Pattern Pulp

Holiday Gift Guide for Her




While I frequently write about color, it’s hard to find me in anything but black and white. Angela‘s the same way and she produces colorful prints on a daily basis, go figure. Today’s gift guide focuses on the lady in your life from a monochromatic angle. From kitty coasters and Lana Del Ray to Sandro sneaks and Steven Alan stripes, here’s the gift guide for the girl who makes you smile on the glummest of days.

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1.  Dupenny English Garden Pinny |  2. Anha Verdugo Kitty Coasters  |  3. Hermes Recycled Scarf Necklace  |  4. Lana Del Ray Born to Die Album  |  5. Sandro Albatorock Sneakers |  6. La Liberacion Dance Mix  |  7. Theyskens’ Theory Embellished Clutch

December 21, 2011 | By: Shayna Kulik

Print: A Wash of Watercolor




I have a soft spot for water colors and gouache. When hues bleed into one another within confined boundaries, the results are nearly always stunning. Here are a few branded examples:

Hermes’ latest tableware collection, entitled Bleus d’Ailleurs, is beautifully complimented with light-infused circles. In the soft accessory world, the silk lison pillows from ABC Carpet share a similar whimsy. Simplifying the process, West Elm’s latest collection of Luli Sanchez pillows is a stunning reminder of a collaboration done right. Using wood as the backdrop, this coffee table top from ABC carpet provides soft results from similar color bleeding.

Also, I wanted to share a personal project I did using a similar technique. The above design is a spliced montage of my husband and I. I made it for our wedding party and the girls from You Plus Me Styling enlarged it to 5′ x 5′. While it’s a bit scary to stare at, the project was really fun to compile and a made for a great evening of cutting and pasting on the carpet.

May 11, 2011 | By: Shayna Kulik

Artful Antfarms and Social Media




artful-antfarms

What do ants, art, fashion and social media have in common? We’ve been asking that very question ever since reading Noah Brier’s fascinating take on the power of colonization and it’s relation to the internet. The idea that “ants don’t really ever exist on their own, all their power comes from their ability to organize themselves in groups,” directly parallels social media’s impact online, particularly in relation to traffic, viral marketing and cross pollination.

The use of ant farms to contextualize larger societal microcosms have been popping up in every media form, from literal depictions in Mad Men to more abstract print parallels, such as this Hermès map of Paris. Toying with the idea of national identity and cross pollination, Japanese artist, Yukinori Yanagi brilliantly displays the world through the eyes of  the ant in his 1990 installation entitled, The World Flag Ant Farm. Using a series of interconnected boxes, each filled with colored sand in the pattern of a national flag, Yanagi releases a colony of ants into the system, allowing them to travel freely. “The border crossings” result in an intermingling of color throughout the system, a stunning visualization of our cross-cultural networks. Bringing this concept to the masses on a more playful scale, Stine Gam and Enrico Fratesi merge ant farm living with brocade wallpaper patterns, proving mass mobilization can create tangible and beautiful results.

By: Shayna Kulik

November 14, 2009 | By: Shayna Kulik

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