Not For Squares

IMPORTANT NEWS: As of 1^st Septem­ber 2010 Coulson Macleod will be a little bit more expens­ive to buy. Sorry.

We’ve been debat­ing this for some time now here at Coulson Macleod HQ. Basic­ally we don’t want to put our prices up. But if we want to con­tinue grow­ing, then we have to.

For any reg­u­lar read­ers of this blog, you’ll have been fol­low­ing our pro­gress as we grow and learn, the way you do when you launch a new business.

In Septem­ber Coulson Macleod will be 18 months old. It’s been a fant­astic 18 months. When we star­ted the busi­ness we had no idea just what a global brand Coulson Macleod would become. Of course we hoped that people would like our art, and that some would become customers.

As the busi­ness has slowly grown we’ve made little tweaks here and there. And occa­sion­ally we make some whop­ping changes. Over the course of 18 months, we’ve had three com­pletely new web­sites, can any­one remem­ber the first ver­sion? We’ve cre­ated then deleted entire col­lec­tions. And we’ve talked end­lessly about where we want to go in the future. Some­times to each other, some­times to any­one who’ll listen.

The out­come is always the same. That in order to sell through stock­ists, and online mar­ket­places, and to go to trade fairs, and to cre­ate new and excit­ing col­lec­tions, (and then there’s some­thing called VAT, which I don’t under­stand and Coulson gets fed up try­ing to explain!), our prices are just a little too low to make this a long time viable and prof­it­able business.

Our plans don’t involve char­ging Damien Hirst prices so we can retire to a villa in Anti­bes (although that would be nice). When we set out we wanted to cre­ate afford­able art that we loved. This will remain the same. But you’ll just need a few more pen­nies (oh OK then, you’ll need a few more pounds).

So if you fancy own­ing a won­der­ful and unique piece of art at their cur­rent bril­liant prices, then I’d sug­gest buy­ing your Coulson Macleod before 1^st September.

Our latest typo­graphic col­lec­tion ‘Words’ is now avail­able to buy online at Coulson Macleod.

Coulson Macleod’s oak-framed typo­graphic art. £125

Coulson Macleod’s oak-framed typo­graphic art. £125

Coulson Macleod’s oak-framed typo­graphic art. £125

Our ‘Words’ col­lec­tion is made in the exactly same way as our hugely pop­u­lar ‘Love’ col­lec­tion. Gor­geous chunky hand­made prints. But only half the size, just 29cm x 29cm x 8cm.

We’ve kept the lovely vintage-style, with a rough-sawn solid oak frame sur­round­ing a white-washed oak panel prin­ted with dis­tressed typo­graphy. All hand­made with love in the UK.

Our ‘Words’ col­lec­tion is unlim­ited in print quantity.

For any­one inter­ested in know­ing just what goes into a Coulson Macleod wooden art piece… the oak panel is cut and sanded by hand before being covered with a coat of diluted white lac­quer wash to fill the grain, and then sanded and re-washed with the lac­quer a second time. The panel is then over-printed with UV ink. The mitred frame is hand­made using rough-sawn solid oak with a shadow rebate on the groove. We pur­pose­fully retain any defects in the oak to add to the charm and char­ac­ter of the piece. These can include knot holes, warps and water marks, so each frame is totally unique. The prin­ted panel is then encased into the frame which is then glued and pinned, ready for hanging.

Inspired by a cus­tomer who wanted a ‘Love’ print, but just half the size. And we loved it so much, we just had to cre­ate some more. Let us know if you like them!

Our latest typo­graphic art col­lec­tion ‘Land­marks’ can be per­son­al­ized. And we think this would make a totally superb wed­ding present.

All you need to do is give us a list of words (we use roughly 70 words to make up the ones in our ‘Land­marks’ col­lec­tion pic­tured below).

You could cre­ate one that was based on their hon­ey­moon des­tin­a­tion. Or cre­ate one that focuses on places in their lives together, such as where the couple met, the pub they hang out in — you get the idea.

And we at Coulson Macleod HQ do the rest. We’ll find an image that suits the art­work. The res­ult is a one-off piece of bespoke art­work. A totally per­sonal gift. And you’d be loved by the couple forever!

Per­son­al­ized typo­graphic art­work (£149) based on the above ‘Land­marks’ print (£99)

Per­son­al­ized typo­graphic art­work (£149) based on the above ‘Land­marks’ print (£99)

Per­son­al­ized typo­graphic art­work (£149) based on the above ‘Land­marks’ print (£99)

Your per­son­al­ized art­work based on our ‘Land­marks’ col­lec­tion fea­tures a hand­made frame and pan­elled back­board made from reclaimed antique Vic­torian roof tim­bers. The planks used to make the back­board vary in size for each print and we retain all those lovely defects in the wood to add to the charm and char­ac­ter of the piece. These can include knot holes, nail holes, warps and water marks, so each art­work is totally unique.

