Hasta La Ideas

2011 has been a hard year. Global Revolution! Natural disasters! Bankruptcy! What’s next? We’re not hedging bets for 2012 just yet, but in case things don’t turn out the way you’d expected, we’ve got you covered. Core77’s Ultimate Gift Guide has everything you need to get through these hard times and survive through the… end times?

Today’s pick is from Hand-Eye Supply: One part vocational haberdashery, one part supply store and one part gallery, Hand-Eye Supply is Core77’s Portland, Oregon retail flagship. The store features hard-to-find workwear, supplies, tools, books and gifts for creative-types.

Survive Outdoors Longer’s (SOL) “Survival Blanket” is exactly what it promises: its space-age “vacuum-metalized polyethylene” reflects 90% of body heat and resists shredding. But Survive Outdoors Longer has gone the extra mile by brilliantly printed wilderness survival tips directly on to the blanket… so if you do manage to survive (outdoors) long enough to make it back indoors, you can keep it for future reference.

See the full gift guide HERE.

A special Thank You to this year’s Gift Guide sponsor: Felt & Wire Shop offering a selection of curated paper goods direct from designers.

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Dezeen Wire: design critic Justin McGuirk says that a kitchen concept by Dutch electrical company Philips that uses decomposition to generate methane gas for cooking is an example of how we may “have to get more comfortable with bacteria and with putrefaction’s role in our ecosystem” – The Guardian

McGuirk claims the Microbial kitchen concept‘s “steampunk” aesthetic offers “an alternative vision to the clinical kitchen,” and also mentions the trend for low-tech kitchen appliances, such as designer Christoph Thetard’s pedal-powered devices, which he says represent a reaction to the impending energy crisis.

Last year Dezeen published a report on Food and Design, including examples of low-tech gadgets for preserving and preparing ingredients and concepts for growing food in the kitchen.

Today’s post is written by Sally Jacobs, the Practical Archivist. She has worked on archival collections at the Library of Congress Prints and Photos Division, the Wisconsin Historical Society Archives and American Girl. Thank you, Sally, for agreeing to share your amazing, in-depth knowledge of archival procedures with us.

Before I start talking about preserving heirloom photographs so they last as long as possible, I want to state the obvious: Every photograph in your collection is not an heirloom. In fact, some (most?) of them are photo clutter. If you’re in the process of sorting through your pictures to determine which ones are keepers and which ones aren’t, I recommend checking out the YouTube video I made to help free people from the myth that every print is a treasure. Now, on with the discussion of what to do with the pictures you want to keep …

Ancestor photos are less likely be photo clutter in your home, in part because they are more scarce then modern snapshots. Photography used to be much more expensive than it is today, which means Great Aunt Estelle didn’t have many throwaway shots. Perhaps your collection only includes one portrait of Great Great Uncle Milton — as a soldier or in his wedding suit — but even if it’s just one, you probably want to treat it well. (If you don’t want to keep the old ones, consider passing them along to a genealogist or DeadFred.com.) In addition to these older photographs, you may also have a handful of newer portraits you want to preserve, and this is the best way to keep all of them safe:

Three Simple Things You Can Do to Extend the Life of Your Heirloom Photographs

1. Handle your photos carefully and safely.

Ever wonder why archivists wear white gloves? I use mine so often I wash them and store them in my underwear drawer. Human hands contain oils and salts that can damage photographs, and cotton gloves are an easy barrier to protect photographs. If you’ve seen as many 19th century photos as I have, you’d never forget that a fingerprint that’s invisible today will eventually become an impossible-to-ignore brown stain in the future. White cotton gloves are a simple and inexpensive solution. You can buy them online from suppliers like Uline.com.

If you truly can’t stand to wear gloves while you work on your photographs, I have an alternate suggestion. Wash your hands with soap before you start working, and be sure to wash them again after you take any break. Also, don’t put on hand lotion until you’re finished working with your photos for the day. Other than that, be careful where you place your fingers and try to hold prints by the edges only.

2. Store them in the right spot.

I’ll skip the long boring lecture about temperature and relative humidity and cut to the chase. Like Goldilocks, you want a spot that’s not too hot, not too cold, not too wet, and not too dry. High temperatures speed up the chemical processes that cause damage. Here’s a sobering thought: The rate of decay doubles with each increase of 18ºF. Doubles! High humidity like you find in basements and attics encourages mold and mildew, which can permanently stain and destroy photographs. Fluctuating humidity can cause the photos to crack because the paper backing and the emulsion absorb moisture at different rates. Basements and attics are also at high risk for flooding, and we all know flooding is bad news for any kind of treasure.

So, what’s the right spot? An interior closet in a house that’s cooled in summer and heated in winter is a safe bet. Guest bedrooms and linen closets under stairs work for many of my clients. Under the bed can be a great location, as long as you aren’t putting your photo treasures next to a heating vent.

3. Choose high quality boxes for a longer life

Controlling temperature and humidity levels to a specific zone can be difficult and expensive to accomplish. Fortunately, you can offset what’s going on in a room by putting your photo treasures in archival boxes. This creates a micro-environment that offers protection from UV light damage, dust, and discourages pests. You can even use silica gel to remove excess moisture from the “micro-environment” of your box. Boxing up anything that is loose also protects your photos from folding, crimping, and collecting scratches that happen when a corner of one photo nicks off emulsion from a nearby print.

