Expanding upon its now iconic Abyss collection, Duffy London has introduced a new element: the limited-edition Abyss Wall Tile. The interchangeable 3D-printed design allows users to create their own vertical Abyss within any space they wish. Originally launched in 2012, Abyss explores depth and our own perception of it through layers of glass and wood in a turquoise display of color. It’s likely that images of oceanic topography come to mind when you see any one of its pieces.
The Abyss Wall Tile was developed from the concept of deconstructing Abyss into smaller sections that could then be rearranged into a totally new pattern. Three individual tiles, based on Truchet Tiling – a mathematical tiling system – can be rotated three different ways to create a seamless, unique design every time. The bespoke pattern can then be scaled up or down to suit different sized spaces and environments.
Crafted using plexiglass, recycled plastic, and brushed stainless steel, each Abyss Wall Tile is handcrafted in Duffy London’s East London studio. Choose between a brushed stainless steel or mirror-polished gold finish.
To learn more about Duffy London’s Abyss Wall Tiles, visit duffylondon.com.
Kelly Beall is Director of Branded Content at Design Milk. The Pittsburgh-based writer and designer has had a deep love of art and design for as long as she can remember, from Fashion Plates to MoMA and far beyond. When not searching out the visual arts, she's likely sharing her favorite finds with others. Kelly can also be found tracking down new music, teaching herself to play the ukulele, or on the couch with her three pets – Bebe, Rainey, and Remy. Find her @designcrush on social.
✓Join us for the art event you’ve been waiting for in Mesa, Arizona from October 25-28, 2023 and enjoy a terrific lineup of educational workshops, a marketplace to shop, and community building activities. Whether you’re looking to learn a new technique, gain knowledge from a top instructor, or meet other artists, you won’t want to miss Art Fest Mesa!
Acrylic gesso; photo by Will Kemp
Gesso is one of those words that seems to stop beginner artists in their tracks. It leaves many wondering how to use it with acrylics, or if you even need to use it in an acrylic painting at all.
Gesso and Oil Painting
Historically, gesso was made for oil painting and was traditionally used to prepare or prime a surface so oil paint would adhere to it. It is made from a combination of paint pigment, chalk and binder. Gesso would protect the canvas fibers, provide a nice surface to work on and give a little flexibility so the canvas wouldn’t crack if it was rolled. Traditional oil gesso (pronounced ‘jesso‘) could be described as more of a ‘glue gesso’ because it contains:
Animal glue binder–usually rabbit-skin glue
Chalk
White pigment
Here’s an example of a traditional ground for oil painting. Gamblin Oil Painting Ground is not a “gesso,” but prepares a surface that is a balance between the rigidity of acrylic gesso and the flexibility of oil primers. This bright white, non-absorbent ground enhances color vibrancy by retaining oil in the paint.
The oil gesso creates a surface that is absorbent (this comes from the chalk) and has a ‘tooth’ (texture) which allows the paint to grab onto the canvas. So if gesso was originally used with oil painting, what’s acrylic gesso?
Acrylic Gesso
Although traditionally used by oil painters, the gesso often used today is acrylic gesso, which consists of slightly different ingredients. In fact, modern acrylic gesso is a combination of:
Acrylic polymer medium (binder)
Calcium carbonate (chalk)
A pigment (usually Titanium white)
Chemicals that ensure flexibility and long archival life
Note how acrylic gesso doesn’t contain glue. Acrylic paints are non-corrosive and are stable over time, so you don’t need to worry about paint damaging the canvas—and therefore, you don’t need the glue in the mix. Remember, traditional oil ‘glue’ gesso soaks into the canvas fibers and helps to protect them from the corrosive nature of oils, over time.
Gesso Primer
A common question regarding acrylic painting is if you need to use a gesso primer. Technically, you don’t. It provides you with a nice, slightly more absorbent surface to work on, especially if you’re working on board or raw canvas, but for a pre-primed canvas it’s unnecessary. Don’t forget your pre-primed canvas from the art store already has a layer of gesso on it. Gesso is the same as a primer, as in ‘pre-primed canvas.’
What to Look For
Fine art paint primers are essential for preparing surfaces for painting. They help to create a smooth and consistent surface that is ready for paint. Here are some of the differences between fine art paint primers:
Absorbency: Some primers are more absorbent than others. This can affect how the paint adheres to the surface and how it dries.
