Promising Art

 

The Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Arts (SECA) has an exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art every two years, showcasing the very best in local art. When I attended the SECA opening two years ago, I was blown away by the energy and caliber of the work. The exhibitors are selected from the extraordinary pool of talent in the Bay Area. After a comprehensive review process, including studio visits with approximately 30 artists, the winners are chosen by SFMOMA's curatorial team, in conjunction with SECA members. It's a thrill to see local art get on the walls of a major institution like the SFMOMA, so when I found out it was coming again, I cleared my calendar.

I attended the opening reception last Friday and got the chance to see the art shortly after it was hung, and I even got to talk to some of the artists. It all seemed so low key and exciting at the same time. The five artists showcased are very different in style, ranging from video to sculpture to large-scale, mixed medium paintings. One of the artists, Amy Franceschini, showed a conceptual piece about urban gardening that, if I'm not mistaken, she is launching for real with the help of SF Board of Supervisors President, Matt Gonzalez. I'm a believer, ready to plant the radish seeds I got as part of her installation. The photo above is by video artist Kota Ezawa.

Seeing the young energy on the walls of the MOMA is really worth your time, there are also some great lectures in tandem to the show that you can check out here.

Weave, Warp, Weft

 

I'm always fascinated by how we select fabrics for our upholstered products, and lucky for me we were just beginning to source new fabric ideas for an update to our Bantam Sofa. Here's what I learned from Michelle Sheppard, on staff of our Product Development team.

"First we get the request from merchandising to source a new fabric for the Bantam Sofa. The Bantam Sofa has a mid-century appearance, and I took that lead when considering the fabric choice. The fabric I found which best suited the Bantam design did not have an extensive color palette but I really felt the weave structure was the right fit for the Bantam design so I went to the mill with a custom yarn color request to have them weave us our own exclusive fabric colors." 

"In the weaving process there is a warp and weft. The warp is the set of lengthwise yarns attached to the loom and the weft is the yarn which is woven back and forth, across the warp, to create the woven fabric. The color options I chose were for the weft yarns. The mill weaves a sample ‘blanket’ (photo above) with all the custom yarn color choices. When the blanket is finished, each individual square is an option for the final fabric. Next, I make a recommendation of several choices and review them with the upholstery buyer. We finalize the fabric colors and have the mill weave us sample yardage, which we can use to upholster a prototype of the Bantam Sofa. Once the sofa prototype is approved with the new fabric, it's put into production."

Not exactly easy, is it? I love learning new things at work.

New Orleans Opening Party

To celebrate the opening of our Studio in the Big Easy, during the first two weeks of February, 10% of all sales at the New Orleans Studio will be donated to the local chapter of the Habitat for Humanity. On February 8th, we'll celebrate New Orleans style with wine from Sip Wine Market and hors d'oeuvres provided by joels. Music will be provided by local artist Joe Simon's Jazz.

Grand Opening Event
Thursday, February 8, 6-pm
Please RSVP to neworleans@dwr.com.

Hello from the French group

The Bouchons, a family of fierce corks (above).

We just finished receiving (and opening) the hundreds of boxes of champagne chair entries. The last box I opened was from a group of french designers who have entered every year. Their entry was the most unique I had received and it came with a letter that perfectly summed up the spirit of the contest. Here it is:

Dear DWR,

Hello from the French group, the ones who have been there since the beginning, and these are our (not) chairs. Sorry in advance for writing such a long letter, but I feel our submission needs a bit of explanation.

We loved the spirit of the original Champagne Chair contest (2003-04): spontaneity, creativity and ingenuity - with a bit of silly thrown in. We organized a last-minute party with lots of delicious food and champagne, and got together with friends and co-workers to make chairs in that spirit. Your winning chairs that year were funky and fun and unlikely and heart-felt...and far from perfect. (Indeed, our then 10-year-old daughter's very imperfect but soulful "fairy chair" was among the top 20.) It is in the original spirit that we hosted the second and third parties. We don't take ourselves, or our chairs, too seriously, we don't come with drawings or mock-ups. We sketch and fiddle and glue and drink and eat and fiddle and drink and - presto! Chairs!

We are, mostly, industrial designers and we love the challenge of working within a unique and crazy set of constraints. It takes us far away from our daily work, while remaining solidly within the domain of industrial design. As much as we love our jobs, it's hard to beat the pleasure of creating little objects of quirky beauty out of the simplest of tools and materials. And I feel we owe you a thank you for giving us that opportunity.

This year, however, we didn't make chairs. What we made did not come from a spirit of rebellion but rather a desire to keep our "Champagne Chair Party" tradition alive. We love the party - the champagne and friends, the music and the pliers and the glue (oh! do we love the glue gun!) and the sitting around a big table making crazy sketches and watching them take form. But no one felt like  making chairs any more. So we decided to make other stuff. During the course of the party we eventually came up with a French Theme, which resulted in the guillotine and a stately flag as well as a camembert and a baguette, and a model of Bleriot's Model XI plane. And a bouquet of flowers. In the end, I think we missed having a restrictive subject, but we enjoyed the freedom and fresh approach.

