Posted: April 28th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design, other stuff | Tags: crafts, decorating, design, home, popular culture, shopping, spring 2012
As a dedicated lover of shopping for things to make life more beautiful, I was extremely sad to say goodbye to Domino magazine (especially when they fulfilled the rest of my pre-paid subscription with something I had absolutely no interest in, but that’s another story). But the mourning is over and Domino is back. I think more than being a commentary on the home design business, the relaunch is an interesting commentary on the state of publishing and more specifically of magazine publishing. Everyone knows that with consumers turning toward online media, they are leaving paper behind and leaving newspapers and magazines struggling. That results in a game on the part of publishers that’s fairly interesting to watch, the game of trying to figure out how to stay alive, stay relevant, carve a niche that can’t be filled online.
In one such effort, Conde Nast shuttered Gourmet magazine, only to relaunch it as a mobile app with only a limited number of special issues available at newsstands. Their strategy with Domino is somewhat similar. Sadly, that means that it is not the return of the Domino that many of us knew and loved. The new Domino will consist only of a limited number of special issues available exclusively through newsstands. The first issue, entitled Domino Quick Fixes, on newsstands through mid-July, is a thick book and sells for $10.99, and like most special issues has fewer ad pages than the typical monthly magazine. The next issue is due this fall.
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Posted: January 13th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design, other stuff | Tags: art, artists, ceramics, crafts, design, drawings, economy, home, humor, mass market, redecorating, shopping, tableware
There’s a trend now in tableware to offer plain, white, ceramic dishes and serving plates with delicately drawn words or illustrations on them which look almost like pen and ink drawings. Three or four years ago, and more than that, it was melamine. All about melamine: kid friendly, indestructible, cheap, but good-looking.
So I’m going to throw out a hypothesis. When everyone was in the money, we were all about amassing things. Quantity was primary. Lots of nice and cheerful stuff. Hence melamine. Obviously I could verify this with retail statistics, but that would require a hell of a lot of time, so I’m just going to speculate that as we find ourselves deeper in the recession, there is a renewed desire among consumers to buy fewer, but nicer things. You can just get a couple of things, but they should be of quality. Not expensive mind you. We want quality goods for bargain basement prices. Of course, the market delivered. Chicken and egg thing as far as I’m concerned about which came first, the desire or the flash sale websites. But come they did and started to change the face of retail.
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Posted: December 11th, 2011 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: art | Tags: art, artists, celebrities, crafts, humor, Kanye West, politics, popular culture, tweets
Sadly, this cannot be on everyone’s Christmas list because they are hand made by one person and she has been swamped with orders. But order one for yourself anyway.
I am generally tempted to try to buy art as an investment, to suss out who is going to be the next big thing. My husband likes to point out that this is insane. Unless you have a phenomenal eye for artists, or an incredible art budget to play with, it’s probably best to let go of any fantasies of amassing a valuable art collection. Just buy what you like. (I’m hoping if I say that enough times I will believe it. In the meantime, I am still struggling to forgive my husband for not allowing me to spend $800 on a Lalla Essaydi photograph which we then saw two years later selling for $15,000.) In that vein, this is the perfect purchase – guaranteed to make you smile every time you look at it.
For her etsy shop, Supervelma, Amy Sheridan makes hand stitched needlework versions of Kanye West’s tweets. I kid you not. The man is a riot. And the little framed works are actually visually engaging. They have caught the attention of bloggers and media and the orders have been pouring in. There’s really nothing you can say except to show examples. This work definitely speaks for itself. Each one sells for $40 + shipping.
via
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Posted: December 9th, 2011 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: art, design | Tags: art, crafts, decorating, home, photography, portraits
I have a couple of tricks that I feel pretty strongly about when it comes to photography — well, more accurately, portraits. I’m sure I can’t really take credit for them. They’re probably lesson #1 in every portraiture class around the country. But I still think they’re pretty crucial cardinal rules.
Rule #1 – Get in as close as you possibly can. Seriously. ”In your face.” That’s my motto. In addition to the obvious, it forces the person you’re photographing to relax a bit, or at the very least engage with you, which makes for a much better portrait.
Rule #2 – Shoot of as many frames as you can as quickly as you can. Just keep firing away. None of this one, two, three, smile baloney. With rare exceptions among phenomenally gifted portrait photographers, natural expressions make for nicer photographs than posed ones. If you fire off 30 frames within a couple of minutes, you are bound to capture something good in there. And that’s all you need — one good frame.
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Posted: November 27th, 2011 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: art, design | Tags: art, artists, crafts, decorating, design, fabric, Frederique Morel, home, innovative design, repurposing, sculpture
I’m of the opinion that we collect kitschy deer art. My husband likes to point out that we only have one art object which is a deer:
Dennis Svoronos, Bargain Hunter, 2007
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Posted: October 28th, 2011 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: welcome | Tags: architecture, art, crafts, design, economy, mass market, modernism, politics, popular culture, public art, public spaces, street art, trends
What is the point of this blog?
Basic version:
We have to eat. It is generally agreed that we have to get dressed. Ideally we live in homes of some sort. Why not eat delicious food? Why not make those clothes beautiful? Why not fill the rooms we live in with furniture we love? Life is enriched by surrounding ourselves with objects which give us pleasure.
Philosophical version for people who clearly have way too much time on their hands (present company included):
A group of artists in the early days of the Soviet Union, calling themselves Constructivists, proposed,
“…to us art is the creation of new objects…. But it should by no means be supposed that by objects we mean household articles. Of course we see genuine art in utilitarian objects produced in factories, in the airplane or the automobile. But we do not wish to limit the production of artists to utilitarian objects. Any organized work – a house, a poem or a painting – is an expedient object that does not isolate people from life but helps them to organized it.” – El Lissitzky & Ilya Ehrenburg, “Blokada Rossii konchaetsia,” Veshch’ no. 1-2 (March-April 1922)
I would propose that all art can be seen as the creation of objects, and those objects are the means by which we organize and define our world and proclaim our own place in that world.
To say that wearing a pair of jeans and a grubby t-shirt that you grabbed off the shelf at Old Navy because you don’t have time to think about your clothes is not fashion, makes an artificial distinction that is nearly impossible to nail down and doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Every time we put clothes on, whether they are the clothes that we call “high fashion” or not, we are constructing an image of ourselves to present to the world which places us and defines us one the social and political spectrum of the culture in which we live. That culture determines the choices available to us, what meaning is invested in the choices, and what values inform the selections we make.
It seems to be a dominant trend (among intellectuals in American society at least) to see Art (paintings, sculpture, theater, etc.) and finding beauty in that Art as intellectually admirable and value, signifying substance, depth and knowledge, and to dismiss fashion (and less so interior design – both tied into a conflicted relationship to “shopping”) as superficial. We appreciate a fine restaurant and a good meal, but turn our noses up at anyone who seems to have invested “too much thought and time” in his or her appearance. All production can be invested with more or less craft, skill and creativity, and this affects how we respond to the objects of production. To make choices based on seeing value in the work and creativity invested in the production of any object is not superficial. It is the source of pleasure. It is, perhaps, what distinguishes us from animals — the ability to consume not just what we need of the world, in a primal way, but to shape the objects that we consume to bring us a different level of pleasure and satisfaction. Life is enriched by surrounding ourselves with objects which give us pleasure.
