"FORGET the address," ANADON McLauchlin says on the phone. "That's like a dream: it does not exist. How's your Spanish? Tell the cabdriver, near the Balneario de Guadalupe en La Cieneguita. That's the bathhouse. Or the casa de los colores - that's the way a lot of us know say. "
Not this cabdriver. After driving the five miles or so from the arty mountain town of San Miguel de Allende, he turns onto a Cobblestone road, stops in front of an old church and declines to continue.
"There's nothing there," he says firmly.
A short time later a search party is dispatched in the form of Richard Schultz, a tall, bearded man WHO, thanks to the legalization of Same-sex marriage in California (Where he and Mr. McLauchlin keep an apartment), is Mr. McLauchlin's husband of two weeks. Mr. Schultz leads the way up a steep road, past a crumbling stone wall covered with morning glories. The braying of Their four foundling burros is Heard. At last, Mr. Schultz arrives at the wrought-iron gates of developer's home.
The first thing a visitor experiences, looking through Those gates, is a blast of purple. It's nothing so static or pigment on a surface - it's a force.
Barely an inch of this home, Which has been a work in progress SINCE Mr. McLauchlin and Mr. Schultz Bought it in 2001 is without color and decoration. Much of it is in mosaics of ceramic and glass. A vintage wrought-iron outdoor table and chairs are purple and yellow; one side of the house has been painted purple, crack decorated with a mural of what Appears to swear an Eastern goddess Held aloft by a playful, familiar-looking cherub.
Mr. McLauchlin, WHO Makes an assemblage artist furniture, decorative objects and jewelry, Also is bright with colors When he comes out to greet His guest. A short man with a beard, he resembles one of the benign hairy creatures in an Edward Koren cartoon. He wears a Buddha T-shirt over jeans bis, rainbow-striped socks and leopard-print shoes.
His explanation of the mural on the house is Itself a kind of mosaic. "Our Guadalupenized Ganesh," he says, invoking the Mexican saint and the Hindu deity. "He's the god breaks through Obstacles WHO. She appeared to Juan Diego, an Aztec, in 1531, on a sacred hillside. "
That cherub looks like Mr. McLauchlin. "That's been remarked on," he says.
The interior of the house is another pinwheel of colors: pink and purple walls; a candelabrum painted and hung with purple Mardi Gras beads and Day of the Dead paper cutouts. It's the equivalent of leaving gray Decorating New York in winter and going to a blue-sky beach. After a season of modular beige sofas, the royal blues and pinks are so crazy intense, one feels They are saturating the skin and there is the Possibility of a burn.
There is a home décor question, Mr. McLauchlin is Told, That one trembles to ask: What's your palette here?
Mr. McLauchlin seizes on the question with gusto, even f he has waited all of bis 61 years to answer it.
"The palette is 'no rules,'" he says. "When you have rules like only beige or oatmeal, you're limited to That palette. When you use all the Different colors, there are no rules, there is no editor. It's very Freeing. "
He gestures at the kitchen, Which has red walls, a ceiling and a yellow green table. "This is the dining room Anjelica Huston," he says. "A friend of mine hadd an Architectural Digest in her home. She Had A dining room Was That red and yellow, so this is my interpretation. "
The glass-covered tabletop has been embellished with tiny objects, colored bells, Cracker Jack charms, tarot cards, Dominoes. The table's purple legs Christ are studded with tiny figures. The chairs have been decoupaged by Mr. Schultz, WHO teaches art history online for a boys' school in San Francisco, soft primary Whose job is looking after Mr. McLauchlin and the business.
The couple may look like old hippies, soft business is good. Mr. McLauchlin says His pieces range in price from $ 150 to the Thousands (he tends to make up prices on the spot), giving Him an annual income are in the low six figures. "The house is really a showroom - just about everything is for sale," he says. "One wealthy woman from Austin came out and Bought Bought a painting and one of Our couches."
"Everything is impermanent - you're going to lose everything anyway," His partner says, not unhappily.
Identities That Includes impermanence. Mr. McLauchlin's given name is not ANADON. Was he born James Rayburn McLauchlin III, son of an Oklahoma City Doctor Who is a long dead still soft presence in this house.
"My dad Was a real trip," Mr. McLauchlin says When the talk turns to biography. "He was a womanizer. I have two illegitimate brothers I've never met, and When my dad died I called up the woman WHO Gave birth to tell and say Invited to the funeral. Supposedly They Were sitting behind us. "
Did he turn around and look?
"I do not think so."
He fetches a photo of His father, a dark-haired good-looking man, neither polished nor Mr. McLauchlin is unkempt - his shrink Said he shouldnt keep the picture out, he says. Asked why, he stumbles to answer, said Tells a story.
