natural curiosities
Emily Oster
One of my absolute favorite vendors from Market was Natural Curiosities. Started by Christopher Wilcox in 2005, Natural Curiosities is an art production house based in LA. Wilcox, a former antiquarian book dealer from London, started the company with only "curiosity boxes" - a boxed selection of marine life - and has since grown the business to include a collection of 75,000 images with 350 pieces created a week. Using digital design as well as hand techniques, Wilcox's team of artisans manipulates antique prints and images enlarging and framing them for sale to the trade and most recently direct to consumers. I love the selection of images but what I think really makes their prints unique is their framing. Using three styles of framing - straight framed, floated and floated space shadowbox - the old imagery is made modern. I especially like the floated, in which deckle-edged paper hovers above a linen substrate, and the floated space shadowbox - in which the paper is recessed back away from the frame creating a shadowbox that is lined with linen (floated pictured below).
Seeing the images online really doesn't do justice to them and unfortunately the showroom lighting was not ideal but below are some images I took as well as some of my favorite prints.
