Post Office Blue. An original edition

Yet another of the oldest TinyBuildings: the "blue" post office. Poor, pitiful thing is mildewed and rather unlovely. It is also a 'bastardized' TinyBuilding in that it is made from two packaging materials.

The sides are from the cardboard cover of machine-dispensed stamps. The top is from one of the Atlanta blue-printing companies: AAA Blueprinting. Probably an extra business card included in a roll of prints delivered to James' office.

I can almost smell the developing fluid. This was way before the gigantic 'xerox' machines that are used now...or, for that matter, the direct-from-the Cad machine plots...That fluid was a sweet-acidic taste on the back of your tongue. Goodness knows what it was doing to our brains.

At the time, it signified progress on a project: if you had a roll of prints, you were finally ready to deliver them to a client. Finally, after many days and nights of thinking and drawing and erasing and drawing and thinking....

I like the little 'blue' roof section- a little hat for the building; and, you can tell James composed this TinyBuilding so that the old-fashioned mailbox fit on one side of the structure, exactly. Then he must have sorted through the detritus on his very messy drawing board to find the AAA card for the roof. I'll bet he smiled to himself when he stuck the 'blue' on top...a little cap, and a reference to the USPS colorings.

c. 1976

Pink Castle. An original edition

This is another of James' vintage TinyBuildings. It must be over thirty years old. Looks pretty good, still...a little threadbare, but, so do you....

I think this tower is made from leftover architectural model-building board. The pink-ish color may have been meant to be brick or stucco. i don't know if James was testing a design for a client's house or just gluing scraps together. I also don't care; I just love this TinyBuilding for itself....that jaunty glued-on brown door is so assertive, I laugh out loud!

I wonder what the roof paper came from. Maybe its an insert paper from a candy box- like Godiva...those wax-coated sheets they lay on top of the candies to protect them from the box top. Hmmmm? something like that...a flicker of memory is trying to come forward...Hmmm?


c. 1976

Hearth Too. NYC

This is a second version of Hearth. The earlier one was much more simplistic; and this one catches the essence of the restaurant more richly than the 'beginner' version [I think it's the chimney that does it...]. I'm particularly proud of the way the flame image from the card continue across the roof and canopy. Oh, Joy!

Hearth is on the north western? edge of the East village [not sure exactly where the village starts and stops]. The wine list is excellent and the food is great. Rustic, but refined, if you know what I mean. This place means 'comfort food' to us, so we've trudged there in ankle-deep snow, on bitterly cold nights, for some good hospitality and warming food.

c. 2005