Milan Design for Textile Futures invasion :)

We could just about escape from our stand in Ventura Lambrate but we didn't want to miss the stunning work selection the students from MA textile Futures (Central Saint Martins College London) showcased this week in the Lambrate area.


The course (we ourselves graduated from in 2008) is celebrating this year its 10 years.
10 years of challenging perception of textiles and surfaces we live with in our material world.

Go Textile Futures !

Ventura Lambrate collective location
Via Massimiano 6, 20134, Milan
General Opening Hours: Tuesday April 12 – Sunday April 17, 10:00 – 20:00



Amelie and Melissa

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Best of Jewelry @ Unique LA Independent Design & Gift Show

all images above: earrings, necklace and ring by Sweet Siren Designs

Unique LA is an independent design and gift show. Hundreds of makers and small businesses sell to a market of 15,000 visitors over a single weekend. The premise is that all goods are locally produced, but seeing as LA is a famously sprawling city, that fortunately still leaves room for a vast amount of choice.

When I visited, the halls were buzzing with activity. I focused on two aspects: jewelry and booth design, and am presenting some of my favorites to you. Honestly, I must admit that the hour I gave myself to browse Unique LA was nowhere near enough, so this is by no means an exhaustive "Best-Of" list.

Sweet Siren Design:

Sara Yasmin produces fantasy-inspired jewelry with whimsical themes and a handcrafted touch. Her creative influences range from, "everything from Mexican and Middle Eastern cultures to mermaids, nautical, sea life, pin up girls, gorgeous flowers and old vintage costumes. There really is no end to it." Yasmin has been working out of her apartment in LA for the past 10 years. See more on her etsy site - www.sweetsirendesigns.etsy.com

necklace by Sweet Siren Design

White Fly:

White Fly designs are all cast directly from textiles into solid silver and gold. If you look closely, you can see the unmistakable ghost of real vintage lace, ribbon, satin or string. You can see the whole collection at www.whitefly.etsy.com.

silver cuff cast from lace by White Fly

iwearuwearwewear:
Tatiana De Andrade revisits safety-pin jewelry in her newest collection. The mix of pearls that she throws in distance the necklaces from their punk heritage, but the overall shape is still organic and rebellious. Tatiana, originally from Portugal, works out of Sherman Oaks. You can visit her online shop at www.etsy.com/shop/iwearuwearwewear

Best of Booths @ Unique LA

This post presents my favorite booths, in terms of style, at the Unique LA independent design & gift show.

The Craft Night Collective:

Their booth was a hub of activity. All decked out in baroque cardboard furnishings, the place was more of a pop-up shop and was very engrossing. Everywhere you looked, there was a strange product to wonder at. They were selling plush toys, handbound books, clothing, photographs, glittery handbags, and more. Amongst all that glorious jumble was a photo booth where you could stage a hot-air balloon ride picture. The people were really friendly, and for a moment, I thought that the Puff&Flock girls had somehow made it to LA and lost their British accents.
I'm hoping to write more about this crazy gang, but for now, you can check out Craft Night LA at http://www.craftnightla.com/.

Rock Scissor Paper:

Rock Scissor Paper has been designing and making greeting cards for nearly 20 years. They started in 1993 - the result of a natural entrepreneurial partnership by two creative sisters. I can imagine, from their cute circus-stlye booth (picture below) that their studio is a very fun place to be. About their funky look, the sisters say, "the bright color palette, bold typography and exuberant floral motifs of the 1960s and 70s forever remind us of our happy California upbringing and understandably saturate our design aesthetic."

http://www.rockscissorpaper.com/

Detroit Sprinkles:

The nice guys over at the Detroit Sprinkles booth print bizarre slogans on t-shirts and sweatshirts to outfit the cool kids of LA. They were great to chat with, and as we know from doing trade fairs ourselves, personality contributes tremendously to the "feel" of a booth. Their product and photoshoots embody a certain LA vibe. Check it out! http://www.detroitsprinkles.com

