Wood, wood, wood, be it sculpture, painting or dress!

I stumbled across the work of Phoebe Washburn today. She creates *amazing* sculptural installations from scavenged bits of wood!

Heavy Has Debt, 2004

Nothing is Cutie, 2004

Nothing is Cutie, 2004

True, False and Slightly Better, 2003

Her work is also reminicent of artist  Rosalie Gascoigne,
who I found these great images of on iwishsun

Beaten Track

Lamplit 1989

And slightly unrelated but whilst thinking about wood...Kathy pointed out fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto the otherday and this bizarrely beautiful wooden dress! I love the fact it is complete with hinges!

Book Art

I signed up to some newsletters this weekend and in my inbox today was Australian book sculptor Nicholas Jones I haven't posted about any book art yet, which is strange because I spent my whole foundation swimming in the stuff! but I really like the forms in his work, and after playing with lots of paper today I found a new kind of affinity with it...

The kind of work that I was making was a lot more destructive. Nicholas treats the books with the love and care that they should be, but I did enjoy experimenting with it as a medium!

And after a deskful of experiments, this was my installation for the final project:

Julie Blyfield and Hiroshi Suzuki

We had a workshop yesterday with metalsmith Laura Baxter. She introduced lots of working processes and talked about some of her favourite designers. One of those is the Australian maker Julie Blyfield and after a flick through her book and a bit more research I can understand why...her work is quite incredible! She lives in the same city as my folks now do and I'm rather inspired by her studio and working process!!! For homework this week we are to make paper models of our design ideas, seeing these studio shots has filled me with the exciting possibilities!

from this

and this

to these

these

and these!!!

Laura also expressed her love for the work of Hiroshi Suzuki. 

I came across this great video of his making process...check it out!

Research also took me to the buyers Adrian Sassoon who host an exciting collection of contemporary craft ware and a very interesting blog post on rings:

Laura Baxter

Gesine Hackenberg

Enric Majoral

Refine Jewellery Design

Akiko Ban

Tile Project

We are working in groups this term with a live brief from the company Johnson Tiles

The Brief:

To develop designs for a range of tiles to the new dimensions of 400mm x 150mm. Initially, a collection of four new colours is required which when produced on tiles includes an underlying pattern in a tint of the main colour. Care should be taken with the design to ensure that it can be used visually in both portrait and landscape format rather than in a single direction. To accompany the new range of patterned colours a single tile design is required which will be printed by using the inkjet process. The design is to be capable of being used in either landscape or portrait format and depending on the design should link left and right when placed together. The colours to be used to create the single tile design are the four conventional print colours of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black used in the inkjet process on either a white or cream background. Designs can be purely graphic, photographic or a combination of the two.

My initial thoughts have been to look at geometric design, and for a still life study yesterday I worked from a macrame style bag. Drawing in a more measured and meticulous way than I would normally I really started focusing on structure. This fits with the idea of geometry within nature so we'll see where this one goes...

macrame bag

look at all those little links!

I also found a brilliant book on Arabian Geometric Pattern so will be looking into how this could possibly be used within a design.

Paul Hogarth

With an interest in new ways of approaching drawing, I've been looking through the book Creative Ink Drawing by Paul Hogarth. I'm rather taken by his mark making in these images from the 1960s:

Plaza Santa Catalina Tomas, Palma, Majorca, 1963
 
(The detail in the building is beautiful, especially the windows!)

San Augustin, Majorca, 1963 

(Love his capture of movement in the busy street, the solid building, the moving bus)

Telegraph Wires, Holyoke, Massachusetts, 1963 

(I'm looking at structure in my tile project at the moment.. this one really struck me because of that)

The Silver Rail, New York City, 1963 

(I love composition and choice of ink use in this one...the text too on the signage has real energy!)

Palma Signs, Majorca, 1963  

(This one reminds me of a Raschenberg painting!)

Puigpunyent, Majorca, 1963 

(I like the simplicity and 'lack' of line in this piece)

Drawing for jacket of Brendan Behan's New York, 1964 

(Depth of perspective is great here!)

Via Roma, Palma, Majorca, 1963
 
(I like the use of different brushes across this piece)

Windmills near Palma, Majorca, 1963
 
(Mark, line, depth, perspective)

Cafe Figaro, Greenwich Village, New York, 1965 

(Again the movement, of people, is strong...*)

Illustration for Use Your Russian, 1963 

(*...in both these pieces!)

Making in metal, some research

I've been researching metal across the web and come across some interesting designers and ideas. I really like the idea of recycling or using a material that is 'found' and working with its properties. I have been collecting tin cans for a while and musing over what I can do with them. There was this idea for creating tiles out of old aluminium cans and die casting

This brilliant idea using both tin cans and leftover candle wax - I have loads of bits of old candle so this is a definate future project!! Would be nice with a distorted can too maybe...?

 Some amazing origami metal fashions like this piece by Tine De Ruysser.

a bracelet that turns into a bag - genius!!

And whilst on origami, this Computational Origami popped up. It's not made out of metal but could I apply the same principle...??

I like the geometory in these designs by Vladimir Bulatov

love the surface application on this one

the use of pattern in this one

the depth is great in this one

and more subtle in this one

extreme interlocking

and more florid

this is a bit more 'Celtic' than what I would normally like but the fluidity of line is lovely in this one!

He also makes wooden ones too!

the walnut line in this is great

I love the seamless interlocking in these two ^ v

the surface on this and two tone use of wood is great

I also found this interactive origami Jellyfish swarm it's quite lovely!

And I think these recycle inspired sculptures by Sayaka Ganz are beautiful. 

Static movement - I just love it!

Convergence

undulate

ghost