A wall of chevron printed heavyweight cotton upholstery fabrics at Mood Designer Fabrics in New York. Photo courtesy Julie Sandy
Chevrons, Zig Zags and Flame patterns. Do you know the difference?
Thanks to Missoni for Target zigzags have given the trusted, tried and true stripe new life. But not every up-and-down pattern is a zigzag. People use words like chevron and flame. Let’s clear the confusion. Continue reading
The clock on the left was designed by furniture and industrial designer Gilbert Rohde. It was created in 1933 for the Herman Miller Clock Company, and is made of polished chromium and black Carrara glass. On the right is the “Anywhere” lamp, designed by Greta von Nessen in 1951, so called because it could be mounted to a wall, suspended from a ceiling, or used on a table. Stamp copyright 2010, United States Postal Service
These stamps look so good you might stop sending email!
Just about the time you’ve used up the last of your Charles and Ray Eames USPS postage stamps, the US Postal Service has come to your aesthetic rescue with their latest stylish offering: The Pioneers of American Industrial Design. What else would you use to mail those gorgeous invitations to your groovy new design launch?
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Scott Jordan is digging for buried treasure in some of the most unlikely places. For 35 years he’s spent his days waist-deep in abandoned, century-old privies and the garbage dumps of yore. A self-described ‘urban archeologist’, this native New Yorker spends his spare time sifting through many layered New York backyards, under the city’s sidewalks and in the chaos of construction sites. For him, this is not just a hobby but a passion, and a moral mission to preserve as much of New York’s past as possible. Using only a shovel and a metal detector, sometimes working in the dead of night, he has uncovered thousands of mundane, once tossed cultural objects such as bottles, marbles, bits of pottery, all now rendered precious through the lens of history.
An artist in his own right, Jordan creates collages with his found objects and sells them at local NYC open-air markets.
Mark Sfirri, Rejects from the Bat Factory, 1996, mahogany, curly maple, cherry, zebrawood, cocobolo, lacewood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Fleur and Charles Bresler in honor of Kenneth R. Trapp, curator-in-charge of the Renwick Gallery (1995-2003)
Fleur Bresler approaches a tall, shelved wall in her home where a fraction of her collection is housed, “This is not a museum. Almost every item we have can be picked up, can be touched… can be moved and can be felt.” She reaches over and lovingly handles one of the countless wood objects for which she has now become known. The grain and lustre of the piece looks as though it was simply made to be handled. Bresler jokes, “My husband says I must cease and desist… so I’ve started buying very small pieces. It takes him longer to find them.” Continue reading
Turkish Taste at the Court of Marie-Antoinette
French, eighteenth century, Small Console Table with Supporting Figures of Nubians (one of a pair), c.1780, gilded and painted wood and marble slab, 34 1/8 x 34 3/4 inches, The Frick Collection, New York; photo: Michael Bodycomb
By the late eighteenth century, France had long been fascinated by the Ottoman empire. Trade with Turkish territories had gone on for centuries, bringing precious velvets, brocades, carpets, arabesque-decorated leathers and metalwork to the Continent. In the fall of 1776, a performance of Mustapha and Zeangir, a tragedy in five acts by Sebastien-Roch Chamford that played in Paris, seems to have launched a taste for interiors à la Turc or “in the Turkish style.” Continue reading
Facing Four Times Square III pastel on paper; 18"x 12", 2009
Great art shows us beauty that is often overlooked. It teaches us to see our everyday world with new eyes. Pamela Lawton has done just that, showing us a view of the city we may not have noticed; the endless reflections of one glass building onto another. “Liquid City”, a series of paintings that captures this phenomenon, is fluid, undulating, colorful and alive. The work is both emotional and musical, as the colors seem to waver with emotion. “Most tourists experience the city from the street level. They’re interested in street events,” says Lawton. Continue reading