Working..........

For the next few days I am going to take a break and get this show up. Stay tuned for exhibition photos-maybe a slide show...wish me luck. Annie



Image by Jennifer Hudson

roommaking-

So I am working away on this installation and when I get discouraged I have found myself saying..."what would Studio Toogood do?" Master of the temporary, the work of Faye Toogood has captivated the London Design Week again and raised the bar for those of us who make rooms.....

Learning about building

I have spent the morning-learning about, researching the work of dutch artist Mark Manders. Things to consider; the wonderful use of language in his titles , ie. "silent factory" and "writing room fiction machine", the difference in scale in the objects that are assembled for the idea, the difference in materials (something I am not good at) in the assemblege, the razor shape way the installantion is photographed.......

Building Innovation

C&B's comrade Ghislaine Vinas has hit a home run with the apartment that is the cover girl for
Interior Design Magazine this month- Vinas has an uncanny ability to mess the "store bought" with artisan craft and custom work-providing clients with a sense of place and livability.
Bravo Miss G! And I will be stealing the dipped upholstery idea.......

Image by Eric Laignel

Building a garden

Its still in the 90's here everyday in Mississippi so fall has not shown up-but the light is changing in the back and if doing else the leaves are changing because they are just worn out....I took some images around the garden this morning-I must have entered my horticultural phase between the Sissinghurst book and planting fall cauliflower.....

Interior Building

Last year at this time I was asked by A Public Space editor Brigid Hughes to make a project that started with a Found Object-at the time I had come upon the work at the Ulysses S. Grant Association and was captivated by Mrs. Grants Opera Shawl...That began a series of drawings that essentially re-decorated the Grants New York brownstone-in a fictional way. Look for the the drawings published in this issue of A Public Space.

Building a look

You can not really think about Porter chairs now without conjuring up the image of Kelly Wearsler's Bergdorf Goodman's tea room. These chairs now frame the most beautiful of the beautiful in New York City.

chair building

Recent research done on the "porter chair" as a terrific example of form and function. Popular in medieval Europe and up until 18th century England-note this one survives from in the Bank of England Museum. The egg shape was needed to protect the porter from drafts that occurred in the entry way of an estate or castle, one needed a porter to answer the knocker since the estate was so large...

Building rural

I am really enjoying Adam Nicholson's Sissinghurst An Unfinished History. Well written with a bit about Vita, a bit about garden history, alot about environmentalism in the realm of historic preservation and alot about the reality of our world agriculturally and how drastic we have let it change in the last two centuries.

Building arabesque

Spotted this "Bloomsburyesque" chair in the home of embroidery designer Erica Wilson and modernist furniture designer Vladimir Kagan on The Selby. My stitching skills are not even close but I will keep this image to aspire to.

Building structural logic

A Thonet chair is made out of six components and then about eight to ten screws depending on the model number. The curves are an illustration of using the the circle shape structurally(the circle holds the legs and the arch shape maintains the back)-because its the strongest shape.

Room building

Getting ready for a show at the Mississippi State Visual Arts Center 1, 808 University Drive., Starkville. The show opens October 4th, opening reception October 14th. Come see some new work!

new technique

I have just stumbled upon the Japanese embroidery technique of Sashiko in my new best book Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Fabric Crafts. This simple running stitch really appeals to my modernist outlook.

building legacy

The history of the Gebruber Thonet company is a very common industrial revolution story. The Thonet family hit upon a material condition that lent itself to a faster and more efficient manufacturing process. The look of the chairs embraced the fin de seicle and art nouveau sensibility of the 1850's. But what was unexpected was the enduring/timeless quality of the chair. Everyone knows the story of modernist master Corbusier using these chairs in all his projects more than 100 years after the birth of the no. 14-but who knew that we would using them into the 21st century without a hint of nostalgia.

Ode to Thonet

As part of "Ode to Thonet" week I get to show this Tim Hawkinson piece. Entitled "Shrink", I love the reproduction of the reproduction idea...being that Thonet chairs can be considered one of the first mass produced furniture or furniture of the industrial revolution in decorative arts history.

twisting thonet

I was included in a"twist on Thonet" round up on a Spanish blog earlier this summer and I thought I would share with you my folder of Thonets with a twist and share some history as well this week. This work was included and its some of my favorite thoughts about Thonet-Keisuke Fujiwara delicately wrapped the chair in gradated threads...........beautiful.

building day dreams

One of my finest character flaws is that when I am under tremendous pressure, I daydream. The daydream usually involves travel and then a "pilgrimage to" an obscure building/interior that I have deemed necessary to view for my well being..... Currently under scrutiny for obsessive daydreaming is Paris and the Musee Gustave Moreau is the destination. Moreau in an early 19th century symbolist painter who made "literary" work. Not my taste in painting but maybe my taste in living......