7 Lightningbolt:
I was surprised to see so many guys selling hand screen-printed goods. 7 Lightningbolt, like Detroit Sprinkles, have been designing for the LA scene and printing out of garages and studios around the city. Their booth had a special interactive features - a 4 screen press. All products were custom printed on location. Clever way to avoid overstock, and also educational for the shoppers. Great! See more at http://www.7lightningbolt.com/

Mah Rana: Jewellery and Meaning

Mah Rana is a London-based jeweller and artist whose work is currently on show at the National Craft Gallery in Kilkenny, Ireland. The exhibition is up until October 20th, and even if you don't have an opportunity to see it in person, I recommend finding out more about her unique approach.

See, for example, "Out of the Dark" (above), a series she made in 2002. It is a collection of brooches, made of gold, in the simple form of a flat circle. The gold circle is painted with a black coating. This black coating is what is intriguing - if you look at the entire series, each black circle has a different texture and different tone of black. It turns out that each is blackened with a different material, which will wear away over time to reveal the bright gold layer beneath. They are pieces of jewellery that brighten with time rather than tarnish. The concept behind can be deciphered from the colour: they are mourning brooches. And they are designed to express the process of grieving, which begins as an overwhelming void that gradually gives way to new life. Black to gold; grief to celebration.

His'n'Hers, Mah Rana, 1995/2002

Rana's work as a jeweller is highly conceptual. The pieces have a very subtle aesthetic and quietly hint at a deeper narrative. Underlying it all is her developed skill in the craft of jewellery-making. She expresses her deep passion for the place of jewellery in our life through the pieces themselves, allowing the voice of the carefully selected materials to tell stories.

Image from "Meanings and Attachment", photograph by Mah Rana

In another section of the gallery, Rana has installed her interactive exhibit, "Meaning and Attachments". Here, she allows visitors to put their own jewellery on display, by being photographed and writing down the story behind the pieces. You see pride, happiness, regret, and other emotions on the faces of the visitors as they pose for Rana's camera. Visitors become models, and everyday accessories become gallery pieces. The value comes from the stories contained between the two.

Mah Rana graduated from the RCA before starting a successful commercial practice. She says, of her practice, "I really need to keep a balance between the mass production work and the one-off art works so I scaled the more commercial side down a little." For designers and craftspeople concerned with meaning, Rana is an inspiration.

Mah Rana at the Crafts Council of Ireland: http://www.ccoi.ie/news/news_item.php?listing_ID=129
Interview with Mah Rana by the Design Council: http://www.yourcreativefuture.org.uk/crafts/crafts_designer01_05.htm

First flavours of Puff and Flock in Milan

Few pics of Puff and Flock show in Milan, with a special thank you to Designers Block without who we would not have been able to get such a nice space to exhibit!

A Shifting Context for Fiber Art?

More than two months after visiting the 5th International Fiber Art Biennial, I'm finally blogging about it. This has been a case of waiting for the perfect opportunity.

(photo left) A student works in the Fiber Arts Department studio in Beijing's TsingHua University, where Professor Lin Lecheng has opened a dialog with the international Fiber Arts community.

The Lunar Year has just initiated its new cycle, and along with it, we can expect many changes of fortune, luck, and energy. We should be able to observe a marked difference between events of the previous cycle (Year of the Rat) and this one. For many, the surfacing of a vast economic fallout in the last few months of the Rat Year seemed to emphasize that animal's sneaky influence. (As a pet rat enthusiast, I normally object to the characterisation of rats as destructive. They actually love to decipher and create complex strucutre.) In any case, the rat is out and the ox is in. Now is the time to talk about one of the two highlights of last year: The Fiber Art Biennial.

Li Jing and Yingda Li in front of Li Jing's Vast - cotton thread, metal buckle

Wang Dong Chrysanthemum in Water - resin, chinese brushes

Part of the piece I exhibited, made with the Magnetic Embroidery technique.


