500 Pendants and Lockets

So I noticed today in Barnes and Noble that Lark's 500 Pendants and Lockets is out now. Check out page 212 to see yours truly!

Pic Problems

So I've been trying to post a rendering I did in Rhino yesterday, because I fianally figured out how I might add a light diffuser, but for some reason I can't get it to up load. It's on my flickr site, go here to see it, if you haven't already.

Schmaps!

I just found out that one of my photos from the Cooper-Hewitt was selected for the Schmap East Coast Guide! Check it out!

Bonus Quote of the Week.

My friend Mike has gotten me onto Goodreads, a site where you can rate books you've read, list books you're currently reading and/or would like to read and share them with your friends. (Because, let's face it, I need to waste more time on the internet!) The site also has an awesome feature where you can search for quotes from your favorite authors. In honor of this (and maybe because I've had just a wee bit of gin), I've decided to post an extra quote this week:

"At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves."
-Chuck Palahniuk (from Fight Club)

Anyways, if you're on Goodreads, or go on Goodreads, look me up. I'd love to know what other people are reading!

P.S. The previously posted Joseph Campbell quote I found on Goodreads.

Process Shots of the Week

A ring that's not really a ring, but more like hand adornment. The top form is an enameled electroform, the bottom form is a rock. Check out my flickr site for a bunch more pics of work in progress, inspiration shots and my disaster of a studio space. (I thought this pic was better than it acutally is.)

Most things. . .

Found on Uppercase.

Quote of the Week

Because some of us need it this week, I think. . .

"If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."
— Joseph Campbell

WOMBAT!!!

In conjunction with my Australian Design post, this my friends is a wombat:


If I had a wombat, I think I'd name him Chub-Chub.

Australian Design

Interesting points of Aussie Design:
- On the government website it lists architects, interior designers, landscape designers, graphic design, jewellers, industrial designers, fashion designers, furniture makers and textile artists as part of the "design industry"
- Limited materials and population make it difficult to market design in Australia.
- Aussie designers get their visual inspirations from the same wide variety of sources as Americans. But, "The analysis of everyday objects and activities is often central to the design process, as designers strive to produce simple and elegant solutions for ordinary situations"
- Australians are also incorporating digital technology in order to compete in the global market.

Some interesting tidbits:

"The multiplicity inherent in Australian professional craft practice defies a singular definition. Contemporary craft occupies a vast arena that extends from design for production work to commissions to one off works for exhibition and the collector market. It is this multi-layered nature of Australian contemporary craft that makes it so dynamic and vibrant and sustains the ongoing development of the Australian craft scene."

"The latter part of the 20th century was a period of remarkable growth in the Australian design world. In 1980, the appearance of Tony Fry's influential reference book Design History Australia reminded professionals of the need to consider design within a social and economic context of Australian history. There are a number of Australian designers currently achieving success and developing strong reputations within the fiercely competitive global context."

"An interest in the possible influences between art, science, and technology is a recurring theme in the work of many contemporary designers. Asking how the body relates to furniture, jewellery, clothes or space is one way of exploring new possibilities for design. Through the use of computer software, innovative manufacturing techniques and new materials, designers continue to challenge the ways in which design can affect many aspects of living in Australia and overseas."

Australians seem to use the term "design" much more broadly than we do in the US (one of the sites that turned up in my search was for vehicle safety standards). They also seem more supportive of design (I'm not sure exactly what I mean by that.) Design for them also seems to be more inclusive. I get the impression that they don't have the kind of petty bickering we do between fields and in the field of jewelry/metalsmithing.

Check out the Powerhouse Museum, which focuses on science and design. They have a Lace Study Centre, with a collection of over 300 examples of handmade lace from around the world. Some of their current exhibitions include an extensive collection of Princess Di memorabilia, silversmithing work from Paul de Lamerie, engineering excellence, and finalists for the Australia Design Awards

http://cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/design/
http://www.craftaus.com.au/ (Check out their "Living Treasures"section!)

Those placemats are made of Gumleaf.
Jewelry by Marian Hosking (white) and Robert Baines (red)

Scandinavian Design

How Scandinavian Design is described:

"a patchwork of northern European nation states that form a cultural and regional entity tht is very distinct from the rest of Europe."

