Geotagged Ceramics from Atelier NL

We rarely take into account the origin and identity of everyday objects that are made for our use. So many of our clothes and belongings are made in countries outside the US, and this separation keeps us from appreciating the full value of objects we encounter every day. I know the origin of a few things in my apartment: I know that my four-poster bed was made in Macau, China and that my Le Creuset pot was handcrafted in Southern France for example. This knowledge places an intrinsic value on the items because it gives them an origin, a story and an identity.

Netherlands-based ceramic designers Nadine Sterk and Lonny van Ryswyck of Atelier NL took this idea to an entirely new level with a series of geotagged pottery that just received a Re:Vision Design Award. The hand-crafted pottery pieces are sourced from different farms spanning a 460-square-kilometer area in the Netherlands called Noordoostpolder. Each piece is stamped with a code indicating its exact origin. At the invitation of Jurgen Bey, the Atelier designers took up artists’ residencies there to study the creation and development of this agricultural area. “We wanted to make tableware so that the vegetables prepared for dinner could be served from vessels made from the same soil the vegetables came out of,” explains Rijswijck. 

Images courtesy of Inhabitat

Look at these gorgeous colors, all found in the natural soils in different parts of the region! They discovered yellow earth in Brunssum, a smooth and shiny dark brown in Woerden, and a rough terra cotta in Gilze-Rijen. This could be (I hope) a trend in kitchen product design because there is definitely more awareness of the origins of the food we eat. This takes that concept to a new level, so that the materials we use to eat the food out of help us to understand what we are eating. It adds a lot of meaning to the meal that may otherwise be taken for granted! Sterk explains that, “ A bucket filled with earth is anonymous, but the stories of the farmer who works the earth lend it its identity.”

Design Inspiration from Billy Baldwin

Billy Baldwin was ‘the’ interior designer in New York in the 60’s and 70’s. He preferred casual, personal interiors, using pattern on pattern and maintaining the clients personality with some pieces of their own furniture. He designed rooms for Cole Porter, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and Greta Garbo.

This is an image of a Billy Baldwin French riviera interior from the 70’s that shows his love for pattern. Beautiful, serene and playful.

 
Images courtesy of Design Sponge
Billy Baldwin is endlessly quotable (reminds me of his 21st century counterpart Jonathan Adler) and this is one of his sayings, made into a cute illustration. It reminds me of the expressive typography compositions that we’re slaving over in another class! This is really interesting advice, however, and something that I will keep in mind. Starting out a design in black and white lets the inferential meaning and emotion come through without being altered in any way by color. Color is so powerful that it makes a big difference in that way, so keeping it out of the decision-making process until the end when the form and composition are in place is a very smart idea. The designer can choose to make color the icing on the cake, or it can BE the cake.

In the image below, Diana Vreeland requested a garden in hell..
I think she got it!

“Stick to the things you really love. An honest room will always be up to date.” -Billy Baldwin

I just remembered that Josef Albers’ advice to his students was the opposite! He suggested that you work with colors you most dislike to understand them better, and maybe your opinion will change. I think he took his own advice too because in this interview he said that he couldn’t imagine working with reds, and then worked with reds for a number of years in his “Homage to the Square” series:

Josef Albers, Homage to the Square: Keller ID, silkscreen, 1970

Color Forecasting

I came across this post on the Landor blog from Jack Bredenfoerder while scanning through my bookmarks the other day. It is very relevant to our current project in class, which is to do a trend forecast for a specific color. My color is yellow, so I think it’s great that 2010 all of the popular colors are related to tropical vacations because yellow reminds us of sunshine!

Jack Bredenfoerder is design director of Cincinatti-based Landor, and internationally recognized as a color expert. In his article ‘Blue is the new Green’ he explains the need for a bright ‘forward-thinking’ blue (that he would call Beyond Belief Blue) because blues are so ubiquitous and such a safe choice that they tend to blend in together. He goes on to explain that greens are tilting towards blue in global preference. And I forgot this fun fact – for many years in China, they did not distinguish between green and blue. They called them the same color, which is a great example of how objective colors are, and how it’s possible to classify them in so many different ways. He says this about yellow: “Yellow, in most cultures, is associated with the power and energy of the sun and is a perfect partner for sustaining and adding power to green.” Hmm yellow adds power… that’s interesting because it’s not what I would have thought. I tend to think of yellow as a weak color, but I’m looking forward to exploring it more and being proven wrong!

A fun aspect of predicting color trends is that Hollywood has so much to do with it. Keeping an eye on the red carpet can unveil important new color combinations that could blow up into a global trend.

“While on the Lost tour there was a lot of conversation about Egypt and its ancient deities and how they may be involved in the final episodes. Specifically, Aton and Ra were discussed. Both are sun gods—Aton is a monotheist deity and Ra is a polytheist deity. Expect warm golden yellows and pearly gold metallics. A good representation of these colors would be in the gown that Nicole Kidman recently wore to the Screen Actors Guild Awards.” Bredenfoerder also discusses the Avatar trend towards global environmental awareness, and predicts that luminescence and 3D will be huge trends in electronics. And did you know the Avatar blue color has a name!? It’s called Yves Klein International Blue, named after the artist who first mixed it. Here are the the color trend predictions for 2010!

Image courtesy of Jack Bredenfoerder, Landor Associates.

Analagous color schemes… found in real life!

Below are examples of analagous color schemes I found in my journeys around NYC. In the first image, a warm and cheery group of flowers with orange, orange-yellow and yellow hues. Next I found a pair of blue-green cars parked on the street, with the bright blue garage and graffiti in the background, then a kind couple at Whole Foods that were good sports and let me photograph them in red and violet. Last I came across a gorgeous rainbow window display at Anthropologie that was catching the light just right – both cool and warm examples of analagous colors.

