Mid-Century Artist: George Keller

I'm still a little obsessed with the Character-Culture-Citizenship Guides. One of my favorites is poster number 2, Courage.

The artist is George J. Keller. He was the chairman of the fine arts department at Bloomsburg University, which makes sense since most of the Character-Culture-Citizenship Guides where designed by teachers.

But George Keller's life got a little more interesting after he stopped teaching. He became a wild animal trainer.

Keller had a big cat show at Disneyland called, "Feline Fantastics," which was rebranded as "Jungle Killers" after poor attendance. The new name didn't help and the act was eventually canceled. 

Source

George then took his act on the road performing at Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey's Circus, and other touring circuses.

It makes his Character-Culture-Citizenship Guides poster all the more interesting. The animal is actually the one showing courage in the poster and clearly Keller had a love of animals. And a good amount of courage himself.

Done: New Lights in Dining Room

We had our new dining room lights installed. And by new dining room lights, I mean our vintage Moe Light Honeycomb ceiling lights.

Before we had one light and one fire alarm with an ugly plastic ceiling medallion covering up a light box. 

The light wasn't the worst

But we definitely wanted to get rid of the fire alarm in the middle of the room.

And that's where our Moe Light Honeycomb ceiling lights come in.

They look great up close

And far away.

When they're on they're nice and bright and have a lovely orange glow on the sides

And when they're off, they look just as good.

Plus, because they're close to the ceiling they actually make the room feel a lot taller, which is nice bonus.

Mid-Century Austin Barber Shop

I was out for a stroll around the neighborhood and remembered we needed milk. I walked to the nearby strip mall where our grocery store is but because I was coming from a different direction, I happened on something new.

A mid-century barber shop oddly tucked into the middle of a strip mall.

This particular strip mall was probably built in the '50s and from the looks of things this old school barber shop was an original tenant. All the other tenants have sadly been replaced with cell phone stores and the like.

I love the mid-century look of the place and I'm thinking about getting a cut there, but I'm a little scared. I kid you not, the two haircuts advertised were a flattop and a fade. It's almost too perfect really.

Looks like they do shoeshines too. If I find out they do straight razor shaves too, I'm just going to start hanging out here.

Another Mid-Century Ranch in Texas

I have been obsessed with this house on Mid-Century Modern Freak since the day I saw it.

The mid-century paint colors are perfect, the furniture inside is perfectly complementary and all the details are in place. Check it out on Mid-Century Modern Freak and get obsessed yourself, and once you are you can check out even more images here.

A Little More American of Martinsville History

I've touched on the history of American of Martinsville a little when I was trying to track down what line our American of Martinsville bar is from. (Turns out it's from the Dania collection.)

For some reason it never occurred to me that Martinsville might actually be a city where they made all the American of Martinsville furniture. In modern copywriting and naming you'd never throw the name of the town you're from in your company's name because you never know when you're going to expand or move out of town. But I guess American of Martinsville planned to stick around, and stick around they did, for over 100 years.

And the city of Martinsville has a little history on their furniture making legacy, which includes American of Martinsville, Bassett Furniture and Hooker Furniture Company. The American of Martinsville portion of that history is:

In 1906, American Furniture Company was founded by two Martinsville tobacco men, Ancil Witten and Charles Keesee. With 12 other local business leaders, these men raised an original capitalization of $30,000. The company has grown substantially and first surpassed $100 million in sales in 1989. Today, the company specializes in producing furniture for the hotel and healthcare industries, and operates under the name American of Martinsville. Open a dresser drawer the next time you stay in a hotel and, chances are, you'll see an American of Martinsville logo.