News From the Craft + Style Blogosphere: Jan.13, 2011
“She only cared for the sea when it was lashed to fury by the storm, and for verdure when it served as a background to a ruin. Everything must needs minister to her personal longings, as it were, and she thrust aside as of no account whatever everything that did not immediately contribute to stir the emotions of her heart, for her temperament was sentimental rather than artistic, seeking, not pictures, but emotions.” — From Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary
This week’s edition of News From the Craft + Style Blogosphere has craft from the ’70s, marbled canyons and technicolor geysers, a formidable beer collection, patterns fit for a man and the hallucinatory works of Charles Burchfield.
Beyond the manicured tendrils of grass and calico fields of corn and wheat lie raw, untouched versions of the Earth’s surface. These marbled canyons, throbbing geysers and acidic mountains provide new context for “earth tones.” The colored mountains of Landmannalaugar, Iceland seem like another planet. Read about the origins of each site and the inspiration they provided at The Vamoose.
My grandfather had a heady collection of souvenir liquor bottles and cans. He took great pride in the spoils of his drinking and willed his assortment of novelty Tutankhamun-shaped bottles and unopened cans to us, his grandchildren. If only his collection had remained complete! Dan Becker and Lance Wilson — two San Francisco, CA-based designers — discovered a similar hoard in a stepdad’s basement and quickly deemed it book material. 500 beer cans later, Beer: A Genuine Collection of Cans was born. Featuring cans from 32 countries and an astounding range of brands (ever had Chief Oshkosh of Wisconsin, or Pabst’s Big Cat Malt Liquor?), this book provides ample insight into the evolution of beer can design. [Via Cool Hunting]
Innovative men’s clothing design is hard to come by. It seems like everything these days is a throwback to 1980s L.L. Bean or classic workwear (no complaints here!). Fashion designer Sangeeta Singh has put together an intriguing lookbook of patterns and styles that are reminiscent of the Olympics, African textiles and 1970s funk. I dig. {Via DI$ COUNT]
I recently took in the sumptuous, visionary paintings of Charles Burchfield at the Whitney Museum of American Art. This one-time wallpaper designer evolved from stark, dreary portraits of small town American life (he was once deemed “Edward Hopper on a rainy day”) to luminous, hallucinatory paintings of flowers and nature that mirrored his psychological crisis. In his writings, he “expressed an aim to depict an earlier era in the history of human consciousness when man saw gods and spirits in natural objects and forces.”
Garth of Extreme Craft has been waxing poetic over 1970s issues of Craft Horizons, the magazine that predates American Craft. As a novice to the ’70s craft scene, I was intrigued by his discoveries, especially when he unearthed a June 1971 issue that cataloged the work of Carl and Heidi Bucher, Swiss artists who built environments and wearable sculpture. These radical costumes are made from foam and covered with nylon, producing a spherical effect that reminds me of cough drops or blood cells. Check out Heidi’s slightly foreboding “Bodyshells” in motion in the video below. [Via Pour Porter]
Do you know of a forward-thinking art, style or design blog? Post it in the comments! And make sure to check out past installments of News From the Craft + Style Blogosphere!
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