Material Archive

Today I Bought: The Unknown Hipster Diaries

Love Jean-Philippe Delhomme. 

Only a 1000 copies of the book were printed, each numbered. Go to Amazon to purchase your copy. 

Your child's drawing made into a plush toy – amazing!

I think this is one of the most charming, original ideas for a gift I've seen in a while. You submit a drawing your child did to Child's Own Studio and they make a custom plush toy based on it. Brilliant.



 

Renard Gillard Brie de Meaux

In love with this little fox illo.

From Leslieville Cheese.

 

Vintage Postage

 

 

All found here.

Joel Penkman: Paintings of Sweets (and some meat & cheese)

Yes, another painter that has taken a cue from Wayne Thiebaud and done a lovely job of it.

See more of Joel Penkman's work here.

Q and A: James Rosenquist

James Rosenquist’s works are on view at both the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Hirshhorn. The pop artist spoke with the magazine’s Courtney Jordan.

When you were starting out, you worked as a billboard painter in New York City?
I painted the Astor-Victoria sign seven times, and it’s 395 feet wide and 58 feet high. I dropped a gallon of purple paint on Seventh Avenue and 47th Street from 15 stories up and didn’t kill anybody. I dropped a brush at Columbus Circle. It fell on a guy’s camel-hair coat. He never noticed it, and down his back was a dark green stripe. I brought artistic skill to my sign painting. I made movie stars look better. I made them real. That experience helped my fine art.

You paint on a huge scale not unlike Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel. Are you giving him a run for his money?
I’ve wondered if during the Renaissance, I would have been good enough to be an assistant to Rubens or Michelangelo. They were some good old boys. But you couldn’t get a job back then unless it was painting St. Sebastian or Jesus.

You paint bluejeans, nails, bacon, beer bottles, drill bits. What’s the attraction?
I’m not like Andy Warhol. He did Coca-Cola bottles and Brillo pads. I used generic imagery—no brand names—to make a new kind of picture. People can remember their childhood, but events from four or five years ago are in a never-never land. That was the imagery I was concerned with—things that were a little bit familiar but not things you feel nostalgic about. Hot dogs and typewriters—generic things people sort of recognize.

Pop Art is often characterized as frivolous, but you have addressed nuclear war, Vietnam, the environment, AIDS. Are you the conscience of Pop Art?
That is a silly question. I’m just a painter. All my life I just do any damn thing I feel like. Lo and behold, some people like it and pay a lot of money for it. I’m not anything. I’m just curious. Doesn’t everybody do that? Picasso did Guernica. Goya’s paintings—incredible. I think Roy [Lichtenstein] and Andy Warhol were serious. Warhol was questioning the capitalist society. Certainly I have made comments on American society with the various pictures, and have done about nine antiwar paintings. But I did them because I was incorporating my feelings into my work.

Is it hard to let your work go?
When I started out, I didn’t want to sell anything because I was developing my ideas. I was trying to gather strength by putting a number of pictures together. I also kept my union card for billboard painting, so I didn’t care. But I thought to myself, I have empty pockets. I could buy more paint and canvas. Now, the works are spread out all over the world, Singapore to Cologne, Germany. But I never let anything go out of my studio if I don’t think it has something, an essence, because it could wind up in a museum.

From smithsonianmag.com

 

Graphic Designer: Lora Lamm

An exerpt from Display

I dedicate this cool cat to you @itbitme

Kafka Editions from Schocken

Amazingly wonderful. By Peter Mendelsund

Maxim Dalton's Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Board Game

 

I know more than a few people that would love this as a gift – myself included. Sold out currently – but hopefully they'll be a reprint soon. Here are some detail shots – click to see larger!

 

Today I bought: Top Shop Make-Up at Jonathan & Olivia

 



  




Stopped by Jonathan & Olivia today to see their new Top Shop make-up bar. I've been a fan of this line since I saw the charming packaging profiled on numerous design blogs a while back. I love the naive illustration style – it feels so right for the TS brand.

I'm happy to report, after testing practically everything there, that the make-up is quite nice and the pigments are rich. I left with a big bag of goodies and will report back after a few longer wears.