Tag: Mint Market

Pictures from an exhibition

PLACE table, D.I.S.D. chair, and painting by Matthew Broussard

 Matthew Broussard’s press preview event at GWEP public&media relations new space, Guendalina bla bla was a great success, here are a few images (courtesy of Davide Campi) from the exhibition which will be open to the public for the first time today from 3:00 to 7:00 pm – click on the address below for a map:

Sculptural Lamp and MINT shelves (on loan from Mint Market, courtesy of Renato Baldini) by Matthew Broussard

To read an article about Matthew published in La Stampa in Italian or English, click HERE.

Limited edition bla bla torchiere and cedar-plank with steel book shelf by Matthew Broussard.

Matthew makes the news…in a good way!

La Stampa di Torino, 
Venerdi 23 Marzo 2012 (p 27).
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Friday, 23 March 2012 – Page 27

translated by: Bonnie McClellan
 
Matthew Broussard
The American who lives near Lago Maggiore, with one of the shelving units that he’ll be presenting at the Fuorisalone during Milan’s design week.
At the 2012 Fuorisalone taking place during Milan’s design week in April, he’ll bring a low table, a storage system, an original bookshelf, light and yet demonstrating a complex equilibrium between positive and negative space.
Matthew Broussard – not quite fifty, born in Louisiana and raised in Dallas with a BA in sculpture from Baltimore and happily transplanted to Gemonio, near Lago Maggiore – likes working with elm wood, a material rarely used. In Italy since 1991, he has moved easily between land art, such as his installation in the bed of the Taglimento river, to fine art and has a passion for functional objects, as long as they have a unique character.
He explains that he enjoys materials with a life of their own, he likes to contemplate, imagine, and transform found objects. The surface of one of his tables includes a paving stone from a Tuscan piazza. There are no borders, according to him, between artist and craftsman: there is a special relationship with nature, the pleasure of ‘considering’ things and making them.

Flowers…and more flowers!

portrait of a lady 
Jan Joseph van Goyen

Had a great birthday weekend in Milan! The city has so much to offer even if it’s spread out from one neighbourhood to another. After our trip to the Pinacoteca di Brera where I got an eyeful of wonderful paintings. Matthew did most of the  girl wrangling so that I could look in peace while she had a tour of fancy chairs with velvet cushions. Some of the most engaging paintings were the smallest; I loved the portraits by an unknown Venetian painter that were over to the side of the door in room 20. Trying to look at a notebook sized painting by Brueghel, I had to keep slipping my glasses up and down to see it, I really felt like an old lady! Next to it was this jewel of a Dutch seascape:

After the museum we stopped for a glass of wine and then went on to see our friend Renato at Mint Market, the beautiful home/beauty/flower store for which Matthew designed the furnishings. Renato was just finishing up with some customers so we ordered aperetivi from the bar down the street (one of the pleasures of the city is that, if they know you, the local bar will deliver cocktails down the street to where you are). While we were waiting, Matthew said, “Did you see that bouquet of white flowers?” pointing to a stunning arrangement of roses, broom, miniature lilies and fresia that was as big as our daughter. As we walked over to admire them he said, “Those are for your birthday.” I felt like an actress who’d just won an Oscar without having done anything to deserve it!

My birthday bouquet from Mint Market

 As a testimony to the quality of the flowers at Mint Market, these survived being carried through the very crowded Milanese metro three times, a night in a warm apartment and a 2 hour train ride before I took this picture!
Mint Market’s owner, Renato Baldini, is a truly lovely person. He gave my daughter Robin Kay a splendid bouquet of sunset coloured runculus so that she would feel special too:

Robin’s Runculus and my Cake

Then he let her help carry the flowers in before closing the store. He also gave me this elegant hyacinth so that now the whole house feels like spring right in the midst of winter.

Hyacinth bulb waiting to open