The fin­ished item is then over-printed with dis­tressed image and typo­graphy in UV ink.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Bovey Lee felt a spe­cial con­nec­tion to the fad­ing Chinese folk art of paper-cutting. Her work, using impossibly thin rice paper, is obscenely intric­ate and utterly beautiful.

Bovey Lee, “Spine”, 2007

Bovey Lee, “The But­ter­fly Gown”, 2010

Bovey Lee, “Tsunami-Enmeshed”, 2008

Bovey Lee, “Tsunami-Enmeshed”, 2008

Bovey Lee, “Atomic Jelly­fish”, 2007

(pho­tos cour­tesy of Beau­ti­ful Decay)

Bovey is cur­rently a full-time artist based in Pitt­s­burgh. Her works have been exhib­ited at the Brook­lyn Museum of Art;  Museum Belle­rive, Zurich; National Glass Centre, UK; Museum of Fine Arts, Beijing; Fukuoka Museum of Art, Japan; Hong Kong Museum of Art; and Museum Rijswijk, The Netherlands.

Bovey’s art is rep­res­en­ted by Grotto Fine Arts Gal­lery in Hong Kong.

Do visit her web­site to see her enorm­ous col­lec­tion of work. Amazing!

Thought I’d just tot up where in the world we’ve shipped our art to. So aside from the UK, Coulson Macleod prints now hang in homes in the fol­low­ing countries…

Aus­tralia, Canada, Fin­land, France, Ger­many, Greece, India, Ire­land, Italy, Neth­er­lands, New Zea­l­and, Nor­way, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United Arab Emir­ates, and of course from the east to west coast of the USA.

How very, very cool!

Our latest col­lec­tion, ‘Winter Trees’ is now online to buy at Coulson Macleod

‘Thick Blows My Frosty Breath Abroad’

‘Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind’

‘The Roar of Trees and Crack of Branches’

‘Freeze, Freeze Thou Bit­ter Sky’

We’ve hand­made the frame and pan­elled back­board from reclaimed antique Vic­torian roof tim­bers, the same tim­bers that we use for our ‘Zodiac’ frames, because they are just so gor­geous. The planks all vary in size, so no piece is identical.

We then hand paint the boards and over-print it with dis­tressed image and typography.

‘Winter Trees’ is unlim­ited in print quantity.

Coulson Macleod is fea­tured in this month’s issue of Coun­try & Town House magazine.

Coulson Macleod is fea­tured in this month’s issue of Easy Liv­ing Magazine.

Our art­work ‘Love Makes The Ride Worth­while’ is on page 11 on the Editor’s let­ter page. Susie For­bes says, “Finally — this Coulson Macleod panel (£149) with its sweet and poignant mes­sage takes us right back to feel­ing the love — and let’s face it, there’s noth­ing quite like it!”

So thank you very much Susie For­bes, Editor of Easy Liv­ing. You have great taste!

Coulson Macleod can be seen in this month’s issue of Red (not a fea­ture, unfor­tu­nately, but we’ve got a lovely big advert.)

Now we don’t do a great deal of advert­ising, because advert­ising costs lots of money. We’d like to though. We appear monthly in Elle Dec­or­a­tion and Livin­getc. And if you fol­low this blog, you’ll know that we did advert­ise in the Janu­ary issue of Elle.

Our adverts always attract lovely new cus­tom­ers, which is obvi­ously the point. But there is also a part of us that simply loves open­ing a magazine and see­ing ourselves in print!

Last night Coulson Macleod went to the open­ing night of Open 10, the annual open con­tem­por­ary art show that is being held in Kettering’s beau­ti­ful Alfred East Art Gal­lery.

We per­used the 83 selec­ted art­works, nat­ur­ally admir­ing some more than oth­ers, sip­ping our glass of wine. A jolly lovely way to spend an evening.

We blogged about Open 10 last week when we found out that one of our art­works ‘The Six­ties’ had been selec­ted to exhibit and we men­tioned some other artists who had also been selec­ted. So here are few more names to check out (again I can only point you to the artists who have a web­site, and you’d be sur­prised just how many don’t)…

Joanne Archer, Stella Ben­ford, Roger Brad­ley, Craig Bridge­ford, Paul Bursnall, Andree Fletcher, Sarah Kay, Brian Mut­ton, Emma Raby, and War­ren Shaw .

Open 10 is now open to the gen­eral pub­lic and closes on 19^th June. So if you hap­pen to be in the area do pop in and check out the local tal­ent and maybe pick up a piece of con­tem­por­ary art.