About Kurt

Welcome to Design Furnace. I'm Kurt, an interior and product designer living in Palm Springs, California. Frankly, I'm a bit obsessed with design. I try to incorporate it into my daily life. You never know what will ignite the flames of creativity. This blog is about those every day sparks of inspiration. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoy the blog.

Of Fecundity and Figs

2012 seems to be the Year of the Fig  here in Palm Springs.  Our ficus carica, can you say common fig tree, is bursting with the fruits of her branches.

Ours are green figs, not the dark swarthy, mission figs, brought to San Diego, California in 1768 by Francisican missionaries and made popular by Alice Waters when she took to stuffing them with goats cheese, poaching them in port or daringly slicing them raw and then topping a melange of field greens with them drizzled with a balsamic viniagrette.

Our figs are summer chartreuse on the outside and creamy white laced with golden cognac on the inside.

I believe there will be that most Narnian of sweets in our near future:  fig,rosewater-walnut Turkish Delight.

 

High Desert Tour – evening

Though not officially on the PS ModCom High Desert tour, I found this cube house by the students of Samuel Mockbee’s Auburn University Rural Studio very interesting.  Also please note it is clad in rusting metal!  There must be something in the air up here!

After a few quick snapshots, I continued on my way to the Mohave Sands Motel for a much needed adult beverage.

Built in 1949, owner Blake Simpson completely renovated the motel and reopened it in 2010.  It appears Blake is adept with a welder!  New door and window frames are custom-fabricated in steel.

Crisp metal detailing appears everywhere – from the caps of stucco walls to landscape edge detailing that keeps the desert at bay.  The repurposed grating also works well as a shower screen in the private outdoor bathing courtyard.

If it’s a soak you’re after, a recycled tub a great way to relax while vintage vinyl is spinning an Hawaiian serenade.

 

High Desert Tour – late afternoon

Sun kissed with color, I stood my docent duties at the Furst Studio in Joshua Tree.  There’s something about the high desert that demands metal collection – massive amounts of it left to the elements.

What awaited me under the curving arches of a collection of customized Quonset huts,  was astounding.

A spin around the studio harkened back to my grandfather’s shop/garage.  It was teeming with bits and bobs of rusting iron – well frankly any and all types of metal stuff.

But what was fascinating, was the organization.  It was all catagorized!  Neatly stacked pipes, orderly lines of rebar.  Piles of this and stacks of that.  It was truly amazing to see – anal retentive hoarding!

All that metal is awaiting inclusion in some construction or art piece, like this PEACE art piece constructed of spent bullet casings – one for each soldier killed in the Iraq War.

If you’ve ever wondered where all the old Tonka toy trucks have gone to, I think I have the answer!

And of course, there were obligatory travel trailers, restored and used as extra guest rooms.