Captain’s Letter | 002
Bold art and old stuff aren’t at odds. In this house, they’re roommates. And honestly, they get along great.
What belongs together: pop art & the past.
My great grandmother’s end table is in my dining room. It’s small, it wobbles a little/lot, and it once held a rotary phone. Now, depending on the day, it it holds a resin-slicked pop art piece I made last season, a coffee maker because the kitchen got a little crowded, or even a stack of materials for nautical flags in acid pink and bay blue I want to make!
That table doesn’t mind. In fact, I think it likes the company.
I live in a house built in 1706. The floorboards talk back when you walk across them. There are nails in the walls from art rotated in and out for over 300 years. And yet every time I hang something new, especially something bold and graphic, it feels like I’m continuing the conversation, not disrupting it.
That’s the thing no one tells you about pop art: it doesn’t need a white cube gallery or minimalist loft. It thrives in spaces that have lived a little. It belongs next to your father’s second-grade class photo and your mother’s vintage postcards. It doesn’t replace the past, it refreshes it.
My work is full of color, yes, and plenty of cheek. But it’s also made with an eye toward history. Yours, mine, our coastal histories. Pop art in a home like this one isn’t rebellion, it’s rhythm. It’s how we tell stories across generations, one image at a time. At one time a camera was pretty shocking new technology, as were new colors, new design movements, really new anything.
So if you’ve ever wondered whether something that bright or that bold could live alongside your grandmother’s oil painting or that tiny sailboat trophy your mother-in-law gave you when she was cleaning out your husband’s stuff she saved, the answer is yes. Not only can it live there, it just might make everything else sing a little louder.
Captain’s Orders:
Mix the old and the new this week.
Rehang a wall. Restyle a shelf. Let your history and your humor share space. Snap a photo if you do, I’d love to see how you live with it. Be sure to tag me on instagram @ashley_lippincott so I can see it!
Captain’s Letter | 001
Sometimes an art piece isn’t quite enough. Sometimes there’s more to say—more video, more behind-the-scenes, more stories that don’t fit on a wall but still belong in the world. That’s what the Sailor’s Desk is for.
Let’s start here.
That’s me in the striped shorts, surrounded by my sailing sisters (minus Irene who was in CT at the time and Christina who arrived moments after this jump). I’m Ashley. An artist, sailor, maker of bags, and the person behind Lippincott’s. I started the Sailor’s Desk because sometimes a photo or an art piece isn’t quite enough. Sometimes there’s more to say. More video to show. More details that aren’t art for the walls but are too good not to share.
This space is where I’ll gather those in-between moments, the process, the places, the inspiration behind it all. It’s where the bags meet the shoulders, where the ideas stretch a little further, and where I get to write things down before they float away.
It won’t always be polished. But it will be real and rooted in the same spirit that guides everything I make: stay awhile. Look closer. Be curious.
This is just the beginning.
To bags, to boats, to burgee-shaped ideas that become more than the sum of their stitches. Cheers!
photo credit: another sailing sister and amazing photographer, Jennifer Walker