Rocket

More sale stuff, this time Mid Century Modern furniture at the Rocket Gallery from today until Sunday.

Rutlands

Geek alert! Rutlands have 10% off everything and free delivery. I went in on a set of Japanese saws - hideously cheap at £45 (yes, for all three).

Note Design Studio

Still manic with numerous different projects on the go at the moment, so the skeleton posts are going to continue for a while. Can't fully vouch for this as i have not had a chance to look through, but thought Note Design Studio looked like fun for a monday morning. NDS have also just featured in Stockholm design week.

Clayworks

 I have a keen interest in plaster finishes, a few years ago I spent a 18 months or so learning the basics (it takes years) of traditional Italian finishes, form Rustico to Stucco. I found it fairly complicated and intricate, sometimes with many different elements to make a certain decorative effect. Clayworks omit the ground marble dust and other fancy ingredients, using a simpler recipe with clay to make natural, low impact finishes for buildings. It's nothing new, rather just going  back to the way things used to be done but I like the look and style, and Clayworks seem to totally believe in what the do.

Cosmic Communist Constructions

You may have noticed I am crazy busy at the moment, hence the lack posts. But luckily Steve sent me the link for a mad and brilliant looking new book about Communist structures and Emma follwed up with this cool photo of a futurist looking poster from in the East end. Cheers dudes.

Scholten & Baijings

Another example of finesse and freedom in approach to design, this time by Scholten & Baijings.
Paper porcelain table "..combines subtlety with elegance. The folded cardboard models for the crockery are translated into light grey, unglazed porcelain cups and plates, playing with the suggestion of cardboard delicately. "
On the flip side, they have also just completed the theatrical 'Amsterdam Amoire' for Established & Sons which has a rich material palette, including printed laminate, photographs, hand blown glass and steel.

Inga Sempe

Awful lot of stuff by Inga Sempe, (most of which is by no means bad), but the reason for post is the lighting section, which in my mind is where the real interest lies. I challenge anyone who says they do not like seeing a hot air balloon floating in the sky, and Vapeur captures this escapism and serenity by using that form. The way it's slightly wrinkled (deflated) makes me think its nearing the end of a journey; where has it been? what has it seen? Beautiful, evocative stuff.
And it does not stop there, Grande Plissee is firmly rooted to terra firma, with its mushroom like form.
But Sempe can reference the industrial world too, with Plissee being a extending rectangular form whose workings remind me of a old lift (elevator) door or rivet gun mechanisms.

Arne Quinze

Artist? Designer? Architect? Arne Quinze is obssessed with elavation, both metaphorically and physically.
"Recurring fundamentals in his oeuvre are the use of multiple types of wood, including salvaged wood; electrical colors in fluorescent paint (yellow, orange, and black); and themes referring to social interaction, communication, rhythm, and the interplay of lines."

llot llov

So much to like from German design quartet llot llov. A very wide range of disciplines and styles are covered here, from the baroque installation work, through overt interiors, into finely produced and considered furniture and products.
In naming the products I instantly feel there are strong relationships designers and their creations, even though some of the work deals directly with readymade objects, such as High Voltage ceramic isolators.
Luci is a retro craft inspired hanging basket, Todd perfectly solves the 'clothes thrown on a chair scenario' and Clark looks like the long lost giant elder brother of the Isokon donkey, where as the installation work may deal with "The experiment to translate Thai improvisation into modern design.."
I fully appreciate the freedom of thought and openmindedness llot llov display.
Have a good nose around their site.

La Bolleur

I was thinking... what can I do to lift the mood of the last post? I know, look at what La bolleur are up to.
And sure enough, as well as celebrating being Five and moving to a new studio, they have been making deconstructed children's climbing frames, inflating enormous colourful tubes for no specific reason and making champagne cork rockets.

Google Art Project

Apologies in advance, i feel one of my occasional rants coming on.
I saw the new Google Art project yesterday when searching for something and thought it might be interesting. How wrong could I be? Very!
Google have wheeled their Street Map camera's around every major Art gallery in the world taking pictures of all the work, allowing you to 'walk' around, from the comfort of your chair. 
I searched the Uffizi, for the Botticelli painting I recently posted about and was horrified by the pixellated grey mess i found in its place. Art should be seen in the flesh wherever possible, and the magic of these masterpieces should be protected and embraced. I am by no means against reference, (for which Google images is amazing and allows me to write this blog), but i am against replacement.
What about the context of the setting, the heat of the city, light, vibrancy of colour, scale, emotion that's emitted, history, damage, realness...the experience!

"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"

Art project is Not useful, it is damaging. I know some galleries already have similar types of thing themselves, but its the wholesale nature of this which is the problem. The obssesion is with access, with amounts of information, not useful information. So now you can virtually fly around all of the greatest artistic treasures in the world during your coffee break. It's just making the world so small, static and stale.  
Please Google, can you leave me somewhere to explore myself, something to find myself and make up my own mind about, by seeing it as it was made, and meant to be seen.

I have deliberately not linked to the Art Project site, and i suggest that instead of searching for it you think about doing something else. Maybe go into your library at lunchtime and flick through some art books, with faithfull lithographic reproductions, go to your nearest gallery, or dust off the old SLR camera, and discover.

(Phew, sorry)

Jorre Van Ast

Super interesting optical strucures from the Jorre Van Ast. Inspired by construction site fencing, Van Ast manages to re-interpret the material into something both confusing and magical. Many things at work here, with an obvious Op-Art influence but also dealing with ideas of re-use, and object. Is it functional, a seat, a table? in my book the intrigue is increased because of the coffin like proportions.

John Reeves

Most famous for his clever 'Louis' range,  John Reeves's shows his eye for the detail again, in this nice image of his dovetail shelving.