For Emerson Woelffer, the Great Depression was a good thing in one important, unexpected way. As a teenager in Chicago in 1931, Woelffer quit high school to earn money for his family by driving trucks. He somehow ended up making liquor deliveries for the Capone...
Jeff Day wasn’t convinced he should open an architectural practice in Omaha, Nebraska. It was 2018, and he was teaching architecture full-time at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where he’d founded the student design-build studio FACT (Fabrication and Construction Team). Besides, he and his former business...
Big Sky Floor Mirror with Jewelry Storage by Hooker Furnishings We love a beautiful piece of furniture — even more so when it’s hiding something useful. The Big Sky Floor Mirror does just that, pairing a full-length beveled mirror with hidden jewelry storage that keeps favorite...
In 2024, San Francisco needed a jump start. Public complaints about the city hit an all-time high, and its national reputation hit a record low. That’s when the founders of the Sijbrandij Foundation and Building 180 came up with the idea to create a trail...
So, this happened. I was in charge of booking lodging for a spur-of-the-moment road trip to New Mexico. Let’s just say, this isn’t my strong suit. My guy, Rob, and I decided on Taos, the quaint arty town an hour north of Santa Fe, and...
By the 1970s, the cotillions and debutante balls that had graced Seattle’s Olympic Hotel since it opened in 1924 were things of the past. The hotel’s ornate Italian Renaissance Revival structure, with its crimson and gold interior, was suddenly considered garish and out of place...
At a time when certain U.S. markets — and markets within markets — are bouncing around like a pinball inside its machine, the demand and prices for Western and Native American paintings and sculptures show steadiness. Steadiness is a strength, especially in uneven economic times,...
Contemporary Western Art is having a moment, particularly the Modern West subgenre, a.k.a. New West. While there are many ways to tell the stories of the American West in art, New West artists share one common thread: they embrace the visual language of Modernism. Borrowing from...
Kevin Gray remembers the first time he visited historic parks in Canada and saw log homes with chinking. He was eight, and his family had just emigrated from Scotland to Alberta. “It was so unique,” he recalls. “In a little kid’s eyes, it felt like...
Welcome to the Fall issue. As art exhibitions and auctions heat up across the country, we’re keeping an eye on trends, artists, and sales. Like the incredible news from this past summer: The big three auction houses — Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips — beat total...