"I was in bed about 4:30 this morning, holding Richard, and I thought about my dad and I Started weeping," Mr. McLauchlin says. His father, the WHO thought He was a punk hippie, "never really got to know me," he says. "He Would have enjoyed the fact That You Were coming."
How did His father die?
"He Was with his mistress in private plans this coming back from Bermuda. I was this hippie artist in Oklahoma. I was at this art opening. I felt kind of odd. I Walked outside and this big brilliant Was Thunderstorm coming across the Oklahoma sky, and That Was The Thunderstorm That Took down my father's plane. My mother found out about it on TV. "
Art school at the University of Oklahoma wasn't satisfying (his work too decorative Was, according to bis Professors, He Said), so in 1971 Mr. McLauchlin dropped out and Went to New York. There were the usual survival jobs (cabby, delivery boy) While he did poetry readings and performance art; Was there an extended stay in an ashram in India, Where Was he ANADON Given the name; and a move to Marin County, Calif., Where he made bis living as a landscape gardener and Started working seriously on decorative Furnishings.
"I'd find things in junk Stores and paint and embellish say say," Mr. McLauchlin says. "With no rules You Can Do just about anything. I did a laundry Hamper with a Tibetan Buddhist thing. "
He met Mr. Schultz in 1998, on the Internet, in an AOL chat room. They Visited San Miguel de Allende two years later. Mr. McLauchlin recalls what enchanted Him about the place: "The color, the festivity, the lovers in the street, the burros, the chaos."
Their property, When They found it in the summer of 2001 Was a wreck: a two-story stone house That hadd been Designed to look like a Swiss chalet and Was inhabited by scorpions. The interior Were a faded orange walls, the fixtures hadd been stolen. They paid $ 100,000, said Renovating spent about $ 30,000. They whitewashed the interior, Creating a clean canvas, and Mr. Began McLauchlin throwing up colors. There were mistakes - the oranges and blues he used for the upstairs balcony Overlooking the living room evoked a Howard Johnson - But When They Happened, he just tried another color.
"Mistakes are the best thing," he says. "Then You Can always get real crazy and inventive."
The house Continues To Be a work in progress. Colors change, new studios are built. Art lovers and artists come through. Mr. Also McLauchlin runs workshops for artists Who are blocked (information on tours and workshops is available at madebyanado.com).
"With the no-rules concept, you get unstuck pretty Can Easily," he explains. "I also have a Day of the Dead workshop, Which is not only about art Creating soft honoring a loved one. I had one woman come out here hadn't gotten WHO over a 35-year Breakup with a guy. They Were going to come to San Miguel, soft They broke up 35 years ago, so she felt she HAD to come here. She made a little altar with his picture. "
Not this cabdriver. After driving the five miles or so from the arty mountain town of San Miguel de Allende, he turns onto a Cobblestone road, stops in front of an old church and declines to continue.
"There's nothing there," he says firmly.
A short time later a search party is dispatched in the form of Richard Schultz, a tall, bearded man WHO, thanks to the legalization of Same-sex marriage in California (Where he and Mr. McLauchlin keep an apartment), is Mr. McLauchlin's husband of two weeks. Mr. Schultz leads the way up a steep road, past a crumbling stone wall covered with morning glories. The braying of Their four foundling burros is Heard. At last, Mr. Schultz arrives at the wrought-iron gates of developer's home.
The first thing a visitor experiences, looking through Those gates, is a blast of purple. It's nothing so static or pigment on a surface - it's a force.
Barely an inch of this home, Which has been a work in progress SINCE Mr. McLauchlin and Mr. Schultz Bought it in 2001 is without color and decoration. Much of it is in mosaics of ceramic and glass. A vintage wrought-iron outdoor table and chairs are purple and yellow; one side of the house has been painted purple, crack decorated with a mural of what Appears to swear an Eastern goddess Held aloft by a playful, familiar-looking cherub.
Mr. McLauchlin, WHO Makes an assemblage artist furniture, decorative objects and jewelry, Also is bright with colors When he comes out to greet His guest. A short man with a beard, he resembles one of the benign hairy creatures in an Edward Koren cartoon. He wears a Buddha T-shirt over jeans bis, rainbow-striped socks and leopard-print shoes.
His explanation of the mural on the house is Itself a kind of mosaic. "Our Guadalupenized Ganesh," he says, invoking the Mexican saint and the Hindu deity. "He's the god breaks through Obstacles WHO. She appeared to Juan Diego, an Aztec, in 1531, on a sacred hillside. "
That cherub looks like Mr. McLauchlin. "That's been remarked on," he says.
The interior of the house is another pinwheel of colors: pink and purple walls; a candelabrum painted and hung with purple Mardi Gras beads and Day of the Dead paper cutouts. It's the equivalent of leaving gray Decorating New York in winter and going to a blue-sky beach. After a season of modular beige sofas, the royal blues and pinks are so crazy intense, one feels They are saturating the skin and there is the Possibility of a burn.