Tooth: Tooth refers to the texture of the surface. Some primers have a rougher texture, which can help the paint adhere better.
Opacity: Some primers are more opaque than others. This can affect how much of the underlying surface shows through the paint.
Here’s a selection of the highest-rated acrylic primers.
This post was originally published in 2016. Updated October 2023
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Craig Gleason, founder of the Bad Guys Club, is an artist out of Arizona with over a hundred thousand followers on Instagram. With a large selection of rad shirts and prints available for purchase, you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t check out the wares of this silly monster obsessed illustrator.
Gleason’s work is dominated with monster love, populated with gads of unique, silly creations. There’s a feeling that these guys are the dorks and less evil inclined of the monster world. Take the monster he posted on June 2 for instance. A green haired beast bodied monster with long arms and legs stares off to the side with their polygonal head. Body of a man killer with the head of a dork. It’s wearing brown pants up high like a nerd with cuffs ending above their shin. What a nerd. Or there’s the guy from May 27. He looks like a gleeful psychopath with his bald head, eye patch and grey skin with bleeding scars. And yet, he’s holding a dainty yellow hat in his black gloved hands and a red trench coat with yellow-red plaid pants. The kind of psychopath who is always going to be a D-list villain, a guy you can laugh at. Because that’s what’s central to Gleason’s style. The humor. And that sense of lightness, the silly monster-loving is most purely expressed by the cactus lady also from May 27. Just a classic cartoon cactus, anthropomorphized, doing a jig in red cowboy boots. Wearing undies and a little vest with an organic bra. She’s got flowers for eyes, she’s dancing, she’s happy to be alive. And Craig Gleason’s work can make you feel that way to. Happy to be alive. Alive in a world where people are thinking of and drawing this kind of stuff. It’s a beautiful world.
WhenIwas growing up, the adults who raised me demonstrated that the right to rest was explicitly reserved for the dead. As I got older, I realized this was not just how my extremely hard-working parents ran their household, but a rigid mindset for so many of us in the Black community.
This is why entering a space that intentionally encouraged me to seek physical and emotional rest felt like a hug. When I visited the “Rest Is Power” exhibit currently on display at New York University, I was invited to reimagine what rest looks like for Black people — and to consider making more space for it in my own life.
The visuals excavated memories of lying on the floor in my great-grandmother’s bedroom as a child, experiencing the type of serenity and security that rarely surface for me as an adult. These reflections that bubbled up also made me question whether I could somehow access that type of peace today. I wondered, is the deprivation I experience all because of a broken system — or am I actually contributing to it?
The show, which features photography, paintings and new media from artists such as Kennedi Carter and Chris Friday, is part of an evolving movement made popular a few years ago by theologist and activist Tricia Hersey, who founded the aptly named Nap Ministry. Her published manifesto “Rest Is Resistance” is a critical literary work that reframed Black people’s relationship with rest as an act of political resistance.
Black people have been forced into a value system based on our labor. "Radical rest is resting because your ancestors didn’t have the opportunity to," says the director of NYU’s Center For Black Visual Culture.
Photo credit: Terrence Jennings
“When you think about the idea that Black people in the diaspora who were strictly brought here for the purposes of labor, radical rest is resting because your ancestors didn’t have the opportunity to,” says Joan Morgan, Ph.D., who is an author, journalist and the program director of NYU’s Center For Black Visual Culture, which hosts the exhibit.
We might just owe it to ourselves — and our ancestors — to recalibrate our routines to include moments of restoration.
Hersey’s book “Rest Is Resistance” and every other Black woman-led component of this movement are pivotal in explaining how health disparities exist across racial demographics. Recent studies show Black people have the highest rates of short sleep due to social factors like noise pollution. This lack of sleep is often associated with an array of negative health outcomes that further prove that the way racism manifests in our society can be both sneaky and persistent.
Morgan points to the rest disparities that trickle all the way down from the transatlantic slave trade. Black people, she explains, have been forced into a value system based on their labor.
“We’re no longer enslaved, but we are all slaves to capitalism in some way, shape, or form, and our racial history complicates that even more,” Morgan said. “And for Black women in particular, our labor has always also been taking care of everybody else.”
I agree that we owe ourselves the devotion we show our loved ones every day — and also that no one can successfully pour from an empty vessel.
