Connections

Well, I am shining silver ware and about to get napkins out to iron all in preparation for the big dinner tomorrow. LB (here is a sample of the great Kristen Young graphics package that we have) had a great day and next week we will preview its web site so all news of our exploits will be re-routed to there. I wanted to share this video of of trend forecaster Li Edelkoort speaking about our time and I think we are doing some things right, going slower, taking our home life very seriously, and eating very good food even if its a little bad for you.....(sausage biscuits?) And I am pretty darn sure she said the Farmers were the next international lobbying body?

Market Crash Chic???

Hey wait a minute, these recent images from Bloesem, remodelista and The New York Times style section are maybe disturbing? Sleeping on cardboard,old letters on walls and are we readying ourselves visually? Very interesting.

Wall Stories

I do read design blogs. And they do help when working with clients. They do amuse me sometimes. This second image is from remodelista
and talks about the newpapers as wallpaper, sort of "Market Crash Chic" But this next image is one of my favorite places in the world, William Faulkner's study and the outline of a novel paper that papers the wall. That is using architecture in a poetic way.

Hand Making Space

I am writing an abstract on the presence of the "hand" in the interior design and how it is being translated into the D.I.Y culture that interior design students follow. The point of history that I am examining is the Bloomsbury group, Charleston and the Omega Workshop. This is a image of an exhibition of the Omega Workshop work and the living room of Charleston in England. I am essentially making the case that Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell of the Bloomsbury group were the first D.I.Y.er's and that this current movement is illustrating that the handmade should in more evidence in the interior design profession.

Heirlooms-Bloomsbury style

I am gearing up to work on more embroidery for decorative objects and I have been thinking about furniture and heirlooms. I have a goal that all the furniture that I leave behind for Madeline has been worked and re-thought by me. Here are images from Vanessa Bell and Clive Bells house Charleston in England. The Sofa was upholstered in contrasting fabrics by Vanessa Bell and the needlepoint seat on the ottoman was designed in a perfect pre-cubist fashion by Clive Bell. The Charleston trust web site is www.charleston.org.uk

Building Virtue 2

This is very beautiful piece by a young artist designer Olivia Lee. I saw it on emmas blogg this weekend and was taken with the point of view as well as the poetic title Stream of Light. The piece seemed to be part of my thinking about the newest round of hurricanes and what is going to happen to the community of Galveston. I sent some money on Sunday to Architecture for Humanity, an amazing agency that will be first to access the housing needs of the city. But what if housing is not the answer to a community that has to pack up routinely for a two month period every year? This image seems to suggest a nomadic approach to furniture. So it occurred to me- is housing the answer to housing or is furniture?????

Building girls-part two

Madeline looked at the blog today and lamented that I had not written about her lately. It was a rough getting back to school period and we are not quite in the happy blogger rhythm... But I am working with these drawings that reminded me of doing work and being a mother. These are drawings that I did from a series of Maxine Kumin's poems. Kumin's work really speaks to me in that it is about the everyday. When her child enter into her work its very frank discussions of who she is as a person and who this other person-the child- is. I think because Madeline was born after it became fashionable to have children there is not a lot of guidance about how to be a parent when your child is taller than you and has discovered the art of contradiction. Kumin's poems remind me that it is a state of grace. These drawings took imagery from the poem and made a furniture/place/space out of the gesture.

When is Design Good?

www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/garden/07starck.html This article is about Phillip Starck and was in the Times last week and speaks about a lot of the things I struggle with in the design culture. Starck is truely the only original form giver of the 21st century. And I have always loved his work in particular the boldness of scale that he uses in most architectural projects...what is really big and what is really small? And how does it effect space? He had been talking about the consumptive nature of the design world and how he wanted to move in a direction that has a lighter footprint. This article talks about the very beautiful wind turbines that he has designed. This is interesting on two fronts-one the sustainable movement has had to fight against the uglies of the 60's sustainable culture...this says sustainability is beautiful and two he paid for it himself...which says I believe so I pay for new technology. Some would say elitist, I say inspiring-and I actually love to call people elitist.

Summer Reading-Building community

I shifted away from the world of Marie Antoinette this summer and spent a little time reading an account of Lousia May Alcotts life with her dramatic father Bronson Alcott. The book is called Eden's Outcasts and was written by John Matteson. Alcott the only true transcendentalist was a mentor of sorts to Emerson and Thoreau. There is the most interesting account of his time as the founder of a Utopian community Fruitlands-where all commerce was looked down upon. The community was so rigorous as to make their own clothes of handmade cloth. The description of the working costume was that the men wore knitted leggings and tunics to plow the fields. I found this really interesting as I have been researching the artists/designers Natalie Chanin, Morgan J. Puitt and Andrea Zittel. These woman that have set up Utopian home sites, built creative communities AND established a rigor of fashion and clothing that sounds much like Mr. Alcott's. More on these connections this week.

Building Epic Expressions of Capitalism

There I said it..... I suppose the point of art is to ask more questions so The Waterfalls project has got me going. Elliasson's propose for the project is to bring New Yorkers closer to to the river, But when I lived here I was close to river all the time. I walked over the bridge almost everyday, many summer evenings were spent getting ice cream at the pier and alot of holidays we would go to the edge for fireworks. So I have to say that although I went twice to view them before I put my hat into the opinion ring... I feel very removed from the river because of the project....very New Yorkish that you have to get on a boat (pay more money) to really see the events. It kind of makes me sad. I miss those goofy orange gates in Central Park.....

