What Women Make » crafts

London Design Festival 2009: Women Stand Behind Their Work

Chauncey Zalkin — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:14:39 +0000

Review of 100% Design London and Designersblock

Recent design school grad Freya Godwin-Brown clutches one of her resin and fabric sculptures after we chatted for thirty minutes about everything from her upcoming move to Australia to the skies of Shanghai which inspired this body of work.

Eleanor Young, textile designer, shows an exciting juxtaposition with her dainty vintage furniture pieces that she’s upholstered with her bold asymmetric geometric patterns, creating something entirely feminine out of shapes ordinarily associated with masculinity or 80s pop ‘topshop’ style youth wear. What she’s created here feels fresh and sophisticated at the same time. She also tries out digital printing for the first time as seen on the pillow on top of the small bench which worked really well with the embroidery. The way she matched her dress to her collection was also a nice touch.

Camilla Meijer is not a recent grad. I didn’t even get a chance to stop and talk to her – but I love her patterns (see Abigail Borg, a rising star as well).

Eadadin Dempsey sits in her final project after she talked excitedly about her first show. Simple construction, nothing extraneous, inspired by thatched roofs in her native Ireland. She’s a graduate from Dublin Institute of Technology.

Aimee Louise Hartshorn who came from Dublin with Eadadin sits on her twelve-legged rocking stool.

Yura Kim from South Korea made these resin light fixtures by hand but don’t ask her how she did it because she won’t tell you. She said, “sorry, I took a long time to figure out how to do it.” Fair enough and she’s done a beautiful job. They are even more impressive in person. The one behind her in pink looks like a fragile shell or a birds nest.

These three women make up Rooms Design, an interior and product design company from Georgia (the country, not the state). Quite an interesting trio. The woman in the middle is the business side and the two women on the ends are the designers. They also worked in collaboration with a fashion designer who dressed chairs in military uniforms. This collection was a inspired by the recent Russian invasion and communist occupation of Georgia during the cold war. The fear is that ‘things will become drab again if freedom is threatened;. The lamp in metal represents the Soviet Union and the wooden lamp is modeled after an American 50s desk lamp, a bold expression of designs potential to communicate political sentiments, something you might not expect from a commodity.

Holly Palmer creates whimsical furniture that doesn’t overpower. I want that table and the teacup behind her. More Alice in Wonderland charming than boutique hotel showy, these struck me as great for small spaces.

London Design Festival 2009: The What Women Make Report

Chauncey Zalkin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:18:17 +0000

Chair Arch conceived of by Wallpaper’s Henrietta Thompson

The week transcended all expectations. With a day’s distance from my time at the fair, I see the trends as follows: Reality skewing shapes, new world order inventions for sustainability rocketing us into better mousetraps, intellectual pursuit, bold against black, color and selfassuredness. Here I recount my path of discovery:

9/19

The day of my arrival in London was spent gearing up for a week of design immersion. I went to Sainsbury’s to get cereal and yogurt so I wouldn’t be slowed down by morning hunger and was wowed by the convenience of automatic check out. A system that dispenses bills no less. Much easier than Ikea’s system. Do we (America) have that anywhere? Easy, clear, convenient and fast. My good branding and service loving side was in heaven. (I’ve been living in Paris and Barcelona for the past three years.)

Then I went to W.H. Smith and browsed the London city guides looking for something that wasn’t going to consider Big Ben the vital destination and ended up with just an A-Z mini map because everything from Time Out to Not For Tourists felt too commercial or too broad.

9/20

Ceramics in the City

It was only when I got to the beautiful, green and tranquil Geffrye museum for Ceramics and the City that I found Max Fraser’s London Design Guide which as it turns out had just been published and would be all over the place within days. It has clear maps by neighborhood and covers everything from big commercial design stores and hotels to the small and independent but it doesn’t consider fashion to be design other than a few biggies like Paul Smith and Dover Street Market and therefore misses the design worthy independents like No-one on Kingsland Road which I found to be a bit of a shame.

Geffrye Museum

At Ceramics in the City, a one day sale of local work, the big winner for me was Hitomi McKenize. Her pieces are a refined snapshot of the spinning ceramic wheel in motion. (F) The museum itself is like a hidden oasis in East London. Along the back there is a hall with small wooden benches and a wall of windows facing fluttering green leaves and dappled sunlight. A great place to sit and read or write.

