Skip to main content

Thrifted Art

Today used to be my favorite day of the year, but since I promised the universe I'd stop hating Christmas I've got to quit thinking that way (still, 365 days until the next one. It's okay to feel good about that, right?) Now let's talk about a wonderful piece of art.

I can't show you the unboxing of this painting, as the glass covering it had shattered during shipping or delivery, and we had a big mess to clean up. But luckily the broken glass did no harm to the art, which depicts a quilt show. The subject, the gorgeous colors and the obvious affection of the artist for his work are what first caught my eye as I was browsing some art auctions on ShopGoodwill.com. Then I saw what the artist wrote on the back of the piece and knew it was painted by an experienced pro.

Byron Rodarmel, the artist who painted it on 1978, evidently worked in the movie industry before passing away in 2007. I couldn't find out much more about him than that. His rep didn't really interest me as much as the art, so I placed the minimum bid on it. No one challenged me, and I won the auction.

Would you believe I paid $14.95 for the painting? Because I did, and I could probably resell it for twenty times that. But I'm keeping it in my home office instead, to inspire me and remind me of what I love.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Gifts

This is a story that starts out very sadly, so if you're depressed by the holidays you might want to skip the first part. As far back as I can remember I've dreaded the holidays. Being poor, having constant family troubles and belonging to a strict religion made that time of year always pretty unhappy. I just hunkered down and hoped to get through without being yelled at or punished because I didn't do something I was expected to do, like sit in church for hours without moving or making a sound while a priest spoke mass in Latin. Gifts were uniformly disappointing, too. My mother usually gave me dolls or socks or underwear for Christmas. I understand now as an adult that she was doing the best she could, and trying to save money at the same time, but as a kid I'd been told good children got what they wanted for Christmas. I was a pretty good kid, but while my friends received new bikes and cool toys and lots of treats from Santa, I didn't. I thought San

We Have Backsplash!

Yesterday my guy and I decided to chose this natural stone as the backsplash tiles for our new kitchen counters (which will be in the same quartz I'm holding at the bottom of the photo.) Since all the bids for installing the backsplash came in very high my guy is going to put it in himself; he's done a bit of tile work in the past, too. I swear there is nothing this guy can't do. :)

Detoxing Results

For twenty-four hours I left these five vintage cigar boxes sit with detoxing agents (baking soda, coffee grinds, dryer sheets, vinegar and Febreze) inside them to see which worked best to remove the tobacco/storage odors that came with them. I then removed the agents and did a sniff test. Before we get into the results, a reminder: none of what I do is ever meant to be expert advice, as I am certainly not an expert at anything. Follow my methods at your own risk, and please first consult an actual antique expert conservator or restorer to detox items that have value for you. Okay, let's see how my experiment worked. Baking soda (left) did nothing to remove the odors. I think if I let it sit for a longer period of time it might have done something, but for a 24-hour test it was a complete fail. Coffee grinds (right) removed 100% of the odors, and left behind definite coffee scent. I like that and think it goes very well with wood, but if you don't like the smel