To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written
Link: Fiona Gray - Ceramic Artist and Illustrator
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LOVE LETTERS STRAIGHT FROM THE KILN
"The fragility of letters and the idea of sentiment and thoughts preserved in such a permanent way is a powerful concept" Spaces magazine, February 2008
Have you ever wanted to write someone a love letter but the old fashioned pen and paper method is not for you? Or perhaps you have been tempted to peek at a secret letter written to someone else?Ceramic artist and illustrator Fiona Gray has created an art form out of the loving words of others, and the desire of one person to peek at the thoughts of another. Her unique porcelain letter parcels offer the writer the chance to preserve their thoughts and feelings in a more permanent way than paper, at the same time seducing the viewer with a special intimacy with the written words.
Fiona came up with the idea of the letter parcels during her MA course in Ceramics, as she was interested in the hidden meanings within an artwork, leaving the viewer to question what was revealed but also questioning the concealed elements. She prints words from people’s letters and private thoughts, perhaps a diary entry or a letter written or received, and censors areas so the viewer is unable to read the whole letter, thus offering them the chance to fill in the blanks.
“It is that desire to reveal properties below the surface or picture plane, the sneak look or glance that is seduction; the intimacy between viewer and the artwork places the viewer, until the last possible moment, in the position of a voyeur.”
Title Quote: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Life ... I swallow whatever it drops with relish.
You and I ... Are suddenly what the trees try to tell us we are:
Link: Mari Ishikawa.
In the shadow of a tree ... Rings by Mari Ishikawa
You and I
Are suddenly what the trees try
To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.
-Some Trees, John Ashberry
There's a long, long trail a-winding / Into the land of my dreams ...
Link: Karen Gilbert at Velvet da Vinci Art Jewelry and Sculpture Gallery, San Francisco.
"ARTIST'S STATEMENT I see my work from two sides. One is the exploration of materials such as sterling silver, glass, and steel. The other is the content of my ideas. Both sides pull together to create my voice.
I found myself attracted to silver and glass because of their working response and beauty. I grew to love the way they counterbalance one another. I almost always oxidize (blacken) the silver and use transparent glass to balance the bold forms. Over time I went deeper into the form, texture and movement trying to progress the the language of my process. The work has moved from bold shapes to multi leveled textured shapes. I am trying to give my work life.
The content has also developed over the years. My early work was influenced by objects that humans created for practical use. I was drawn to objects and materials that historically were not labeled as beautiful. Objects that were “damaged” create there own unique narrative through nature, the human hand and the onset of time. The evolution of these Ideas moved more into the realm of science. I think working on such small objects moved my area of interest toward the microscopic world. As I focused on the details of my work I began to think more about what made up forms and how they functioned. It went into how the human body works to how all organisms in nature develop and function. I love the functional forms in nature and science that put together are the shapes we find familiar. What is underneath the surface is what I choose to explore." KG
If there were dreams to sell, what would you buy?
Link: Géraldine Gonzalez - Créatrice et illustratrice en volume.
Geraldine GONZALEZ
"A graduate of the Duperre School of Applied Arts Ecole Supérieure d’Arts Appliques Duperre (textile section), Geraldine Gonzalez started her career as a shoe designer before becoming a sculptor. In the past her work has been used as illustrations in advertising, the press and children’s books, and shown in both personal and group exhibitions in several Paris museums (Grand Palais, Menagerie de Verre, Halle Saint-Pierre, Georges-Pompidou, etc.).Today her focus is on home and storefront decoration. Geraldine Gonzalez likes some materials better than others, but papier maché, cloth, crushed glass and pearls have gradually made way for the prince, crystal paper, a material with a lovely name that allows her to delicately play with transparency and light. With this precious ally, Geraldine cultivates her secret garden, overflowing with tenderness and poetry, where she raises subtle figurine lamps, chrysalides, Chinese votives and exquisite fashion accessories (lingerie, hats, gloves, shoes...), all of which have quite naturally been displayed at the marketplace: Bon Marche, the Printemps Haussmann, Home Autour du Monde, chez Mint, Liberty (London) Tommorrowland (Tokyo) and the John Derian Company ( New York). She has also worked with Christian Lacroix, Sonia Rykiel, Chantal Thomass, and with Hilton Mc Connico for Hermes, Baccarat, Van Cleef et Arpels and Givenchy. Her most recent creations, imprints of mystery and fragility seem to emerge from an enchanted forest. Her giant trees house shimmering amulets, burning bushes, bearers of charms and spells and a score of other living, curious and magic plant creatures." -Geraldine Gonzalez
Title Quote: Thomas Lovell Beddoes
Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.