I looked through all the Brick Lane and market stall stores stopping on my way back to talk with the owner of semi permanent pop up shop, Marsh-mellow, a store dedicated to festival goers in the UK. No longer just the one-off viral marketing stunts they started out as, pop up stores are now the norm for testing the marketplace before leaping. The vibe in London was palpably one of moving forward in creative, thoughtful and innovative ways though. I didn’t get a sense of doom and gloom or the impression creative types were holding onto a safety raft.

Next was dinner with a Japanese exporter who showed meticulously crafted leather goods at Maison & Objet in Paris for the first time and was only in London on his way out of town. We discussed a shared passion for the dying ancient traditional crafts of Japan at Sake No Hana in Mayfair which only made me long for the real thing. When I asked him why the Japanese always eat Japanese food when they’re abroad he said he can do with a few days of European food or Chinese but then he just finds anything but Japanese too greasy.

9/21

In the morning I went to pick up my press card and looked through the V&A Telling Tales exhibition of expressionistic escapist furniture and design.

I am trying my hand at agent as well as brand strategist to female led projects so I checked out a handful of recommended stores supporting independent designers. One of these was Beyond the Valley off Carnaby street where I met the affable but fashion week rushed buyer and had a chat.

Then I made my way to the famed “b store” on Saville Road which left me markedly underwhelmed. It’s one of those concept stores that are dark, cold, housing a paltry collection of overpriced garments exalted way beyond their level of originality or interest – with the requisite shelf of independent handmade magazines, “Me” magazine, the newspaper format magazines focusing on one very specific banal obsession, in this case ‘light’, and a self-involved sales staff that never looked up to say hello. There are one or three of these in every fashionable city.

me at Skandium

This was a surprise because everywhere I’d been in until now, the friendliness and charm had been total which I think is way more modern than aloof unfounded snobbery of past years (or of Paris in general) so with b store, I really could not see what all of the fuss was about.

Here’s a regret. On the other end of the humanist spectrum, I missed the ‘Reclaim’ exhibit at Eco Age. It was just too out of the way of everything else. I had really wanted to meet Orsola de Castro who with partner John Teal made art out of unclaimed luggage. I hope to catch up with them via email. I thought of them when my eyes landed on a quilt made from dolls and baby toys at 100% Design. They made a similar quilt out of the contents of the luggage.

9/22

Tuesday the pace increased exponentially. I missed Responsible Design – and not because I was irresponsible! – but because the website said the talk was at 9:30 and it was actually at 8:30 but I recovered from the glitch while perusing the Brompton Design district. The Knit Wit exhibit at Skandium was lovely though I wouldn’t say terribly unique. The store itself is a joy, especially Klaus Haapaniemi’s Iittila cups. Afterwards, I sat down with the striking Priscilla Carluccio, owner of Few and Far and of brother Terence Conran and Habitat fame (F) and then went around the corner to Mint, a gallery shop that sits on the border of design and art, cherishing concept and metaphor over strict functionality. The staff were knowledgeable, unpretentious and welcoming and the content, strangely beautiful. The highlight was the “At One” couch made from ash, latex, crushed velvet, and foam by Charlotte Kingsnorth who was influenced by rising obesity and the paintings of Jenny Saville. The work is a comment on the relationship between a human being and their furniture “which has been devoured by its obese occupier.” This bulbous melting structure was actually pretty comfortable.

lunch at Portobello Dock

Next I went to interview Dieneke Ferguson, founder of Hidden Art. For the duration of the London Design Festival, Hidden Art took up residence at Tom Dixon’s temporary exhibition and showroom space at Portobello Dock which also housed nascent designer projects. Dieneke who is Dutch, has been a kind of fairy godmother for independent designers and artisans in the UK for the past twenty years, eleven of which under Hidden Art (F). It was day one in the space for her and we took some time trying to figure out the process for ordering lunch. She had the rabbit. I’d eaten a sandwich in transit and had my third cup of coffee of the day which didn’t hinder my sleep one iota by the time I went to bed.

I ended the working day with an interview with Danish designer Nina Tolstrup whose Pallet Project created a second life for “pallets” (wooden crates) as chairs. She commissioned artists Gavin Turk and Cornelia Parker to paint a chair each. The chairs were auctioned off for a charitable organization where women in poor neighborhoods in Buenos Aires come together to make pallet chairs for their community. The woman who set up the foundation approached Nina with her idea after seeing her chairs online. (F).

