For Hot Shots who are feeling summer lazy, we've extended the entry deadline to next Thursday, July 7. This is the final deadline: all entries must be received by midnight on Thursday.
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Image above courtesy Summer Hot Shot Megan Cump.
As I mentioned earlier in the week, I'm guest blogging over on Apartment Therapy. I'm just getting started, but here's what's going on so far:
My introductory post from yesterday, Shelter Magazines and Living with Art.
Today's post on Living With Art.
The curmudgeonly Miss Representation is a firm believer that a thousand words is worth well more than a picture. Not once in the fabled misanthropic history of this verbose blog has a photo ever been posted. (I think it's safe to say it'll never happen either.) So, as a public service to befuddled readers everywhere, I present to you Miss Illustrated, a visual companion to the blogosphere's favorite architecture and urban issues criticism blog.
Today's edition is an accompaniment to this mornings post on LES street art:
Two recent street sightings remind me what's great about this town and that 'street art' isn't simply something designed to end up on a Threadless tee shirt:
1. At Forsyth and Stanton (maybe Rivington), both the north and south crossing signals (east side) have stickers affixed to them that, upon the illumination of the 'walk' signal, transform into a Lucha Libre character (and different ones at that). Cut so they are wearing the prototypical unitard, the lights create suspenders and fill out the mask. Viewing angle is important for the full effect.
Threadless tee-shirt.
Altered crossing signal by Thundercut.
2. On one of the support columns of the Williamsburg Bridge as you travel down Delancy (right about Columbia Street) there is a hasty, sloppy testament to "Senator Chuck Schumer". No context, no image, no additional message. Just in case you forgot, I guess, who is the senior senator from New York.
Senator Chuck Schumer
Originally uploaded by satanslaundromat.
Williamsburg Bridge graffitti, courtesy Satan's Laundromat (on Flickr).
Senator Chuck Schumer himself, courtesy Eliot Shepard (on Flickr).
The line drawings are lovely and all, but I thought I'd share some actual photographs of the Michigan house I posted about last week. These aren't photos from the Metropolitan Home feature - they were taken by Eric Laignel for Dufner Heighes.
Detail (birdy!) of the fabulous custom wallpaper from Gracie Studios that's hung in the dining room.
Another detail of the wallpaper, for you monkey bird lovers. Why did I think that was a monkey? This is what I get for posting before the coffee takes effect.
Looking from the dining room, through the foyer into the living room.
Dining room, the long view. Dufner Heighes designed the table, the chairs are from George Nakashima.
By the fire.
The perfect spot to write a note. (Photograph above the desk by Ms. Tema Stauffer.
There's seating for a small army in the window lined kitchen.
Recently dear friends of mine went on a two week trip to Italy which involved sunning them selves seaside, lounging at at castle with friends and many other luxurious, relaxing endeavors. Also, apparently, they ate potato chips. Upon their return, they announced "We brought you something from Italy!" and produced the bag of chips above from their tote bags. (I should say: the empty bag of chips.) "Isn't the packaging so cool!", they said excitedly as they produced another (empty) bag, "you should blog about it!"
The packaging is cool, if rather austere and no-fun which is most definitely not what I think of when I think of chips. The San Carlo's minimalism is refreshingly different - no shooting stars with ragged text announcing "Super Extra Bonus Size!" or "Now with more CRUNCH!" You know exactly what's inside without having to read a word, and in fact it isn't specified anywhere prominently that they are, in fact, potato chips.
When I think of potato chips, I think of sloppy greezy indulgence. I think of being at Jones Beach when I was a kid and taking bites that were salty and sandy because the a little bit of beach always ended up in the bag. I think of a huge yellow Pyrex bowl full of chips laid out on a table among other junk food because company was coming. I think of hot Summers, sitting in the back of the school bus during our day camp's trip to Shea, passing around small bags of Wise or Lays chips to each other.
Chips, born in the U.S.A. ( in Saratoga Springs, NY in 1853 according to the Snack Food Association) have evolved considerably from their origins: there is now a fast array of choices. You can get all fanceh with some $5/bag Terra Chips, or go for a faux-classic New England kind of feel with Cape Cod or Kettle. Still, the enduring potato chip icon has always been Wise, even since the days of the Last Supper (Warhol's Last Supper that is).
I'd say that chips fall into that comfort food category for me, and for many people I know. Sure it's not a vat of Haagen-Dazs, but it's childhood-nostalgic and full of positive associatitons. I guess that's why I gravitate to what I consider to be more classic packaging. The Wise Owl logic itself has been largely unchanged since it's inception. Sure, the bags are now that slick mylar and they seem to have modernized the packaging in lots of ways (mostly aesthetically wrong, in my humble opinion.) But, it's iconic. There's no doubt that the bag of chips above (the Wise ones) is of the same provenance as the bag of chips below.
One way to stand out in the chips aisle these days would be to return to that classic packaging - it's striking, features some nice typography, it's fun and it's also kind of creepy-weird.
