I picked this book up at one of the best used bookstores I’ve ever visited, ABCD in Camden Maine (though my Great Uncle Frank Piskor, a huge bibliophile, used to say they had “New York prices.”). It’s a MoMA book from 1961, and Uncle Frank was right; it was $6.50 new, and $75 used forty years later. I’m going to let the jacket sum up Futurism for you because I would use up all of my blogging hours for the month trying to do it myself and I would not do half as good a job:

The Futurist artists…set out to create an art as exhilarating as Marinetti’s promise. They translated the kinetic rhythms and the confused, intense sensations of modern life into potent visual form, creating works of art of extraordinary emotional impact. The Futurists’ approach to art, their manifestos and demonstrations set a pattern for many art movements which followed, such as Constructivism, Dada, and Surrealism…and the sympathy between certain Futurist procedures and current endeavors is largely responsible for the growing interest in Futurism.”

-Joshua C. Taylor

The Futurists looked to the past to rebel against it than to be inspired by it, and they had a tinge of anarchy running through their movement. Alright, enough art history, think about what was going on in the 19-teens and you’ll get it. Onto the inspiration of color, shape, movement, and composed confusion:

Severini: The Boulevard 1910

Boccioni: The Street Pavers 1911

Balla: Mercury Passing Before the Sun as Seen Through a Telescope 1914

Balla: Iridescent Interpretation 1912

Balla: Girl Running on a Balcony 1912

Boccioni: Iron Man. Just Kidding! Unique Forms of Continuity in Space 1913

Carra: “Free-Word” Painting (Patriotic Celebration) 1914

Boccioni: The Calvary Charge 1914

Hmmm, O.K., so the late fifties/early sixties are the time of the “current endeavors” Taylor alludes to. That makes total sense when you think about the art scene in the sixties and beyond. I’m seeing a lot of inspiration here for Jim Dine and Robert Indiana and Andy Warhol. Think of whatever Cooper is hanging in his office on Mad Men, think of how the space race would have effected art the way the industrial revolution and speeding cars and airplanes did decades earlier.

It makes me wonder what kind of art will come out of this tumultuous time in history. We’ve seen the architecture, we’re seeing how the fear of a crashing plane affects design, how security concerns keep campuses from planting shrubs, how we memorialize heroes and events. How are tumultuous times and technology and all of the new ways of presenting media and communicating affecting art today? Please tell me what you think as it’s kind of blowing my mind just thinking about it at them moment.

“We’re all collectors by nature. But if you’re talking about an orderly life, there has to be a stop sign somewhere. Building a collection requires a strong constitution and the ability to resist.”

-Albert Hadley, The Story of America’s Preeminent Interior Designer

It also requires good eye for assembly. Through Jenn Ski, whose blog we mentioned last week, I found myself linking over to the fabulous Junk Culture blog, and from there I linked over to Lost Found Art. Lost Found Art describes itself as “a unique design company that specializes in sculptural installations and assemblages using antique and vintage pieces. Our works are created with an eye to scale, balance, color and surface interest, and the end result is a strong visual statement that combines artistic statement, whimsy, form and uniqueness.”

It makes me think that a collection of just about anything can look good if it’s arranged the right way! Here are a few favorites. There are about 70 more here.

Do you have an artfully arranged collection of something? PLEASE SHARE IT WITH US!

All images are from Lost Found Art

The front walk – it’s your first chance at making an impression on visitors. Since more and more crackheads are knocking on my door asking for money lately, I have thorny roses blocking mine. However, if you want to let visitors feel welcome and let them know that you are groovy, you do what Jenn Ski did. We are LOVING the way she interpreted and installed the idea behind these photos.

Just wait until summer! Jenn has all the concrete poured. Here is the story of the work in pictures on flickr.

We also love Jenn Ski’s prints, available in her Etsy shop. Here’s a teaser:

images via Jenn Ski;

• first image: Garden Art & Decoartion, A Sunset Book, ©1962
• second image: she found at Junkcultureshop, one of my new favorite blogs.
• third image by Jenn Ski
• fourth image: Home Sweet Home giclee copyright Jenn Ski. See link above to purchase on Etsy.

