20171225

Mon Dec 25 08:40:41 EST 2017 Merry Christmas to all! Slept from midnight to eight without waking. High of twenty-two. Up to two more inches of snow today. Looks like we wound up with four to six inches of snow after last night. Lunch at mom's and dinner at Yvonne's. https://www.metafilter.com/171246/Jlabkafl-Merry-Christmas-book-lovers-Xoxo-Iceland Got back from mom's around three, and took a twenty-minute walk. We got another inch or two of snow during the day today, and all the snow's blowing around furiously. Saw Yvonne, Chris, Kate, Ryan, Isla, and Hardy for dinner. A fun time was had by all. Hardy is just about walking, and much more engaged with the world than he was a few months ago; almost a real little person. Huh. I happened to mention Irving Harper to Kate and Yvonne. I couldn't find the original article I read about him, but there are some fantastic galleries of his work online now. https://www.hermanmiller.com/stories/why-magazine/irving-harpers-world/ http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/03/irving-harper-works-in-paper/ https://www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/83473_irving-harper-paper-sculptures/ Did he pass away? Yes, in 2016. http://blog.dwr.com/2016/01/21/irving-harpers-owl-fetches-39k-at-wright-auction/ > It had been estimated to bring $7,000–$9,000, but Untitled (Owl) went for $48,750 at auction today in Chicago, including buyer’s fees – not a surprise, in a way, as it had served as an iconic representation of the paper sculptures of Irving Harper on the cover of a book and on a poster advertising a museum show of his work last year, the only one ever mounted. And besides, it is a piece of art that stops you in your tracks, maybe even resembling slightly its creator himself. It was clearly a gem of the auction, among many gems. > The owl, along with 306 other sculptures Harper created in his spare time over the course of 40 years, was included in the sale run by Wright auction house in its Chicago office. The lot represented the entire body of Harper’s work, except for fewer than 10 pieces that were given as gifts or otherwise separated from the larger group. > Wright had estimated the value of sculptures to typically range from $3,000 to $5,000, suggesting the sale would gross of $900,000 to $1.5 million before buyer’s fees of 25 percent. After a marathon session that began at noon today and ended at 9 p.m., requiring a change of auctioneers midway, the sculptures were sold at prices ranging from a low of $313 for an abstract wall composition to the nearly $50,000 for the owl. The next nearest grossing sculptures to the owl were three abstract wall pieces that went for $22,500, $17,500 and and $17,188. In all, the sale grossed just under $1.2 million, on the low end of Wright’s estimate. > The auction leaves a bittersweet legacy. Harper never wanted to part with the paper sculptures he created over the years – his friends, he called them – but now they will be dispersed far and wide. > Harper, a genius of modern design and a cornerstone of the design firm of George Nelson Associates in the 1950s, died August 4 [2016] at age 99 at his home in Rye, New York, where he lived for more than 60 years and where he began creating paper sculptures around 1964. > Harper went to work as a graphic designer for George Nelson in 1947, near the time Nelson began as design director for the Herman Miller furniture company. Harper created the stylized “M” logo for Herman Miller that is still in use by the company today. He also went on to create some icons of modern furniture, including the Marshmallow Sofa, and had his hand in some of the biggest projects of the Nelson office, including work on the Chrysler Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair in 1964 and ’65. > It was during that latter time that Harper, under tremendous pressure by day, began idly assembling paper sculptures to relax in the evenings, drawing on his model-making skills (creasing, folding and gluing paper) learned while training as a young man to become an architect. Breakfast: coffee, cinnamon rolls Lunch: ham, peas, potatoes, biscuits, green goo Dinner: Chinese

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