Renowned decorative painters to gather in San Antonio May 10-12
From Friday through Sunday May 10-12, the 2002 International Conference of Decorative Painters — also known as the Salon — will be held in San Antonio, Texas. Hosted by Nicola and Leslie Vigini of Vigini Studios Inc. and the Southwest School of Art and Craft, this invitation-only gathering of decorative painters from around the world features exhibitions and demonstrations that are free and open to the public from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. each day.
“The mission of each and every Salon is to maintain the integrity of the work while enriching the ‘spirit’ of the Salon,” explains Leslie Vigini. “It’s made up of friendship, exchanges and the true pleasure of being together and sharing our love of our craft.”
The public exhibition will be held along the Riverwalk in the Russell Hill Rogers Gallery, 300 Augusta, at the Southwest School of Art and Craft and will include samples of wood graining, murals, trompe l’oeil, marble, scagliola, fresco, grottesca and gilding. Completed works by Salon members will be exhibited, by country, and demonstrations by Salon members will be ongoing. “This is a great opportunity for the public to watch the artists at work and to ask questions,” says Vigini.
Lectures and slide presentations also will be included in the public exhibition. Among those presenting, Ina Marx, one of the authors of “Professional Painted Finishes” and the founding mother of The Finishing School in New York, will speak on trompe l’oeil painted surfaces throughout the centuries at 2 p.m. May 12. Pierre Finkelstein, author of the “Art of Faux,” will narrate a slide presentation titled “The Getty Museum and Other Works” at 4 p.m. May 11. Each lecture will include a book signing.
Other scheduled speakers include Jan Berghuis of the Netherlands, Robert Woodland of the United Kingdom, Pam Rosser of Restoration Associates in San Antonio and Doreen Sharabati.
The forerunner of the first Salon took place in the early 1990s in Kuurne, Belgium, and was sponsored by the Belgium Independent Painters Society. Noted grand master Alfred Marrecau initiated the modest international gathering. In 1996, Yannick Guegan, author of “The Handbook of Painted Decoration,” rekindled the concept by inviting the leaders in the field to visit his studio in Quimiac, France. Among those who attended was 86-year-old Marrecau.
From that point on, the Salon took off. It was subsequently hosted in Utrecht, the Netherlands; Alexandria, Virginia; Norkkoping, Sweden; London and Paris. Traditionally, it is held two consecutive years in Europe and then one in the United States. The next time the Salon is scheduled to be held stateside is 2005.
Last year’s Salon held in Paris was organized by the Institute Superieure de Peinture Decorative, the leading French educational establishment for decorative arts.
During _its_ closing dinner at the Museum of Fairground Arts, which included an inside carousel, lifetime achievement awards were given to Ron Gordon and Bill Holgate.
Private demonstrations held at Vigini Studios are open to Salon members only. For more information about the seventh annual Salon, call Vigini Studios at (877) 977-3289 or the Southwest School of Art and Craft at (210) 224-1848.
In March in paint stores across the country, The Sherwin-Williams Co. formally unveiled COLOR — a new interior/exterior system that includes 1,000 original hues. The new system, which contractors had a chance to sneak preview at the recent International Builders Show in Atlanta, is the culmination of a six-year initiative that explored a variety of changing market needs.
“Homeowners are demanding more colors,” says Linda Trent, director of color marketing and design for Sherwin-Williams. “Research shows that they want more freedom of choice on both the interior and the exterior. They’re tired of the old vanilla shades that have been around for years.” And her company, she continues, saw this open door as a “golden opportunity” to introduce a new collection of colors, “not just trendy colors but colors that will have viability for years to come.”
Influenced by today’s geographic, demographic, cultural and lifestyle trends and made possible by advances in paint technologies, the new COLOR pallet includes an expanded range of crisp, rich vibrant colors, a wide choice of fresh accent colors and a broad selection of neutrals. “We even have a strip with eight shades of black,” Trent points out.
For the aging Baby Boomers, there are youthful but sophisticated colors such as Sweet Sage or In the Pink — easily identifiable hues that aren’t the slightest bit “muddy.” For the Generation-Y crowd, there’s a whole range of hot oranges, turquoises and outrageous greens (“Very retro; early modern. Kind of like the ’60s with a twist,” Trent says).
There are rich colors with lots of depth - complex oranges, deep purples, Baltic blues — thanks in large part to the World Wide Web which has allowed more people to be exposed to the colors, textures and patterns of such cultures as those found in Asia, Morocco, India and south of the border. “The trend these days is a multicolor approach for the interior,” Trent says. “Matchy-matchy is out. Eclectic is in. The colors tend to be different for each room.”
From Florida to Maine on home fronts across the country, people also were tiring of the monochromatic look and wanted fresh, bright colors on the exterior with accents that made a statement, Trent says. “Exterior trends don’t cycle as quickly because they’re more permanent,” she explains. “But when they do shift, they shift quickly.” And shift they have.
Color always has been used as a decorative media, but now it’s being taken to a new level. People are not just creating curb appeal with their color choices; they’re creating a mood. “In the past, the mood was more neutral when the economy was down. But now, the cycle is being broken. Why live in a bleak house?” Trent asks. People are spending more time at home these days, she continues, and they see the house as their haven, their respite from an otherwise hectic schedule. On the interior, they’re choosing colors that are fresh, vibrant, almost Zen-like, colors with names like Relaxed Khaki, Aloft Gray, Relentless Olive, Lemon Chiffon, Plum Dandy.
Due to newly engineered bases and colorants in Sherwin-Williams’ new pallet, color matching is reliable and consistent. The company maintains this will minimize callbacks and save contractors both time and money. The Exterior Accents line is touted to resist fading and remain more accurate and true over time. The line consists of a wide spectrum of UV-resistant bright reds, greens, yellows and blues from which to choose. Out of the 1,000 colors in the new pallet, 840 can be used on the exterior. (That’s up from 840 and 440, respectively.)
New colors are just a part of the 2002 program. Sherwin-Williams has also introduced new color selection and sales tools for contractors to help make the homeowners’ task of deciding on color combinations easier. The most basic of these tools — the fan deck — has been ergonomically designed to “fit” in hand and logically displays colors for customer review. The colors are organized by saturation level — that is, from subdued to bright. “By popular demand, the color samples are bigger and all of them are the same size,” Trent says. “Before, the lighter colors were larger and the deep colors were smaller.”
Sherwin-Williams also has literature that presents several possible color combinations for both the interior and exterior of a home, making it easier for customers to select a whole package. The company even went beyond just grouping the colors together to aid in selection. “We took seven of the color collections and did rooms to show what it would actually look like,” Trent says.
In years past, consumers not only complained that available paint colors were limited but they also were often disappointed that the paint didn’t look much like the color on the card. “So we’ve worked hard on delivering that color,” says R. Lane Blackburn, vice president of quality and color. “We devised a new primer system. And with a primer and one topcoat, you get the right color. What you see is really what you get.”
And that’s COLOR and plenty of it.
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