Ideas and Sponsors...

So! New month, new ideas column...Sorry for the shameful delay in leaving up the valentine's chocolates - it's sort of like leaving your Christmas decorations up until June, huh? Anyway, springtime = shoe time, so if you know of any shoes that would fit our Ideas column, send them on over to us!



We are also very happy to welcome Nervous System and Artstream as sponsors this month. I've posted about Nervous System's gorgeous jewelry before and am a huge fan.



As for Artstream, they are a fantastic gallery up in Rochester, New Hampshire (we were lucky enough to have an exhibit there in Nov-Dec of last year). Artstream has a great show called Stories and Tales going on right now, exhibiting the work of Abby Glassenberg, Darryl Berger, Alena Hennessy, and Tara Hogan.

Cai Guo-Quiang: I Want to Believe

I am not normally excited to see what's coming to nyc museums, but the Cai Guo-Quiang: I Want to Believe opening in two days at The Guggenheim looks so interesting that I will make a point to see it.

More than seeing the finished works themselves, I wish I could have seen the month-long installation process of the works. The museum staff documented the process and there are photos and a short video of the process for Inoportune: Stage One . I enjoy these because it reflects the idea that the pieces are part of a whole process and not just a final product. The documentation emphasizes the incredible theatrical nature of the complex installation. If only they had opened to the public during this, it would be far more exciting than the final show.

Photographs by David Heald and Kristopher McKay, Guggenheim Museum Photography Studio

Kirsten Hassenfeld

Kirsten Hassenfeld is a Brooklyn-based artist who works with paper, creating super detailed, sculptural light objects. Her Dans la Lune exhibit just closed at Rice University's Rice Gallery, but I thought it was worth a mention here. Dans la Lune is a French idiom that references daydreaming, which is a great description of Kirsten's over-the-top sculptures of imagined opulence. From a distance her sculptures look like chains of gems and crystals, but as you get closer, detailed images emerge.

Yvonne Fehling and Jennie Peiz

My mom sent me a link to Yvonne Fehling's and Jennie Peiz's exhibition at the Arp Museum in Remagen, Germany. I love the dynamic ChairStoolBench and how it reads as one long plank of wood with traditional chair shapes emerging and disappearing from that plank of wood. Gorgeous! I would love to see this in a city park somewhere.

Artstream Mapping the Way

Sean and I are back from a lovely weekend in New Hampshire. We went up to Rochester to attend the opening of the Mapping the Way exhibit at Artstream gallery (and to get out of the city for the weekend). Thank you Susan and Rainer for making us feel so welcome!

I was really impressed by the other artists work - the pieces were all so beautiful (especially in person!), so I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of my favorite pieces from the show. Clockwise from the top:

Heather Smith Jones' "A Cottonwood Seed", which is so gorgeous in person. The colors are really vivid and the bird was so detailed. This was my favorite piece in the exhibit.

Edibeth Farrington's "Years of Travel". Her pieces were very quiet and subtle. I loved the repeated type and the super white canvas.

Susan Schwake's encaustic handmade paper pieces were lovely. She made the paper herself, and each piece was so layered and textured. Occasionally pieces of text from the recycled paper would show through.

Another piece from Heather Smith Jones. The pieces in this series are super affordable ($40, so I bought one!) and are really beautiful. I love her limited use of water color, and the way the shapes relate to one another. The piece we bought had text poked with pins in it, which was a very nice, subtle touch.

Check out the artwork online here!

Mapping the Way Exhibit

Sean and I are very excited about this weekend - we are heading up to New Hampshire tomorrow to attend the opening of our show at the Artstream Gallery. We are so thrilled to be in the company of these great artists - Susan Schwake, Heather Smith Jones, Edibeth Farrington, and Stephanie Levy. You can check out more images of the show here, and also on our process blog, Submerge.

Roger Arquer

Fish Bowls by Roger Arquer is an exploration in reprogramming and redesigning the fish bowl. From left to right: Do Not Piss Me Off, Pure Life, and Private Matters. You can see all fifteen projects at Dezeen. Fish Bowls will be part of the Conversational Spanish 02 exhibition this September, curated by Hector Serrano and running in conjunction with the 2007 London Design Festival.

Greetje van Helmond

Greetje van Helmond is a student at the Royal College of Art, where, for the RCA summer show, she exhibited a line of jewelry called Unsustainable. The pieces in Unsustainable are made from sugar crystals that are "grown" in a solution right onto the cord.

Greetje's interest is in taking banal, everyday products and turning them into beautiful, seemingly valuable objects.

From the artist:

In present day life we can say that we consume a lot. Durable materials are often used for the production of goods that are typically replaced or thrown away quickly. Contrary to this I use everyday, basic materials to create products that appear valuable and sustainable. Because of the materials I use, the products won’t last long, but long enough to stay "new".

Via Dezeen.

Tal Gur

I got an email this morning about an interesting exhibit of Tal Gur's work at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The artist's statement:

The exhibition space contains several objects which reflect a laborious production process: "Reading" tables, "Alata" light fixtures, "Mesh" chairs, and a "Bamboo" partition. The objects, with their entire range of materiality, sprawl, outline their course in the space, dissolve mass, allowing a glance through― through the object, the place, the space.

If you are in Tel Aviv, you can check out the exhibit from June 14 to September, 2007.

Thanks, Tal!