Link: naoko ogawa gathering jewelry recyclable.
Title Quote: Leonardo da Vinci
"I would like you to enjoy the jewelry by putting this silver plate on your body and crushing it together with your clothes to hold on. This enables you to change the look of your clothes by creating fluid folds on them.
This plate transforms the style of your clothes in many different ways depending on not only your everyday emotions but also the pattern or design of the plate, including the new patterns of the plate drawn by the crush as well as metal fatigue itself. You can basically enjoy an unlimited amount of designs on the silver plate and clothes since they never change in the same way.
It is my intention to make this jewelry enjoyably sensual, to let your hand touch and feel your body line (or silhouette of your clothes) with this plate and then to redefine it through crushing. By doing so, you could find the idea of your everyday clothes destroyed and / or turned into something new with the beautiful gathers which you could not imagine or predict. The gathers made by the redefinition of the crush would create a new body line (or silhouette of your clothes) and wrap you up for the day.
The key message or objective of this jewelry is that you can create a ‘today’ or a new you by destroying ‘your daily life’ or ‘the past’.
Since it is made of metal, this silver plate would be so cracked or broken that you won’t hold or even wear it permanently. In that case, I would like you to stop to use it and send it to me. I will remelt it up and remake it as new one. That is to say you can get new plate perpetually. That is because partially I am afraid of a sharp edge of the broken metal. But moreover, it is because I am afraid that the broken jewelry may end up becoming or being stagnant as ‘your daily life’ or ‘the past’ by keeping using it." -naoko agawa
That strain I heard was of a higher mood ...
Cyr Studio- Limited Edition Prints; Lisa L. Cyr - Abstract, Contemporary, Illustration, Fine Art.
Lisa L. Cyr
Jazz 1 + 2 ... 11x11 mixed media
Title Quote: Milton
... No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more.
Link: EVE Design - Eva Bruggmann.
liebesring flame
"the love rings flame bear form and function of a ball bearings. the balls spell the words I LOVE YOU in braille writing and can be felt on the in or outside. these rings in braille writing can be read by the visually handicapped and blind, however the sighted cannot read it and are in the same passion of blind love. for the sighted this is a new language, not a visual one."
Title Quote: Tennyson
Four vital functions, as basic as the four elements: sexuality, sociality, ideation and glory.
Link: Gallery 415 |Adriana Marmorek.
"Adriana Marmorek uses a large array of mediums -- she creates sculptures in bronze, aluminum and glass, but also uses installations with furniture, video and flowing fabrics to express herself. Despite the variety of materials and techniques, her work is a constant construction, deconstruction and determination of an identity around female desire and pleasure." -Gallery 415
Title Quote: Jean Baudrillard
To affirm pleasure, is to affirm life in its deepest purposes, to value the intimate connections we make, the moments of ecstacy we experience. When we claim our sacred right to pleasure, we are honoring life in its variety, diversity, its endless arrangements and rearrangements. We are acknowledging our participation in the deepest erotic purposes of the universe.
-Starhawk
Slowly it wanders,-pauses,-creeps,-Anon it sparkles,-flashes and leaps; And ever as onward gleaming goes...
Link: Studio d.sharp : inspiration..
"Denise Sharp, the proprietor of Studio d.Sharp, is a visual artist with a fine arts degree in sculpture and printmaking . With a childhood immersed in artistic pursuits - rendering studies of the family dog , calligraphy commissions and countless greeting cards - she is rarely without a project in hand or creative wheels turning. She is a maker of things. She is also a bit of a magpie - a natural collector with a keen eye, particularly attracted to shiny found objects. With a past stint as an antiques dealer, she and her simpatico husband would haul home more things to feather their nest than to sell. Her house and studio swells with vintage ephemera and quirky collections that serve to inspire - her paper trophies are a playful nod to her collection of tarnished loving cups as her private metropolis of souvenir buildings inspired her landmark candy containers.
Her body of work grew out this reverence for vintage charm and her desire to imbue personal celebrations with intimate and memorable details - a table for twenty set with festive sheet music hats. the gift of a handmade cake topper for a friend's wedding, a charming crown a reminder of her son's first birthday. These touches serve as treasured souvenirs and make for occasions rich in meaning and individuality.
