Monday, March 2, 2009

Living with Gorey

By now, readers of my blog have probably guessed that there is a LOT of Edward Gorey material floating about my home. Even though his work is primarily small in size, it does take up space.

I've spent a more than half of my life sur- rounded by Gorey's images in some form or another, but a couple years ago Bill and I took that to a new level. We had repainted our dining room a rather uncompromising shade of mustard yellow - something he was a little unsure of then, and is still uncertain about (I like it). To give it some additional interest, we decided to illustrate the walls.

This was accomplished by projecting images of book illustrations on the wall, tracing and then hand painting them in place. It was a lot of fun choosing drawings by various artists we collect, and we generally used less recognizable characters by these artists. The work of painting the images fell completely to Bill, and he would work far into the night to finish an image.

Included in the melange of characters are a couple of Gorey drawings since he's an obvious favorite. As images were added over time, we added a few classics like Piglet and Pinocchio. There are also images by John R. Neill, Mary GrandPre, H. J. Ford, H. R. Millar, and Palmer Cox - a bit of a grab-bag of illustrators. There are still a few holes that could be filled; we'll see.


If you think our dining room is fun (or even over the top), I invite you to see a portion of a parlor room in a friend's home. My friend and his wife love Gorey's work and took it to an extreme that I truly admire. The entire ceiling of the parlor is hand drawn to resemble a Gorey drawing. There are broken floorboards overhead which reveal a night sky complete with circling bats, arches with urns and winged skulls, and even the Doubtful Guest sitting in a corner. The artwork extends two feet down the walls and is really quite breathtaking in person. The ceiling's images were mapped out on paper and completely drawn by hand over a long, hot summer. This was a labor of love and is a wonderful room to sit in or pass through.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yea! You posted pictures of your wonderful dining room illustrations! And even the infamous "Gorey Parlor" as well! I can now happily show folks examples of the rooms I've been raving about for years! :^D
-Todd

ampootozote said...

Yes! The (partial) home tour is now on line for everyone to visit! lol

fotobear11 said...

Finally! A view of your dining room illustrations that I've heard about since Todd met Susan and then met you two. What a great idea. I bet it was fun once you figured out how you were going to do it. You guys are so talented that I suspect you could do any type of artistic endeavor you chose. It was great seeing you again at Christmas.
Todd's mama, Stephanie

Susan said...

Just showed off your place for my co workers for about the 5th time today...

Coolest. Rooms. Ever.