathered things from her whole life and created an accessibility and warmth in every room,” says Raver. Go to In Style to see more pictures of this house and Raver’s very different West Coast home.

Sweets and candy molds seem popular right now and not limited to those made in Japan. Barry Dixon has this vintage candy mold in his current One Kings Lane sale, with no provenance information listed.

Eddie Ross tweeted about his newly purchased German cookie presses a few weeks ago. They feel very reminiscent of the Japanese molds. I wonder if there is any relation between them?

For more on kashigata, pick up back-issue 50 of Daruma Magazine. They have a great article on them, with photos of rare examples and details on how the sweets are made.

Image Credits: 1. yukkimura, 2-4 & 7. me, 5. P. Huxtable, 6. Japan:The Art of Living photo credit Shin Kimura, 8-9. In Style Magazine November 2010 photo credit: David Mushegain, 10. One Kings Lane, 11. Eddie Ross, 12. Daruma Magazine

Dec 12, 2010 By tokyojinja in Design Motif, Interior Design, Shrine Sales and Flea Markets 6 Comments Tags: Barry Dixon, Eddie Ross, flea market, folk art, japanese antiques, kashigata, Kim Raver, shrine sale