Hasta La Ideas

Handmade cruisers from the streets of Brooklyn

It’s well known that hiding behind the facades of many buildings in Brooklyn, NY are an endless array of companies producing artisanal pickles and locally designed clothes but rarely can you wander down a street to find a product being made out on the concrete. DL Skateboards is a unique young company that makes custom, handmade skate decks on the sidewalk outside a Greenpoint apartment building and in a retrofitted box truck acquired in New Hampshire. The couple behind the brand, Lauren Andino and Derek Mabra, have been skateboarding most of their lives and their passion and love for the sport drive their small business forward, producing fantastic cruisers modeled after 60’s classics. In our latest video we found the couple out on the street shaping decks for one of their final runs before moving to California.

Steel kimonos, diamond-plated skateboards and hand-anodized aluminum paintings

The anodization of aluminum—a process common in everything from carabiners to satellites to medical equipment—is yet another factory method to fall under the provenance of fine art. Miya Ando‘s work, created through a process of dip-dying aluminum blocks in electrically-charged vats, are nothing short of industrial watercolors. “I like this ability for a plate of metal to evoke soft imagery and ephemerality,” says Ando. The process hardens supple aluminum, adding to the rigid surface the artist’s own subtly colored gradients. Ando explained this process and more during a recent stop at her Brooklyn studio.

The descendent of swordsmiths-turned-priests, the half-Japanese Ando brings her family’s unconventional origins into her art. “Furisode Kimono” is a 180lbs sculpture made of steel squares that have been soldered together with sterling silver rings. The process for this work is different from the aluminum pieces, using heat rather than anodization to achieve the gradient. In both, the effect is permanent and established within the properties of the metal. “It’s embedded; you can touch it and it won’t come off,” explains Ando.

When tasked with describing her anodized work, Ando says, “They’re paintings that use sculptural materials.” The planar works have a texture and visual weight that communicates heft in spite of the light and airy gradients. While the highly finished pieces indicate a degree of precision, Ando’s process is largely self-taught. After gaining access to an industrial facility, the artist began to hand-dye plates in anodizing baths—a process that made quite a sight for on-site workers.

Past work from Ando has included skateboard decks cut from diamond-plated steel as well as bioluminescent leaves. She also gained praise for a monumental piece honoring the World Trade Center that was made of steel salvaged from the towers’ supporting structure. Her fascination for materials bred the recent release of the “Iron and Silk Scarf“, a chiffon scarf printed with the image of one of her metal works. Ando is currently working on a new series will feature buddhist prayers scratched on aluminum with a tungsten carbine pencil.

Miya Ando’s work can currently be seen at New York’s Sundaram Tagore as well as Madison Galleries in La Jolla, CA. See more images of the studio in our slideshow 

Two cocktail recipes from the Brooklyn-based purveyors of craft bitters

With a mission to “make the world a bitter place,” Hella Bitter is a brand of bitters focused on creating fine, hand-crafted cocktail accompaniments. The name and the attitude of irreverence are evidence of the brand’s Bay Area roots—the company may have ditched the former logo personality of a well-dressed gent sporting a “thizz face”, but their origins remain a major influence. Operating out of Brooklyn, Hella Bitter is part of a growing community of enthusiasts looking to take craft cocktails to boozy new heights.

Fine ingredients and small-batch production help to distinguish Hella. Departing slightly from the norm, their aromatic bitters use a wormwood rather than an angostura base (a detail based more on preference than quality), and caramelized sugar gives a rich color and viscosity. Hella’s citrus bitters can substitute garden variety orange bitters, and the company occasionally releases off-the-wall seasonal varieties, such as a vanilla kumquat creation. While made to compliment cocktails, Hella Bitter encourages people to dilute their bitters in a glass of seltzer for a refreshing dram.

We recently enlisted Hella’s help to come up with a duo of cocktails for CH readers. The two tequila concoctions below are ideal for knocking a few back during a sun-filled happy hour.

La Ultima Palabra

1.5 oz Reposado Tequila

2 healthy dashes of Hella Bitter Citrus

0.5 oz Green Chartreuse

0.5 oz Maraschino

0.5 oz Fresh Lime

Use a jigger to measure out tequila, chartreuse, and lime over ice. Add Hella Bitter. Shake and strain into a coupe glass pre-garnished a with premium grade maraschino cherry.