Duan Jianhua, Rotation - cotton thread, plastic pipe



Asa Wretman, Untitled - wool



Song Danxin, Zhang Yong, Chinese Characters Impression - bamboo, paper, fine thread

The other highlight of the Rat Year 2008 was, of course, seeing the headline "The Day America Became Cool Again" on the 5th November issue of The Times.

Exclusive pictures from Birmingham Interiors 2009

Few words, lots of images, we are pleased to show you exclusive pictures from our last exhibition in Birmingham! A huge thank to Designer's block for hosting us!

Kathy Schicker:

Kathy exhibited her collection of smart Jacquard woven textiles called Woven Light. Using yarns that emit and react to light, Kathy created fabrics that change pattern in different lights.

Elisabeth Buecher:


Spiky is a water-saving shower curtain which inflate after 4 mn spent under the shower. The inflating spikes push you out of the shower to prevent you from using too much water.

Amelie Labarthe:

Eco Highway wallpaper (for Graham and Brown) 0% carbon footprint by travelling with your mind andHome Creatures Comfort, a playful collection of objects for the home for grown ups who don't want to grow up. Give life to your objects thanks to the use you make of them, with very low tech and affective interaction.

Melissa French:

Urban Upholstery leaves the London streets for the comfort of Interiors Birmingham 2009.

Aurélie Mossé:


Aurélie exhibited her Constellation Wallpaper, a research artefact dealing with the idea of an energy-storing wallpaper, designed for Philips Design in 2007 that she hopes to develop through the Phd in Tectonic Textiles she is undertaking within Cita, Center for IT and Architecture, Copenhagen.

Jenny Leary:


Ferrofabric
Of all materials that textiles can be made from, why are none magnetic? Jenny set out to challenge this absence of "magnetic textiles" in hopes that laboratory-style experiments would be able to generate them. The purpose of magnetic textiles would be, above all domestic functions, to excite the imagination. Magnetic fields have a well-documented ability to produce a sense of magic - they cause levitation, animation, hidden messages. After a year of research, a collection of promising samples emerged. The results have been exhibited together as a kind of portable alchemist's workshop, where viewers interact with the strange materials and engage in dialogue with the performer. The project is now entering a new stage, where the magentic textiles are being realised on a commercial scale. For the first time, at Interiors Birmingham, Jenny exhibited full-size wall panels of "Automatic Tiles" (a wallcovering product of the Ferrofabric collection).

Jo Angell:


'Solar Sanctuary', is one of a series of experimental canopies designed by Jo Angell. These aim to lure people into shade, enticing them with unusual shapes and patterns. The canopies are modular, so they can be constructed on site and grown to the size required. This mirrors nature's methods. Used outdoors, they could provide protection combined with an aura of lightness. Inside, they can change the atmosphere and colourscheme of a space.

Aysseline Roy:


Aysseline was presenting a collection of modular home accessories made with recycled materials. The Pebble Carpets are made of textured, double side, woolly, carpets of different size, colour and shape that can cover your floor or even climb on your wall.

The Sky Is The Limit

In its mere definition, a textile is the "result of a processing technique that can be applied to many materials" writes Els Ziijlstra in her article Architectural Textile (http://www.materia.nl/). She adds that "textile embraces materials that are pressed, knitted, crocheted, knotted, spun or woven". It is either hand-crafted or manufactured. Textile design is also about surface decoration, a way of assembling and repeating patterns together as well as working on colours and textures. It can be printed, embroided, stitched, engraved, etched, cut...At Puff&flock we stand for an open vision of textile as long as it is exciting, innovative and beautiful!

When I visited "Made Up", the art's biennale in Liverpool last autumn, I found a few examples of what a textile can also be. Shown in the first photos of this post, the work by Richard Wilson Turning the Place Over is a disturbing reflexion on what an architectural surface is. The envelope of the building loses its protective function and becomes a moving pattern.

