Sandwiches

DOUBLEBUTTER BRANDING

So we ordered up this waterjet-cut piece to make a brand for our wood furniture—inside drawer boxes, on the underside of tabletops, on shipping crates, etc.—and of course first thing the Tillmans do is get up on some fences, steps and walls around the neighborhood. The boys are drawn to the ramshackle, adding the small clean graphic to some messy canvasses. They even do a bit of sanding and oiling where appropriate to make the mark pop. We thought this shot was a lovely bit of pastoral in a decaying urban/industrial section of Baker.

CHAIR GRAVEYARD: THE CRANE CHAIR

The Tillman brothers of the Horsehead crating crew certainly have their skills. Sadly, none of them are directly revenue-generating, at least none they bring to bear on our behalf. To wit: Darnell's persistent cataloging of the relics in the chair graveyard behind the shop. Built in aught seven, right around the San Francisco Bay oil spill, this XL Crane Chair is big boned and anchor-like. Note the well-weathered single slat of cowhide upholstery (meant for indoors of course, though cows do seem to be all-weather beasts)—none too shabby for a season of snow, rain, and scorching sun. Thanks Darnell, we'll make sure to file this away in the appropriate location.

ROADRUNNER SHOEFITI: BOSTON (FROM CAMBRIDGE)

Kenny Tillman, Clovis and Darnell's cousin who works as a hand model in Boston, chucked a pair of our Roadrunner sneaker chairs over this stoplight on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, MA and passed along the shots of the done deed. Shown in the background of the photo at right are the Charles River, of course, and the Boston skyline beyond, featuring the John Hancock and Prudential towers. A great day in New England despite a month of gray and damp and cold. Kenny said the day he snapped the shots was the first day he dared unglove the prized mitts for fear of pruning the moneymakers. Look for his handiwork in an upcoming advertorial spread for Jergen's in Good Housekeeping.

ROADRUNNER SHOEFITI: DENVER, 17TH AND WAZEE

The last Denver bit from the first shoefiti outing: 17th and Wazee, with a perfect view of the Union Station facade in the heart of Lower Downtown. The Oxford Hotel is also on the block, a Denver classic with the pimped-out Cruise Room bar on street level and perhaps the finest old-school Denver bathrooms in the basement. Those urinals in the men's room are proper. Across Wazee, just up from Jax (fine oysters if you ask us) is the Urban Villa (no idea what it's really called or who lives there but a mod residence with a sweet roof sculpture garden). The first of the out-of-town throws are up next.

ROADRUNNER SHOEFITI: DENVER, 17TH AND BROADWAY

Here's the second set of photos from our shoefiti outing last weekend with Clovis and Darnell. We hit the corner or 17th and Broadway with this pair, site of the Brown Palace and the Cash Register Building (a.k.a. the Wells Fargo Center), iconic Denver buildings both. By the time we made it down the hill from the Colfax site, Dexter had cooled off a bit; this chuck took a dozen or so attempts. Thankfully Broadway was closed to vehicle traffic south of 17th for Denver PrideFest else poor Clovis would have been flattened while waiting for Dexter to step up and connect.

CHAIR GRAVEYARD: THE CHICKEN CHAIR

Darnell's been out rummaging in the chair graveyard behind the shop, getting into who-knows-what on the DoubleButter dime. Whenever we ask him what he's up to he just mutters at us. Totally unintelligible. After a couple hours spent wandering he finally pulled out this prototype of the Chicken chair, built back in aught six. It never made it to production—not yet anyway. A couple tweaks to the ergonomics, aluminum instead of steel (it's a bit weighty now), and you never know. We'll cycle through images of the other dead relics over the coming weeks.

ROADRUNNER SHOEFITI: DENVER, EAST COLFAX

Check the technique: hold the chairs out wide by the bottom runners, stand directly under the wire and throw straight up, with the string perpendicular to the target. And if you're cash money like Dexter, one toss is all you'll need. But no worries if you miss. The things can take a beating and they're light and flexible enough that they shouldn't cause any damage to objects below, including your coconut.

"ALRECO, THIS IS BOB"

Last Friday we took a field trip with Darnell, Clovis and Hollah Jean out to Alreco, in Henderson, just down the road from the original Tillman homestead. We've been to Alreco before, of course (if you make anything out of aluminum in the Denver area, you've probably been there too), and this time we had Darnell snap a few photos while we corralled Bob into helping us track down the odds and ends we were searching for. Bob is the owner of the jumbled spread, sitting on several million dollars worth of every flavor of aluminum sheet and extrusion imaginable, with a friendly manner, a strange dye-job and an encyclopedic knowledge of all things aluminum. His cataloging and accounting systems defy understanding and if you venture out for a visit in winter prepare to melt in the roasting heat of his wood-fired check-out shed. Anyway, if you're looking for a way to kill an afternoon, call Bob (the cadence of his "Alreco, this is Bob" phone greeting will be stuck in your head forever) and head out to Henderson for a mesmerizing stroll through his aluminum yard. Just don't tell him we sent you.