High Noon Tea

2.0 oz Reposado Tequila

2 healthy dashes of Hella Bitter Citrus

1.5 oz Mild Black Tea

0.5 oz Green Chartreuse

0.5 oz Fresh Lime

0.5 oz simple syrup

Stirred tequila, tea, chartreuse, lime, and simple syrup in an iced highball. Add Hella Bitter. Garnish with a lemon wheel.

Hella Bitter is now available on Fab through 13 July, and via their online store.

Laura Wass strikes out on her own with jewelry combining the industrial with the handmade

Balancing a spare, industrial aesthetic with the richness of fine jewelry, designer Laura Wass has opened up an interesting niche for herself in the market. With Fall 2012 she has launched WXYZ, a focused line of “DNA” and jacks bead necklaces, rubber and steel pulley bracelets, rubber bubble bangles and geometric metal-and-resin rings. With each detail, from the softness of the neoprene bracelet links, to the satisfying weight of a beaded helix and the almost hidden precious pearls floating in resin, Wass balances the focused precision of large-scale metalwork with handmade thought and, equally as importantly, injects a playful attitude in every serious piece.

We caught up with Wass at her studio and workspace at the 3rd Ward, where she makes it all happen, from hand-sketching and CAD—and some desktop acrobatics to keep the creative juices flowing—to steel lathing and metal finishing. With her first collection freshly launched, she filled us in on process and inspiration, while offering us a sneak peek at the Spring 2013 collection.

You worked with established brands—Philip Crangi, Giles & Brother, Metal Dynamics—before striking out on your own. What did it take for you to make the jump?

It was like jumping off a diving board. In some ways when I started I was anxious to start my own projects and then at the same time I felt as though I would never be quite ready. I always felt there was something more I could learn, or some way I could grow before starting my own thing, but then at some point those two paths crossed—the desire to create and the feeling that I had a really strong foundation in the industry and in manufacturing and design practice and those things came together and it was just time. And I also had the support—my boss at the last company I worked for is a great mentor, and has taught me so much about new manufacturing methods and engineering and so he was really fundamental in my growth as a designer and in helping me articulate what I wanted to do.

How did your work evolve to the industrial, and how much comes from personal taste?

It started with a fascination with the history of design and the Bauhaus movement, and it evolved as I entered the industry, and started becoming more experienced and interested in the process of how things are made. Which was always my focus—my initial entrance came from making things by hand, but then, when I started to explore the machine I saw how much more it was capable of doing, and then that drew me back again to the traditions of Bauhaus. By incorporating both the handmade and the industrially made, we get such a wide range of design capabilities, so for me it became this hunger for knowledge so that I could expand and inform my design practice.

How similar is the finished product to what you originally envision?

It definitely evolves, there are a lot of surprises. I’ll usually start with one goal or one idea and then come out with something entirely different through the process of sketching, of physically making with your hands. I think for me when I’m making something with my hands my brain is activated and starts really running through new ideas, so things tend to evolve a lot from the initial concept however there are some instances where something will just snap into my head and there it is and that’s the way it started.

When it comes to the mix of industrial and handmade, what’s you and what are you outsourcing?

For me because the industrial and handmade production are both so important I’m really exploring as many different production methods as possible. So in order to do that I have to find as many different resources where they specialize in these different techniques. So, from die striking, brass stamping and zinc die casting to screw machining, C&Cing and lasering to water jet cutting (which is much stronger than laser cutting, surprisingly) and, let’s see what else—powder coating, plating, die cutting, ball chains, automated chain-making and lathing, which is similar to a screw machine.

The jacks beads look familiar—where did they come from?

The jacks beads are inspired by a childhood bead I played with growing up. I took the concept of that bead and engineered it in CAD—it went through about 10 different revisions, actually—I tweaked the shape and the form so that they sit together. They’re different, though. The original beads have round fronts, and I wanted to create a pyramid structure, something architectural. It’s both organic—a fundamental structure of life, almost like a chemical composition—but it’s also manmade, architectural and geometric. I wanted them to fit together with space for you to see the articulation of the shape, but also create a new form with these individual pieces.

