Tuesday, January 22, 2013

big birthday bauer balls

When I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art with my son at the end of December, I was fascinated by the big Bauer garden orbs featured in the gift shop.

Bauer Pottery Garden Orbs
Bauer Pottery Garden Orbs picture compliments of LA Magazine.

I have a serious thing for Bauer. Bauer was my first foray into eBay in 1998. I was home on maternity leave and eventually wound up on a first name basis with the FedEx guy. These garden orbs at LACMA thrilled me but they were ever so expensive.

How expensive ... ?
8 inch - $75.00
12 inch - $100.00
15 inch - $150.00

No es bueno. I did my usual nosing about to see if someone was selling these beautiful ceramic balls on eBay, or reselling on Craigslist. I got lucky! Bauer was having an end of year seconds sale. The balls were listed for $53, $70 and $105 respectively. Impulsively I started clicking. eBay has gotten me into big furniture trouble before. You think I would have learned.

boxes
What a bad, bad girl.

The color choices were limited in the seconds. If I had my way, I would have gotten exactly the group above. Instead, I got two turquoise and a yellow for the re-landscaped strip of garden behind the new bathrooms.

Bauer Garden Orbs


I think the discount made the color choice limitation worthwhile. And honestly, the seconds part is absolutely no problem. Sure the ceramic color may be a little uneven and the big ball has a bit of a rough spot. But the orbs are outside for heaven's sake. The balls add that mid-century modern punch to the garden I was looking for.

Bauer Garden Orbs
Bauer garden orbs in turquoise and yellow. 

And they kind of go with the turquoise blue fountain.

Bauer Garden Orbs
Bauer garden orbs and fountain.


Bauer Garden Orbs
Bauer garden balls from the rear (haha). 

Sunset Magazine put the orbs on the cover during the launch year in 2008. Sunset liked the turquoise too.

Bauer garden orbs sunset cover
Bauer Garden Orbs, Sunset Cover image from BauerPottery.com

Silly balls. I kind of dig em. Get on the mailing list at bauerpottery.com and watch for sales. Or, if you can't wait, order now. Additionally, the site mentions a showroom sale in Los Angeles, CA. I bet they sell seconds out of the showroom. Update: Rob Takata from Bauer Pottery dropped me a line: 
Since it sounds like you may be local here in Southern California, I just wanted to confirm your suspicions that we do host a monthly seconds sale March through September and then our Holiday Sale in December out of our Los Angeles showroom. Visit our Showroom Sale page.

Bauer Garden Orbs


And speaking of mid-century modern birthdays (ahem). Mom made me a card. Shoes and bright GREEN. A winner for sure.



And she picked out this cool book, Julius Shulman: Modernism Rediscovered.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3836503263/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=3836503263&linkCode=as2&tag=midcencom-20

I love Shulman's iconic photo... of Case Study House #22.

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8 comments:

  1. President Obama had two balls in honor of his inauguration. It's only fitting that you have three.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, it was a special day indeed. Never in my life have I had a Presidential Inauguration and MLK Day on my birthday. AND nice pun on balls. :)

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  2. Happy Birthday! The balls are beautiful ;)
    Seriously, great choice - and I love the landscaping. It all comes together.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aren't those balls big & beautiful? I wish the rest of our landscape looked like this. Seriously, this perfect piece is about 1/10 of the entire yard. I don't even know how to begin attacking the rest. Boo. Never ending cycle of home improvement.

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  3. The colors work perfectly. Like you planned it that way. Cool garden.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, thanks for the positive feedback. The color was necessity via limited choices. :)

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  4. I like the combination of colours and they are so shiny!

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    Replies
    1. They are very cheerful out in the garden. They are right outside my bedroom window so they make me smile every morning.

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