London Design Festival 2009: Women Stand Behind Their Work
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.
Definition of a Designer-Maker + 11 Things To Love
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.
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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
Kyoto Backstreets: My Adventures in Ancient Craftsmanship in Japan
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.
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