9/23

Wednesday: the actual fair now a day away, I had a packed schedule. I attended the book launch of “Discovering Women in Polish Design: Interviews and Conversations” which to date was the most eye opening and relevant to What Women Make’s global / local female focus (F).

glass house at Wapping Project

At night I ended up missing Lee Broom’s opening that I’d RSVPd to as well as the London Design Medal which I do regret, but I made a new friend who creates textiles and innovates design processes, one of which will be used to ornament hospital ceiling tiles. I was introduced to her by the Blueprint Magazine product editor, Luca Amadei, who led and wrote the Polish Design book project. I’d met him the night bfore at Nina’s party and we hit it off right away. Ana Aranjo, who moved to London from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, teaches at Oxford when she’s not running her company, Atelier Domino. She invited me to a talk at the Wapping Project. We had dinner in the converted factory and she filled me in on London creative entrepreneur life as I considered a move there.

around the corner from Persephone Books near Russell Square

The highlight of my week was between breakfast and dinner. It was my interview with Nicola Beauman of Persephone Books. It had nothing to do with design. After all, What Women Make is not just about design but about creative women and female leaders leading creative businesses. Ten years ago after stints at the Financial Times and the Observer, and a book of her own under her belt about women writers, Nicola founded her publishing house and bookshop in Bloomsbury. Persephone Books publishes out-of-print female authors from the 19th century that she personally loves. I won’t say any more. You’ll have to wait for the interview to post. (F)

9/24

The fair arrived. I started with Designers Block where I stopped four or five women designers whose work caught my eye, from recent grads to new entries, to the hugely successful founder of Ella Doran. The rest of the day was spent walking a maze of delight around 100% Design, definitely concentrating on the back center and right quadrant for new and experimental design and concepts dealing with sustainability. (F)

9/25

Reluctant to admit this is my last day, I was slower than the rest to make it out the door. When I did, I headed right to Brick Lane’s Truman Building for Tent thinking its at least a half-day event but I ended up seeing only one or two items of note and finish the single floor in forty minutes including a chat with a woman who upholsters beautiful antique trunks with her hand printed textiles.

All in all, my evenings this week were spent mostly with friends and not at parties, save one. That might bore you, but on my last evening dead tired and unable to make it back to East London for the festivities, I spent it gathered at a bottle of wine with a new New York acquaintance lamenting our city’s dwindling steam, both of us for the first time considering moves to the dynamic, engaging, poised, diverse, and somehow seemingly more intellectual and daring, London.

And that’s my trip. Please follow me on twitter and my RSS feed to be alerted to the interviews and features as they post. A selection of photos of women and their work will post next and a video of the week will be coming shortly after.

-Chauncey Zalkin

Definition of a Designer-Maker + 11 Things To Love

Chauncey Zalkin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:44:38 +0000

from ffffound, work of Roland Tiang Co

The apt definition of designer-maker given on the hidden art website is worth repeating here:

“Designer-Makers design and make their own unique work, on a small or large scale. Hidden Art promotes and supports designer-makers who design and make functional items in three main categories:

Designer-Makers who produce hand-made items. For example, a potter whose work does not involve mass production.
Designer-Makers who design and then in some or all instances sub-contract out the turning of the design into a product. They may oversee the making of the product, but they do not produce it themselves.
Designer-Makers most possibly with a degree in product design, who develop a new design or concept, and then look for a manufacturer to produce it. Their ultimate aim is to become a pure designer and they themselves do not ‘make’ their designs into tangible products.”

Marie Langaa - teapot cast from textile. Doorknob handle. Danish Crafts on DesignBoom

Here are some things that I’ve run across and twittered about but haven’t had time, preparing and presenting my ethnography seminar and now my trip tomorrow to London to confront the onslaught of design euphoria, to share — but as I make way for more, here I give you a “check it out” rundown of all I’ve starred over the past weeks.

Narrative Identities by Nadia Troeman, on dezeen.com. She’s created a color wheel identity and branding system that shifts and changes based on the culture of the student body. She’s a graduate student at Central Saint Martins.
A retrospective of the work of Croatian artist Sanja Ivekovi.
The Cardinal Club. Somehow eating in the private backyard of someone’s East Village apartment seems like the freshest idea. Not about a woman maker but, well, partly. Caitlin Zaino reports.
Supermarket Sarah, creative female entrepreneur. Like the Cardinal Club she’s opened up her home, a welcome respite from the maddening crowds of overwrought luxury stores and fast fashion stampedes. She moves between her Portobello Market stall and her home as Swiss Miss reports, “offering teas and cakes” to shoppers of her eclectic collection.
Repurpose. Weed through Margo‘s slapdash crafts page to find some real gems and inspiration. I can see someone re-imagining, for example, some of her work with china wreaths and swags.
Paula Wallace, president and co-founder of Savannah College of Art and Design, guestblogging for Fast Company.
A piece on the Women’s Monument in Memory. Female Victims of Political Repression, Santiago, Chile.
PIG 05049