My husband, Pierre-Yves, and I did make two variations of one chair which is in keeping with my paper theme. In 2005 I made a paper maché chair; in 2006 it was a sort of basket weave chair (made by cutting labels into thin strips, wrapping these with strips of foil, coiling it into a mat-like seat and backrest). And this year I decided to use only paper. And glue, of course. Between coats of glue I made a family - les Bouchons! - of fierce little cork people to accompany our small submission this year. And while I love my chair - even if it is a bit less sturdy than I would like (in our "French Rules" chairs we don't allow ourselves anything other than Elmers and hot glue - I'm sure there must be another glue that would have done a better job) - it is the Bouchon family that I'll miss the most.

So thank you for giving us - year after year - the chance to be spontaneous and creative and ingenious designers - even if it does mean breaking the rules sometimes.

Bonne année!

Aymie Jones (the not French/not designer of the group) & Pierre-Yves Panis and all our designer friends

Join us as Pablo Pardo lights up the stage at DWR's Tribeca Studio. Pardo will give a short presentation of his past and present collections, and will be on hand to answer any questions. All of Pardo’s lighting pieces that DWR sells, as well as prototypes, will be on view in the studio for the event. Join us in a glowing ambiance of fun as Pardo’s work brightens up the winter season. Cocktails will be served and music will be provided by DJ Kenobi.

Pablo Pardo at DWR
Monday, January 29, 7–9pm
RSVP here.

Get out the vote.

We're all super excited about the hundreds of entries we've received for our Annual Champagne Chair Contest. And I, for one, am super excited to get you all into the mix. Think you can recognize good design? Duh, of course you can. Cast your vote for the Champagne Chair Most Popular Award here.

We'll add new entries regularly, so check back often.

Picasso and American Art

If in New York between now and January 28th then please do yourself a favor and go see the "Picasso and American Art" exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art.  The show focuses on Picasso's influence on nine very different and very popular American artists: Max Weber, Stuart Davis, John Graham, Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, David Smith, Jackson Pollock, Roy Lichtenstein and Jasper Johns.  By juxtaposing the paintings of Picasso and the Americans, presenting them side by side, the Whitney allows you to see both Picasso and American art in new, different ways.

If you can’t get to NYC in the next week or so, do not fret.  The exhibit is headed to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis as well.

The Architects of Venice

Last week's New York Times had a great story on the Venice, California, home of the architect husband and wife team of Deborah Richmond and Olivier Touraine.  The one-time rivals (she worked for Rem Koolhaas and he for Jean Nouvel) have recently finished their interesting and pretty-near-perfect home amongst the architectural hodge-podge of this up and coming neighborhood. Architects are flocking to Venice in droves.  Gehry is building himself a place three blocks away.

The house was originally purchased at "$337,000 for a 3,900-square-foot plot and a two-story stucco house from 1951." They kept the house and use it as an office and rental unit and built the modern second home "in 2005 for $410,000, or about $275 a square foot," considerably less than other highly designed California homes.

The pictures don't lie.  The house is a modernist dream: walls of glass, economical ideas and innovative materials. They call it their "our own little mixed-use development." I call it stunning.

The allure of the niche publication

 

Is there a better historical record than the monthly publication? Pick an industry, hobby or art form and the definitive source on the subject may not be the books associated with it, but the niche magazines that are dedicated to it. When it comes to architecture and design, perhaps there was no more influential periodical than Domus, the magazine launched by Gio Ponti in 1928. Taschen, acknowledging this, has compiled and bound 12 volumes of the seminal magazine, spanning over 70 years.

Domus has had a succession of experts – renowned architects and designers – who acted as editors over the years, including Cesare Maria Casati, Alessandro Mendini and Mario Bellini. Perhaps that’s the beauty of the niche publication: It is often written not by journalists, per se, but by those who live, work and breathe the subject matter. Deyan Sudjic, art critic and Domus editor from 2000 to 2004, summed up this distinction in an interview with the site Forum AID: “My experience editing Domus … was actually a collision between the Anglo-Saxon idea of editors running magazines, and [the Italian idea of] architects running magazines.”

Being able to reflect back on 70 years of design history, Taschen has created the chance to see the architectural and  design classics that we take for granted. Complete with some of the original advertising that ran, there may be no better way to get an accurate snapshot of the tastes, culture and aesthetic movements of the modern time period, an historical record that was created as it was actually happening.

Icon for sale

A few posts ago my co-worker commented on the unfortunate demise of Richard Neutra’s Cyclorama building in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This was on the heels of my post asking for thoughts on tearing down old buildings to make room for glorious new ones (the Guthrie Theatre). Well, in the category of “ain’t it a small world” type of stories, my aunt recently mentioned that her latest property for sale was the office building of Richard Neutra, the only surviving example of an unmodified and uncompromised Neutra commercial design. It’s also a City of Los Angeles monument and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building has a fairly steap price tag, of course, and it comes complete with a Conservation Easement, which means once you buy it you can’t make any changes (for the most part). In light of our other two posts, I think this is probably a good thing.

Interested? Give her a call. She really knows her art.

Sandy Bleifer,

info@DTLAR.com

213-612-3756