Building expressions.....

I am slowly getting to modernism in the history class. The bridge from classicism to modernism is the
Art Nouveau movement. The finest examples of this style are in Brussels due to the work of Victor Horta. Check out the web site for his house museum and you will forever want a "whiplash" in your decor........

Roommaking

One of the treats of teaching the history of design is that I find myself being MORE fascinated by the spaces and designers I thought I did not like. Art Nouveau,Deco and the like being styles that make me uncomfortable..... But in order explain the work of Fauvist painters I looked to Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Willow Tea Rooms for explanation. As the art world was charging course forever during the early 19th century-design was making small steps to modernism.
The tea rooms are amazing examples of the 'total work"-Mackintosh designed everything from the menu to the servers uniforms. I even like the purple used in this space????

World making 1

I wonder if the artists who I have found down here have looked at the work of Korean artist Yeondoo Jung? His 2005 project titled Wonderland is a journey inside the mind children's drawings. Jung took children's drawings and made precise installations in order to fulfill the image...then photographed them. What does it say about me that I am fascinated by spaces being made with no scale or no gravity????

World Building too

Beverly Hayman is a young artist graphic designer that I came upon totally by accident this past week. But her work seems to fit in the very light line between art and craft. I love these images of hers Book birds, recycled clouds, fabric birds going on vacation.... I would love to see her internal movie........her web site is awesome......

Building stories

I am having a lot of fun preparing for my 19th century history lectures. I am slightly familiar with the stylistic turns that occurred over the century but love finding out-more, more about the characters involved. One such gentleman is the premier 19th architect Alexander Jackson Davis. He designed some very important buildings in New York-notably the Custom House at the end of Wall Street. He was known for his design of the epic Lyndhurst in Tarrytown, New York and the beloved Litchfield Villa in Brooklyn's Prospect Park.

Building Compositions

I have been prepping lectures for next term and getting to re-read a lot about the great modernists painters. Along time ago a came across pictures of Josef and Anni Albers home while he was at Yale. This is the perfect composition for Albers' work. An all white house awaiting his paintings, perfect.