That’s actually really important for the line—the use of individual components that together create an entirely new form. The DNA necklace is another example of that: individually they’re these beads and rods, but together they creates this whole new structure, much like the way life is made.

So how do you go about reengineering something?

The jacks beads are created in a blue model as a rapid prototype, and then they’re basically engraved into a steel die. So you take a piece of steel, and there are several different processes that you go through to create a negative form with this extremely hardened steel, and then the molten metal is injected into the steel die. It’s a way of casting that’s not commonly used for jewelry because it’s a very high production run—to get the machine up and running you need to have about 2,000 pieces. So, the molten metal is injected into the die, and because it’s a steel form it’s filling, it’s extremely precise, and can be replicated over and over and over, whereas as with lost-wax casting there are a lot of irregularities. So it’s perfect for this industrial, super-defined form.

Does your creative process start with the fashion and style element, or does it start with the scientific, industrial aspect?

It definitely starts with the technical, industrial and biology/chemistry part of it. For instance, right now for next season I’m really inspired by these overlapping architectural movements—so, Moorish and Arabic geometry and architecture, and how that intersects with the other histories of religious architecture, whether it be Jewish or Christian. I was just in Israel so I saw this amazing confluence of Jewish and Arabic and Christian design, and the histories of those places, what that means to so many people and how it looks—kind of like this tapestry of cultural influence. I’m looking at design motifs and architecture, and, of course, I’m looking at nature as always. Also, I’ve been thinking about mazes, and humans creating abstractions in the landscape through the use of geometry, so looking at where city and nature meet in design. Fashion, in many ways, is just the world that I live in so it kind of seeps in through the cracks of what I’m thinking. It’s not necessarily the focus, but it’s always there.

Images by Greg Stefano

Illustrations revisit the Roaring Twenties

by Joanna Prisco

For the last six months, New Yorkers have been hotly anticipating The Great GoogaMooga, a free food and music festival to take place in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park this weekend, 19-20 May. Created by Superfly Presents—founders of Bonnaroo and Outside Lands—the GoogaMooga has sparked much dialogue among summer concertgoers for shifting the spotlight from the stage to the concessions. While food lies at the heart of the inaugural fest there’s a focus on design that sets it apart from its ubiquitous predecessors.

Superfly tapped the Rockwell Group to craft the aesthetic of the grounds, marrying a carnival atmosphere with 1960s-era spirit from which the festival takes its name. But at a handful of exclusive gatherings being held inside the Extra Mooga paid-ticketed area, guests will be transported even further back in time to a roaring, golden age.

“There will be four parties inside of the Boathouse,” explains Superfly co-founder Jonathan Mayers. “And they will all have a 1920s vibe, with each hosting chefs such as Marcus Samuelsson, The John Dory Oyster Bar, Fedora or Monkey Bar pairing food and drinks to that time period.”

To further infuse the ambience with ’20s flair, Mayers commissioned Paris-based illustrator Rick Tulka to create posters featuring New Yorker-esque caricatures of the events.

“I was introduced to Rick a few years ago by a mutual friend and I’m a huge fan of illustrations,” said Mayers. “So we sent him a bunch of images of Marcus, Gabe Stulman and imagery from the Monkey Bar and let him kind of run with it.” Having spent the past 36 years illustrating for publications ranging from MAD Magazine to The Wall Street Journal, Tulka’s creative process was uninhibited by the fact that his subjects were across the Atlantic.

“Since I am a humorous illustrator, it really helps when the client has a good sense of humor too,” said Tulka. “For me, the 1920s theme added a really nice touch to the feel of the images.” In keeping with the look of that decade, Tulka suggested the idea to print the posters in sepia. And since the illustrations were all caricatures with a main subject, he kept the backgrounds more line and less tone.

“I wanted the subjects to pop out,” said Tulka, who sprinkled various food-focused details throughout the posters with piles of shucked oysters on the floor here and knife-and-fork cufflinks there. The result is both charming and appetizing. “When the illustrator and the client are on the same page and work well together, it makes for a fun job,” said Tulka. “Oh, and listening to 1920s jazz while working didn’t hurt either!”