"sleek and modern"

"Despite the mock funeral service held in 1980 for the term Scandinavian design by a group of Oslo designers, Scandinavian design ideals that emerged in the 1950s have survived in the Nordic countries. This must be seen, in part, as the result of an international interest in this period's design on a world basis. A number of international designers have found a source of inspiration in this "golden age" as well as in our contemporary Nordic design where the demand for minimalism, stylisation and a new interpretation has been dominant. Indeed, many Scandinavian designers have felt this earlier tradition to be a burden, but to an even greater number it has brought inspiration and self-assurance. In the course of half a century, Scandinavian design has become an established phenomenon, retaining its positive resonance. During the flowering of postmodernism in the 1970s and 1980s, there was less focus on the concept, but by the early 1990s however, it had made a comeback. Now the time has come for a serious reassessment of Scandinavian design, including all the countries in the Nordic community that have contributed to the formation of this identity: Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Traditionally, Scandinavian design has been associated with simple, uncomplicated designs, functionality and a democratic approach. These are the characteristics that must be reassessed in the light of recent research on modernism. In any case, Scandinavian design provides us with a paradigm in order to understand the making of the modern world, and we see that it still has meaning for people the world over. The concept has been a substantial theme for scholarly debates, enlightening exhibitions and marketing agendas for the last fifty years.

Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, Multiplicity and Consistency. Such vital qualities are concepts that are easily associated with many aspects of Scandinavian design,

I took that directly from the scandesign website, because frankly, I can't explain it any better. Of course when we think of Scandinavian design, Ikea comes to mind. I feel that Ikea is Scandinavian design at it's most distilled. Selvedge devoted an entire issue to Scandinavian textiles a few months ago and the work/products they focused on seem so much richer and (and better made) than anything from Ikea. Perhaps it's the handcrafted edge. Perhaps that sleek, modernism appears to have a softer side, becuse Selvedge focuses on textiles.

http://www.amazon.com/Scandinavian-Design-Taschen-Charlotte-Fiell/dp/3822841188
http://www.scandesign.org/scandesign/concepts.do
http://www.tonfisk-design.fi/products/warpVases.html

Process Shot of the Week

Check out some better pics on flickr. I'd love some feedback.

Quote of the Week

From one of my all time favorite professors, from one of my all time favorite classes:

"All cats are black in a dark room. . . .but you have a flashlight."
~Dr. D. Palmer

Although lately, I feel like I've lost my flashlight. . .

Plants That Changed the World

I was flipping through my awesome new plant book the other day and came across Plants that Changed the World:
Cinchona (this is where we get quinine)
Wheat (along with barley, rice and corn)
Rubber
Cocoa
Pepper
Cotton
Papyrus
I never really thought of plants much in relation to the development of civilization, but these make total sense. I have come across some of these plant influencing populace before, but it's easy to forget just how easy we as a species can be shaped by something that can't even move on its own.

Giveaway! Winners!!!

Due to underwhemling response to my giveaway I've decided that everyone who responded (all four of them!) will get something special!
Laura wins the grand prize because a) she' the only person who participated that doesn't actually own any of my work, and b) I love reading her blog and checking out fresh pears everyday.
Kim and Jessica, I'll have to scrounge around for something you don't already have. . .
Rebecca, I'll let you pick whatever you want (just what you need! More crap!)
Congrats everyone, and thanks for your support! It means the world to me.

Scientific Illiteracy in Action

So I went back to the Towson Public Library Booksale (like I said, I'm a adict), and a woman there pointed out to her daughter that I had an Eyewitness book. (Eyewitness is a fantastic series of books for kids about animals, the earth, and all kinds of science and anthropology topics. They're pretty through for a kids book and have great pictures.) I said that the book I had was about weather, and I offered it to the woman and her daughter. The woman politly declined, saying that they have some Eyewitness books. Then she said that the book on weather was one she didn't want to have because her son is very afraid of tornados. Excuse me?
Now wouldn't you think that if you had a kid who was deathly afraid of tornados, you would want him to read book on weather, and learn about tornados? About how yes, they do happen, and they can be very distructive, but they typically don't happen in Maryland, but if one does come this way, this is what you do to stay safe? Isn't that better than simply avoiding the subject?
Isn't that why we learn about things and study things (scientifically speaking)? So we don't have to be afraid all the time?
At any rate, the Eyewitness book only has two pages on tornados.

Quote of the Week

"Another flaw in human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenence."
~Vonnegut
Hocus Pocus

Process Shot of the Week

Stuck inside on a beautiful spring day writing a 15 page reserch paper. And I'm only on page 3. Ugh. . .

Book Sale Scores!

The Towson Public Library Book Sale is this weekend, and since I got some fantastic finds last year, and since my book habit rivals that of a crack addict, of course I went back this year. You can bet I'll be going back tomorrow, when books are half price and probably again on Suday when everything is $2 a foot (yes they measure!)

A Brooch for Bob Ebendorf. . .

So, Bob Ebendorf wore my brooch at the conference. He said he liked it, so I made him one and finally worked up the guts to send it to him today. That doesn't make me a creep does it? Sending art to people I hardly know?