Oops, an oversight! Today’s featured flickr fave Lockette also has a blog called The Locker. Here’s one more shot of how she organizes her work so beautifully:

photo from The Locker

I’m posting these flickr faves a day early because it’s a favorite workspace we missed last week. It comes to us from flickr member lockette. So white. So bright. So ORGANIZED! Those work surfaces and windows make this a perfect creative space. Love the photography too! You can peruse her creations in her Etsy store.

The book I laid out on my coffee table this week is Twentieth Century Pattern Design by Lesley Jackson. Many of these prints have been making a huge comeback over the past ten years, as we’ve seen them everywhere from Josef Frank Anthropologie sofas to William Morris Prada pumps.

An array of Art Noveau prints designed around the turn of the cenury. Clockwise from top left: Lindsay Butterfield, Sidney Mawson, Allan Vigers, and George C. Haite.

Vegetable Tree by Josef Frank

Afrika by Vicke Landstrand

Ros och liga by Gocken Jobs

Kamaeleon by Marie Gudme Leth

Tulip by William Morris

An array of Art Noveau prints designed around the turn of the cenury. Clockwise from top left: Lindsay Butterfield, Sidney Mawson, Allan Vigers, and George C. Haite.

all images from Twentieth Century Pattern Design by Lesley Jackson.

Lincolnville Harbor 1994

One of my favorite museums is The Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine, and it was there I first discovered the work of Alex Katz, whose studio is nearby in Lincolnville. I wandered into a room and watched a movie of this man painting birch trees on a huge canvas. I loved watching his energy and how quickly he was able to assess which move he was going to make next. I can’t really describe it better than Sanford Schwartz does in this book:

Katz has always been so clear and forceful about his goals, and those goals are such a fine blend of the naturalistic, the abstract and the theatrical, that literally where he works can seem a little beside the point. But the possibility that, in some slight degree, Lincolnville lets him connect with a freer self adds a wrinkle of feeling to the pictures he makes there.

study for Fishing Boats 2000

Ives Field, 1956

Hammon House 3 1963

Smile Awhile 1983

Cow 1986

(part of) Wildflowers 3 1993

Untitled Drawing 1953

all images by Alex Katz, as seen in Alex Katz in Maine

For some inspiration on this fine Labor Day Holiday, I thought I’d give you a last hurrah, via the vivid colors of David Hockney’s takes on California:

The Little Splash

California

Pearblossom Highway

Nichols Canyon

Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica

all images by David Hockney. I apologize for any that are a little skewed; I have an antique scanner.

Last week I was feeling uninspired and started the week off with some favorite works by Paul Klee. It seemed like a very good way to start off the worst day of the week, so today I’m going to treat you to some inspiration compliments of Raoul Dufy. Speaking of, did anyone manage to make it to the exhibition in Mississippi this summer? Does anyone know if that the end of the tour? I can’t seem to find any additional cities after Jackson. I kept thinking I’d make it, but sadly I never did.

Taormina

Casino at Nice

Red Concert

Harbor at Deauville

Blue Mozart

The Orchestra. I like to compare this to his sketch below. It reminds me just how much I stink at line drawing when I see how masterful his is:

I found all of these in a little book from The Pocket Library of Great Art. It cost me $2.50, a whopping 2.5 times the original cost, which was 95 cents in 1953. What a little used bookstore treasure!

Do you ever get in the design doldrums? Clearly you are a blog browser – do you ever get style ennui? Sometimes I feel very overloaded with so much information that I fail to see freshness because my brain is short circuiting. How do you get the juices flowing again?

One thing I do is climb up and take down one of my many art and design books (I’m a bit of a book hoarder and I’m starting to get a little scared for myself after watching this crazy show called Hoarders on A&E the other night (by the way, this show is really good at inspiring you to clean out the attic, the basement, the fridge, and any other place clutter can gather!). Last week it was this charming little book on Paul Klee that I picked up at my favorite used bookstore on the planet for two bucks. Not only was he a master of form and composition, but Paul Klee mastered color baby! Next time you are in the design doldrums, I highly recommend going to the library and checking out a monograph. For now, I’ll show you a few that jump-started my creative engine:

The next time that I fear picking out FLOR tiles is overwhelming, I’m just going to grab some that make this pattern:

Or this pattern:

This color palette is very Don Draper’s office:

Hmm, in a room this combo might come out looking a little 1980’s Miami, but it could still be great in a nursery or used with the just the right amount of each hue:

Seriously, if you are a clutterbug and you want to be scared straight, check out Hoarders over here.