Friday, December 4, 2015

Repurposeful art deco

Cooper Hewitt’s Object of the Day: Ruth Gerth’s 1931 “Glow Lamp,” a beautiful piece of repurposeful art deco. (Click through: I’m keeping its secret.)

My dad liked to repurpose: sardine tins as stamp holders, shaving-cream caps as paper-clip cups. Our household likes to repurpose, too, in all sorts of ways: bakeware as a laptop stand, a cardboard box as a blog post (really), a cork and a doorstop as iPad stands, a dish drainer as a file tray, tea tins as index-card holders, a thermostat as a paperweight.

Reader, what household objects have you repurposed?

comments: 6

Slywy said...

I like the typo in this sentence:

Along with these luminaries, Gerth helped situate Chase as one of the preeminent producers of American art deco metal objects, many of which were crafted from recycled plumping materials also produced by the firm.

My dad repurposed many things, including this particular one, but I will tell you how offline.

Michael Leddy said...

Plumping materials: donuts? Recycled donuts?

MK said...

Nabokov repurposed shoeboxes as card indexes.
Manfred

Michael Leddy said...

Yes, they’re here. Alice Kober, who did pioneering work on Linear B, used cigarette cartons .

MK said...

Music cassette as iPhone stand: http://www.baty.net/2014/cassette-case-as-iphone-stand/

Michael Leddy said...

That’s elegant. I can imagine someone creating a solid version of the same (a little like the ceramic version of the Greek-key cardboard coffee-cup).