Building Ideas

One of the first things that Madeline and did do this week was "hit The Stand", which is the best bookstore ....in the world. As I was saying surprises happen to you in New York and the surprise of this wonderful book about Madelon Vriesendorp found me. I had heard vague rumors of the woman who did the seminal drawings for Rem Koolhaus's Delirious New York, but the myth never was full until this little book appeared about Vriesendorp's work as an artist collector,collager,wife, mother and hostess. Quietly working away at making a seamless life-my theme! The book or catalogue for her show in London last January is a rare treat of surrealistic paintings, games and photos of her inner life of objects. She also has some cool friends.

Building Girls

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. We did and I saw the "Kit" movie, which equals a plus in the good mother spread sheet. Its close to the first year anniversary when the American Girl phenomenon entered our household. Three of the kids that worked for us last year gave Madeline her first doll and the dam was broken. I am forever torn as to what these dolls mean for Madeline and for women in general. I am happy that the books attached to the products are educational and historic, I am sad that my daughter gets such joy out of "buying" things for them. I am happy that the quality of the product and the quality of the production(movie) are of the highest value. I am happy that the girls portrayed are really ten, eleven and twelve years old's and not baby teenagers but bummed that all moral lessons get so buttoned up neatly and the complexity of racism, "classism" and general American inequality is never really explained...I guess that's my job.
This interview on Slate is a good discussion of what these dolls might mean to young woman today, http://www.slate.com/id/2194785/pagenum/all/#page_start.

Building Books

This is a reading, looking at books family. In fact I saw that Madeline's stack of American Girl and Judy Blume books is very low and a sense of panic set in... But one of the high points of this summer was a new Blue Balliett book The Calder Game. Favorite characters from Chasing Vermeer and The Wright Three joined forces again to solve the mystery of a missing Calder sculpture and a boy named Calder. Balliett's books have won a high place in our household, as if Caleb and I had written a book about renaissance painter, a book about Frank Lloyd Wright and a book about Alexander Calder just to insure a visually literate child. Oh, and I ordered this beautiful book about Calder jewelry to, uh, back up Madeline's experience with understanding Calder's work.......

Hot-lanta

I am driving to Atlanta this afternoon for some family stuff. But I hope to pop into Ikea, and I want to check out Belly General Store. So check on Thursday when I am back.

Mother/Daughter Buildings

A lot of this summer has been dedicated to Madeline's summer reading. In the fashion of a 11 year old girl she has plowed through all American Girl books, Robinson Crusoe, Robin Hood, and spin-offs of Little Woman... A writer that she has found and loves is Lesley M.M. Blume. Ms. Blume www.lesleymmblume.com has recently written this book Tennyson which is set in Lousiana in the 30"s. In honor of this book I set out to plan mother/daughter adventure where we would go down River Road and see the antebellum buildings were the book is set. Well, this year the house that is the show piece Nottoway Plantation is closed for renovation. This is a picture of the ballroom; all white so the ladies in there their gowns will stand out (I love functional interior design!) Well, since I am now obsessed by this room we can not go until the renovation is complete. Instead we are going to Natchez, Ms. where will see some real houses! Stay tuned.

Women in Chairs

Presented in the spirit of Women in Chairs, Women as Chairs, Women as Furniture, Furniture as Woman. David Delfin's Winter 2007 collection pushes Mr Thonet even further.

Women in Buildings

Yesterday the Walker Evans chairs were featured on Irene Hoofs Blog, Bloesem, http://www.bloesem.blogs.com. Besides the delightful comments from people, so positive ,thank you. I marvel at the fact that I liked Irene sensibility sent her my work thinking she might like it and a woman, mom,wife,lover of life in Kuala Lumper can reach back to another woman, mom, wife, lover of life in Mississippi! That's the 21st century! This image of Remedios Varo is the visual manifestation of this (well all her work) a woman working quietly somewhere but effecting world in a very strong manner. Thank you Irene!

A Great Woman and a Great Building

Yesterday Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign and I cried. I intellectually understand that Obama is a symbol of change for the country and God speed if he can get elected. But that woman worked so hard. She did give her speech in one of my favorite buildings; The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. http://www.nbm.org/about-us/historic-building/ On the web site it tells the story of the building but I heard a better story. The building was built for the Civil War pensioners and thus the enormous scale of the Great Hall. The storyteller said, "just imagine all those old guys waiting for their checks with their Corn cob pipes, shooting the breeze about the great conflict......" I like that image better because in some way it was a building built for the function of bringing the country together, can architecture still do that?

Building Women

Last week one of the high points of being in New York was going to the opening of my friend Catherine Morris's show at The Sculpture Center in Long Island City. www.sculpture-center.org The best piece was this Alice Aycock stair. This is a series of Land Art work that was done by women in the 70"s. It was especially important to me because when I was first studying architecture these woman were the only examples of woman building/making things that we had. It's a wonderful show,check it out.



http://artforum.com/picks/section=nyc#picks20172

Okay, off to New York for the opening of the show. Hope to see you in Brooklyn!

Check out address and time at www.gestarcgallery.com