When I say better boxes, do I mean archival boxes? Well, yes and no…

Yes, in the sense that you want to use the kind of boxes used by professional archivists. But, also no, because the term archival is unregulated and therefore meaningless. Finding a product sold as archival tells you very little about whether it’s a safe environment for your photo treasures. You probably know already that acids will damage paper and photographs. However, a true archival box is both acid free and lignin free. Lignins are a by-product of the paper-making process, and if they aren’t removed they will cause the paper to become acidic over time, even if it’s acid free today.

When it comes to storing photographic prints and film (as opposed to letters and printed material) there is another factor you should consider for your storage materials. The safest boxes for storing photographs have passed the Photographic Activity Test, or PAT. This test is an independent third party test that uses accelerated aging to discover whether the box or envelope will interact with the photographs in any way. You can read more about the PAT in “What Archival Really Means,” an article/rant on my personal blog.

Where can you find PAT-passed materials? Probably not at your neighborhood stationery store or scrapbooking supplier. You can find boxes, envelopes and folders that have passed the PAT in a dizzying array of sizes from archival suppliers such as Gaylord.com, HollingerMetalEdge.com and TalasOnline.com. I also sell an entire kit on my website, if you don’t want to track down individual pieces. (Note from Erin: It’s a nice kit, it’s actually why I asked Sally if she wanted to write a guest post for us. I saw it and thought, “I could really use that.”) If you do right by your photographs, they’ll be around for future generations to enjoy.

And, since this week is Thanksgiving in the U.S., I recommend bringing along copies of your old photos to family gatherings — you can ask relatives to help you identify any unknown people and also enjoy looking at the images.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

Yoko Ono poster, 1997-98

Modern Art Oxford is beginning its 50th birthday celebrations early (it is 50 in 2015), with a website containing a collection of 50 posters from its exhibition archive, chosen by artists Simon & Tom Bloor. The posters are displayed online at mao5050.com.

Accompanying each poster on the site is information about the exhibition it was for, and why the Bloors have picked it for their collection. What’s missing, however, are most of the poster designers’ names – this is because many are currently unknown. I’ve listed the designers’ names on the ones shown here when known, but if any of you know who designed the others, please let us know in the comments box below.

Alexander Rodchenko poster, 1979, designed by David King

Donald Judd poster, 1976

Constructed Space Participation show, 1966

Manfred Pernice poster, 2010, designed by APFEL

Art in Action event, designed by Graham Fink (before his days in advertising)

Candice Breitz and Jim Lambie exhibition, 2002 (this was the year that the museum’s name was changed to Modern Art Oxford)

Russian Contructivist Sculpture exhibition, 1974

Pioneers of Part-Art group show, 1971, designed by John Dugger and David Medalla

Jan Dibbets poster, 1977

Carl Andre poster, 1975

Sol Lewitt exhibition poster, 1993

Stephen Willats show, 1968

The full 50 posters in the collection can be viewed online at mao5050.com.

Imagine if every discarded disposable cup grew into a beautiful plant. 

Sian Pascale‘s clay tea cups have seeds embedded in a seam round the side, designed to germinate once the clay starts to break down.

The project is based on a tradition of throwaway clay cups in India, now replaced with paper and plastic that don’t return to the earth so easily.

The project will be on show at Obscura gallery in Melbourne from 8 December until February 2012.

Dutch company OAT make a range of biodegradable shoes with seeds embedded in the tongues and last month JAILmake Studio erected a small factory embedding seeds in bricks at Dezeen Space.

Here are some more details from the designer:

Pi Ke Puht – Earth, clay, cup, earth

Terracotta, seeds

Ceramic chai cups have been produced in India using locally sourced red clay for thousands of years. Baked at low temperatures they were an economical way of ensuring there was no contamination between the lower caste chai wallahs and the higher caste chai drinkers. The chai wallah serves his customer the sweet, spicy brew ladled into a small ceramic cup, the flavour mixing with the earthy taste of the terracotta vessel. Once drunk, the chai cup is tossed away and the satisfying pop sound it makes when being flung from train carriages was once heard all over India.

The local name for these cups is pi ke puht- Pi ke meaning to drink and puht being the sound of the cup smashing. In recent times these traditional cups are being replaced with plastic cups and the cycle of earth, clay, cup, earth has been disrupted leaving mountains of waste across India.

These fast disappearing vessels not only embody an alternative view on consumption culture but are also beautiful and functional objects on their own. Produced en-masse, yet hand made and individual. Throw aways, that have become precious.

Here embedded with seeds (nasturtiums, carrot, rocket, parsley) they can’t be kept precious, their potential only fulfilled once discarded.

These cups have been hand thrown in terracotta clay and bisque fired. Seeds have been embedded into a clay and water ‘slip’ and have been applied to the a groove in the cup.

Sian Pascale is an artist, architect, designer and writer, whose work encompasses a range of mediums. From knitted sculpture to ceramics and illustration, the artwork Pascale produces draws on the architectural framework in which she trained as well as her extensive travels. Born in Melbourne, Pascale also lived in Denmark and the Netherlands where she studied and worked in architecture. During this time she began to combine her artistic and architectural practices and started exhibiting works. She has since exhibited her artwork both in Australia and abroad and continues to practice architecture and interior design, as well as publish articles on the arts and design.

Sian Pascale works in a variety of mediums and techniques. Currently training in classical ceramic techniques, Pascale likes to tread the line between perceived craft practices and art practices. This exploration extends beyond ceramics to include machine knitting, embroidery and sewing. Also an adept illustrator, Pascale also finds herself exploring the world around her via simple line drawings combined with watercolours and acrylics.

Obscura gallery, First Floor,
285 Carlisle Street,
East St Kilda,
Melbourne, Australia

Opening Thursday 8th December 2011 until February 2012