Ayumi provided me with so many good images; I wish I could have published them all with the article. Here are some that you won’t find in the pages of issue #13.
Her woodstacks are seasonal works of art!
Stamped ceramic eggsPaloma’s Nest offers custom-stamped ceramic eggs and ornaments for gift-giving and commemorative heirlooms. It’s all in the simplicity.
Visit Rae Dunn’s Etsy shop for these and other designs.
I love Rae Dunn‘s ceramics. They feel so good in your hands—just the right combination of weight and delicateness that makes ceramics so appealing. I have a small plate in the bathroom for rings and earrings and some salt and pepper pots in my kitchen.
Here’s a post I did about her booth at the Renegade Craft Fair last year.
A selection of work from Ruan Hoffmann’s website.South African artist Ruan Hoffmann uses text and drawing on seemingly delicate surfaces.
His work was featured in Anthropologie, NYC last year.
{Thank you to Louis Boshoff for the link.}
Among the buzziest booths at this year’s Armory Show is that of Sean Kelly, which features work by the likes of Marina Abramović, James Casebere, Alec Soth, and Kehinde Wiley. The New York gallery is also spotlighting three recent additions to its stable of artists: Idris Khan, Nathan Mabry, and Peter Liversidge (on Tuesday, Sean Kelly announced its representation of Terence Koh). Just around the corner from Khan’s mini-museum of clouds trapped in lucite is “Wooden Mail Objects” (2011), a shelf of rulers, protractors, and chalkboard erasers that London-based Liversidge mailed to Kelly, sans envelopes, over the course of three months. Beside the stamp-covered objects is the artist’s deadpan installation proposal, written on his trusty manual typewriter. Liversidge is also represented by what he describes as a text piece: a hand-held embosser placed on a white podium. It, too, is accompanied by a framed noticed. “Whoever reads this proposal is invited to take a one-dollar note from their pocket, wallet, or purse. In their other hand they should take up the embosser and place the note within it’s [sic] jaws,” he explains. “Then apply pressure and emboss the note with the text piece concealed within.” Pull out your dollar to reveal the imprint of a single word: free. No word as to how much this work sold for.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Handmade Portraits: Xenobia Bailey from Etsy on Vimeo.
Thank you to Jeremiah Glazer at Etsy for sending me a link to their latest Handmade Portraits video feature about Xenobia Bailey. Jeremiah writes:
“Her work, which has been featured in museums, television (The Cosby Show), and film (Do The Right Thing), is extraordinarily imaginative and diverse — crowns, mandalas, dresses, sculptures, even teas — but they’re all an articulation of what she calls the “aesthetic of funk.” Xenobia says that she learned to “funk it together” by watching the women in her community beautify their environments with limited resources. She has continued to preserve and extend that tradition in her extraordinarily diverse art pieces and clothing.”
Kathryn Clark, whose Foreclosure Quilts are mentioned in the current issue, is profiled on Poppytalk where you can see her studio and read an interview.
(Photos: UnBeige and Courtesy David Stark Design)
David Stark has applied his artist’s eye and bricoleur’s ingenuity to the retail scene with Wood Shop, a temporary takeover of fellow RISD alum Nina Freudenberger‘s Haus Interior in New York. As you may recall from our recent interview with the event designer, his “surprise ambush” has filled the cozy homegoods emporium with limited-edition goodies inspired by a woodworker’s studio, from hand-crocheted saw pillows and rugged Carhartt-brown canvas placemats to a tool box worth of delicate gold pendants and hand-turned poplar vases that suggest a collaboration between Giorgio Morandi and Bob Vila. The woodstravaganza lasts through Monday, February 27.
The idea for Wood Shop stemmed from a previous project for which Stark and his team created an entire house out of SmartPly, which provided a cheeky backdrop for showcasing the client company’s new collection of homegoods. “Some of the things that we made for that were so fun that we thought, wow, these could be great products,” said Stark the other day, as he guided us through Wood Shop and ended up in front of a delicious-looking dessert, made entirely of SmartPly. “The cake really came out of that kind of thing. I have a weird sense of humor, so if I walked into a store, that would be the first thing I would be drawn toward.”
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Over recent weeks, I’ve enjoyed reading about the adventures of Bilal Ghalib and Alex Hornstein who’s Pocket Factory project I first learned about on the Make blog; two makers who are taking 3D printing on the road, travelling around the US as they run their 3D printers in the back of their Prius, selling the wears that they create.
For anyone not familiar with the 3D printing movement, it is about relatively inexpensive machines that print extruded plastics from computer-designed models. It essentially allows an individual to create plastic parts that, even a decade ago, could be made only on machines that cost tens of thousands of dollars. 3D printing enthusiasts tend to be very excited about the possibilities of this technology, but at the same time the community tends to be a bit insular. The Pocket Factory project takes the technology out to flea markets and public spaces, to people who often have no idea that such a technology is possible. Bilal and Alex started out not knowing exactly what the reception would be (it’s been everywhere from wildy excited to apathetic to a little hostile), or what ideas and business models would actually allow them to make money. It’s been fascinating to follow their blog and read about their adventures.
(Want to read more about paper cutting? We have a feature about the art of paper cutting and other labour-intensive artmaking in issue #11.)
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