Hunter Stabler – paper cut art (and a cool name too)

Detail from the Cockatoo is Moving Under You, Ink and graphite on hand cut paper

Baba Yaga Misquotes the Face to Steeleye Span, Hand Cut Paper

Sator Square, ink and graphite on hand-cut paper mounted on plexiglass, 12 x 12 inches

Every once in a while, an artist pops up on my screen via my artistaday.com component of iGoogle that makes me stop to look. I encountered Philadelphia based Hunter Stabler in this way yesterday, and I’ve since looked stared and wondered at his work. If you take a look at his portfolio site, the most striking thing (well for me since I’m taking a color workshop class) is that there’s no COLOR! He uses neutral colored papers to create his artwork, which are intricately detailed and cut to form spiritually significant objects and symbols.

His Sator Square, above, was in an exhibition recently at artist-run and curated Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Philadelphia. I wasn’t sure what a Sator square was so I looked it up – this is what Wikipedia said: “The Sator Square is a word square containing a Latin palindrome featuring the words SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS written in a square so that they may be read top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top, left-to-right, and right-to-left. The earliest known appearance of the square was found in the ruins of Pompeii which was buried in the ash of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD.”

It’s a magic square! It has spiritual significance because it was thought to have magic powers to ward off evil. The closest translation is ‘the farmer Arepo has works wheels’, which isn’t a great sentence but it’s amazing that it can be read identically forwards, backwards, up and down.

Side note: also at this exhibition was the work of Adam Parker Smith, who showed a stunning collage of diamonds. He successfully created the multiple facets with triangular bits of paper. This reminded me of a classmates work from last week!

Research on Josef Albers

I’m doing research today for a presentation on Josef Albers, who was a painter, teacher and philosopher educated at the Bauhaus and eventually headed the department of Design at Yale University. Below are a few images of his work that I’m incorporating into my presentation. He created a theory for teaching color that is still relevant 40 years later (in fact, our class structure is based on the teachings in his book, Interaction of Color). The works are Red and White, 1923; Upward, 1926; and Homage to the Square, 1969

Harmonious colors by Alberto Sevoso

I’ve had these images saved in this post for a couple days now, because I’m trying to figure out why I love them so much. They are the typographic work of artist Alberto Sevoso. I can’t tell if they are watercolor, collage or both, and I couldn’t tell you even remotely what they say, but I chose to write about them because I’m drawn to the colors, layers and complex handmade feel.

I will try to explain why I think these colors are harmonious. I know they are harmonious because they create a very pleasing effect, but I’m not 100% sure why. In the first image, there are many reds and the most saturated color on the page is reddish-blue (purple). As a wisp of a detail in the corners of the composition is yellow, the complementary color. I’m a huge fan of yellow and purple in compositions, and I see here that it’s stronger overall when one of the colors is dominant. Also playing off the dominant purple color are the many tints of red that appear to disappear into the depths of the page.

In the second image, orange is the dominant color and the lighter blue tint peeks out from the background to complement. The purple and yellow are also playing around with each other in this one, and I just realized that all of his compositions have this great neutral base that makes the more vibrant colors shine. Well, love it! Have no idea what they say but love it!!!

Anastassia Elias creates beautiful art from toilet paper rolls

I was searching for inspiration for my Type 2 assignment today, and I came across this blog post, from the My Modern Metropolis network. I’m always on the lookout for innovative reuse of materials, and may be one of the only people on Earth that recycles the cardboard middle of toilet paper rolls, and these images really blew me away.

The scenes are so intricate and adorable, but they have such a nostalgic mood as well. The subject matter contributes to that feeling, from the schoolchildren and lady drying her clothes on the hanging lines, to the timeless subject of kids building snowmen with the watchful dog. They show fine attention to detail and craft, and very impactful lighting. The warm sepia tone of the paper cutouts and lighting of the brown paperboard create an atmosphere of a simpler time… maybe a time when people actually reused things like the cardboard in a toilet paper roll! Utterly brilliant.

They are the work of Anastassia Elias, an artist living in Paris. Here is her blog and here is her portfolio on Behance. I’m so excited about finding this person I can barely contain myself, all of her work is beautiful and timeless.

This is an unbelievable tapestry

aaxé vatapá alegria feijão, avaf 2008
Wool, silk and artificial silk tapestry with metallic thread details.
Dimensions: 11′ 5″ x 6′ 8″

It is the most provocative and energetic tapestry I’ve ever seen, and I thought fitting for my color blog. By the way, the artist’s name means ‘assume vivid astro focus’ and they are an anonymous artists collective, but we do know they are founded by a New York based Brazilian artist. Why do people remain anonymous… unless they are breaking some sort of law. hmmm….

This tapestry and many more can be found on the Banners of Persuation site, which is the design team that commissioned this artist and 14 others to create tapestries based on their work. The tapestries are now on view at James Cohan gallery in New York. Found this link via the Artcrush newsletter from Flavorpill. LOVE Flavorpill and I’m so happy I subscribed to their emails. Even though I get flooded with emails every day, I always pause to check out Artcrush and Flavorwire.

Gradient in Grey – Cut paper collage

Here is my gradient exercise using paper torn from magazines. Luckily I had some Philips de pury catalogs lying around and got some nice variations from colors in the featured artworks. The only problem I found are the difference in warm and cool colors, even when they are around the same value look very different.

And below is my painted value study in grey, using acrylic paint.