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December 18, 2007 – 12:16 pm
Here’s another fine item sure to light up the interior of any sophisticated home, but also certain to warm the hearts of patriotic Houstonians as well. It’s the Firevase, a beautiful ceramic container for flowers or flames from Plodes Studio.
The Firevase is another original decorative piece from the mind of John Paul Plauché, a local designer with a remarkable ability to work images of the Houston landscape into his creations.
Plauché calls the Firevase an “indoor or dense-city version of a firepit.” So much nicer than that mock or simply unused fireplace, no? According to Plauché, the firevase runs on a nontoxic clean-burning alcohol gel-fuel can called Sunjel:
The Firevase attempts to bring everything you enjoy about an outdoor firepit to your tabletop or somewhere where you can’t have a firepit. It’s another thing I enjoyed growing up in a small town just east of Houston. It’s about scale [and] my past experiences of living in dense apartment buildings [where you] simply cannot have such amenities . . .
The vase’s tripod shape is inspired by two kinds of plants: the kind that grow in the ground, and the kind that sprout near Pasadena and on Houston’s scenic eastern reaches:
It can be a seasonal affair if you’d like. Fire in the winter and flowers in the summer. Its shape is inspired by root branching systems, and the stark nature of chemical plant structures that can found off hwy 225.
Refineries, chemical plants, flares, and flowers: at last, interior designers discover Houston’s true local style! Below the fold: more photos of this hot item, plus how you can light up your own home with one for the holidays.
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Read more about: Chemical Plants, Gift Ideas, Home Decor, Landscape, Modern Design, Pasadena, Refineries
December 12, 2007 – 9:58 am
Looking for a holiday gift for that special someone who’s in love with the Houston landscape? Local designer John Paul Plauché of Plodes Studio comes to the rescue with Mon Petit Chandelle, a lovingly handcrafted wax casting of a Houston-area crawfish chimney.
What exactly is a crawfish chimney? It’s the pile of small mudballs that accumulates at the entrance to a crawfish burrow, as the critters excavate their homes from our native muddy soil, the artist explains:
In and around Houston you can find them in wet situations like in ditches, near bayous, and fields or lawns that may not drain as well and/or hold water after a rain. I’m sure you could go to memorial park and find them . . . I used to live in the heights off 26th st. and specifically remember seeing one or two around my mailbox /ditch area….
Plauché says he found the chimney he used for Mon Petit Chandelle in a ditch off Sheldon Rd. between I-10 and Beltway 8. It’s hard to imagine finding a gift with more uh . . . local flavor. Plus, there’s the artist’s statement:
The design was instigated from childhood memories of being more directly in tune with “outside”, the frequency of seeing these little towers and kicking them over . . . it became just a playful memory, and the shape of the mud chimney just seemed to mimic a candle to me in proportion, shape, and texture.
And as the candle burns it returns the associative favor by burning what would resemble the hole through the center of the chimney. Its definitely a local or regional thing. I’m sure a lot of people on other areas of the US wouldn’t have any idea what it is just because the type of crawfish that make these chimneys simply aren’t there.
Below the fold: More crayfish-candle craziness, plus where-to-buy information.
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Read more about: Gift Ideas, Home Decor, Landscape, Modern Design
