building an image

I have been a fan of Deborah Bowness' wallpaper for a very long time. She started this process of large scale photos becoming bespoke wallpaper in the late 90's. Since then she has expanded the collection to many many themes. This is such a nice example of process becoming product and making space.

Home Building

Place must be in this year... When I saw the article on 20 Places to Get Your Art Fix in the New York Times and I saw the wonderful Museo Praz mentioned then I knew it. Museo Praz is the Roman house museum of the scholar Mario Praz. Active after WWII he chronicled his obsession with interiors in the An Illustrated History of Interior Decoration From Pompeii to Art Nouveau and wrote a lovely memoir of his homes called the Life House of Life-and yes I have read it cover to cover. Oh and he embroidered his own seat cushions-kindred spirit.

Building intently

As I am madly finishing work for the Oxford show- I will stop for a chair interlude.......This beautiful image made by Philadelphia artist Mark Khaisman will keep me on the road to obsessively completing the work.

Building Low

This is a piece by Paola Lenti for the FATSO furniture file. Somehow this is an honest piece, you see it- is what it is-I do not occupy a chair this way but my 12 year old does.....so I understand the function. Lenti has been forging new thinking in living room furniture for decades now...she is designing for the future-

Must be built even bigger

In the market place currently is this MONSTER furniture by Philippe Nigro. Entitled Confluences, it is an exciting prospect to think about the endless opportunities the parts of the puzzle could garner...in your enormous, huge house........

Soft Building.....

This beauty officially goes in the FAT chair series. I spotted it in a Vogue Living that featured a collection of contemporary chairs-part of the Moooi line-entitled Dickie- it has been designed by Anthony Kleinepier. This piece is happily the most commercial of his work-check out the "soft living series"...I thought I was weird embroidering maps on my chairs.....

Building big....

This next series was an idea that I had this summer that one end of the furniture design spectrum was working in this almost painfully constained manner-using the least amount of materials in order atone for the past excesses. And now I would like to look a series of pieces that are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Many upholstered pieces that are huge and use very, very much material! This sofa you could live in, is by architect India Mahdavi (one of my top three favorite designers). I do not think that the form or scale of the pieces are so telling-i.e- big furniture=fat cat.... I think that the material of fabric is still very cheap and work can afford to be excessive where lights, tables, titanium chairs are very dear and must be made accordingly. This furniture is telling the story of economics.

Thought building

In the mist of the conversations about health care I came across this Mark Twain quote on Hattiesburg architect James Polk's great blog New American Village.
"You can not depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." M.T.

Building Well

We just got word that Little Building Cafe has been named one of the Most Innovative Green Projects in 2009 by Eco-Structure Magazine. That feels good!

Fiction Building

My summer is officially over so I thought I would share my real reading list. It's strange for me for those of you that know me but I enjoyed the change. Respectively, one I found annoying, one I found endearing and one made me love stories again.......

Building beginnings

In honor of the first day of furniture design tomorrow-here is this chair entitled 1000 chairs by Studio Niels en Sven.

Building your imagination

One more person that draws to see is the British illustrator Laura Stoddard. I have loved her drawings in World of Interiors for years and I came upon the very dear book The Sweet Life. It is gentle musings on house, home and garden

Interior Building

In the realm of people who draw to see this artist, Philadelphia resident Sarah Mceneaney really excites me. She says that her work is biographical yet universal....The simple act of examining the room you work in has amazing results.

Building a life

When I think of Dave Hockney, I think of people who draw to see and when I think of people who draw to see of course Maira Kalman comes to mind. Its been nice to hear thought chats with friends that her Friday Blogs (not every friday) for the New York Times are what many creative people look to for inspiration. She doesn't just do drawings she makes PROJECTS. Which mean her work comes from great amounts of research -a trip, reading many books, talking to friends. A total way of making work.

seeing building,building seeing

I am going to suspend my Talent+Town series for a little chair viewing. I was working on another train of thought and I realized how much Mr Hockney loves chairs. View more on this wonderful site www.hockneypictures.com.

Building Big Space

The foremost example of an artist finding a place in the world and the world following is Marfa, Texas and its most famous resident Donald Judd. Judd stated working there in the 60's in an effort to site his body of work in a permanent construct. Now decades after his death, the place is an artist and creative mecca with two boutique hotels, and many part time residents that sock up the expansive space and animated social scene. But it does open up the question how does a place become a place that fosters creativity and prospers from its creative capital?

Place Building

My life has taken a turn this year and I officially live and work in two small towns in America. I am always interested in a string of designers and artists who choose to work outside of a major urban center and what the results are. Often there is a trend toward a collaborative endeavors -bringing a few people together to make things happen. One such enterprise is the Wassaic Project in Duchess County, New York. This week is their music festival but year round seems to be an easy flow of good creative work and community.

Building relationships

Today is my 16th wedding anniversary. My sweetie gave me three ORANGE photographs from the Staten Island Ferry....xoxo

First Friday's

Busy day today. Starkville is having its second annual First Friday's Artwalk. The featured artist at the Cre8tive Warehouse is Holly Senter. A shining star of the Starkville art scene, this is a farewell show before she heads up to Brooklyn to study at Pratt Institute. Come and see her thoughtful body of work.

Elemental elements

The work of Isamu Noguchi is quite a favorite of mine. I tell students that his work is an example of the power of one idea and its built manifestation. Take this late furniture piece the Prismatic Table. You can almost hear him say to himself...origami = table -and this is what that looks like.

Elemental Building

Of course the roots of design education still lay in the work at the Bauhaus. In my mind the work of metal smith Marianne Brandt illustrates the visual rules of the school and design fundamentals. This teapot-MT49 tea infuser, was designed by using the shape of a globe, a circle and a square to form the function. The story of Brandt's life is very interesting and sad. She worked a series of collages that seem to be a diary of her life-a visual thinker always.

building shape

When I think of the most basic tenants of design I always come back to the work of Charles and Ray Eames. Now these pieces have always confused me - they look not so much designed but sculpted-maybe willful? Upon researching them I found out that Ray designed them specifically for the waiting rooms at Time Life Inc. They were to serve as side tables as well as stools. They actually are made out of three separate pieces of turned wood but the upper and lower are the same and the middle is a variant. So while looking a little "un-eamesy", the fabrication process has all the ear marks of a rigorous Eames project.

buildings drawings

For those of you in the Starkville area, we will be showing "A Drawing a Day, 100 drawings by Caleb Crawford" at Little Building Cafe this Friday 5-7. In conjunction with Cre8tive Warehouse's First Fridays

Building readings

A very beautiful elemental body of work are the fabric books of Louise Bourgeois. A simple theme of landscape goes through the fabric collages. A book where abstraction has many readings.

Building fundamentals.....

I am starting a new project and getting my thoughts together for teaching this month and I have promised myself only to think about the fundamentals of design....This brings me to a design hero of mine. When I was a student in Italy I came around a catalog of Bruno Munari's work. A futurist artist turned industrial designer, I was very attracted to the simple ideas that propelled his work. Just the act of seeing more in a fork ...well that's an imagination.

Building shift

This is the perfect transition chair for me. Named for the Maine resident author E.B. White and made by the much admired southern designer Natalie Chanin. Chanin finds the omnipresent ladder back chairs and weaves new seats for them thus a new story. Its nice to be back.