From the Scrap Heap

Here are some ads I wrote for Kallista, a maker of very high end bathroom fixtures. Most of the ads in this category are just huge, beautiful product shots and a short line about how this sink in the greatest sink in the history of sinks. In an effort to stand out among those ads, I wanted mine to instead emphasize the process and pleasure of making an inspired fixture selection. Of finding just the perfect sconce lighting or bathtub.

These were never art directed or shown to the client. I was told they were "too dense." 

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PART NUMBER 21476-00 

The Vir Stil Minimal Ceiling Shower Dome 

designed by Laura Kirar. As the name implies, 

it attaches to the ceiling and the water rains

down from above you, as it would if you one 

afternoon found yourself in a forest, a remote 

forest that's not on a map yet, and it started to 

rain, and you twirled around in the rain until 

your clothes were soaked through, realizing 

the whole time that 

twirling around in the rain is usually not acceptable 

in an anti-twirling world like ours.

But no one can stop you because no one is 

here to stop you, but just to be sure, step over 

to the ledge and yell (into the void, if possible), 

"STAY AWAY, CARTOGRAPHERS. Keep your 

compasses and distressed parchment and visions 

of colonization away from me. Don't look at those 

stars. THOSE STARS ARE MINE NOW."

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PART NUMBER P30921-00

The Tuxedo Wall Sconce designed by Barbara Berry.

Attached to the wall, it cups its light like a candle in 

the hands of a guide. "This way, please," the guide 

says in whatever voice you imagine your bathroom 

to possess, maybe something cultured, maybe British 

(tinged with the tropical lilt of St. Barthes), and pulls 

back a fern frond to reveal a white sandy beach, empty 

and unspoiled: "Follow me and I will flatter you endlessly, 

I'll fawn over you,

I will show you a rainbow 

on the skin of a bubble."

And you do, because the proposition is pleasing, 

and because an accent like that is difficult to refuse.

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PART NUMBER P22683-CR

The Barbara Barry Wall Diverter Trim, Cross Handle. 

Its shape recalls the wheels of a 1954 Gullwing Mercedes

in some grainy old film with washed-out color. Perfectly 

imperfect. We'll switch camera angles now, and watch our 

driver and our passenger share some witty banter as a

mountain road uncurls too quickly behind them. It's still 

new, this romance, yes very new, and there's something 

illicit about it, you can tell by the thickness of the meaning 

in their glances, maybe there's an overbearing steel maven 

father who wants her to marry someone more like 

the up-and-coming VP with the talent 

for selecting the most dominant necktie.

Not this joker in the fancy car. People will talk. They will talk 

their heads off about it, but these two will drive, and laugh at 

their own jokes, and leave miles of winding mountain roads 

behind them.

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