I tore up the patterned carpets, painted the floor underneath white, and rehomed thick-pile rugs from downstairs that were bought in more prosperous times.
Offbeat as they are, such offerings seem timid compared with the manicures spotted at the latest round of fashion shows, treatments that varied from squared-off nails in high-gloss jade to full-on talons that were pierced, flower-patterned or painted matte beige, a peculiarly bloodless shade, offered in homage, I suppose, to this year's undying vampire craze.
Titled "The Seasons," these brushy, densely patterned panels were painted in 1914 for the foyer of the auto magnate Edwin R. Campbell's Park Avenue apartment.
He also deployed aqueous silk taffeta curtains piped with charcoal and terra-cotta silk charmeuse; a pair of exotic wood cabinets in the style of Leleu on either side of a black marble fireplace topped with a dizzyingly amoebic-patterned oval encaustic painting borrowed from his best friend; and a delicate 19th-century French desk and chairs upholstered in a terra-cotta pink Fortuny silk damask.
There was quite a bit said about what Wiley's assistants in China had painted (the patterned backgrounds) and what he had painted himself (the faces) and also some comments about the fact that Wiley's technique was gradually becoming more confident.
(Polke had set a precedent, painting on patterned cloth in place of canvas).
Working with traditional forms from a factory in Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffordshire, she paints a patterned Fair Isle-style sweater on each dog by hand.
It includes Michele Basora's paintings of chubby, big-eyed little girls; swirling psychedelic doodles by Layla Lozano; Jason Rosenberg's jewel-like compositions of stripes, rectangles and targets; and, best of all, Warren Isensee's bouyant, perfectly patterned arrangements of crisply painted, pastel-colored ovoids (Johnson).
On a recent visit to the store, its European-designer floor was still shrouded in plastic, but on the racks one could spot filmy white Gucci skirts, pink and white Paul Smith gingham jackets, chunky tank tops from Celine looking as if they had been brushed with gold paint, and patterned wrap skirts from Pucci.