A woman and her dog, 1943, by Gordon Parks, displayed at the "Rest Is Power" exhibition at NYU.
Courtesy of the Gordon Parks Foundation
Our resistance to rest doesn’t just stem from external harms, though; the aversion to it is also due to generational trauma — and it manifests as both stereotypes and fears.
The racist trope that Black people are lazy, as I observe it, has resulted in a perpetual anxiety that makes us feel like we are not worthy of relaxation. As a kid, even the people I saw work the hardest had very few moments of downtime. And when they did, those moments were often cut short by a laundry list of things they could not get to during the 40-hour workweek.
Black millennials know the sounds and smells of early Saturday and Sunday mornings. We collectively joke online about our parents’ playlist, be it gospel or hip-hop throwbacks, coupled with the pungent smell of cleaning agents meant to signal to everyone in the house that no one would be relaxing in the foreseeable future. As an adult, I still struggle with that curious fear of rest, worried that if I get too much of it, the world will think I’m undeserving of respect and opportunity.
“Rest Is Power” is the beautiful hammer that shatters this fear. Walking into the space immediately brings about a sense of calm, as opposed to the self-consciousness that often drowns people of color in elite art spaces.
Tyler Mitchell’s “Riverside Scene,” a landscape image of Black people enjoying downtime at a waterfront, evokes emotions about what it means to be Black and joyfully unproductive.
Taylor Mitchell, Riverside Scene, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.
Images such as the peacefully napping duo in Kalila Ain’s “My Mother Named Me Beloved” are imbued with the kind of peace that comes with feeling loved and completely protected by a family member. And Tyler Mitchell’s “Riverside Scene,” a landscape image of Black people enjoying downtime at a waterfront, evokes emotions about what it means to be Black and joyfully unproductive.
The collection creates a comforting air void of shameful feelings that creep up when one of us takes a mere moment to do nothing.
We are worth more than the labor we perform. We deserve full, multifaceted lives immersed in moments that allow us to dream and build futures without exploitation and racism.
“The most gratifying thing for me is when people say that they came into the space and just kind of exhaled,” Morgan tells me.
The collection of works eschews depictions of struggle, a common theme in artistic portrayals of the Black experience, for visuals of ease. That, in itself, is revolutionary. You don’t need to be rich or exceptional to rest. You just need to believe that you deserve it.
In 1895 Charles Pathé began his quest to document the historical events of
the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. By 1914, Pathé produced the first weekly
newsreel.
British Pathé, the U.K. newsreel archive company, has uploaded its entire
100-year collection of 85,000 historic films in high resolution to YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/user/britishpathe
The collection, which spans 1896 to 1976, comprises some 3,500 hours of
historical footage of major events, notable figures, fashion, travel, sports and
culture. It includes extensive film from both World War I and World War II.
The Home page displays a choice of popular uploads, days that shook the world, disasters, inventions, animals, daredevils, celebrities and compilations. 'Weirdest newsreels' includes a newsreel about a progressive school , a tall man marrying a short lady and an obese three year old . In contrast you can also find footage from the Battle of the Somme , the SAS storming the Iranian Embassy in London and a documentary on the assassination of the American President John F Kennedy claiming the CIA killed him.
Email permeates our lives, but how does its impact resonate beyond being a form of communication? Intuit Mailchimp and the Design Museum explore the cultural and emotional effects while contemplating its future in an immersive exhibit – Email is Dead. Open through October 22, 2023, visitors are invited to think about the look, feel, sound, and even the smell of email. Email is Dead leads us through the journey of the history of email, from its beginnings in the 1970s to what the experience might look like in 2070, prompting a wider conversation about the future of communication.
“Now feels like the optimal time to tell this story, because there’s been chatter about the death of email for over a decade. And every time there’s a new ‘thing,’ like SMS or social media, experts speculate on its extinction. And now, with the rapid expansion of AI, we found the chatter about the death of email to be even more relevant,” explains Intuit Mailchimp’s CMO Michelle Taite. “In fact, with the help of AI, our inboxes are becoming increasingly personalized, helping marketers create meaningful, long standing connections. In essence, email is becoming smarter than it’s ever been.”
How does email shape our work lives, relationships, cultures, and economies? To try and answer these questions, Intuit Mailchimp’s in-house creative agency, Wink, worked with creative studio Something Special Studios. The goal was to capture and create a 360-degree view of the feelings and sensations email can evoke from us all.
