oooh la la - lights!!

I found this design studio while doing some etsy surfing. The work is really incredible in it's simplicity of both design and materials. I love the way this ordinary object comes together to create a really interesting pattern that once you add light to is just gorgeous. A lot of times we associate objects with a specific function and if they are not serving that function they are considered useless. I'm really interested in re-using these objects for purposes that they may not have originally been intended for.

Organelle is run out of Vancouver, British Columbia and describes itself as such:

"Our work starts with a simple premise: waste is the most abundant local
resource our cities have to offer. Often free or inexpensive, waste is a
seemingly endless supply, always providing new and exciting design
possibilities. As such, we approach our work from two angles. We are both
searching for found objects to suit specific design program, and
continuously
harvesting available waste materials to derive concepts
from.....Neither mass
production nor one-off custom design, our work falls
somewhere in
between."

The piece above is cleverly entitled Hangelier 2.1 and you can see more at the Organelle website or www.etsy.com/shop/organelle .

Poufs! 18th Century Wearable Art

Popularized by such public figures as Marie Antoinette, the pouf was the epitome of creative hair styles in the 177os. These elaborate hair-doos were created around a thin metal frame that was placed on the head to give the shape structure. The frame was covered with pomade and hair so that it was no longer visible, and the structure was then decorated with feathers, jewels, beads and other ornaments.

Reaching as much as 3 feet tall, these objects became a way for women of the time to express themselves and define their spaces in the most literal way. It is said the Antoinette was even seen sporting a bird cage in her hair at one point. In the late 18th century women were known to adorn their poufs in support of the revolution with ships and other patriotic icons.

Gross factor: Due to the time and money needed to upkeep these styles, some women would attempt to keep the same design for up to a month, in which case the structure was often infested with fleas, lice, mice and other nasty little things!!

More contemporary styles such as the beehive from the 1960's and modern bumps pay homage to the pouf.

art & fear part 2

I really like the idea of whatever abilities you possess being exactly what you need to create good art. A little hopeful maybe, but I think it speaks volumes to the fact that there is no one universal standard of "good" art or a perfect piece.

Although I understand the argument of quality vs. quantity there is still part of me that thinks making crappy things is a waste- not only of time and energy, but of whatever materials as well. I did like the story though, and how making things over and over will help you to perfect your skills and knowledge of the materials so I guess that's just something else to work on.

fluffy stuff: art & fear part 1

The reading was nice- light and easy. Nothing too intense. A lot of feel-good things about how we're all going through the same things... That being said, I can't remember a time when knowing that someone else had the same problem helped me to solve my own, but it was nice all the same. I'm considering it a think piece because although it did absolutely nothing in the way of helping me figure anything out, it definitely got me thinking about things.

The part about trying to make work that is "our own" stood out to me because I feel like that is something that we are all constantly struggling with- always trying to define ourselves, our space, our work. We exist in this strange place and time when both everything and nothing are simultaneously ours to claim. And this can be very frustrating at times.

My favorite words of wisdom??

"The moment of completion is also, inevitably, a moment of loss- the loss of all the other forms the imagined piece might have taken."

....whoa! Very heavy, Dave & Ted. Very. Heavy.

Erin Currier

Diane Nash



Q'orianka Kilcher

School Pen

I like Currier's work because her materials support the message that she is trying to make. Her work is composed of "trash" and found objects combined with really gorgeous imagery. And I love her artist statement. It's very bold and opinionated- and a little wordy but I think that it works well for her purpose.

The Statement:

"Today’s globalized, multinational, international, multilingual, on-line, on-the-grid, for-profit, fuel-driven, free-trading world of satellite-dished-out telenovelas that force feed fast food, Kevlar, Teflon, Zoloft, Botox, Perdue Roasters, and tomato sauce, is one of increasingly fierce conflicts of interest and interest rates, between the conquerors and conquered, dominators and dominated, capitalists and workers, employers and unemployed, overdeveloped and underdeveloped, overweight and underfed, first-class and so-called Third World, oppressors and oppressed, and the blessed and the damned. As an artist born into a system which represents the former, I consequently seek to know and to make known the plight of the ill-understood latter: the nameless, faceless, voiceless, and marginalized, who, as Eduardo Galeano so eloquently puts it (We Say No), “Make history from below and from inside rather than to continue to suffer history from above and from outside.”

As a medium for my work, I have chosen materials that are readily available: the refuse and the packaging of products produced and consumed by every nation, for every nation, and translated in every language, on the planet. I travel the world’s streets collecting the discarded with which to portray the discarded: the women, the mothers, the martyrs,the mothers of martyrs, barrio dwellers, day laborers, forced laborers, slave-wage laborers, shoeshine boys, lady boys, schoolgirls, gang girls, cholos, guerilla poets, Sandinistas, Zapatistas, Chavistas, the indigenous, the indigent, imprisoned, objectified, nullified, vilified, unfortified, unrecognized, silent, forgotten, and ordinary. I especially attempt to lend voice to those who fight for human rights, social change, and who resist unjust established orders. I thus seek to discover humanity and to transform reality by humanizing it through art."

Well put.

Jum Nakao

"We bare ours souls to reveal the ability to be light, dreaming of
unspeakable, impossible, inexplicable, indefinable. There is a possible still
invisible in the real."
- Jum Nakao

Jum Nakao is a Brazilian Fashion Designer, living and working out of San Paulo. Originally, Nakao envisioned himself working in a field with computing and electronics, but quit after he realized these things were too far away human sight.

His website is written in Portugese so its a little hard to understand after being translated, but pretty much I think the images speak for themselves...because these garments are made out of paper!

linn olofsdotter.

Linn Olofsdotter is a Swedish-born artist who works in many mediums, but most frequently illustration. She is educated in both advertising and graphic design, and worked for networks like Fine Living, MTV and Anime network early on in her career. Olofsdotter is currently living in Brazil and working as a free agent for clients in the fashion, advertising and editorial fields.

I'm really attracted to the color compositions in Olofsdotter's work. She has a darker, slightly muted palette that makes some really beautiful work.




Perfume Flowers


Predator, Self Portrait

Oilily, Octopus