South By Southwest - Interesting Vintage Book

Two weekends ago, I went to an estate sale and bought a few small items.  One item of particular interest was a vintage book, titled South By Southwest.  It's by Richard Ellis and Walter Cronkite.  The copyright is 1983, which to me seems like yesterday, but it's 27 years ago.

The book is in perfect condition, other than missing it's dust jacket.  I like to take a glance at old coffee table books when thrifting.  You never know when you'll find a gem.  As soon as I opened this one, I knew it was coming home with me.  The art is what grabbed me. 

Once I sat down at home to really take a close look, I saw Walter Cronkite's name.  The book is about two friends, Walter Cronkite and Ray Ellis, traveling down the Eastern Coast traveling the Intracoastal Waterway, from the Chesapeake Bay to Key West, Florida.  Each recorded their impressions, Walter through writing, and Richard through his art (90 paintings!) I had not heard of Ray Ellis before, but it turns out he's quite an artist! 

The book is huge - each page is 15 inches wide by 12 inches tall.  Some of the paintings take up two pages.

I looked the book up online and saw it for sale for as low as a few dollars and as much as $600.  There didn't see to be any rhyme or reason to the price variations.  I saw lots for a few dollars (plus shipping, which can be fairly high since the book is so big) and lots for over $50 and a good many for over $100.  I'm going to put my copy for sale in my booth in a few days.  My price will be very reasonable - probably $10.  I hope whoever gets it enjoys it as much as I did.

I took some photos of the paintings.  My photo quality is not good.  I didn't even bother to take time to flatten each page.  That little mistake can make things look oddly crooked - some of the buildings appear to be be leaning.  Here's a peak at some of the beautiful paintings.  Enjoy!

Gettin' Nekked

Did that title scare you?  You'll be happy to know that it's referring to my booth, not me!  My booth (actually, I should say OUR booth - I share with Martie and Beth) had to be rearranged twice this weekend because two big pieces sold.

SOLD!

I got a call Saturday saying my sweet little cream hutch sold.  When a piece of furniture sells, all the smalls are taken off and put somewhere (sometimes on the floor if there's not another surface available) and there's a big gaping whole of nothing left in the booth.  That's a good problem to have.  Sales are good!   Change is good.

Yesterday afternoon I went over and did some rearranging to give the booth "balance". I borrowed a bakers rack just to have another place to relocate some of our smalls.    The new bakers rack works fine for now. I like that it's white and the shape and size worked great.   It was lucky that there was one on hand to borrow!  It was missing the bottom piece of glass so I propped some containers on the bottom. 

The white bakers rack is not what people see first as they come down the aisle. They see the dramatic black hutch.  I love how it draws your eye and invites you in. 

It was almost closing time, the booth looked good and I was getting close to going home when we got a call.  A customer wanted to know if the black hutch was still there.  She wanted it and was coming to get it.  She and her husband would dash right over and get it before closing time.

Oh Dear...  SOLD!!! 

OMG.  Nekked booth!  By the way, I know the correct spelling is naked, but for some reason, we Southerners get a kick out of saying nekked.  It's more fun.

There was no time left to think about focal points and drawing your eye and lovely vignettes.  I had to fill the space and find something to put all that stuff on! Amazingly, there was one more bakers rack not being used.  Those racks are almost constantly in use and to be able to have access to two of them at one time was very lucky!!!

 

It looks like I'm going to 

need to find some big pieces!

Fun, Fun, FUN!