To spearhead the “look of email,” Wink created an identity utilizing a bright yellow pixel pattern, iconography, and a typeface inspired by the first email ever sent in 1972 by Ray Tomlinson. The interactive displays within Email is Dead invite visitors to explore impact through activations, such as burying their own “email time capsule” or taking an email personality test to find out what kind of emailer they really are. Imaginary and playful solutions for real-life situations, such as an overflowing inbox or the impulse to fire off an emotion-filled email, are offered in the form of an Inbox Elixir (recipe included) and the Email Therapy Machine. The ever-present nature of email can then be brought home via a photo booth that “transports” the subject to random locations, then prints out a wish-you-were-here postcard.
A bespoke soundtrack can be heard through the space, featuring synthesized compositions meant to depict email’s daily routine. The tracks meant to capture the “sound of email” carry visitors through an email’s journey from sender to recipient. Maybe somewhat surprisingly, guests will only occasionally hear the crescendo of familiar sounds: a swoosh, pop, ding, type, click, and send.
What does email smell like exactly? Email is Dead is infused with an ‘Eau du Email’ scent, developed in collaboration with Something Special Studios and Tatiana Godoy Betancur to evoke clarity. Crafted from aromatic plants, like bergamot, geranium, sage, lavender, and sandalwood, these scent notes are known to help promote a balanced nervous system. The scent is designed to replicate a “type of lucidity and sense of connection that email can generate as a whole.”
To complete your experience at Email is Dead, there’s merchandise that captures iconic phrases such as “kind regards” and “hope this finds you well.” There are branded baseball hats, t-shirts, drinkware, tote bags, A5 notebooks, pens, A3 posters, enamel pins, key rings, and more. It’s all available for purchase in the Design Museum gift shop and on the site.
To learn more about the Email is Dead immersive exhibit to plan a visit, click through to designmuseum.org.
Kelly Beall is Director of Branded Content at Design Milk. The Pittsburgh-based writer and designer has had a deep love of art and design for as long as she can remember, from Fashion Plates to MoMA and far beyond. When not searching out the visual arts, she's likely sharing her favorite finds with others. Kelly can also be found tracking down new music, teaching herself to play the ukulele, or on the couch with her three pets – Bebe, Rainey, and Remy. Find her @designcrush on social.
✓Join us for the art event you’ve been waiting for in Mesa, Arizona from October 25-28, 2023 and enjoy a terrific lineup of educational workshops, a marketplace to shop, and community building activities. Whether you’re looking to learn a new technique, gain knowledge from a top instructor, or meet other artists, you won’t want to miss Art Fest Mesa!
Artist Iain Stewart shares his therapeutic process of recording his days in sketchbooks.
“I’ll tell you what,”starts my wife Noelle. “I bet you can’t sketch that view before I finish this glass of wine.” She gives me that mischievous grin of hers as she takes a sip. It’s June in Paris, and beads of condensation drip down the stem of the glass. I look at my unopened sketch bag. The odds aren’t good. I begin to stammer some excuse—but then I stop and grab my gear. “You’re on, babe.”
This article originally appeared in Watercolor Artist, June 2019 issue. Subscribe now so you don’t miss any great art instruction, inspiration, and articles like this one.
Seven minutes later, and just before the last half-ounce of chardonnay makes its final journey, I say “done,” and order myself a beer in triumph. It’s not my best work but, as it turns out, it’s one of my favorite simple sketches. Every time I see it, I’m transported to that exact moment in time and place, sharing a cool beverage with my wife in the back streets of the 5th arrondissement. It’s a memory I cherish.
Palais de L’Isle Annecy, France (watercolor on paper, 10 x 8) is an example of a typical warm-up sketch when I’m in Europe. I like to arrive a day early to get a feel for where I’ll be teaching. This medieval castle was built in the middle of the main canal and is one of the most photographed spots in Annecy. It’s tough to keep enough personal space to paint there without being bumped into, so I did the drawing from a bridge crossing the canal and then painted the image from the steps of a nearby church.
Drawing Out Stories
From Le Bistrot Mazarin Saint-Germain, Paris(watercolor on paper, 8 x 5) is a great spot for a glass of wine and a chat.