Christien Meindertsma’s book of photographs shows the path of a pig from the day it is slaughtered to all of its disparate uses – and it is the first ever communication design entry to be a finalist at the INDEX:DESIGN awards.
Jean Madden’s beds for the homeless, Street Swags, won the Index:Design award. ‘design to improve life.’
Lisa Maria Grillos bike bags write up in the New York Times, a feature entitled Plan B about businesses after the pink slip, reminds me of when I was similarly featured in a Daily News article entitled “Meet New York’s Newest Entrepreneurs” after 9/11. My ‘dog hoodies’ and I pictured big on the front. While my hoodies were indeed cute, a big hit, and told the story of my 2003, it takes a lasting passion for a product and its trajectory from homemade to a full fledged large scale distribution channel to make it work. For me, hoodies weren’t my longtime passion but I had a fun run. Maris Grillos bike bags show keen insight into a problem and if she can and has the desire to grow big without compromise, she may have more than what the Times calls ‘accidental entrepreneurship’ on her hands.
Miranda July, filmmaker, writer, installation artist of sorts, and now… pillows!
-Chauncey Zalkin

My Mali: Meeting Mariam and Creating Her Blog

Chauncey Zalkin — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:01:12 +0000

How I went to a Mali culture and design expo and ended up befriending and creating a blog for an inspiring and charitable design co-op from Mali two days later in my apartment. Hugs all around.

Mali’s board of tourism arrived here in Barcelona last week at Palau Robert 107, Passeig de Gracia. I made a beeline for the Casa de Mali table to find out about the women involved.

I was ushered to a table belonging to a woman named Miriam Sidibe Dembelle who’s organization, Musodanbe (“the dignity of women” in the language of Bambara), out of Kayes, Mali, West Africa was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 as part of the ‘1,000 women project‘. She brings together women and teaches them the skills of dying, loom weaving, basket weaving, crocheting, and soap milling as well as cooking and French language courses in order to provide them with the tools for self-sufficiency and dignity in this very male dominated culture where women, without a husband or familial support, have little hope of escaping prostitution and a life of begging.

In addition to the charitable act, the things these women make are breathtaking. They use recycled bags and turn them into baskets. They weave and hand dye textiles, and create bags and rugs.

We spoke in French and then she handed me her only English pamphlet, poorly written and flagrantly advertising the services of a company in Harlem in several places that had nothing to do with her company. She had paid forty dollars to a woman to write this for her and was angry that she took advantage of her lack of English and used the space to advertise her own business. Her own email address and contact information was nowhere on the paper.

I asked her if she had a website. She does, she told me, but it’s very antiquated and too expensive to update.

Had she heard of blogs?

No.

A crowd gathered. Nobody could conceive of the idea that you could update a website and show pictures of your work, all for free. So I decided to help her. Obviously.

Two days later, she came over to our apartment with a flash drive. I created a wordpress blog for her and we became ‘amies’, hopefully for life.

She gave me this beautiful hand-dyed hand-sewn indigo fabric which now is draped over the back of my red couch. I am taking orders for these items in participation of a more seamless process of selling her gorgeous goods into the American and European retail markets.

Her organization, Musodanbe is part of the Association Yetaaso in Kayes, Mali, West Africa and this is her new blog. (Since writing this post I’ve started a company with my partner called Show Love providing social content for loveable businesses.) Product list and descriptions to follow.

Barcelona, Love, & The Economy

Chauncey Zalkin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:31:21 +0000

By December 1st, my boyfriend and I will have transplanted ourselves from Paris (me) and London (he) to a cozy 45 square meter flat in Barcelona. I’ve had a tendency through the years to disclose my flights of fancy in ill-conceived rushes of enthusiasm only to later regret it. As we all know, sometimes visions of sugarplums do not materialize. That is not to say that I haven’t given each and every one of my dreams my all and had more than a couple come true. It’s just that dreams can get a little fuzzy toward the final frame. This time, the final frame is all I see. As 2008 stumbles toward the finish line, my dreams are once again before me. One dream completes, another waits to upload, and a third begins at the very beginning. And at the same time, I’m driven to distraction by events taking place back home.

Living in Paris has changed everything, the order of my priorities, the sharpness of my values. It’s finally flushed away the detritus, the lovingly worn but ripe for discarding parts of my life – glib, clever, soulless part time players, shopping sprees packaged to my cerebrum as errands, the all-too passionate conversations about vapid pop culture personalities plastered on tabloids, playing along with the deification of brands. I came here to get some distance from the demands of materialism, to flee the ad world, to stop subjecting myself to the daily charades of office politics, to put a distance between myself and my language, and to question the mindless comprehension that becomes a hum under the surface of everything so blindingly familiar.

