New York notes, so long overdue it's not even funny.

This post from the magpie & whiskyjack blog took me right back to the MAD in New York last September, 2009.

Contemporary ceramics was so not in my consciousness that it may well have not existed. Not on my radar at all. In fact the only reason I singled out the Museum of Art and Design was because it was formerly known as the American Craft Museum.

I went mostly because they have a whole floor (at the time) dedicated to contemporary jewelry. 'nuff said.

But I had my mind blown before I even got near the jewelry, when I entered the ceramic exhibit.

Ex-squeeze me? did you just embroider a ceramic cup??? Yeah - you did.

Or how about if you took a whole bunch of old porcelain plates, (you know, those vaguely Dutch ones your grandma had) and stacked them up and then laser cut some of the shapes out? Hmmmm? How would that look? The photos on Caroline Slotte's web site aren't even close to doing these objet d'art justice - they were absolutley stunning when viewed in person.

More awesomeness below from Edyta Cieloch

And then there's Mark Cecula - love his explanation for the work.
Quote; "based on modern technologies of production. In reaction to this fact I chose to reverse the conventional process of creating ceramic object; ready-made industrial china was subjected to the individual destructive process, which was design to inject randomness into standardized production." End quote. YEAH!

Instant Coffee on Main Street.

I usually walk up Main St every day of the week, because my studio is at 21st and Main. I'll walk from the studio to 25th to go to the post office, and/or up to 29th to get Chai at East is East. (Best. Chai. Ever!), Recently on my strolls, I noticed bright orange sandwich boards with cryptic says that are permantly bolted to the side walk. Whaaaa?

It turns out they are the work of an artist collective called Instant Coffee.

The entire installation involves an bus wrapped in a blanket, and my personal favorite - full spectrum lights in the bus shelter at Main and 21st! THAT is so totally what Vancouver needs in the winter! Called Light Bar Bus Shelter, Instant Coffee has adapted the Main and 20th bus shelter into a full spectrum light therapy bar and only fifteen minutes at the bus shelter is all you need for your daily dose of vitamin D!
The entire installation is called 88 BLOCKS • Art on Main. It's a three year public art program for Main Street in Vancouver, BC with five planned exhibitions. I look forward to the next installation.

beautiful decay

My heart skips a beat when I am walking through a back alley and discover something like this: I'm a sucker for broken down texture and abandoned objects that, to me, take on a life of their own as objets d'art. This piece is a large, decaying landscape painting left in the snow against the dumpster in a back alley behind my apartment - soaking wet, faded and rotting away from the ornate wood frame. I'll spare you the wide shots showing the "yellow snow" it was leaning on. Luckily, the painting (probably a print really) lay in 2 large torn pieces so I gingerly put them together on some (clean) snow and you can see the faded landscape in it's entirety.

If you are a fan of decaying texture like this, check out this flickr group.

This Into That

I am in love with these gorgeous shelves made out of recycled books, by Jim Rosenau.

Check out more about his procedures and see more of his work here

Quote from his website:
"In the back of my mind lurked Nicholson Baker’s essay, “Lumber”, about how the term once applied to more than just wood. It also meant the ideas stored in your head. Eureka! Could books somehow be made into lumber? And what would I make of them?"