Vintage and Antique Baskets
The Existential Conundrum That Is the American Waste Paper Basket
By Ben Marks — If the acclaimed 20th-century existential phenomenologist Martin Heidegger had written a book about garbage cans, it might read like portions of "The Paradox of the Waste Paper Basket" by Jos Legrand. Published earlier this year in Maastricht, Netherlands, where Legrand lives, is a concise history of the trash receptacles used in American offices between 1870 and 1930. You know, exactly the sort of thing you’d expect a retired Dutch art-history teacher to be passionate about. "A waste...
Eames, Nelson, and the Mid-Century Modern Aesthetic
By Maribeth Keane — In this interview, Steve Cabella talks about collecting the work of designers Charles and Ray Eames, and about the mid century modern movement. As a teenager, I collected everything from vintage bicycles to Coca-Cola to Victorian stuff. Once I realized some of this stuff contained concepts of art and design, I started looking for vintage objects that also represented art or design movements that could hold my interest. I ran across Art Nouveau and then Art Deco and then Arts and...
The International Influences of Buffalo Furniture
By Maribeth Keane — About 11 years ago, my wife and I went on some architectural tours. We joined the organization that sponsored the tours, and I volunteered to be the Webmaster for them. I decided to take a few photographs to illustrate the tours, and realized it would also be good to describe some of the architecture, so I started an architectural dictionary. Then I decided it would be useful to have some Buffalo history, as background for the architecture, so I started working on that. Then I started...