The New Organic/Twigs Redux

The International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) opens here in NYC today, and the global design set will be flocking in droves to the Westside's Javits Center to see the latest innovations in furniture design and materials applications. I will be looking for the usual subtle examples of Mother Nature prevailing in the midst of urban cacophony and style hype. Found twigs + white powder coated steel as green fashion seems like a good place to start. 

These 'New Organic' pieces by Stanley Ruiz are delightfully quirky and under-designed with their raw combo sort of appeal. 

Available/viewable in the designboom Mart at ICFF (May 17 - 20).

Avant Gardeners/The Book

Mother's Day 2008 has come and gone. I had a brilliant weekend with my sweet little pod of a family and also led the Green Design Walking Tour with Jill Fehrenbacher out at BKLYN Designs. One thing that escaped my radar, though, was Tim Richardson's new book, Avant Gardeners. The former Wallpaper magazine landscape editor, has created a gorgeous compendium of avant-garde landscape and gardening design projects. If I had known that this book was on the horizon, I might have dropped a few more hints around the household, as it is no mystery that this mother is prone to pruning as an art form.

via MoCo Loco

Craft as Eco-Agency

Regeneration (handmade paper, hemp, vegetation) Abigail Doan, 2007

Craft as Eco-Agency, a new online exhibition on Poplar ArtCraft, the Canadian fiber journal. The announcement reads: New York artist Abigail Doan creates "...tactile maps, floating topographies, and in-situ sovenirs that highlight the delicate nature of our environs via geomorphic  agency and environmental tinkering". 

The exhibition will remain on view in Gallery 1 through August 1, 2008.

Pocket Utopia Spins a Fine Urban Web

Arachne 1 (homespun wool and stainless steel pins) Brece Honeycutt, 2008

I love the idea behind the artist run/social space, Pocket Utopia. I have been remiss about getting out to Brooklyn for an actual opening, but this Friday's show with Brece Honeycutt and Audra Woloweic looks hard to resist. Austin Thomas just keeps hand-picking some of the most interesting artists and ideas on the scene. It really seems as if she is cultivating a whole new field (generation) of art wildflowers or hype-resistant grasses.

Visit the Pocket Utopia website for opening night and exhibition details, and do not miss Brece Honeycutt's other work viewable on her artist website. Public artist in-situ, Graham Coreil-Allen, will also launch his 'Visionary Crosswalks' in conjunction with Pocket Utopia on Saturday, May 10, from 4-6pm.

Fabric Wall Drawing/Installation, Audra Woloweic (2008)

Preservation Strategies

Untitled (latex rubber, pre-Columbian textile pattern) by Rachel Miller

Passing I (latex rubber and dirt) by Rachel Miller

Sleeve (latex rubber and seeds) by Rachel Miller

Your notion of what constitutes "preservation" might not include latex rubber or polymer water crystals, but sculptors Rachel Miller and Michele Brody have incorporated both materials into their current PRESERVATION installations at the Chasama Gallery Space in midtown Manhattan. Neither have shamelessly indulged in the usual artist exercise in "self-preservation" either, but rather created textured eco-capsules and glowing sentinel-like events. This is a great show for examining possible scenarios for environmental preservation by looking deeper and longer at the surface of the familiar (the domestic) - past, present, future.

Garden Sentinels (vegetation and LED lights) by Michele Brody

Garden Sentinels (detail) by Michele Brody

PRESERVATION is on view at Chashama through May 25, 2008. More exhibition images can be viewed here.

May Day: The Oikos Project

No public demonstrations, street marches, or activist campaigns today. Just quiet time in the studio laboring in a different way. The Oikos Project makes it to May 1. More than fifty days old now and the nest is lined with recycled fiber, paper, and harvested household bits.

Vector/No Vector by Warren Schultheis

Fellow collage artist, Warren Schultheis, has a solo show currently on view at Gallery Ocho in Santa Barbara, California. Vector/No Vector features the lyrical/linear constructions of the artist's cartographic-inspired landscapes. Schultheis provides refreshing views on mapping and abstraction in this age of Google MapQuest via an interface and layering system that aids in the location of self in both the online and offline realms.

Vector/No Vector is on view until May 17, 2008. (The two collages above are not in the exhibit but are favorites of mine.)