There are many more sketches of Paris, and there are sketches of other beautiful places, along with sketches of my backyard or various rural spots. They all have stories. I live my life in the present and remember it through my sketchbooks. Understanding why I find my sketchbooks so valuable, and using my persuasive powers to try and convince others to join me in this way of recording a life, is something in which I take great joy as an instructor.
One-Rule Sketching
Simply put, a sketch is a quick expression of where you are—mentally or physically—rather than a verbal explanation. The sketchbook is my place of joy, observation, solace and exploration. The more I work in it, the more my studio painting loosens up. Those who have painted with me before will understand firsthand how much I believe the sketchbook to be the perfect instrument for allowing creative instincts to flourish. It’s one of the best tools to improve your watercolors. I just have one rule: Never tear out a page. Even the simple sketches you believe to be poor have stories to tell.
Lighten Up
In June of last year, I took a group to Italy. From the very first demo, I worked primarily in my sketchbook, stressing the ease with which an artist can carry the setup for an entire day of painting and the number of images one can capture in a short time. A sketch doesn’t have the added baggage of being made for the purpose of framing or for sending to some juror to ponder its merits. You choose with whom and when you share your sketches. Too often I see artists disappointed when they try to take on too much during travel. I know. I’ve been there. You haul your easel and your kit all over creation, carefully tape down the paper, study your subject and then everything goes south.
During a heavy Parisian rain, I was able to take a few quick photos from the safety of a bistro’s umbrella, but I actually made Crossing the Canal Saint-Martin, Paris (watercolor on paper, 10 x 8) as a demonstration during a workshop in Washington, D.C.
Don’t try to bring your studio with you. I believe a better way to enjoy travel-painting is with less stuff and more exploration. It’s amazing how much of a city you can record with just a book, a couple of pencils, a travel palette and three brushes. A lightweight setup allows you to go much longer and with much more comfort. And this will allow you to collect more memories.
Letting Loose with Simple Sketches
I find the surest way to ruin a painting is to allow it to become precious before it deserves even the slightest accolade. Keeping a sketchbook allows you to begin to shed those preconceived ideas of what your work on-site should look like. Spend 15 minutes warming up with little vignettes, and then begin to explore where you are in more detail.
Billy’s Seafood, Inc. Bon Secour, AL (watercolor on paper, 10 x 8) is a great place to grab some fresh seafood on the way to or from Bayou La Batre, where I have friends who have a house on the bay near Mobile. This is a favorite painting spot that also serves a mean oyster.
The object of sketching a place isn’t the outcome but the experience of sitting still amid the rush of tourists. Separate yourself from that crowd and become a part of where you are. Enjoy the aromas of a nearby restaurant, and the sounds of a new city or a new language. After a bit of time, you forget the need to create a masterpiece. It’s just a piece of paper in a book. It’s just a pencil. What have you got to lose? You get to know “place” on a much deeper level, and that practice in itself begins to instill a confidence that will serve you better than any other skill I can think of.
Tom’s Burned-down Café (watercolor on paper, 14 x 10) shows one of the best little bars in the U.S. This sketch is a plein air demo I did on-site. It’s a tricky subject with so much detritus and piles of junk and metal welded to create what amounts to one huge sculpture. Painting it makes for a fantastic exercise in editing.
Warm Up Your Drawing Muscles
McNulty’s Tea & Coffee Co. Christopher St. Greenwich Village, NYC(watercolor on paper, 10 x 8) depicts a must-stop in “the village.” You can smell this place a block away. I decided no color was necessary and began to let the lines move. I included a shameless self-portrait as the purchaser of said beverages.
Like any other form of creativity, it’s important to warm up. You need to loosen your muscles, relax and get into your own private zone. It’s like the cacophony of the symphony as its musicians practice scales or like the athlete stretching before a match. These stretches are necessary for them to perform at peak level. Why should an artist have a different set of rules? Sketching is your physical and mental stretching. If you ever see me at an easel, I’ll typically do a few simple sketches before I begin work on the main painting. Quite often, these little sketches are more interesting to me than the finished painting.
Sketch Your Own Reality
On-site, your field of view is as far as you can turn your head. When you begin to design a sketch, that field narrows significantly. I might borrow the odd chimney or change the flow of traffic to suit my design. Feel free to shift elements around. Decide what the story is and then begin the task of throwing out anything that steals from it. Never let reality get in the way of a good painting. And never let a drawn line tell you where to put your brush. There are two drawings in every painting. The first is done with a pencil; the second, the one that everyone sees, is done with the brush.
