Transcending Seasons: Woodgrain

Pop quiz: can you figure out which woodgrain print is FW13 and which is SS14?

While you try to figure it out, I’ll give you a little insight into the top shot- which I took last month while visiting Port Washington, NY. Just beside the train station, there’s a pizza shop with a decaying wall and a fabulous slice. I added it to my instagram reel, then gave a good think about what a beautiful translation it would be to silk slacks or winter outerwear.

Fast forward, and as we all know with trends, nature, inspiration and instagram, the designers are constantly digesting. Raquel Allegra’s recent Fall release includes a collection of woodgrain prints. They’re beautiful, and present a relaxed, luxurious execution. To the right is 3.1 Phillip Lim’s recent runway collection for Fashion Week- representing SS14 themes.

What’s the point of this compare/contrast? That everything’s cyclical. Woodgrain has as much staying power as florals- it all depends on the creative filter, the market, the color palette and the fabric. Would love to hear your thoughts- how often to you reinterpret and reapply staple themes?

September 23, 2013 | By: Shayna Kulik

Friday Quick Links!

1. Mao’s new suit via Trendland
2. Katie Rodger’s beautiful NYFW sketches on Paper fashion via Honestly WTF
3. Katja Mustaniemi’s gorgeous woven backpack via Miss Moss
4. Swoonworthy scarves from Block Shop via design*sponge
5. Digging Justin Windle’s glitchy style via Patternbank
6. Michelle McKinney’s beautiful woven metal installations via The Jealous Curator
7. Candles from crayons via Brit + Co.
8. Stippling tattoos from Kenji Alucky via Colossal
9. Loving this combo of pale pink and copper via Poppytalk
10. Hankering for Proef’s sheer, printed tights via Design Crush
11. A fan of the effect of wallpapered flooring via Yellowtrace
12. Showcasing colored powder as an artful, adaptable material via Plenty of Colour

Contributed by Emily Gup

September 20, 2013 | By: Shayna Kulik

Artist Profile: Yao Cheng

Today, I keep coming across beautiful watercolors. Buy Some Damn Art, a favorite art buying site of mine run by Kate Singleton, just launched this week’s sale, and it’s a special one. You can purchase Yao Cheng‘s original works for $375 a piece, or if you’re a company, perhaps you can reach out for a branded collaboration. Cheng’s roots are in textile design (quite obviously) and her layouts are uniquely detailed, delicate and special.

September 19, 2013 | By: Shayna Kulik

Branding Your Visa Card

Remember the days when you would order checks and consider splurging on the themed ones? The faded pastel beach scenes, Mount Rushmore, adorable kittens and motifs of money all remind us of the 80’s and early 90’s. It was almost a right of passage to page through the options and pick the background you most identified with…regardless of if it was ever ordered.

Fast forward. If I got a kitten check in the mail today, I’d laugh, maybe cringe, and think the whole exchange was a bit ironic. It may be that the check and imagery licensing worlds never evolved (as a side note- how many of you still write checks?) or that there are more exciting places to put art these days- at least in the banking and money worlds.

Last night, while trolling Instagram, I stumbled upon Beci Orpin’s latest collaboration with the Japanese department store, Marui. It’s pretty great, isn’t it? I wish I could switch out my blue and gray card for one of these bad boys. The image seems so cool and so out of reach as an American.

It’s a weird thing, as a whole, we love identifying w brands. We outfit our smartphones, our handbags and our tech accessories in colors and patterns we love. We administer at home DIY projects and scour Pinterest for artistic inspiration. Why is it that Visa’s Japanese distribution is eons ahead of ours? (Rhetorical, I know).

Try googling Epos. You’ll discover a Japanese database full of cards and themes. Everything from nature to food, fashion, ‘cute’, art, travel and ‘Japan.’ It’s an interesting and obvious move. What do you think?

September 19, 2013 | By: Shayna Kulik

Coworking, Kickstarter & Makeshift

I was in San Francisco earlier this summer for precisely one day. The morning I arrived, I tweeted that I’d love to meet anyone who was around and available for coffee. Minutes later, the internet worked it’s magic, and before I knew it, I had a full day of meetings with fellow creatives and friends of Pattern Pulp. Pretty awesome…especially coming from New York where you make plans two weeks in advance and still move the date the day before.

I kicked off the afternoon at Makeshift – a place I’d heard about countless times, via Grace Bonney, Janette Crawford, Lisa Congdon and Rena Tom (one of the spearheading co-founders). It was very much a DIY creative oasis and incredibly special in it’s coworking purpose. I had immediate admiration of the layout, the decor and the community…even a hint of jealousy that the west coasters had a jewel of a space to collaborate, toss ideas around and share small business knowhow.

Fast forward 6 months and it looks like Williamsburg’s getting it’s very own version! How do I know? I was a part of the Kickstarter/Makeshift shoot last month, and got to mingle, craft and share a beer with Rena’s incredible (and tall) team of supporters as we set up shop for the afternoon. I brought some Role Modoll prototypes, a color forecasting card and talked sampling with Amy Azzarito while the Wild Combination team worked their magic.

The prizes are fabulous- hello – for $250, Julia Rothman will incorporate your face into the wallpaper…so very cool…and for $50, you’ll get an equally impressive print, by the talented Kate Bingaman. Spaces like this are important for the neighborhood and community at large. The goal’s $30,000 and will cover the cost of the library, which will be filled with video cameras, lighting equipment, sewing machines, and the like. If you can donate, go ahead, and make your mark.

September 18, 2013 | By: Shayna Kulik

Tuesday's Gallery Picks

This week’s artists are examining the bigger picture in their work.

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1. Tom Wudl’s new work is inspired by the Avatamsaka Sutra (or Flower Ornament Sutra), the revered scripture of Huayan Buddhism. The sutra describes an interdependency of all phenomena within a cosmos of infinite realm at La Louver
2. Evalynn J. Alu’s work reflects her curiosity and emotional thoughts about the universe, in particular our own earth and the forces that are forever in action at OCCCA
3. In Secret Lives of Rainbows, Geoffrey Todd Smith deploys an array of colorful media to create vibrant paintings whose complex arrangements of shapes, intricate patterns, vacillating spaces, and scintillating surfaces recall the wonders of basic school age geometry and visual trickery at Luis De Jesus
4. Historically, Hindu deities have been depicted endlessly through painting and sculpture. Manjari Sharma’s project painstakingly portrays these Gods and Goddesses with photography at ClampArt
5. Sleeping Giants is a series by Eric Pedersen that considers states of consciousness. The work within this body is made at a very large scale and includes portraits of people that are depicted in various states of sleep. The artist represents his subjects in this way to evoke a slight state of anxiety in his viewers; for them to feel unsure of what this giant is capable of doing should it wake up at Katherine Cone Gallery
6. Catherine Nelson uses a repetitive globe form and creates seasonal images of the planet as if we are viewing the earth from a satellite. Wildlife and nature are represented in rich and fantastic ways to convey each environ simultaneously as both boundless and isolated at Saul Gallery

September 17, 2013 | By: Shayna Kulik