Good on Paper Agnes Barley | Andrea Hornick | Nate Page Exhibition on view June 21 - July 29, 2005 Opening Reception Tuesday June 21, 2005: 6pm - 8pm jen bekman 6 Spring St (between Elizabeth + Bowery) New York City 10012 For more information 212.219.0166 info AT jenbekman DOT com jen bekman website postcard image (detail): 412 Pages of Eyeland (mixed media) | Nate Page
My friends Greg + Daniel, principals in the firm Dufner Heighes sent the lovely line-drawing above to announce the publication of their most recently completed project in the July/August issue of Metropolitan Home. (The issue is on newsstands now.) It's the cover story, and there are loads of great photos accompanying the feature. G+D, the inspiration for my In Praise of Gray post a while back, once again mix a cool minimalist aesthetic with surprisingly ornate details, resulting in a weekend home that is both stunning and livable.
They were in charge of every aspect of the renovation of this 1930s lakeside cottage in Michigan: structural projects (like the new kitchen they constructed), furniture (the firm designed the dining room table) and all the decor (the totally-amazing-ohmygod-I'm-obsessed dining room wallpaper was chosen by them.) The result is a home that looks amazingly inviting in the pages of MetHome. I would point you to a web site, but baffingly, the magazine doesn't have a functional site. (The subsite at hfmus.com is brochureware geared towards advertisers.)I will post some photographs from Greg + Daniel in a while, but I think that their line drawing in and of itself is great. This is their standard format for announcements of all kinds - line drawings of interiors, done in orange on single piece of cardstock paper that's the size of a regular business envelope. Rendered in Gill Sans, the copy is spare and understated. I'm a girl who gets a lot of announcements, invites and promotional materials in the mail, so I consider myself a tough audience. This simple, elegant presentation means that I always hold on to the cards, not just because I love those guys, but because the cards never lose their appeal.
The Masterworks of Modern American Architecture stamp series, which I posted about on Unbeige a while back, is here! I am in the midst of mailing hell at the gallery, so when Emily the intern went to the PO I asked her to pick up a few sheets of the new stamps. The images of the buildings themselves are nice - nothing straight on, just b+w detail shots taken from MTV angles. It's all so very outre. I'm not sure which font they're using for the names of the buildings, but it's too chunky and colorful for my tastes.* (The Noguchi stamps are much more elegantly designed.) Also the sheet has the horrible blue-ish purple background. Horrid.
It reminds me of my utter disappointment I felt when I saw the new Friedlander book at my friend (and jen bekman associate) Tim's office. It so... undignified! Yellow + Purple are just wrong wrong wrong in this context. Maybe Friedlander is a Lakers fan and thus insisted on this combination? I know not. Regardless: I say tsk tsk.
There are twelve stamps in the series, following is a list of the buildings along with informative linkage. You'll be the toast of modernist preservation cocktail chatter once you read up on these beauties!
· Guggenheim Museum by Frank Lloyd Wright
· Disney Concert Hall by Frank Gehry
· Yale Art and Architecture Building by Paul Rudolph
· Chrysler Building by William Van Alen
· 860/880 Lake Shore Drive by Mies van der Rohe
· High Museum of Art by Richard Meier
· Vanna Venturi House by Robert Venturi
· East Building of the National Gallery of Art by I.M. Pei
· Phillips Exeter Academy Library by Louis I. Kahn
· TWA Terminal by Eero Saarinen
· Glass House by Philip Johnson
· Hancock Center by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)
* Font freaks: please to be advising me on which font they used for the Masterworks stamps, and the Friedlander book too, while you're at it. My font ID skills: subpar. drop me a note at person AT personism DOT com.
I've written a good deal about AvroKO's total apartment living solution, smart.space. If you're interested in seeing it, they have two open houses coming up: one this Sunday, June 12 from 1pm-3pm and then the following Tuesday, June 14 from 6pm-8pm.
They had an open house a few weeks back, which was my first opportunity to check it out in person. I was especially keen on seeing it because there are several photographs on loan from my gallery there. (There is work from some of the winners of the Spring Hey, Hot Shot competition, as well as several pieces by Dana Miller.)
The apartment is located in a very cool building - you enter through a gate and walk down a long corridor which takes you to an interior courtyard. I really enjoy having that sense of remove from the bustle of street life upon entering a home. (Alas, my home has no such sense to it.) Word has it that there's a great roof garden too, but I didn't get a chance to look at that when I was there.
The apartment itself is a long and narrow, with very high ceilings. One of the greatest successes of their design is that it takes advantage of the vertical space - there's a small balcony that can function as a home office, and then the living room is a few step down from the kitchen and bathroom areas. The lighting is well done too - as a long narrow apartment denizen myself, I know first hand how gloomy such a layout can be if that aspect isn't handled properly. By using the vertical space inventively, the place feels quite spacious.
Some photographs (though there are many more on the smart.space site itself):
This is the view of the apartment from the entry way. The cabinetry by the window stores a Murphy bed.
This shot is looking from the sleeping area towards the kitchen + entryway.
Lovely blue tile plus a killer bathtub. I really like the fact that there's a bigger than fullsize tub. Bathrooms are so often shrunken down to make more space for living, but who doesn't love a good soak?
