Lake water the colour of Pepto Bismol.
Textiles cast with concrete by Crystal Gregory.
Exquisite embroidery by Tzip Dagan.
Henrique Oliveira’s arboreal installations.
Delphiniums in a house of blues.
Inspiration
icing on the cake
May 5, 2022
I always think glazing takes less time than it actually does. Come to think of it, I think most things take less time than they actually do. I’m working on that. You know, slowing down, taking on less. Clay can’t be rushed, and the glazing stage is no exception. It’s such a shame when days of work end up in the bin because the glaze was slapped on in a hurry. I paint on my glazes which is finicky and laborious. There are other techniques –– easier and more efficient ones –– but I’m stubborn, and that’s what I’m used to. Don’t expect to see a change if you don’t make one. Yada, yada, yada. Another thing to add to the list. Glazing is my least favourite stage, but it’s a stage that can make or break your piece. The icing on the cake, if you will. These porcelain cake sculptures are by Jacqueline Tse. Sweets and skulls –– enjoy!
new normal
May 4, 2022
Born in Morocco and raised in Belgium, Mous Lamrabat‘s photographs are an eye-popping fusion of his Arab heritage and the Western symbols he grew up with. Think models dressed in Gucci djellabas and superhero burkas. “As a child of first generation immigrants, there is always a point in your life where you feel like you don’t fit in anywhere; not in the country you were born in nor in the country you were raised in,” says Lamrabat. “I felt like I was too Moroccan to fit in as a Belgian and too European to fit in as a Moroccan, and this is something that almost every immigrant has to deal with.” Through his photographs, Lamrabat is honing a visual language that captures both the universality and uniqueness of this experience, while dismantling stereotypes and cultural norms and paving the way for something new and more flexible. “As a kid, I loved wearing djellabas and rocking them with my Jordan sneakers. It felt “cool” at that time because that’s who I was: a mixture of identities. Doesn’t it make sense that your “idea-basket” gets larger when you live in different cultures or you live in multiple places in the world?” The eyes, and often the whole face, are covered in Lamrabat’s images, which interestingly, makes his subjects even more accessible. It’s the experience that we’re connecting with rather than the individual. “I love creating from a perspective that it’s not about one person,” he says. “The face takes so much information away and doesn’t leave that much to the imagination…. I feel when the face doesn’t show, the person who is looking at the image puts their own face in there.”
circle line
May 2, 2022
Dutch artist, Marian Bijlenga works with unusual material such as horse hair, fish scales and porcupine quills. Her textile wall reliefs are an homage to lines and dots. Patterns are repeated, but as in nature, it’s the irregularities that make her designs interesting. Pockets of white space create a dialogue between the work and the wall it hangs on. “By leaving some space between the structure and the wall the object is freed from its background and interacts with the white wall,” says Bijlenga. “It becomes what I call a ‘Spatial Drawing.'” I love her work with fish scales, particularly this collection of them on Bijlenga’s studio wall. Loose and structured, geometric and organic, black and white and vividly colourful, the possibilities are endless.
springtime
April 29, 2022
In the spirit of Spring, I close the week with this beautiful illustration by Scottish artist, Jessie Marion King. King was a member of the Glasgow Girls and created illustrations in the Art Nouveau style that celebrated whimsy and fantasy. The drawing below is from Oscar Wilde’s House of Pomegranates. Between the lilac swallows, inky blue butterflies and those flowers that look like fried eggs, it’s hard not to fall in love with its charms.
acid wash
April 28, 2022
I’ve worn acid wash jeans exactly twice in my life, once when I arrived at Kingsley Pines summer camp in Maine, and the other to a Madonna concert in Toronto in 2003. It’s not a good look, even in the hands of my favourite contemporary designers. I lost so much weight at camp –– a combination of home-sickness and non-stop outdoorsiness –– that my jeans practically fell down when my Mum came to collect me three weeks later. I didn’t own another pair until 15-years on, when my friend, Antonella and I rifled through racks of jeans at a local Value Village looking for the perfect pair to channel Madonna in. Our black suede pumps, white lace gloves and rhinestoned chandeliers completed the look, and off we went to true blue the night away. Acid wash jeans date back to 1960s California surf culture, when ocean sprayed surfers got fed up of fading their jeans in the sun and resorted to chlorine bleach instead. Then came the gaudy 80s, and between the neon and the shoulder pads and the animal print, acid wash jeans with a paper bag waist fit right in. They have no place in 2022 unless bleach falls on your favourite jeans while you’re doing the laundry.
nature trail
April 27, 2022
I read yesterday with my daughter that there are 950 species of sea urchins, and that puffer fish make huge, beautiful nests in the sand that look like mandalas, and that certain bees build cacoons out of petals and mud prettier than any springtime bouquet. Nature is flipping amazing. Each one of these seeds has a slightly different form and pattern. Purple, acid yellow and milky white. I can’t imagine how many seed species there are on earth, and like the urchins, how much variety exists in each one’s appearance, both subtle and dramatic. It blows my mind. Nature truly is the greatest artist –– resourceful, innovative, disciplined and fiercely imaginative. No wonder we all look to her for inspiration.
around and around
April 27, 2022
silence
April 25, 2022
At first glance, Keisuke Yamamoto’s lithographs look like photographs. They’re that detailed. His hand-drawn stone lithographs of quiet, empty rooms demand you spend time with them, in them, in fact. “There are no re-dos with lithograph. It requires a great deal of systematic planning in the carving process. That’s why lithograph is fun,” says Yamamoto. Exquisitely crafted, with a beautifully meditative quality, the work reminds us to pause and reflect.
crocodile rock
April 23, 2022
Key West Pottery is just what the world needs with bright, zingy colours and classical forms avec un twist. There are so many pieces on my wish list, starting with this polka dot floor vase. I’ll take a mango bowl, and this fabulous cobalt blue crocodile vase. There’s just so much joy and humour in each piece.