Sketchbook Sanctuary
My kit is simple: a comfortable bag with a place for a water bottle and the necessities I keep packed and ready at all times. Gathering gear wastes time, and if you can’t find your water container, you may have a longing look at the couch and decide it’s a bit inclement for venturing outside. Put sketchbooks in your car, your purse, your backpack or wherever you need. I typically have four or five going at once.
Low Tide from the Beer Garden Anstruther, Scotland(watercolor on paper, 5 x 8) was a quick sketch done on a lovely afternoon in Fife. A cèilidh (Scottish folk band) was playing while my friend Lars (president of the German Watercolor Society) and I painted here, listening to music and painting outside. Scotland chooses when it’s going to give you a day like this. I hope you’re lucky enough to see one.
As an instructor, I only show my “public” sketchbook. My personal one is where I write, as well. Those thoughts and memories are mine, and I keep them close. A good sketchbook is your sanctuary. Treat it as such. I have books going back to 1989 when I began studying architecture, and can revisit them and transport myself to age 21 or 35 or yesterday.
Renovations—Rothesay, Isle of Bute, Scotland(watercolor on paper, 14 x 8) depicts a once thriving vacation spot down the Clyde from Glasgow before cheap flights to Spain came along. My granny used to take us there as kids and also near where my Uncle Alastair moored his boat. It’s one of Scotland’s hidden gems and a more familiar moody Scottish scene.
Even the most mundane setting provides an incredible amount of subjects to draw and paint. You only need to learn to see it, which requires practice. The journey is the process. The reward is what you make of it.
Drawing Time
In the rush of social networking and the 24-hour news cycle, I find the most peaceful way to approach the start of the day is to stay away from screens for as long as possible. Try it. Take 30 minutes with your coffee and draw. Choose anything on your table, look out the window or, better yet, go outside and give yourself some sketchbook time. A minute or two with your sketchbook will calm you in ways that might surprise you.
Tram at Constantine’s Column Istanbul, Turkey(watercolor on paper, 14 x 8) was an early morning quickie while I let my wife, Noelle, sleep in. Istanbul is wonderful to wander with a cup of coffee and a sketchbook in the early morning.
Lastly, let me leave you with this thought. The idea that simple sketches are somehow less important or too “rough” compared to more finished pieces is simply untrue. There’s an honesty to a sketch that’s rarely transferred to a studio piece. Of course, each is important in its own right, and they work symbiotically together, but for today, work on the sketch. Grab a sketchbook and go outside. I know I will.
About the Artist
Iain Stewart (stewartwatercolors.com) is an artist and illustrator, and a signature member of both the American and National Watercolor Societies. His work has received many awards, domestically and abroad, and he’s a sought-after workshop instructor and juror. For more great instruction from Stewart, check out his best-selling video series, From Photos to Fantastic, where he breaks down his techniques for Painting Watercolor Cityscapes, Painting Watercolor Seascapes and Painting Watercolor Landscapes.
This article originally appeared inWatercolor Artist, June 2019issue. Check out the rest of the issue for more great painting techniques and inspiration!
Sayali Horambe has been passionate about art and drawing from a very young age. Now fully within her powers as an artist, Horambe is an incredibly skilled practitioner of stippling. Through the use of ink dots and immense patience, Horambe has turned her attention towards astrology with ‘The Zodiac Project.’ She took time in designing this year long project to do research on the accepted traits of the zodiac signs while gathering facts talking to people who actually belong to the signs. With her conceptualization complete, Horambe moved to stippling the essence of each sign “in the form of a beautiful lady.”
The completed works of the project are absolutely breathtaking. It’s almost impossible to imagine the amount of effort that had to go into building each piece through only the use of ink dots. As an Aquarius, I was quick to search for my sign and my jaw immediately dropped. Aquarians are known to be introspective thinkers and here I feel seen by Horambe’s Aquarian woman. The beautiful subject has tree branches growing through her long flowing hair. A jug falls out from her ear spilling a stream of water with the cosmos flowing through it while the woman looks at the viewer with eyes that at once draw you in and push you away. The beauty of the mysterious thinker whose head is always somewhere in the stars.
