Monday, Jun. 06, 2011
Catalog Living
On one level, Molly Erdman's Tumblr blog Catalog Living is humor at its most minimalist. Erdman borrows photos of elaborately decorated but uninhabited rooms from catalogs — Pottery Barn and West Elm are two favorites — and republishes them with brief, silly captions. But Erdman's unseen protagonists, Gary and Elaine of 1234 Fake St. in Anytown, U.S.A., are surprisingly well defined by all those tacky pictures of their imaginary home. Last December, the site's popularity led to a spin-off, Curbed.com's Magazine Living. It chronicles the life of Martin and Gareth, who inhabit a world consisting entirely of photos from shelter pubs like Architectural Digest.