So Drew told me about this outsider art festival in Alabama called Do0-Nanny. Has anyone ever been? It sounds like a blast. It also says it’s 2.5 hours from Atlanta, but barring any sort of NASCAR related traffic or something horrible like that, I betcha I can make it in two. Anyway, I don’t understand exactly what it is, and I’m not a huge fan of camping, but it sounds fun and I collect outsider art. It’s March 27-28, and here’s the description from their website:

A truly unique experience!….a casserole of southern folk art, home cookin, homemade movies, camping, foot-stompin music, experimental architecture, guessing, oddities, unusual characters, a movie festival, surprises, cracker ingenuity, experiential transomism, and much more!… Folks coming in from NY, TX, CA, and beyond beyond…

Begun as a roadside folk art show in 1996, the Doo-Nanny is now located on a beautiful 80 acre farm in Seale, AL, near Columbus, Ga, and includes a wacky “lo-fi” film festival, fun food, and and eclectic assortment of music and activities.

Chest of drawers, early 1920s

These remind me of those awesome new Claude modular dressers that Jonathan Adler just designed. I feel like he must have been inspired by Eileen when he sat down to sketch.

Bedroom from the Rue Bonaparte apartment. How sexy is this?

Transat chairs, circa 1925-1930

I love seeing original sketches like these! These are part of the collection at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

All images via Eileen Gray: Design and Architecture by Phillipe Garner and published by TASCHEN. I highly recommend adding it to your design library. It’s available used at Amazon for about $10!

I love perusing Erik Johnson’s portfolio online, and this one in particular made my heart happy today. And you all know I don’t usually say goofy sweet things like that, so it must be true!

photo by Erik Johnson

As soon as I saw this one, I realized Leslie MUST have gone to architecture school. You know, I knew another architecture grad who started a stationary shop, and this reminds me of the perfect little vignettes she had all over the store.

Image from A Creative Mint

Jonas Camille Hector: Marine Suite – #6

Also, as Haiti is on your mind today, go over to Return to Bohemia and check out the collection of Haitian art that Kitty has posted there (image above is via Return to Bohemia).

The project combines the ecological history, urban grid, and interconnectedness of all species to inform a beautiful, 86-piece ceramic tile installation. Each tile represents a block of Greenwich village. The installation explores the ecosystems of where Greenwich village now sits back in 1609 when Henry Hudson arrived. It also celebrates the 100th anniversary of Greenwich House Pottery by layering a house map from 1909 into the design. Animals who lived in the area in 1609 are layered into the design as well To learn more about the project and to see more of the pieces, click here.

all images from ayumihorie.com

To see the full tour, click here. I highly recommend it!

While I’m thankful that our forefathers got rid of those pesky British taxes that didn’t have representation and all, I am always a sucker for a Union Jack. I think my favorite use of it lately was the quilts featured on Man Shops World by Becky Oldfield. Here are a few more dreamy shots of the U.K.’s flag I’ve been collecting lately:

Check out Timothy Oulton’s sofa:

A dash of Vivienne Westwood (she’s been doing this a long time) via Living Etc.:

From Natural Curiosities:

From Made By Girl:

From Jonathan Adler:

From one of the designers of Libertine, as seen in Domino.

From the fabulous Bonnie Cashin:

From Naked Decor:

Quilt image by William Waldron via Elle Decor
Sofa image by Michael Falco for The New York Times
Living Etc. images by Jo Berryman for Living Etc.
via Natural Curiosities
Bonnie Cashin Foundation

For months now I’ve noticed that Pedro Friedeberg’s hand and hand chairs are popping up all over the place. Sometimes they even have a foot attached to them. Before Pedro’s chair burst on the scene, the last time I’d seen a hand-shaped chair was in Buster’s room and later Lupe’s house on Arrested Development (Buster: I’d never thought I’d miss a hand so much”):

Have you noticed? It’s been making a lot of covers lately. First Jonathan Adler & Simon Doonan’s anti-depressive Florida pied-a-terre on the cover of Met Home:

Then Kelly Wearstler’s home redesign in Vogue:

How about the sexy Nate Berkus-designed Milan home of Brian Atwood:

This Last week The New York Times Home section featured Jay Jeffers’ temporary digs (he’s waiting for his drive-in apartment. I still don’t get that. Why do you want to put your car on an elevator and drive it into your apartment? What about carbon monoxide? Stupidest thing I’ve ever heard):

Image Credits:

• Images (2) from JonathanAdler.com, also seen in Metropolitan Home (R.I.P. – We’ll miss you Met Home!)
• from here
• Image by Francois Halard via Vogue
• Image by Simon Upton via Elle Decor
• Images by Bruce Buck for the The New York Times
• Image by Roger Davies for Elle Decor
  

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.