Contemporary Western Design
New Western Design: High-Style Architecture & Interiors New Western Design: High-Style Architecture & Interiors explores how modern western artisans are reinterpreting western style. Today's craftspeople are redefining traditional western design, often easily recognized as log-pole furnishings, brightly colored leather, and Chimayo weavings, into a more polished, sophisticated, and contemporary-looking genre. This new high style is marked by stately interior and exterior spaces that are graceful, elegant, and chic-with a touch of urban flair. Providing insight into the work of the great western artisans of the past who paved the way for today's western craftspeople who are creating this fresh, fashionable rustic style, this book surveys homes that are on the cutting edge of high-style western design. Specific rooms are considered, including kitchens, bathrooms, libraries, and offices, as well as specific custom pieces, such as desks, lighting fixtures, cabinetry, and accessories. Ablaze with fresh perspective and at times delightful humor, the work of this new generation of western artists frequently incorporates seemingly discordant elements-recycled components; luxurious, upscale fabrics; precious gems-with the beautiful woods that grace the West. Intended as a guide to new approaches to western design as well as a means to spark design ideas for your own home, New Western Design is for those forward-thinking dreamers who love the romanticism and mystique of the West but who also crave a measure of contemporary panache. back flap A native of Kinnear, Wyoming, Thea Marx is a former executive director of the Western Design Conference. She has devoted much of her career to working with western craftspeople and artists and to growing an organization that would proudly promote their work. Marx also works as a spokesperson for Cowboys & Indians magazine and helps to establish venues for western design around the country. She lives with the love of her life, her daughter, Aspen, in Cody, Wyoming. --From the Inside FlapHistorically, the West has been a place known for its rugged landscape, incredible vistas, and natural elements. The architecture, interiors, and furnishings have typically followed suit. Elements found west of the Mississippi have dominated the materials used in the creation of the spaces, usually with the ruggedness with which they were found. That is they have up until the last decade.  Western design has evolved from a look easily recognized as rough-hewn lodgepole-pine furnishings, brightly colored leather, and Chimayo weavings to stately pieces that are graceful, elegant, and highly polished, covered in subtle downy soft suede and ornamented with semiprecious stones. The new era of artists and craftspeople are designing with a sophisticated flair, unabashedly mixing unusual materials, recycled components, and luxurious fabrics with the beautiful woods that grace the West. The West has always inspired a pioneer spirit and so it goes with those creating pieces that are and will be significant to the daily lives of homeowners in the West or those who choose to live with the West in their hearts. A globe reminiscent of a Japanese lantern amongst cherry blossoms is created with semiprecious stones and steel; burled wood is set gracefully into the legs of a simple yet sophisticated Queen Anne desk; and a contemporary rendition of a horse is formed of molten steel and set quietly on top of an uncomplicated hallway table. A feeling of freedom has motivated the creators of fine western decorative art. Cut steel, Molesworth reproductions, and antler chandeliers are still very much alive and a part of the design realm, but they have a new, refined character. --Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.