Stewart Brand

Stewart Brand started a button campaign asking "Why haven't we seen an images of the whole earth yet?" He eventually enlisted the help of Buckminster Fuller. He talks about how powerful this image of a whole earth has been; how it shows how isolated we are. Some people think the earth is flat, because they treat it's resources as limitless. This image of the earth shows that our space and resources are finite.
Brand studied design at San Fransciso Art Institute and photography at San Fransciso State College. He feels that with the right tools, information, consciousness, etc. humans could reshape the world they had made, and were making into a world that was socially and enviromentally sustainable. This way of thinking led Brand to develop The Long Now Foundation, The Global Business Network, The Whole Earth Catalogue, WELL, and others. He has written several books, including How Buildings Learn, and The Clock of the Long Now.
I found the ideas of The Long Now very interesting. Their purpose is to "provide counterpoint to today's faster/cheaper mindset and promote slower/better thinking." I think this is great. If we as a species would have implemented slower/better thinking some time ago, maybe we wouldn't be in the predicament we're in. The Long Now Foundation also sponsors Long Bets, to help cultivate better long term thinking.
Brand is also trying to generate an academic sub discipline applied history. He feels that historians should be involved in shaping public policy, because those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Check out the link, because he can explain it better and more suscintly than I can.

Giveaway!

Ok, so I meant to get a nice, splashy picture of the stuff in my giveaway, but I obviously haven't gotten around to it yet. So here's the run down. . .
The winner of the giveaway will receive:
- 2 small intaglio prints
- a bead embroidered felt brooch
- a set of 6 handmade notecards in super cute spring fashions

So if you haven't already, leave me a comment (or shoot me an email) and I'll announce a winner this weekend!!! (choosen at random of course)

Felice Frankel

Featured in Bruce Mau's book Massive Change, Felice Frankel is concerned with how scientific ideas are visually represented. She works with scientists to develope an image that communicates their scientific research to the general public. She is a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard Univerisity, where she heads the Envisioning Science program. She also works as a research scientist at MIT. Frankel's images have been published in over 300 journal articles and have been featured as covers and in other various publications. In 1997, she co-authored On the Surface of Things (I saw this at the bookstore not too long ago, and thought it was more recent, I almost bought a copy). Her latest book, Envisoning Science, the Design and Craft of the Science Image, has been deemed "priceless" by Benoit Mandelbrot, the father of fractal geometry, and acts as a guide on the production of effective scientific images. Frankel is also a leader of the Picturing to Learn, program, which encourages students to develop their own visual explanations of scientific themes.
She has received grants from both the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
You can see a list of exhibitions on her website.
Frankel has a degree in biology from Brooklyn College.
She's featured by Apple on their website, and has been covered by the New York Times.
In her interview in Massive Change, Frankel talks about how NASA is bringing attention to the earth through satellite images. She states "Chemists and physicists need to do the same for the micro and the subatomic world. It is just as exciting and beautiful as the cosmos."

I've been noticing this for awhile, that most art/science combinations focus on technology, engineering, chemistry and physics. Biology is prevalent in it's own, broad way, since biophilia is rampent among artists. But you don't find much about geology and art. There also doesn't seem to to be any crossovers between geology and the design movement. The science of design seems centered around climate change, sustainability, and advancing technology. All of these things are starting to move forward together and the geosciences seem to be off on their own. Why is this? Is it because we're trying to get to the future by studying the past?
The most publisized science these days revolves around trying to save ourselves and our future. The design movement is all about the future. Is there a way to get to the future though the past? Is there a way to a viable future of our field through our past tradition?

Quote of the Week

Since people are encouraging me to drink more, this week's quote is: "I'd Rather Have a Bottle in Front of Me (Than a Frontal Lobotomy)"
~Song Title by Randy Harzlick

Hella Jongerius

Hailed as an "unrivaled' contemporary designer, Hella Jongerius is a Dutch designer who "works on the the cusp of design, craft, art and technology fusing high tech and low tech, tradiation and the contemporary, industiral and artisnal."She started her own design firm, Jongeriuslab where she produces her own projects, while also completing projects for Marharam (New York), Royal Tichelaar Makkum (The Netherlands), Vitra (Basel), and Ikea (Sweden). Jongerius was one of the desingers to collboate with Droog. She designs a wide variety of product for a wide variety of price points (from custom pieces to $40 vase for Ikea).For her, the designing of the object is more important than the making. She "recycles" forms and traditions, but doesn't focus on the ecoloy of sustainability. Jongerius has porduced a ton of work since graduating from the Eindhoven Design Academy in 1993.

Read an interesting interview with her here.

She was been covered in Metropolis, and The New York Times,

Her work has been shown in the Cooper Hewitt, MoMA, the Design Museum (London), the Moss Gallery (New York) and others.

Chee Pealman

"Chee Pearlman is the director of Chee Company, an editorial and curatorial design consultancy. Projects include serving as program director of the Art Center Design Conference in Los Angeles and working with and writing for a number of publications, including Newsweek, Travel + Leisure, Popular Science and The New York Times. She is the curator of the exhibition "The Voting Booth Project" at Parsons School of Design featuring 50 leading architects and designers who poignantly re-imagined actual voting booths used in the 2000 election in Florida. Chee founded and chaired of the Chrysler Design Awards for its ten-year duration and is the former Editor-in-Chief of I.D. Magazine, which received five National Magazine Awards under her tenure." (I pulled this from the net, I can't really say it any better.)

Radical Craft:Idea of the making, connection of the brain and the hand. (Listen to interview with Chee about Radical Craft) but not in terms of macrame (poor macrame, it always gets picked on,) but in terms of objects like the Mars rover.

Chee Pearlman is a curator, looking at the cutting edge of design. She feels that design is in the "central sweet spot" in terms of cross discipline. Many fields have a design component. She also spent two years programming the Radical Craft Conference in Pasadina CA, in 2007.

In Wired, Chee Pearlman moderated a panal on design with: Paola Antonelli, Tim Parsey, Bruce Sterling, Lee Green, Lorraine Wild, Don Norman, Ayse Birsel, Tucker Viemeister, David Kelley, Ted Selker, Ray Riley, Ettore Sottsass, Erik Adegard, Robert Brunner,Trevor Creed, Gary Fisher, Andy Proehl, Rick Valicenti, Richard Saul Wurman and Susan Yelavitch.

Process Shot(s) of the Week

More smashing of rocks using hammers, rolling mill and hydraulic press. The prints were made using four of the smashed forms. The paper has some lovely embossing. See more pics here.

Bathsheba Grossman

Bathsheba Grossman's work incoporates science, geometry and art. She strives for balance and symmetry. She sets out to find beauty in geometry. She is using current RP technology in a cutting edge way. Her sculpture often can't be built in any other way. She prints many models directly in metal (a steel-bronze compsite). She has also designed objects (lighting) for Materialise (see previous post on Materialise). Most of Bathsheba's work is designed in Rhino. She also participates in Second Life.
Education:
BS in Mathematics from Yale
MFA in Sculpture from the University of PA
Exhibitions:
Grossman's work was part of the Virtual/Tangible show as well as other numerous exhibitions.
She's been written about in Wired, The New York Times, Metalsmith and others. She was also subject of a MAKE podcast.
Her work has also been on TV: Heros, Num3ers
Contemporaries: George Hart, Brent Collins, and Bjarne Jespersen

Dean Kamen

Dean Kamen is an inventor and entrepreneur. Some other terms to describe him are "ubermaker, technology visionary, science evangelist" (from Make magazine).He invented the Segway, a vapor compression distiller, the Luke Arm (a prosthetic arm, imspired by Luke Skywalker's),the iBot mobility system (an all terrain wheelchair, that can also elevate the occupant to eye level, check out the link for some great pics), the Auto syringe. Dean Kamen alos founded FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) to get high school students excited about science and technology. He founded hi own company, DEKA, in 1982 and is self taught/ a college dropout.
This is taken from the DEKA website:

"Founded in 1982 by Dean Kamen, DEKA consisted of a relatively small group of individuals and lots of innovative ideas. Today, almost 200 engineers, technicians, and machinists work in our electronics and software engineering labs, machine shop, and on CAD stations. Our facilities have been designed to promote constant interaction between and within the engineering groups. Our on-site machine shop and molding facility are central to the success of our projects; ideas are prototyped and tested in record time.

DEKA is a company where the questioning of conventional thinking is encouraged and practiced by everyone - engineers and non-engineers alike -because open minds are more likely to arrive at workable solutions. This has been our formula for success since we began, and it will continue to drive our success in the future."

Why he is important: Dean Kamen is important because he is making products that make a difference in people's live and in the world. His goal isn't to make stuff or money, but to make the world a better place. He's also reaching out to younger generations in order to get them excited about science and technology. He is designing products to slove social issues.

Other interesting bits: In an interview with William Lindwell from MAKE Magazine, Dean spoke about the shear volume of stuff that's on the market. He marveled at the man power, money, energy that it took to design, produce and package all that stuff and how wasteful and appaling that is, and my first thought was "Dude, you invented the Segway. . ." I guess it goes to show that even top producers sometimes miss the mark.
Dean Kamen lives in a hexagonal house he designed himself, and named "Westwind" and seems to be typically eccentric for a multimillionare. His pet peeve is wasting time, and his (apparently nameless and faceless) employees make him a top secret, spectacular Christmas present every year.

He's been written about in: Make, Time, Wired, The New York Times, Smithsonian and also appeared on the Colbert Report and gave a TED Talk.