#80x

What sort of person owns a "jewelry box" like this? What sort of home could hold such an object? Make sense of it? give it context or meaning? It only really makes sense in a big empty house, where the objects can function like art in a gallery. Elevated by the clutter-free space around them.

"Maitland Smith": two little words that are the search key to a whole universe of forgotten design horrors and delights. "Memphis Design" gets more attention. "Maitland Smith" is the stuffy cousin.

Don't worry they aren't real. But, does that make it that much better? You didn't inherit a real pair from your robber baron grandfather, but with these you could say. "If killing endangered species weren't as out of style as they are... you know I totally would."

It's so whimsical... and yet classic.

Unapologetically post modern, an ascendent symbol of 1980s excess. These bits of furniture and bric-a-brac defined an era. Or maybe an error.

These rooms feel like places I've been. Places where I don't belong.

You've seen this kind of thing before haven't you?

Remember the house in the move Beetlejuice? The strange gaudy, clearly expensive, "whimsical," taste of that family? That's Maitland. It's those coffee tables that look like a huge stack of books. Because you are a refined intellectual but you have a sense of humor.

Yes, this table is covered in little marble tiles. It's incredibly heavy, cold to the touch, impractical, a mockery of the antique writing desk it imitates. But, it's also fascinating. An object from another world.

I don't know why I have such an intense reaction to this stuff. I'm attracted to it but also very deeply repulsed. It has echos of the Victorian with all their fascination with the artificial and the imitation. But, it also screams MONEY in all the worst ways.

Is it just me? What do you feel when you look at this stuff?

Me, 9 years old: