Uncategorized | DANIEL PONTIUS

Styled by Elsie

March 31st, 2009

Daniel Pontius

What could be better than pictures of Elsie on a Wednesday morning? I’d love to have that first dress–to make into pillows.

From Jan. 2009 Elle Decoration UK Edition.

Inspiration is as easy as action is difficult. Action takes effort. Just as it is easy to talk about how our new president inspires us, it is an entirely different thing–a momentous individual leap forward with no guarantees–to take action out of that inspiration.

When in college, I lived in an apartment in Chicago near the Polish Triangle in the neighborhood about which Nelson Algren wrote books. It was 1991 and it was a grey house and I had the first floor front apartment. I never saw the people in back but upstairs there was a mustachioed man who played the saxophone. I felt a kinship with him because at one time I too had learned proper embouchure.

The apartment’s theme towards decoration was a pale minty green that went from room to room in the color of the curtains. It started in the living room with thrift store finds of heavy brocade panels. There was a linen table cloth converted for the door to my bedroom and in the kitchen the sheers were purchased at a local shop. The dining table had been my Grandmothers. I painted it a glossy black and I would sit in the kitchen smoking and drinking coffee and scribbling out poetry, writing and rewriting the lines.

There was a cat named Loki and a preoccupation with a guy named Thomas. I was casting a lot of runes. When I found Loki on my front step, he had a slight limp and for the first month or so he hobbled around and it seemed like I had a mechanical wind up toy for a pet. Later as he healed, Loki would try to escape to join the other three or four neighborhood cats that lined up on the sidewalk to meow at him. Loki would run circles around the living room, ending and starting on the back of the futon to meow back down at them. Loki had a name change to Carlyle Cat in the hopes of mellowing him out. We moved to a studio apartment to the Northside, a block from the beach. At first Loki made failed attempts at escape via the third floor balcony which would end with him on a ledge meowing loudly and then he eventually escaped to a farm downstate.

This wonderful exhibition at the at the David Sallow Gallery was a fantastic sight as a friend and I drove down Hill Street in Chinatown on Tuesday. I was getting ready to do a U turn as I saw them shouting, “What was that?” As I parked in need of food. We had been several hours at the Edison to watch a cocktail mixing competition where my own timing of drink had been essential. These strange and wonderful creatures somehow reminded me of Loki when he first arrived to me unnamed. Hesitant and still and ready to slump into a pile.

“No Names” new sculptures by Elizabeth Higgins O’Connor.

Embroidered Text

January 17th, 2009

Daniel Pontius

Get on!

As Deborah Vivien (nee Mitford), Duchess of Devonshire would write, Nancy’s sister.

Blackman Cruz in Los Angeles has framed my embroidery and it is for sale. Very exciting.

Feed

December 14th, 2008

Daniel Pontius

Dont forget to sign up form my FEED. Over there on your right.

Feed

December 14th, 2008

Daniel Pontius

Dont forget to sign up form my FEED. Over there on your right.

St. Lucy

December 14th, 2008

Daniel Pontius

Who is the Saint of Forgetfulness? I do not know. But Saint Lucy, I am told, is the patron saint of the blind. I forgot to post this on Saint Lucy’s Day on the 13th which is said to be the darkest day of the year.

This statue from Naples c 1750 of Santa Lucia is carved and polychromed wood with sulphur eyes dressed in the original cloth robe. Sometimes she is depicted carrying a tray with two eyes on it.

Saint Lucy lived in Syracuse, Sicily in the early 4th century. Her mother decided to marry Lucy off to a Pagan, which did not make Lucy happy. She told her mother that Christ would make a much better partner and she cured her mother of a long illness which convinced her. She got out of the marriage. This did not please her no longer soon-to-be-husband who gave her up to the authorities for loving Jesus. She was arrested and thrown off to become a prostitute. She refused and was killed by soldiers after her eyes were plucked out. Her vision was later restored by God. There seems to be a lesson to learn from all of this.

The statue is 34″ tall on the original gilt base. $9800.00 but I’ve also forgotten from where you might purchase it if it is still available.

One Way or Another

November 25th, 2008

Daniel Pontius

My father liked to say that it might be worth something some day–you better keep it! Now, Christie’s is showing you that some of it is. The first Punk/Rock auction of memorabilia was held on November 24, 2008 in New York.

A trenchant view of nostalgia’s power. It is the 30 year rule that the punks & rockers should be able to afford to buy the things they wish they would have kept.

It makes me feel like when “How Soon is Now” is playing at the Trader Joe’s. I wonder what my 1985 self would think of me today as I debate about buying the organic corn chips. It also makes me wish I would have kept all of my Smith’s 12 inch singles.

The above are some of the big sellers. See rest of the results at Christie’s.

Click on the image to enlarge.

Presentiment

November 21st, 2008

Daniel Pontius

If you are anything like me, you like to move, and you are happy when the move is complete and you are unwrapping the bit of 1920’s Japanese print silk you had forgotten about and you get to have a fond memory of where you bought it–somewhere between Hillsdale and Great Barrington–an antique’s shop that you used to go to with Kadilac where you bought many different things, a rug, a box, a lamp, and many things you didn’t buy–the black leather Victorian shelf–Damn that would have hot. And, it will continue to be a surprise when you unpack these other things, since you’ve been thinking about different things like what fabric to use for which curtains and do I really need a stove–does he think I will cook? So the after pics are months away but I am hopeful for a holiday party.

Being very excited about my most recent apartment, that I dreamt about for a year, I suddenly am longing for something new. In fact suddenly it seems quite small, my 830 square feet even after my previously 220 plus in Brooklyn. Not enough, I think, after seeing in Nov-Dec Veranda the above pic, A 20 foot tall Christmas tree, I mean really, can you imagine?

Veranda was the host of a show house at Greystone mansion and I attended the closing party. But only briefly, having gotten lost on the way as there is more than one right turn off Sunset onto a street with a sign reading Doheny.

After finding my way I was immediately told the house was closing. This being LA I had a 4pm invitation and no ending time, so 4:55 didn’t seem too unseemly to me. I inched my way by the pedantic lady at the door asking, “Why is the house closing?” “Because it’s over!” She said, “The presentation is starting in several minutes.” She being as exasperated as she was determined, “Do you want in too? Okay, quickly.” I passed.

The word presentation glazes my mind with more yellow than walls done by Nancy Lancaster.

“Check–yes– yellow walls room off den.”

I continued on noting the nice enough rooms. And there were some exceptional moments, the textiles, but I can’t remember the rest, I had a fearful presentiment: the Determined Lady would suddenly appear in my face, “The presentation has started in the courtyard!”

So I scurried around Greystone missing a complete wing yet as I turned to walk up some steps I thought, “This is space!” It’s no Chatsworth; it’s no Biltmore; nor Hearst Castle, but definitely room for a 20 foot Christmas Tree.

I will not be having even a 20 foot christmas tree this year. No space not to mention all the help the tinsel would command, and a stepladder that I would need to climb to be photographed placing the last ornament just so.