Working

Alot going on around here-October 14th a show opens here at the Visual Arts Center on campus. And on October 22nd I will be showing at the world famous Motel Art Show in Oxford...busy month. Here is a sneak peek prototype of some of the work I am into right now..Hope you can come by!

building forever

I would like this in my garden. This poured in-place concrete Chesterfield sofa by British company Grey Concrete has got me thinking about permanence verses impermanence..........They says its comfortable.

building light

Good night sweet New York. Hope you had a good day, see you soon.......................

Building a body of work

My work has entered a very funny phase in the last year but I am getting what I have been interested in for along time; telling a story. These two pieces are finally installed in the Grant Association reading room at Mississippi State. The loveseat is an embroidered map of General Grants movements around the state of Mississippi during the war and the arm chair is the final formation at the battle of Vicksburg.




P.S. A bit of a repeat post but such great images by Caleb...

The power of the card board box....

I saved this image at the beginning of the summer meaning to research it and came around to it this morning. In the mean time, Don Lucho's "casa de cardboard" has become an internet hit......but interestingly enough almost no depth of information about the project. So again the power of the image rules. I am interested in Lucho's debt to the work of Do Ho Suh and the early obsessiveness of Tim Hawkinson. Also a note to students-please don't complain about cardboard models that are due next week.......

building process

I stumbled upon Coke Wisdom O'Neal's work recently and am fascinated by the process of his project "Big Box".
he builds this giant box in a location-say Texas or Queens and then asks people to come and have their portrait done-portrait as performance. He speaks about the amazing interactions that he would have while setting the photos alone.....on the Mixed Green web site.

Building industry

I have had a crush on the Mill Building in Starkville since we first arrived. Named the E.E.Cooley building in 1962, it was originally the John M. Stone textile Mill built in 1902. This was a late addition to Mississippi's attempt at capturing the northeastern monopoly on the textile economy but it was some what successful. I just found out that Mississippi State has many Landmark status buildings on campus.. This will be some fun research.

building fabrication

I can not seem to find this piece again on the web but as I recall its from the brilliant Scotsmen TimorousBeasties-designer and purveyors of all this slightly off in the design world. I admire this chair because I have been grappling with the same idea. This piece seems to have been made from a rapid prototype method, therefore an all in one process-so long grafting methods of construction.

Living in

So we are in full swing of school life, teaching going to school-which means in and out of the apartment. We have a new discipline of keeping surfaces tidy and collections to a minimum.......how are we doing?

building details

I am late to the party when it comes to the work of DoshiLevien studio's work. Their "my beautiful backside" sofa took many by storm a few years back-frankly was not impressed -thought it was a little inelegant formally. So to see these later pieces is really interesting to me. They are interested in changing up the structural conceit of a chair and work through it cleanly-my students take note of full scale mock up in slide show of work. The next level is the intense amount of thinking that went into the fabric/cushion...crystals? Logos? all in one????/

Building by making

The work of young Brooklyn designer Mary Chan is developing slowly, steadily and elegantly. She recently sent me images of these beautiful floor mats she has made by hand. She mentioned the a runner she is working on is taking some time-awesome! Let's support a generation of designers that are "making their own way"....literally.

building charm

Well its hopping here in Mississippi. I am getting ready for not one but two shows this fall. I just found out that I get to participate in the very fun Motel Art Show in Oxford. This is one of the many art/craft/design constructs that the super talented Erin Austin Abbott master minds. Her day to day adventures include overseeing the very cute and can't wait to get there Amelia-the shop-rows of candy colored sodas, cupcakes, small delightful ceramics. Mad and I are going to have a blast!

Chair armies

I came across this image of the porch at Washington's Mount Vernon. These Windsor chairs on runners seem to stretch across the porch for many feet...Some founding fathers ingenuity-

Building trees

I don't mean to crib from the very well done web magazine sightunseen but I can not get this work out of my mind. I am always looking for new ways to develop form and artist Juliette Warmenhoven is making great strides. Form developed from the growing plant life it seems, a sensibility from a chic garden shed...