Without knowing much more other than my own sign, I wanted to highlight another piece on the grounds of just how cool it is. For that, I turn to Virgo. Here, Horambe has stippled a woman with a long look in her eyes while a disembodied hand tugs at the hair on the top of her head. Another hand comes out from the hair falling around her shoulders with a key at the tip of its fingers. The lock is no where to be seen. What does it open? No way to know. This puzzle of a woman is reflected by the jigsaw puzzle pieces that make up the subject’s skin. It’s enticing, drawing you into the mystery of this woman whose mouth is the head of a flower. It makes you want to know Virgo. Even more, it makes you want to know Sayali Horambe.
I am often asked to recommend a website to go to for Copyright free images. The Electronic Library at Cardiff Met offers many links to image databases that we recommend, some (marked with a black or a green copyright symbol) like Bridgeman Education and Visual Arts Data Service offer copyright free images for educational use.
I can also recommend a single page to which you can navigate on the internet which will allow you to search a whole selection of different image databases ...not just images of art and design... made available under a Creative Commons licence.
Creative Common licences all offer, as minimum, permission to copy so long as the image is marked clearly with details of who first created it (attribution). To learn more about Creative Commons licences (which are voluntarily applied by creators to their works and can apply to text, images , music and all copyrighted materials) you should go here. To search for all those Creative Commons licensed images go here. Enter a keyword and select a source to search from the range offered ( various interesting websites ) results will bring back Creative Commons licenced images, moving images and sound.
Amazon’s newest office – unexpectedly named “Hank” – is located in Midtown Manhattan in what was once the home of storied department store Lord & Taylor. The building has undergone a years-long renovation and restoration since being designated as a landmark in 2007 by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Committee. That history alone made it important for Amazon’s Project Hank to honor its roots while providing a comfortable, collaborative workspace for more than 2,000 employees. The brand commissioned art consulting firm IndieWalls and two talented local textile artisans – William Storms and Brit Kleinman – to create larger-than-life art installations that would become focal pieces within the refreshed space.
“Hand-weaving a piece for a landmark building on Fifth Avenue? It wasn’t even on my radar,” said William Storms. “When initially approached by IndieWalls and WRNS to create this 300-yard, 9-story handwoven artwork for Amazon’s HQ in the landmark Lord & Taylor building, it took all of two seconds for my brain to daydream and decide I wanted to give it my everything.”
Storms’ oversized woven works, titled Love, Grandma Jo, consist of over 300 astonishing handwoven yards (Loom Woven – Passementerie). Making its way from Floor 2 all the way up to the skylight on Floor 10, the installation transforms in color and material along the way – from walnut and lucite to brass and eucalyptus. As visitors travel up the staircase they’ll encounter different perspectives, with new compositions on the mezzanines between each floor.
On the personal side, Love, Grandma Jo nods to the Storms’ relationship with the landmark’s history. His grandmother, Josephine, was a loyal customer of Lord & Taylor. In her honor, Storms wove her signature – taken from a holiday card – into the top floor of the piece.
Storms is a mathematically driven craftsman who straddles the lines between fiber, sculpture, and architecture. Once he discovered the loom and was introduced to the world of hand-weaving for the interior design trade, he was hooked. In 2011, he opened a bespoke textile studio in Brooklyn, with a focus on producing “three-dimensional work in a traditionally two-dimensional world.”
“Looking at the piece now, I feel its magnitude and am still processing that I wove it alone. Textiles by nature happen in the singular; one knot, stitch, or pick at a time,” Storms said. “The process is incredibly macro focused on that seemingly insignificant small action, over and over and over… it’s therapeutic, honestly. This work has made me realize the power of consistent, dedicated action and how one small knot or pick will eventually build into something that’s very humbling to stand in front of. In the end, it has left me feeling like the small one, standing in awe of its tremendous scale and organic beauty.”
William Storms
Photo: AVO
Artist Brit Kleinman, founder of AVO, created Bird Cage as a tribute to the historic textile building that bridges the technology of the past with that of the present. Creating a nest-like space on the inside with an undulating blue exterior, the installation transforms the more you explore. With a form that symbolizes technology and systems binding us together, Bird Cage celebrates these physical spaces where memories are made.
Photo: AVO
Clocking in at over 880 hours to create, the installation was conceived and crafted by Kleinman and her team at AVO. Each rope was constructed by hand over several months, one knot at a time, without any machinery. Bird Cage utilizes six distinct weaves, each designed to seamlessly fit within the serrated edges of the main steel structure it encloses. Up close, these intricately handwoven ropes undergo a color transition across floors that signifies the passing of time and the evolution of ideas.
