“Tuscan Sun” Brightens Dreary Gray Day

It is the middle of the day and it looks like it is dusk outside. I don’t recall such a gray day in a very long time–even though we’ve had more rainy than sunny days over the past week. What a pleasant surprise to get a call from Hunt Slonem asking me if I saw his most recent article in The New York Times. I hadn’t, so imagine my delight to see the beautiful photo of Hunt in his divine purple velvet dinner jacket in front of his Tuscan Sun walls!

Love that color combo: Tuscan Sun & purple!

Although the article was about this weekend’s auction of his 19th century furniture and decorative arts from his recently sold Cordts Mansion in upstate New York, the photo was actually taken at Lakeside Plantation for a previous NY Times article on Hunt entitled “Southern Gothic: Ghosts Welcome” that had folks talking and blogging for weeks !

I had the pleasure of dining with both the writer Joyce Wadler and photographer Fred Conrad the evening before the interview and photo shoot. When the article came out, I was amazed to find out just how incredibly talented these two turned out to be. Joyce is quite the storyteller as you can see by her first two sentences:

“People come and go in the homes of the painter Hunt Slonem, both the quick and the dead. There’s the handyman, who’s brought a stray cat that’s been screaming its head off all morning; the antique picker who has spread his wares outside; the friends who have stopped by to visit Mr. Slonem in his latest acquisition, an 1832 plantation house called Lakeside, pink if you please, as surprising in this community of shoebox houses as an aged diva in a pink organdy dress at McDonald’s.”

We’re so happy that Hunt will be spending more time in Louisiana. His time here seems to be quite an inspiration (some of his latest paintings are gorgeous bayou scenes). Next time I visit Lakeside, I’ll be sure to take photos of his newly painted “Mykonos Blue” sitting room.  Mykonos Blue was created especially for Hunt’s Ogden Museum exhibit and although it was rich and vibrant in the Ogden; in Hunt’s beautifully decorated sitting room, it’s really quite stunning.

"Mykonos Blue" at Ogden Museum's Hunt Slonem Exhibit

I hope I can capture the color more accurately, because it is actually a deeper more cobalt blue than in the photo above.  If I could pick my favorite blue as the “2010 color of the year” (see previous post), it would be Mykonos, because for a blue, it’s actually very refreshing, dare I say even cheerful? Blues aren’t usually described as cheerful like Tuscan Sun and other colors in the orange range of the spectrum–anti-depressant colors that can brighten any room on a dreary day like today!

"Tuscan Sun" walls & ceiling @ Lakeside Plantation

Oh, by the way, there’s a sale (10% off!) on Tuscan Sun if when you place your order,  you mention you read about it here . And if you’d like a sample of Tuscan Sun just to look at to cheer you up, email us at fspaints@aol.com and we’ll get one right out to you, free of charge.