In the photograph above, the art work by Yayoi Kusama is a sealed box the size of a small bathroom full of colour-changing light bulbs which reflect to infinity on the walls covered with mirrors. A textile can even be an illusion, an immaterial way of embellishing the world!

Last but not least, this is a balloon structure by Tomas Saraceno. Textile can be stuffed or inflated in all sorts of way to become 3D structures. That is when a textile becomes a volume!

At Puff&Flock, to get inspiration, the sky is the limit!

Tetsuo Fujimoto at the Daiwa Foundation

Work '99 Image courtesy of Wallpaper.com

Tetsuo Fujimoto's "Machine Drawings" were started as a reaction to his frustration with the weaving process. He originally trained and exhibited as a weaver, but sought out a different medium - one which allows for "immediate creative response."

It's still possible to see a weaver's approach in Fujimoto's intricate work. He builds up abstract images out of layers of "embroidery" (zig-zag stitch). Although the threads dash across the surface with a palpable spontaneity, the construction method is thoroughly elaborate. His understanding of the sewing machine's zig-zag function is obviously great, and probably equals any weaver's knowledge of a loom.
I enjoyed his use of color. Many of the pieces are black/white when first viewed, but actually contain underlying streaks of color that can only be seen up close. This structure is reminiscent of natural phenomena such as bright blue sky under passing cloud covers, yellow moss under melting snow packs, or veins of pink crystals in grey granite rocks.

Fujimoto writes, "I have the feeling that I can find repose in a sheet of cloth and the feeling that I can absorb the system of the universe within myself." By being so engaged in each piece, he has found a new visual and structural language under the needle of a sewing machine. I'm not alone in being fascinated by this world - another visitor to the gallery was obviously in the process of making a purchase. Many of the works had already been sold.

Tetsuo Fujimoto "Machine Drawings"
12 November - 17 December 2008 Daiwa Foundation Japan House

Warhol at the hayWard

Andy Warhol: Other Voices presents a vast collection of documents recording the person behind the Warhol persona. Along with a retrospective of his iconic prints, audio and video recordings were on display in the immersive exhibition. I've always like the thoughtful installations at the Hayward gallery, and this was no exception. Walls in the entry way were covered in Mao-portrait wallpaper reproduced by the Andy Warhol estate in Pittsburgh. Audio recordings were presented in single-occupancy padded niches in the wall, and just next to those was a screening area set into an American flag. The blue ceiling was emblazoned with big white stars which matched the white star-shaped chairs. Red and white polyester string curtains topped off the theme.

Although it was hard to find the humor in his work at first, after walking through the multimedia environment I emerged with a sense of his warmth. It conveys a world of sarcastic glamour. He had his nose reshaped, was shot, and made some bleak work - there was a vast dark underside. But he also had his artistic mom - a tiny Czech woman with glasses as thick as her accent - living with him in New York for 20 years. Some of his more impressively drafted illustrations feature curlique calligraphy done by mama warhola. This lighthearted side was emphasized by a roomful of floating mylar balloon pillows filling the room as you exit into the shop. Yippee!!

(three notes to textile designers: vintage string curtains, limegreen fish wallpaper, and screenprinted repeats bigger than Kevin's MA tables)

57 Years Since Crystallographers First Designed Textiles

Textile scholar Mary Schoeser expands on the recent Wellcome Collection "From Atoms to Patterns" exhibit in this video. Though the featured work was made in the early 1950's, it resonates with the contemporary interest in the relationship between design and science (See also Nobel Textiles, Design and the Elastic Mind, Design4Science).

Tate Materials Library

Video and info about the Kings College Materials Library at the the Tate Modern.

What Can The Matter Be?

SEIZURE

Seizure by Roger Hiorns, Harper Road, London SE1. On until 2nd November.

An Artangel / Jerwood Comission