There is a home décor question, Mr. McLauchlin is Told, That one trembles to ask: What's your palette here?
Mr. McLauchlin seizes on the question with gusto, even f he has waited all of bis 61 years to answer it.
"The palette is 'no rules,'" he says. "When you have rules like only beige or oatmeal, you're limited to That palette. When you use all the Different colors, there are no rules, there is no editor. It's very Freeing. "
He gestures at the kitchen, Which has red walls, a ceiling and a yellow green table. "This is the dining room Anjelica Huston," he says. "A friend of mine hadd an Architectural Digest in her home. She Had A dining room Was That red and yellow, so this is my interpretation. "
The glass-covered tabletop has been embellished with tiny objects, colored bells, Cracker Jack charms, tarot cards, Dominoes. The table's purple legs Christ are studded with tiny figures. The chairs have been decoupaged by Mr. Schultz, WHO teaches art history online for a boys' school in San Francisco, soft primary Whose job is looking after Mr. McLauchlin and the business.
The couple may look like old hippies, soft business is good. Mr. McLauchlin says His pieces range in price from $ 150 to the Thousands (he tends to make up prices on the spot), giving Him an annual income are in the low six figures. "The house is really a showroom - just about everything is for sale," he says. "One wealthy woman from Austin came out and Bought Bought a painting and one of Our couches."
"Everything is impermanent - you're going to lose everything anyway," His partner says, not unhappily.
Identities That Includes impermanence. Mr. McLauchlin's given name is not ANADON. Was he born James Rayburn McLauchlin III, son of an Oklahoma City Doctor Who is a long dead still soft presence in this house.
"My dad Was a real trip," Mr. McLauchlin says When the talk turns to biography. "He was a womanizer. I have two illegitimate brothers I've never met, and When my dad died I called up the woman WHO Gave birth to tell and say Invited to the funeral. Supposedly They Were sitting behind us. "
Did he turn around and look?
"I do not think so."
He fetches a photo of His father, a dark-haired good-looking man, neither polished nor Mr. McLauchlin is unkempt - his shrink Said he shouldnt keep the picture out, he says. Asked why, he stumbles to answer, said Tells a story.
"I was in bed about 4:30 this morning, holding Richard, and I thought about my dad and I Started weeping," Mr. McLauchlin says. His father, the WHO thought He was a punk hippie, "never really got to know me," he says. "He Would have enjoyed the fact That You Were coming."
How did His father die?
"He Was with his mistress in private plans this coming back from Bermuda. I was this hippie artist in Oklahoma. I was at this art opening. I felt kind of odd. I Walked outside and this big brilliant Was Thunderstorm coming across the Oklahoma sky, and That Was The Thunderstorm That Took down my father's plane. My mother found out about it on TV. "
Art school at the University of Oklahoma wasn't satisfying (his work too decorative Was, according to bis Professors, He Said), so in 1971 Mr. McLauchlin dropped out and Went to New York. There were the usual survival jobs (cabby, delivery boy) While he did poetry readings and performance art; Was there an extended stay in an ashram in India, Where Was he ANADON Given the name; and a move to Marin County, Calif., Where he made bis living as a landscape gardener and Started working seriously on decorative Furnishings.
"I'd find things in junk Stores and paint and embellish say say," Mr. McLauchlin says. "With no rules You Can Do just about anything. I did a laundry Hamper with a Tibetan Buddhist thing. "
He met Mr. Schultz in 1998, on the Internet, in an AOL chat room. They Visited San Miguel de Allende two years later. Mr. McLauchlin recalls what enchanted Him about the place: "The color, the festivity, the lovers in the street, the burros, the chaos."
Their property, When They found it in the summer of 2001 Was a wreck: a two-story stone house That hadd been Designed to look like a Swiss chalet and Was inhabited by scorpions. The interior Were a faded orange walls, the fixtures hadd been stolen. They paid $ 100,000, said Renovating spent about $ 30,000. They whitewashed the interior, Creating a clean canvas, and Mr. Began McLauchlin throwing up colors. There were mistakes - the oranges and blues he used for the upstairs balcony Overlooking the living room evoked a Howard Johnson - But When They Happened, he just tried another color.
"Mistakes are the best thing," he says. "Then You Can always get real crazy and inventive."
The house Continues To Be a work in progress. Colors change, new studios are built. Art lovers and artists come through. Mr. Also McLauchlin runs workshops for artists Who are blocked (information on tours and workshops is available at madebyanado.com).
"With the no-rules concept, you get unstuck pretty Can Easily," he explains. "I also have a Day of the Dead workshop, Which is not only about art Creating soft honoring a loved one. I had one woman come out here hadn't gotten WHO over a 35-year Breakup with a guy. They Were going to come to San Miguel, soft They broke up 35 years ago, so she felt she HAD to come here. She made a little altar with his picture. "