One-hundred-and-three-year-old Hungarian designer Eva Zeisel has amassed quite a following for her sensual, curvaceous ceramics, glassware and furniture over her 80-plus-year career. In her most recent collaboration with New York-based KleinReid design studio, Zeisel has created a series of limited-edition artwork exclusively for Room & Board called the “Lovers’ Suite.” Each silkscreened print exhibits affectionate symmetry with lines and shapes that embrace, interlock, echo. Think of the motifs as the simplest representations of love, with the exception, of course, of The Ring (and, no, I’m not referring to the versions associated with a certain Japanese horror film, the Barnum & Bailey Circus, or the WWE. I’m talking more along the lines of Bethenny Getting Married?).
These Golly Pods—otherworldly porcelain succulent planters designed by San Diego-based Jason Lane (of Bells & Whistles) and Britton Neubacher of Tend Living—have just beamed down to Earth’s surface. I love the cheeky take on mod forms. They also come in hand-lathed wood. Who’s your favorite martian?
A big shout-out to reader Gwen for turning me onto these amazing stoneware Sky Planters by Boskke (an “evovled gardening” firm started by two Kiwi brothers, Jake and Patrick Morris), which literally turn everything you thought you knew about tending houseplants upside down. I’m no rocket scientist, but luckily, you don’t need to be one to figure out how the Sky Planters work. The plant and soil are secured by a ceramic ring and plastic mesh. Fill the porous terracotta reservoir at the top of the Sky Planter with H20 and it will slowly nourish the plant in a classic time-release manner. Now, when you say that your plants are hanging by a thread (or, in this case, a thin stainless-steel cable), you can really mean it, and for once it’s not because you don’t have a green thumb. Sky Plants only need water twice a month!
I’ve been putting off writing this post mostly because I have no logical words to describe the vibrant, multi-media work of San Francisco-based artist, Sarah Moli Newton Applebaum. I can only state the obvious: Her exaggerated, confusing, color-wonderful crochet work, costumes, and other fabric and paper manipulations seem to be the landscape of dreams. Not bucket-list-type dreams, but the escapist dreams that occur when you’ve fallen into a deep sleep or ingested a combination of reality-altering potions. As someone who suffers from Ordinary Dream Syndrome (in my dreams I’ve been known to grocery shop and organize the cupboards), I want whatever Sarah’s having. Make mine a double.
I’m a sucker for notebooks, as you know. But for me, this one, this maze-filled, roller-coaster ride of ruled paper—dubbed the “Inspiration Pad” by its creator, Brussels-based graphic designer Marc Thomasset—really, literally, leaps off the page. Imagine the unexpected twists and turns your diary, torrid romance novel-in-the-making, grocery list, and dear-John letter would take. I like to call it the new I-Pad.
Thanks to a recent introductory tweet by South African textile designer, Heather Moore (aka @skinnylaminx), I’ve become rather fond of the colorful and quirky vintage collectibles at the online shop and Flickr photostream, Wooden Donkey. The eccentric mix of tea pots, egg cups, moneyboxes and salt & pepper shakers (among many other things) from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s is curated by London-based, mono-monikered Emma, a children’s-book editor, vegan, and clear sucker for colorful graphics and illustrations. Because it’s in my nature to love things I cannot have, here are a few of the items from the shop archive that I wish I had swooped up. Don’t you fall into the same trap.
Remember my post on UK artist Peter Root’s Ephemicropolis 2010? No? Allow me to refresh your memory—check out his cityscape made of staples here. At the risk of sounding like I’m obsessed with staples—which I’m not, for the record—I just wanted to throw more staple art your way, mostly because in the case of Baptiste Debombourg’s jaw-dropping Renaissance-inspired murals, I can’t believe that such detail and softness can come from a rigid little metal fastener. Behold what 35,000 staples and 75 hours can result in (if you were an artistic visionary, that is).
Show of hands: Who wants to live here, in this subterranean vacation villa by SeArch and Christian Muller Architects, located in the Swiss mountain village of Vals? I do! I do!
I’ve always admired Earth-sheltered houses for their energy efficiency (the berm provides natural insulation and keeps the structure temperate all year long), however I suspect that when winter rolls around, the sunken, stadium shaped exterior of this particular alpine retreat fills with snow. How could you avoid being totally snowed-in? I’m sure it’s a pickle the architect has accounted for, though I haven’t been able to find any explanations in the project summaries I’ve come across. Any guesses as to what the solution would be?
The green roof atop the Renzo Piano-designed California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco (above) was recently included in The Coolist’s elite round-up of beautiful, energy-conserving, innovative planted roofs the world over. Even though San Francisco isn’t the most concrete of concrete jungles, it’s still an urban environment, and personal green spaces are usually the size of postage stamp (the price to pay for living in an arts/culture/culinary/tech mecca). Raise those tiny green lawns and gardens to the roofs, I say. Use them to grow your vegetables and absorb rain water and reduce energy costs (by regulating the temperature in your house). I mean, talk about scoring brownie points with Mother Nature, right? Here are a few more of my faves from the Coolist’s collection:
Mill Valley Residence by McGlashan Architecture (Mill Valley, California)
OS House by Nolaster Architects (Santander, Spain)
Green Technology Showroom by Vector Architects (in Beijing)
Fine-art photographer Mina Georgescu’s whimsical images only appear to be toy representations of real-life scenes, when, in fact, they are real-life scenes. Is this how we look to…aliens? If so, they must think the human race is very, very cute and that Earth is very, very idyllic.
Because I love all things miniature (as you know), and because I consider myself a class-A voyeur, these images pack a one-two punch for me. I’ve burned more than a few holes in these pictures trying to make out the finest details. Good thing I’ve got 20/20 eyesight (but maybe not for much longer if I keep squinting like this).
Speaking of things shot in miniature, have you seen The Sandpit by Sam O’Hare? It’s a day-in-the life of New York City, strung together from more than 35,000 photos taken using the “tilt shift” technique, which simulates the toy effect. It’s pretty amazing. See for yourself:
A Nashville, Tennessee native, Lily Kane now lives in Brooklyn. A former Director of Education at the American Craft Council, she currently heads up Exhibitions & Publications at the Tribeca gallery R 20th Century. Raised by design loving parents with a covetable collection, she lived in a Marcel Breuer dorm at Vassar College and has been lecturing and writing about contemporary and historical design ever since. Contact Lily | Read posts by Lily
Erin Loechner is a freelance design writer/blogger whose work has been featured in Glamour, Dwell, Lucky and Nylon Magazine. She muses daily on her award-winning website Design For Mankind, founded in 2007 in an attempt to bring light to today's creative design culture. Contact Erin | Read posts by Erin
Leilani Marie Labong is a freelance design and lifestyle writer living in the super-crafty, crazy-inspired, ridiculously innovative metropolis known as San Francisco. Thus, she too is creative, but only by association. Leilani writes about design for 7x7 Magazine, California Home + Design, Real Living Australia, the San Francisco Chronicle and her own charmingly unfocused blog, A Ruffled Feather. Contact Leilani | Read posts by Leilani
Leilani Marie Labong is a freelance design and lifestyle writer living in the super-crafty, crazy-inspired, ridiculously innovative metropolis known as San Francisco. Thus, she too is creative, but only by association. Leilani writes about design for 7x7 Magazine, California Home + Design, Real Living Australia, the San Francisco Chronicle and her own charmingly unfocused blog, 