Studio d. Sharp's line of paper luxuries declare the significance of the celebration. With busy hands, Denise strives to capture the imagination and with a keen eye, she will continue to look for inspiration in the unexpected and grace in the most simple of objects."
Fancies that broke through language and escaped...
Link: Beautiful Specimens.
via Dear Ada
"a ‘slider’ made of ivory or bone, containing specimens held between disks of transparent mica. These were popular in Victorian England until the Royal Microscopical Society introduced the standardized microscope slide in the form of a thin sheet of glass used to hold objects for examination under a microscope.”
I’d like to add the following: Antique microscope slides, looked at from a strictly aesthetic standpoint (egged on by a design obsessed brain obviously) are some of the most elegant and perfectly beautiful human artifacts on planet earth. You can quote me on that. See below for irrefutable
scientificaesthetic evidence."
To confront a person with his own shadow is to show him his own light. - carl jung
Link: Kumi Yamashita.
What is the worth of anything, But for the happiness 'twill bring?
Link: Book Works - Globexpander by Paul Etienne Lincoln.
Globexpander
by Paul Etienne Lincoln (1998)"The Globexpander is a mechanism, devised by Paul Lincoln, that forms a central role in the performance of 'The World and Its Inhabitants'. Published in an edition of 24, each number of the edition has been assigned a character from 'The World and Its Inhabitants'.
The mechanism - which is housed in a beautifully made, custom-built box that opens out to reveal the contents - is an intricate and delicate device that, through an elaborate and complex ritual enables balloons to be expanded by means of 'humour' contained in small canisters. As each balloon is fully expanded, names relating to 'The World and Its Inhabitants' are revealed and an illusion of the World is formed."
Title Quote: Richard Owen Cambridge
Like a Poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Til the world is wrought ...
Link: Bettina Speckner.
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
Link: shutter.
"The jewellery can create various potential spaces around the body through motion. As our gestures or motions have an intangible sense, dance and performance creates an aesthetic value, where the body movements expose or express emotion. As the tangible space around the body creates volume by movement, jewellery can translate ordinary motion in everyday life, adding space to a beautiful sensation. It creates a tangible silhouette that surrounds the body, the silhouette becomes the jewellery itself. The tangible silhouette is extended; it forms volume and creates by sensual experiences by movement of the body in relation to the jewellery being worn. The space that is created by connections between the knitted tread and the bangle, brooch and ring become the poetics of the formed silhouette in motion." -Kyeok Kim
Title Quote: Shelley
And so we turn the page over / To think of starting. This is all there is.
Link: open source poetry.
OPEN SOURCE POETRY
"Generate poems are assembled from words parsed from submitted lines. Associations between these words are collected and a 20 line poem is generated by perusing these associations. Admittedly, the results are sketchy, but quite often surprising. Since these associations are built from the collective choices of numerous poets, in theory, the essence of poetry lies in these very associations. So inevitably, there are three or four lines that are down right impressive."
title quote: John Ashberry
Don't worry about saving these songs!And if one of our instruments breaks, It doesn't matter. We have fallen into the place where everything is music.
Link: Jeanine Payer :: Limited Edition :: Isis 3.
Isis 3
"Part of our Fall 2007 Limited Edition Collection, this exquisite bracelet is a mix of various tourmaline gemstones with 18k gold wire wrapping. Three 18k gold plates adorn these vibrant stones and contain hand engraving with gold rivets appearing on the opposite side. Stones measure approximately 5/8" x 3/4" x 1/8". This bracelet measures 7 1/2" with a 18k gold lobster clasp."
Title Quote: Rumi
The decision to kiss for the first time is the most crucial in any love story. It changes the relationship of two people much more strongly than even the final surrender; because this kiss already has within it that surrender.
Link: The Art of Kissing.
"Smoooooooch! Yes, this site is dedicated entirely to the art of kissing. "
No matter where I run, I meet myself there.
Link: Flickr: Art of the Luggage Label
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"...image stream and information resource devoted to the art of luggage labels and related travel ephemera. Luggage labels are fascinating bits of hotel history from the golden age of travel, roughly the 1900's to 1960's. During this time these labels were used by hotels as advertising and eagerly applied to steamer trunks, suitcases and all sorts of luggage by hotel staff, mainly bellhops."
Title Quote: Dorothy Fields
Primordial all-accomodating spaciousness is the fundamental quality of the feminine.
Patrizia Bonati Necklace
Title Quote: Jose Arguells
Life is washed in the speechless and real.
Link: shutter.
