November 2008

Our art director, Megan Duffy Rostan, and I went on an unusual shopping spree today. Our mission was to find great holiday gifts at the 900 North Michigan Shops. We were selecting items for a lunch I will be hosting to promote shopping at the mall. I’ll post our finds later on this blog, but one thing that really impressed us today was Silk Trading Company. We wrote about the company’s “Drapery Out-of-a-Box” collection when it debuted, but neither us of had ever been in the showroom. We loved the teal blue ottoman displayed at the foot of a bed, and really admired the furniture styles, such as the chairs shown here (I don’t care for the striped fabric on the one chair, but the chair itself has great bones). All furniture can be made in any one of the hundreds of fabrics Silk Trading carries.

—JAN PARR

I.D. has carried select Blu Dot pieces for some time, but now the store is expanding its Blu Dot selection and creating a store within-a-store for the line. Blu Dot’s founders will be on hand tonight at a party at I.D. to celebrate the partnership. (If all goes well, we’ll be there, too.) Hooray, we say! We can’t get enough Blu Dot.

—JAN PARR

Friday night I hit Andersonville for dinner at Hopleaf (love!) and to check out the work of Meriellen Johnson at Scout, where owner Larry Vodak was hosting a reception for her. I’d seen her primitive yet somehow sophisticated and very endearing charcoals and pastels of plants and flowers before at Scout, and was eager to see more of her stuff. The pieces, many in vintage frames from Argentina from Architectural Artifacts were vivid and wonderful and the place was packed. There are still some left, so be sure to check them out. Across the street at Las Manos Gallery was another great exhibit by a local artist: Chuck Meyers (shown at right). Most of the paintings there were of scenes in Andersonville. How appropriate for a night out in this always fun hood.

—Gina Bazer