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 Puerto Vallarta Real Estate | April 2007 
Bold Furniture Creates Big Impact
 Rebecca Boren - Arizona Daily Star
| | Four chairs bearing portraits of jazz stars surround a table with instruments for legs. (MFA/Eronga Inc) | 
| These seats, featuring Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, cost $917. (MFA/Eronga Inc)
Some Tucson stores featuring painted furniture:
Bohemia, 299 S. Park Ave. in the Lost Barrio, 882-0800, or online at www. bohemiatucson.com.
MFA/Eronga Inc. Gallery, 7045 N. Oracle Road, 531-1808. Warehouse store at 1605 W. Grant Road (entrance is south of Grant, off Dragoon Street), 798-1086; online at www.mfaeronga.com.
Paloma Art Gallery, 4747 E. Sunrise Drive, Suite 101. 577-9224; online at www.palomaart.com.
Dry Heat Trading Co., 6544 E. Tanque Verde Road, Suite 140, 733-2499; online at www.dryheattrading.com.
Contents Interiors, 3401 E. Fort Lowell Road, 881-6900; online at www.contentsinteriors.com. |
So you really like those bright Southwestern colors, but you're not really ready to paint your living room purple or your bedroom lime?
Then painted furniture may be for you.
Tucson is home to many creators and sellers of "functional art" everything from candlesticks and jewelry boxes to rocking chairs and kitchen hutches adorned with the brilliant colors of Mexican folk art.
Prices can be surprisingly reasonable, and a single piece can transform that boring old room into something bright and fun.
"Lots of my clients are people who have retired here," said Barbara Peabody, one of the best known of these artists. Peabody's style of combining intense jewel tones with abstract designs is instantly recognizable see it once and you're unlikely to ever forget it.
"They love the bright colors and never would have used them in Chicago or Detroit or wherever they came from," she continued. "It's like they are making a new life with sun and color."
At Bohemia, in the Lost Barrio, owner Tana Kelch shows off some of the Peabody pieces that are part of the store's eclectic mix of everything from yard art to clothing.
"It's really wonderful and can really fit into any dιcor," Kelch says enthusiastically.
A chair painted mostly deep red and French blue ($380) sits beside a matching French-blue table ($275). A two-part chest and hutch glows in shades of cream layered with terra cotta and soft green ($450).
Peabody developed her style as a painter who always had loved intense colors and Mexican folk art, such as the famous Oaxacan wood carvings. She then transferred the concept to furniture and accessories starting in 1990. She had just returned from San Diego to Albuquerque and couldn't find a job.
"I started working on furniture and floor cloths and textiles, and that worked," she recalls. "It was sort of an economic decision, . . . but it was always fun to do."
Peabody moved to Tucson five years ago. Her creations now appear in shops and galleries from California to New Mexico.
Maybe you like the idea, but you want something a little more Arizona-retro? Dee Dee Koenen decoupages side tables and little cupboards with postcard-style scenes ($75 to $95 at Bohemia).
Or if you really want a statement, consider one of the big art pieces by Luon St. Pierre, who builds and paints oversize chairs and other works with portraits ($1,700 at Bohemia).
Ashley Chamberlain is another popular functional artist, and she builds and decorates furniture from scratch. Her hallmark is layers of intense colors, distressed so that base colors shine through the overlay such as purple topped with turquoise, or orange medallions that glow over a pink-purple side cabinet. Works start at $340 at Paloma Art Gallery.
The effect can be brilliant or very soft almost soothing. A more sedate incarnation shows up in a barn-red nightstand at Contents Interiors, in the furniture district along East Fort Lowell Road. It has a distressed top and a tin decorative front ($550).
Just about any style of carved and painted furniture imaginable from traditional folk art to Italianate decorative to life-size kitsch, shows up at MFA/Eronga Inc.'s warehouse store near Interstate 10 and West Grant Road. This former wholesale outlet, which went to retail in 2000, sells furniture made and decorated at a worker-owned factory in the woodworking center of Michoacαn, Mexico. Currently in stock are many custom orders that fell through and are offered at a substantial discount over their usual prices.
"This is accent furniture," said Steve Rosenthal, president of the corporation.
MFA/Eronga is the place to go if you're dying for a pair of theater seats painted with the matching visages of artists and power couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera ($917), or a glass table atop a column of musical instruments accompanied by four chairs bearing portraits of jazz stars ($1,999 for the set).
There also are plenty of desert motifs and some simply lovely pieces, such as a tray and table decorated with geraniums (various sizes of trays start at $166), or an Italianate dining table with a gold checkerboard pattern and various fruits under an incredibly satiny finish ($2,575 with eight chairs).
Not surprisingly, both Peabody and Rosenthal say that the smaller (and hence less daring) pieces sell best knife blocks and jewelry boxes for Peabody, Lazy Susans for MFA/Eronga (the latter starting at $90).
But Peabody says that the colors are wonderful to live with on a larger scale.
"My house is really all color, too," with rooms painted orange, yellow and red, she says. "People come in, and they all either love it or hate it. But most people love it. They say, 'You could never be unhappy here.' "
Rebecca Boren is a freelance writer. |
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