Vigilante Copy Editor

This scrap metal sculpture is in the Pratt Institute Sculpture garden in Brooklyn, it is 2 blocks from where I lived on Lafayette Ave. I walked through this garden often to go to the store or bank, etc.

This piece I particularly like. I like the use of industrial scraps, the off cut shapes welded together into a flat 3D cube. The light played on it. It showed the variations of color and shape, you could see the gaps between the shapes on the grass on strong sunny days. So always visually interesting. I like the economy of it and the recycling of materials.

I am thinking of this sculpture because of an article in the New York Times "Vigilante Copy Editor"
has a short video about how someone has gone around to each sculpture and edited the titles and description. I laughed but so much enjoyed seeing all the sculptures again. Have a look:     http://nyti.ms/13dNT4o
                                            

The Lion in Winter

THE LION IN WINTER

I loved Kelly's post on the  Roman sculpture and how it captivated her because that feeling happened to me when I saw  Bernini's  spirited clay models in small scale  at the Met Museum in NewYork.
 I was equally as fascinated so much so that I took these pix against museum regulations. I just needed to study and contemplate them at my leisure.  When you read Bernini's quote think how modern his mind was, just like a bio-computer in 1673!  

Evocative, Powerful, Strong Sculpture

On a visit to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford I was stunned by the powerful sculpture from Rome in the 1st century. The spirit in stone, the struggle of the soul, the strength of the material. Powerful. Heroic.

To see more of the photos from my visit to the museum see my Heart Home Magazine blog post

Of Clocks and Lamps

We turned the clocks back last night, it now gets darker an hour earlier. By December we will have only 7 or 8 hours of daylight.

Some love the long winter nights, they can be quite special sitting by a fire. But I have been thinking of how we will all need more light as the days shorten and nights are longer.

I was looking at the new table lamps at Porta Romano this week. There is one light I thought would jazz up any room through the winter, it has a black and white striped blown glass base and a yellow satin lampshade.

Another simple but no less elegant is a Squash Lamp in subtle plum blown glass.

And this lamp of sculptural glass and a silk linen shade, I can imagine the light playing off the form.

The honey colored shade will warm any room and give it a glow, the base of blown glass will give a variety of colors as the light spreads over it in the evening.

All these lamps will give any room some warmth and light, they will add some style and sit next to the sofa or a bedside like a piece of sculpture. All from the new collection at Porta Romano... some of the best lights in London.

Lights from Decorex

At the end of summer and early autumn you can feel the difference in light, there is a more golden quality and the evening is coming much earlier. Next month the clocks will go back an hour, then the evening will come in the afternoon.

With a new lighting project for lighting art and another which will require all new electrical and lighting plan, my attention at Decorex, Designjunction and other venues was particularly on lighting and here are some of the marvelous sculptural light fixtures and lamps from Decorex:

Ice Pendants pendant dish of blown glass by Cox of London, glass balls by Best and Lloyd,  glass pendants from Harlequin London, silver wire circular pendant.

 Circles like an eclipse or halos, a piece of silver birch illuminated by LED, Circles from Le Deun Luminaires from France.

 Translucent layers of porcelain back lit by LED by Boatswain Lighting

 Layers of gold leaves

Classical and sculptural table lamps from William Yeoward

The Architect and The Painter

Case Study House ＃8

Last week with friends from the Design Blog Collective, we gathered at Vitra to view the excellent documentary "The Architect and The Painter" about Ray and Charles Eames. It was the story of how they came together at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, married, moved to California and together designed many of the classic, iconic designs of the 20th Century, a very fruitful and collaborative relationship.

Their work expanded beyond furniture to photography, film, graphics and communication. They had a work ethic that work is play and play is work, their enjoyment came from the close involvement in their many projects. With an initial dream and drive to make well designed, beautiful and affordable furniture using new materials and methods like molded plywood, fiberglass-reinforced plastic, bent metal wire and aluminum – offering consumers beautiful, functional, yet inexpensive products and are some of my favorite pieces of furniture:

Furniture became sculpture but using studied measurements of the body, their furniture was comfortable. Their methods brought together art, industry and science.

For this showing that was arranged by Katie, our design geek, a big thank you and another for Jane Thompson of Vitra UK, a supplier and showroom of healthy, intelligent, inspiring and durable furniture.

Pieta

The Pieta by Michelangelo

Donald Judd

An object in space, the space around an object, what surrounds it, within and between, these are many of the factors considered when architects and designers design, arrange, position, array, organize space and the furniture that is needed within the space. Donald Judd's objects made of industrial and building materials of wood, metal, plastic were about spatial planning, asking questions  about an object in space. His work in plywood, sheet metal, perspex, primary colors in simple, unadorned geometric forms. Sometimes stacked, sometimes in rows, always satisfying and always beautiful.

This past weekend I was invited by Michaela of PARGY to hear one of the fabricators and collaborators of Judd's work, Peter Ballentine, Judd collaborator, fabricator, conservator and curator, at the Courtald Institute. An informative talk about nuances of how Judd worked. From there I followed up with a visit to the Spruth Magers Gallery to see the drawings of Judd and the order forms from the fabricators, that was amusing.

When I first came across Donald Judd's work the simplicity, materials, dimensions, and the spatial planning of the objects fascinated me. Minimalism. I find it simple, unfussy, honest about material,  and has had a profound influence in architecture and interior design.

70's Sculpture

 

Remember the 70's and platform shoes, they were higher then the platforms of today. In New York while visiting an old friend, he pulled out these super platforms that he wore to the disco. Custom made they were a full 12 inches high. How he walked in them, I don't know, but they were fabulous, it was walking sculpture.