I’ve been gone 22 months. Now a new newness is at hand. I’m swapping French for Spanish. I have no foothold in the new land. No job awaits. No program. No new book to start. It’s not a sabbatical. I can’t couch it in any of those terms. It’s a nose dive hopefully onto a bed of roses on a cloud of honey and spice. We’re hoping for a little harp action – and a little financial luck. Because we’re going for broke precisely as we enter the worst economic period since the Depression.

I have to say, I’ve been anxious. I know that in five short days we will know who the president will be and we will either be elated beyond imagination, dancing in the streets (well, I’ll have to do so figuratively and through youtube), or so utterly frightened we’ll be running from the theater of American life like the opening scene of The Blob.

I’ve been watching this campaign so closely that it would be fair to call it an obsession. It’s a comfort to me that America (and its myriad of dreams) is still at arms reach even with all its follies and absurdities. Nobody on this side of the pond can quite understand the thing that makes us American and love it the way we do. It’s been quite an embarrassment lately and not just because of George Bush’s administration, but because of our insouciance about how out-of-touch we truly are as a nation. But now, suddenly, we have this person, this clear-talking level headed, comforting presence that has brought out a lot of hope in all of us, a sign that we’re not just crazy when we compare truth to sensationalism, globalization to domestic arrogance. Finally, someone who everyone can get behind and at the same time will tell us we need to ramp up and pay attention to the innovation going on in the rest of the world. That we should solve problems, not rest on our crumbling laurels. As chain stores and billionaires take over New York, I see that perhaps all is not lost. From under the economic and cultural rubble, lo and behold, there is a voice of reason.

I’m using the disaster of the economy and Obama’s campaign as a guidepost in my own personal affairs – my business plans, my conflicts about subjecting my creative projects to scrutiny and criticism by a flailing paradigm (the publishing world). A renewed effort to participate in the world of culture making without big compromises to my integrity and passions. And to my love life, which is also in uncharted territory. Never mix love with business? Well, we’re mixing it alright, and with relish. Please stay tuned and take a ride with us on the new adventures and misadventures of Girl on the street. And let us all pray for our futures.

Please check out Peter’s amazing photographs and go to the main site to see our latest Girl on the street coverage of the women at London Design Week, and shortly, The Freize Art Fair.

-Chauncey Zalkin

Kyoto Backstreets: My Adventures in Ancient Craftsmanship in Japan

Chauncey Zalkin — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:38:12 +0000

I just got back from the back alleys of Kyoto where I met wonderful people and got a chance to take an inside look on some of the best and most ancient craftsmanship the world has to offer.

A family-run dye workshop that does all the hand dying for Issey Miyake. They use natural root vegetables, charcoal, coffee, and various indigenous plants, layering color on pre-worn and original fabrics to varied effect. He also employs ancient fabric cutting techniques mixing new technology with the ancient craft used for centuries. We sweat and fanned ourselves in a Kyoto workshop tucked away in one of the many back roads of Kyoto among rows of wood and clay houses. His daughter presided over boiling blue dye and his son’s voice could be heard from the back room. He told us his wife was also an artist. The reed thin, passionate, and kindly man took treated us as though we were the most important people in the world. We sipped iced coffee and poured over his portfolio books of sketches, fabric samples, ink drawings as the fan whirred offering us moments of cool air before oscillating around the room again. (In America, this would never happen. The person would be so protective of his work fearing imitation.)
A young cobbler trained in ancient techniques with a store and workshop in a leafy residential neighborhood. He hand stitches an updated version of the Geta shoe (the thong slippers Geisha wear with socks, usually made of wood with blocks at the heel and toe to raise the height). His are a layering of visible structural materials on leather. I bought a pair he had in the workshop already. He makes only 30 pair a month because of the time it takes to cut the leather, to dye it with vegetable dyes, and to hand stitch the shoe.
Tale of the Genji scrolls by Yamaguchi (a story originally written by a woman, Murasaki Shikibu 1000 A.D.)

I love Japan. I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s like a love affair you can’t forget and you are sure you will be right back. Well, maybe I won’t be right back – instead I’m headed to the Normandy coast and then probably London waiting for my next project to start. But I’ll be back. More on Japan later.

What Women Make » crafts

London Design Festival 2009: Women Stand Behind Their Work

Review of 100% Design London and Designersblock

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