Wild inside: decorating your house for the holidays is as easy as foraging in your own backyard

Bits & bits

Driftwood arrangementbambooGetting to ClementBe careful weaving through the piles of delicate antique plates stacked inside Period George--a mostly used (but carefully curated) stash of English bone china, dessert wineglasses, and teacups for every time of day. Puts anything your grandma might leave you to shame. 7 Clement St.; 415/752-1900.TabletopPROJECTS BY STUDIO CHOO | PHOTOGRAPHS BY THOMAS J. STORYA large portion of work at POP Gallery falls into the New Brow movement. Often darker, New Brow art draws inspiration from underground comics, tattoos and body art, album cover art, illustration and animation."The pop art collector is a person who likes figurative work," Nelder says. "Figurative work will always have a place in people's home because it's very comprehensible, but also because people are able to project themselves into it."12 other items we love to forageSince its inception, pop art has gained momentum as pop culture has become more invasive. Modern pop art takes its cues from reality television, comic books, graffiti and more. The results are a mix of serious and light hearted, dark and uplifting, and the common link is pop culture that feeds the artists.Warhol's now iconic painting of a Campbell's soup can, Lichtenstein's comic strip inspired works and hundreds of pop pieces by the likes of Peter Max, LeRoy Nei-man and others turned the ordinary and everyday into something worthy of art, or as Nelder says, made them into heroes.Britto's work depicts everything from animals mid-stride to couples in an intimate embrace to crowds united in love, all rendered in intense colors. Companies and organizations around the world have commissioned Britto, including Absolut Vodka, the International Federation of Association Football and numerous children's hospitals and museums.seed tassels from grasses like Miscanthus or Pennisetum"We are very focused on helping young people come to decisions that are emotional," Jaffe says. "They see a piece of art and have a visceral reaction in front of it. When that happens, they were all on the same page and then a much broader education can come in ... When somebody has an emotional relationship to a piece of art, you can help them have that experience over and over again."With an endless supply of subject matter, new technology and young collectors hungry for a new interpretation of their culture, pop art continues to thrive, putting new twists on the everyday reality.1. Prettiest flower shop on the block4. A store-size china cabinetColorful, crammed, community-minded, and with no room for a cafe, Thidwick Books (11 Clement St.; 415/831-1600) reminds you what bookstores used to be. As does indie-to-the-core Green Apple (506 Clement; 415/387-2272), a few blocks away.cactusThe American pop art movement began in the late 1950s. In a period of heightened consumerism and pervasive pop culture, artists like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschen-berg, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol took everyday items and threw them back in the faces of the very people who interacted with them every day, giving them new meaning.PHOTOGRAPHS BY RACHEL WEILLJeff Jaffe, owner and curator of Pop International in New York City with Rick Rounick, made it his goal to educate these new collectors when they opened the gallery 13 years ago. By nurturing young collectors, Jaffe says he builds relationships for life.

PROJECTS BY STUDIO CHOO | PHOTOGRAPHS BY THOMAS J. STORY

Author: Miranda Jones