The Salvage Trip

How great is it to have a friend who loves architectural salvage as much as I do and is willing to load up the water bottles and wet ones, hit the road and find some salvage? It's pretty awesome! So this past Thursday we took off for Richmond with directions in hand to seek out and find Caravati's Salvage warehouse http://www.caravatis.com/index.html. After some circling around and misturns we finally found it!

We couldn't believe how huge it was and how much really awesome stuff we found. We love to walk around and come up with stuff that things could be used for in our homes or just in general. I love looking at the old doors and windows but my favorite is usually the ironworks. There were no disappointments in any of these areas at this place...wow! This is the window section, or at least part of it.

I was just blown away by the sheer size of the place and the amount of salvage. I went in search of some cabinet doors for a class I'm taking at Art and Soul at the end of the month. I found a few that were the right size and type that I was looking for and set them aside. Then rounded a corner and found a dream come true wooden three section cabinet. I had glass front barrister doors in three sections a the top with three drawers at the bottom. It was painted this aged out lavender color that was almost gray. It was a weak moment for me...when my brain starting vacillating back and forth between college tuition or cabinet...of course my childs education comes first but boy it was hard to walk away. It was priced at $2400, but they could give it to me for $2000 since it had been there awhile. So then I wanted to know if it stayed there for another 6 months would they consider $1000? The guy chuckled...but I'll be calling to check! I opened one of the drawers and found all sorts of Miller and Roads papers. The cabinet had come from the Miller and Roads in downtown Richmond! A huge part of my childhood, with the annual trip to Richmond at Christmas to see the "real" Santa. So not only a great cabinet but one with childhood memories attached, hard to resist. It was really one of those pieces I dream of having in a studio some day. Ah well.

We also walked out in the courtyard area and I took some pictures of some of the salvage out there. I love the way the paint peels and crackles when left outside. House facades, carriage doors, a great claw foot tub with a spectacular rust spot...I'm weird about this stuff!

We ended up making a side trip to an awesome art warehouse called Art Works. It's a renovated warehouse where artists live and work. The front portion is working studio and gallery spaces that you can roam through and check out the artists working and see the art work they have for sale. Great find. I would like to go back again, and since it's just a couple blocks over from Caravati's I could go visit my cabinet!

Kathy and I took one other side trip to the biggest Habitat Restore I've ever seen. We found some more cabinet doors here, success! We had a great time exploring parts of Richmond I had never seen. I will definitely make this trip again...I always wonder why I don't go more often since it's only an hour away!

On Creativity

This may seem like a strange post. But as an educator I have seen some changes in our educational system that really worry me. High stakes testing the biggest among them. I think these tests have created a system where thinking for yourself and thinking outside the box is not seen as important. Put these two things together and we will end up with a nation of adults who can't think their way OUT of a box! Scary. Creativity should be honored, prized, encouraged and "taught" in every classroom in America. Sadly, in many school systems (thankfully not my own) the classes that teach the arts (commonly known as resource classes) are often the first to go when budgets are cut. How sad this makes me feel. I love this video of Sir Ken Robinson, not only is it funny, but profound and thought provoking. Because creativity has always been a big part of my life and education is the way I pay the bills, I have always made connections between the two. So that is why, strange and out of place as it may seem, I wanted to include this video clip on my blog. And by the way, go to the TED site and watch other videos that interest you, the greatest minds in our society speak at TED...it truly is amazing!