beautiful things: eva wylie and sally smart

eva wylie, close to (near berserk), silkscrene of fabric and mixed media, philadelphia international airport, 2006.

today i am enamoured of the work of philidelphian eva wylie, who does a mixture of collage, installation, and walpaper-art – this last being something i particularly love, and come across rarely. (i found wylie via oh joy! - lucky me)

sally smart, the exquisite pirate, 2004-7

the first ‘wallpaper-artist’ i discovered was sally smart, and i’ve been enchanted ever since (i saw one of her works for the exquisite pirate just the other day).  it’s such an under-utilised medium, and such a delicate and intriguing mixture of the tactile and the two-dimensional.   it’s also an art-form that is very ‘feminine’ – or at least designated as such – because of it’s obvious roots in the ’domestic’ and ‘decorative’ arts; but smart’s work is exhibited in some of the most prestigeous galleries in the world, which is pretty amazing when you think about it, and a pretty brilliantly subtle appropriation of public space through ‘private’ (ie, ‘feminine’) art.

in which amanda palmer makes my day

thus far my day looks like this:

 

which is unfortunate, because what i was really hoping for was this:

blair waldorf from gossip girl

 

though in a pinch, i would definitely settle for this:

from the sartorialist

thus far, what i’ve got – not to be sneezed at, but still, not quite up there with that second picture - is this post by amanda palmer.  “nothing is impossible if you ask for help”.  i do really need to remember that.

jewels: punch-ons for the environment

picture and links from inhabitat.

i really love (and find quietly hilarious)…these moss knuckledusters by icelandic designer hafsteinn juliusson.  it’s such a beautiful idea, on so many levels: portable plants, jewellery that incorporates growing things, and most of all the lovely contrast between hard and violent things that can kill you…and the warm, living softness of moss.

i wish my day was going to look a little more like this:

cake from gala darling (via Rock ‘n Roll Bride, by Kirsty Mitchell)

and less like this:

jessica stam from wet behind the ears.

…but with less leopard-print-ish socks (or is that ‘more leopard-print ish socks’?  because, really, as if anybody isn’t in need of more of those?)

hope at the end of the tunnel. or the week, whichever comes first.

1. my new sewing machine.

2. finally – finally – getting to read volumen 1 of the millennium trillogy.

(and how fantastic, by the by, is the french book cover?  though slightly…misleading.  i do love a nice wednesday adams reference, though…)

beautiful things: jasper johns

i am, at present, swamped by work.  and i do mean swamped.  i am writing about jasper johns:

and i would expand, here, on the topic (because he is quite extraordinary – both artistically and theoretically)

 

but my brain is dead.  or at least all my words are going elsewhere.

thus i leave you only with pictures.  which is probably fine, really, because as pictures go his work is pretty fantastic.

beautiful things: rohan anderson

because i am a sucker for pretty, pretty things…(most especially if they’re red)

…the work of australian photographer rohan anderson naturally appeals to me.

photo of the day:

by tommy ton, via haute design

and a reminder that i really need to get some new (geek) glasses.  much like these ones.

blog of the day

this is my new favourite:

Future of Fashion

it follows the work of four budding fashion designers from FIT, the fashion institute of technology (state university of new york), as they gear up for/try for a place in the annual (and highly competitive) BFA runway show.

by dani, from fof

i love behind the scenes shots; i never get over watching how other people work, the processes involved in both the conceptual and practical creation of art, the massive methodological variations involved in approaching similar problems.  where clothes are involved this last point is particularly engaging for me.  i have my own habits and methods of, say, pattern making, and it’s always exciting to see how other people do it, and to experiment with and be inspired by alternate methods.

by dani, from fof

making clothes is such hard work.  i don’t mean the physical process, so much – though obviously that can be exhaustingly time-consuming, at the very least – but the construction, imagination, the thought-process…  making clothes from scratch (ie, starting by creating the pattern itself) is essentially a different sort of engineering.  i doubt the similarities would occur to most people who’ve never done it – and certainly as a ‘feminine’ art (ie, aesthetically driven, ‘un-academic’, and often closer to a ‘craft’ [whatever that means]; certainly not a skillset attributed the same mental acuity people assume in an engineer) the making of clothes is relegated to the realm of hands-on-skill rather than complex thinking.  but if you consider it that’s really not an accurate designation, or at least not a complete one.  constructing clothing – properly – is just as complex as making a building.  it requires precise measurements and extreme attention to detail; sound mathematical skills; an in-depth understanding of structure, materials, and construction techniques; most of all a capacity to translate two-dimensional images not only into three-dimensional garments, but into separate two-dimensional pieces set to become garments, a form of spatial thinking that generally takes a lot of practice to perfect, even in people who’ve a natural ‘knack’ (spatial thinking, as a little trivia on the side, is also a mental function generally believed to be less present in females than males.  it’s one of the excuses people commonly give for girls getting lower marks in maths).

anyway.  my point is that i am really enjoying this blog.  and anybody interested in such things should really check it out.  it’s worth keeping track of.

wearable art: alexander mcqueen

today, this is all i’ve got:

and really, does one need anthing else?  alexander mcqueen, fall 2010.