Kyeok Kim - Design Philosophy:
"Beauty is emotionally recognized through the natural relationships built between person, object and place. People are impressed with the beauty of a painting in a gallery space to the appreciation of a simplest action in every day life. Beauty communicates its own natural sensibility adding new value, impression to life and realization of an aesthetic object The area of design I am interested in transforms the precise meaning of beauty, it purposes intuitional and conscious activities. ... I would like to deliver the new value, meaning and sensibility to everyday life translating the emotions surrounding the body and reinterpreting the relationships between object, place and person. To me my work offers extra meaning, it has the potential for being a tool to communicate the sensory and emotional connections between both human beings and the ways in which one operates within a space." -Kyeok Kim
Title Quote: Jaques Barzr
‘Like your voice’ leaves an impression on the skin after it has been worn. It becomes an immaterial ornament as a second skin. The mark left by letters is about emotive memory, the bracelet says ‘in the rain, sounds like a cello…in the sunbeams, sounds like a piano…like your voice’, the ring says ‘one day in April’.
After washing your hands with the soap ring, the ring disappears becoming a scent.
The jewellery leaves a fragrance silmilar to a drop of perfume. It is a sensory experience becoming an unconscious ornament and can serve the purpose of self-expression and affect people's reactions.
"Laced Trace" wears an imprint of the jewelry involuntarily on the body, applying the ornament as a 'washable tattoo'.
"Inky Blinky" can be used as a tool lfor stamping the image of the gem stones onto the body
Footfalls echo in the memory / Down the passage whih we did not take / Towards the door we never opened / Into the Rosegarden.
Link: Book Works - Residue (left over) by Susan Hiller.
Residue (left over)
by Susan Hiller (1995)
"Residue (left over) resembles
an archaeological collection box, inside of which is a corsage made of
painted silk. The corsage was produced in Germany in the occupied
Soviet Zone circa 1947 at a time when factory production was carefully
monitored. With an original numbered label, reading 'made in Germany
USSR occupied', this work has a haunting resonance. A quotation from
Walter Benjamin is printed on the inside of the lid of the box."
Title Quote: T.S. Eliot
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Humankind / cannot bear very much reality.
Link: Book Works - Lost Volume: A Catalogue of Disasters (Special Edition) by Cornelia Parker.
Lost Volume: A Catalogue of Disasters (Special Edition) by Cornelia Parker (1993)
"Lost Volume: A Catalogue of Disasters continues Cornelia Parker's preoccupation with destruction. Following on from 'Cold Dark Matter', where - with the help of the British Army - Parker exploded a garden shed crammed with objects, Lost Volume: A Catalogue of Disasters uses the intimate form of the book to present several flattened objects that - through the use of trompe-l'oeil - appear to have been squashed between the pages of the book.
Parker crushes these selected objects in a press between sheets of heavy paper, creating embossed indentations and reducing the objects to two-dimensional representations of their former three- dimensional selves. The selected objects are seemingly unconnected; a contents page that includes objects not flattened in the book confuses matters further. The book is perhaps best read as a way of seeing objects - and the world - in a new light."
Title Quote: T.S. Eliot
Dance with me ... dance with me ... all night long ... / We are the music ... we are the song.
Link: Book Works - Fragments d'une Correspondence Litteraire by Sharon Kivland.
Fragments d'une Correspondance Litteraire by Sharon Kivland (2001)
"Fragments d'une Correspondance Litteraire is an exquisite edition that is available in two versions that display a sensuous use of materials: as a bound volume of texts covered in straight grain leather and as a loose print folio covered in purple book cloth. Fragments d'une Correspondance Litteraire utilises fragments from the letters of Denis Diderot, French philosopher and chief editor of the 'l'Encyclopedie', one of the principal literary monuments of the Age of Enlightenment, to his lover Sophie Volland. In this work, that continues her preoccupation with the correspondence of Diderot and Volland, Sharon Kivland has created a work that exists both as a social document and as a record of an extraordinary love affair.
Fragments d'une Correspondence Litteraire is printed letterpress, designed and produced at Book Works Studio."
Title Quote: Nikki Giovanni
In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you.
Link: Kiki van Eijk :: Lightbox
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"A poem in a box? When you open the box a candle pops up and from it's shadow shines a light!"
Title Quote: Rumi
Any authentic creation is a gift to the future.
Link: Manon Gignoux, styliste, plasticienne, costumes et collaboration artistique.
Title Quote: Albert Camus
