HUNTOPIA - Catalog - Page 32
T H O R N TO N
The vignettes in HUNTOPIA are a combination of high art, Victorian-era treasures, and an array of
miscellaneous decor. When you’re acquiring objects, how do you know what will work in a scene?
SLO N E M
If I’m acquiring it, it’s gonna work. It’s a matter of intuition, channeled guidance. I mean there’s a reason for
everything. It’s not random.
T H O R N TO N
Can you tell me about your affinity for the Victorian era?
SLO N E M
Well, I just adored Queen Victoria—still do—and I suppose it all started because it was available. You know,
earlier periods of things were not. And there were other things, like in Hawaii—Queen Lili‘uokalani’s
palace was filled with Neo-Gothic furniture. So, all these different movements. And “Victorian furniture” is
not really a good term. Victorian furniture spans … Neo-Grec, Gothic Revival, Elizabethan Revival—it’s a
whole group of revivals which is kind of the origin of “modernism”: the first time anybody looked backwards
and took the best of influences of all these other earlier periods. People just love to call things Victorian,
but actually there’s a tremendous amount of variety in that term. It spans such a long period of time.
I’m particularly fond of Gothic Revival, and I didn’t realize that influence might have come from Hawaii.
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