Photo: Hollis Johnson
“Bird Cage is your secret hideout in the middle of a workday. Where time paints patterns on the floor as the sunlight cascades through the undulating ropes with views of the Empire State Building in the background,” Kleinman shared.
Photo: Elliot Goldstein
The artwork’s subtle ombré effect employs a whopping 27 colors of yarn dyed cording and hand-dyed leather cuffs. These cuffs act as a structural component that secures the ropes to the steel structure, as well as forming patterns that weave in and out.
Photo: Majid Aliyev
“When I was approached to create an art installation for Amazon’s iconic NYC office, I must admit, I was genuinely taken aback by the opportunity,” Kleiinman divulged. “Bird Cage is my largest piece to date, and I love how it exists beyond the wall and becomes an immersive experience. I want people to do more than just look at it; I want people to step inside, feel connected, and be inspired by the passion woven into its intricate details.”
Photo: Bilyana Dimitrova
Photo: AVO
Photo: Elliot Goldstein
Photo: AVO
Photo: Majid Aliyev
Brit Kleinman Photo: Majid Aliyev
To learn more about Williams Storms’ work, visit williamstorms.com. To find out more about Brit Kleinman and AVO, click over to avoavo.com.
Kelly Beall is Director of Branded Content at Design Milk. The Pittsburgh-based writer and designer has had a deep love of art and design for as long as she can remember, from Fashion Plates to MoMA and far beyond. When not searching out the visual arts, she's likely sharing her favorite finds with others. Kelly can also be found tracking down new music, teaching herself to play the ukulele, or on the couch with her three pets – Bebe, Rainey, and Remy. Find her @designcrush on social.
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Years ago, Luis Coelho had taken a long creative break. Looking to get back into the process of creating, Coelho revisited material he had been exposed to as a child. This exploration led him back to a love of pens and the things one can construct through the mass collection of simple pen lines. Harboring this rediscovered love, Coelho asked his two nieces to decide what animals they wanted to see appear out of these lines on fresh pieces of paper, telling them that the animals would guard their dreams and lead them out of nightmares whenever they needed. In that moment, Coelho found his style in his desire to “breed sweetness,” focusing on creating renderings of animals for children and the inner child in all of us, leading to a popularity with people of all ages.
Luis Coelho speculates that because of the dream guarding mission statement his work was birthed from, that all his animals take on an out of dreams-like quality and I’d have to agree. Take ‘Floofle’ for example. Under the banner of his Purr.In.Ink it’s natural that many of Coelho’s illustrations are of cats and ‘Floofle’ is the quintessential Coelho cat. Countless little ink lines coalesce into a black and white bundle of fur with stringy frayed whiskers playing from its face. Coelho expertly shades through the intensity of his line work to build the subtle impressions of the cat’s front legs. Floofle seems to exist in and appear from a dream-like shadow that permeates even the best of dreams. It’s adorable like all his felines but don’t discount his other critters like ‘Papami.’ Papami is a sugar glider where the line work is simultaneously denser while done with a lighter touch. The shape is more defined to show the gliders body stretching into wavy points as it takes excitable flight. Its ears are like miniature bunny ears while a lightly lined patch by the glider’s eye shows like a rosy cheeked fairy tale creature. It makes me want to leap in the air and hug every animal I see. Luis Coelho’s creations never fail to delight and tickle the cute animal needs in all of us. After seeing his work, I know it’ll live on in my imagination and I can’t wait for the day that Floofle comes to bat away the darkness in my dreams.
If you’re bored with your living space and looking for ways to spruce it up without shelling out for a whole home makeover, one low-effort upgrade you can try is a unique stylish rug. And even though you can get a rug from just about anywhere, if you really want yours to stand out — and for people to constantly ask you where you got it from — you should opt for a rug designed by an actual artist.
But before you start sweating at the thought of spending thousands on something made to be walked on, hear us out. Thanks to collaborations between major rug retailers and iconic artists and designers such as Jonathan Adler, Keith Haring, Justina Blakeney and even the estate of the late Jean-Michel Basquiat, you can get an artist-designed floor covering for less than $500.
Below, we rounded up 11 of the most gallery-worthy rugs you can get that will make your home look like you hired an interior designer.
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