Woodsy Goods: Women who Rock at Rustic
Nina Judin Books
I’m a writer who considers each journal I buy very carefully. It can make or break the next month of writing, so I can appreciate Nina Judin’s work. She knows how to weave and glue a heartfelt handmade journal to perfection. She’s on Etsy.
Laura Spector
Wood gone wild. So incredibly beautiful.
Ronel Jordaan
Are you ready for this? These are made of Merino Wool. She taught herself. She makes everything by hand. She provides jobs to female artisans in Gauteng, South Africa. This is one of the best design items I’ve seen in months and months. Truly original, desirable, and useful. Hard to find all three or even two in one item!
Åsa Westlund
Swedish Clog designer Åsa makes these beauties. These from her 2008 collection are my favorite.
Sandi Calistro Wood Macbook Skin for Karvt
Well, I’m not sure if this is exactly rustic but there are plain ones in a variety of wood veneers and ones designed by other artists. Check the site for details.
Jeanne Bayol’s Restored Gypsy Caravans (In French, un roulotte)
I found Jeanne Bayol through first falling in love with Les Roulottes de la Serve in Beaujolais, France and then researching more about these dreamy caravans. Essentially, this embodies all of my escapist dreams come true. I’d like her to decorate my future. Where are you Jeanne?
Lara Donatoni
This Brazilian artist and designer (as I watch Brazil play North Korea in the world cup, 2/0 is the present score…) takes discarded wood and gives it new life. On Treehugger.
Kate Burger
Paper lanterns and Mason jars, as pretty as they are, are everywhere you look from big box stores to Martha Stewart weddings — but these camphor vine wrapped lanterns made by a woman in Southern California are different and they have a warm honey glow. Perfect for the porch of that caravan. Also on Etsy.
Sandra Correia
Cork umbrella, on backorder, at Moma store (umbrella links to site)
p.s.
here are 2 blogs to visit next – one that is all about beautiful wooden things, and another that is specifically about things that are not wood. Enjoy.
-Chauncey
1 CommentThe Female Economy: Notes From a Conference
Thought I’d show you the palm of my hand from the RethinkHer conference last month. Some interesting stuff to help you along which echoed a lot of what I’ve been proselytizing in innovation for years. But here it is. Just the facts ma’am.
Systematizing Cultures: measures, controls market, controls organization, works in hierarchy. Cornerstone of companies which produce and sell systems. e.g. finance, tech, auto industry. Most big corporations work this way.
Empathetic Cultures: People + Ideas => What’s Being Sold. Organization flat. Fosters intuition. Nurtures ideas.
Declaration —> “There is a new economy, the Female Economy.”
Systematizing Cultures impress with a show of strength.
“World’s favorite airline”
“Ultimate driving machine”
Biggest, Best are highly motivating in a system culture. Not so in empathetic cultures where CONNECTING and NETWORKING are what motivates.
Key Characteristics
(as far as i’m concerned, also key characteristics of contemporary entrepreneurship, future thinking)
- Altruism
(shared concerns, other-focused)
- Connecting
(people, ideas)
- Strong Aesthetic
(women = heightened sensory perception. Women drawn to environments that feel welcoming, safe, aesthetic.)
- Creating Order
(things that feel in good order reduce complexity in decision making, create a context that feels comfortable, saves time.)
Ying and Yang
MALE SOCIAL CURRENCY vs FEMALE SOCIAL CURRENCY
jokes, factoids, sports —- gossip, real life, observation
(American, traditional)
MALE SUBJECT MATTER vs FEMALE SUBJECT MATTER
things, facts — people, feelings
MALE PATTERN vs FEMALE PATTERN
escalation, exaggeration — getting beneath and under, granular, detail
MALE FORM vs FEMALE FORM
soundbites, headlines — detail, nuance, texture
UNSPOKEN OUTCOME, MALE vs FEMALE
establish status by competing — build closeness by sharing (find similarity)
Leadership, Talent, and Markets…
- Make sure you don’t have little white male soldiers all in a row as your entire company board! because..
- Realize there that the world over there are way more women graduating then men from universities including in China, Iran, the U.S., and Europe so let your recruitment reflect that monumental change.
- Approximately 80% of all purchases including auto, finance, and gaming are made by women, not men. Contrary to popular belief, women don’t just buy the food, clothing, and design products.
- Female income: 13 Trillion in 2009. 18 Trillion by 2014.
- 40% of the University degrees globally are held by men. 80% of the jobs lost in the U.S. recession have been lost by men (in manufacturing mostly). Only 20% of the jobs currently being created in the EU are going to men.
- This headline from the Economist, “Forget China, India, and the Internet, Economic Growth is driven by women.”
- this nice little slogan: rapport talk instead of report talk
- The number of women making more than 100,000 has tripled in the last decade.
- “Stop trying to fix the women… recognize the women that women have become.” -Avivah Wittenberg-Cox
- ‘It’s hard to bring out the best of female creativity in an all male-dominated ad agency.’ – Michele Miller, Wonderbranding
- “Not a single woman in San Francisco came to portfolio night (where recent art director grads go to show their work to agencies) last year!” – Jesus Alonso, adwomen.org
- Women are the greatest emerging market in the history of the planet. – Newsweek
- ‘Maybe aspiration is not always all that attractive. If you see people in an ad that makes you feel you would like the people or are like the people, you react more favorably than seeing so-called aspirational people that make you feel you don’t belong.’ – Marti Barletta
- ‘Men like to get the important things taken care of. Women like to get the important things taken care of and more in order to get it right.’ – Marti Barletta
-Chauncey Zalkin
*HBR were the source of a lot of stats. Not all.
Inspired Monday: Two Visual Visionaries & A Young Playwright Who Stole the Show
Meet 28 year old Katori Hall from Memphis. She won Best New Play at the Olivier awards. The Mountaintop is an imagined account of Martin Luther King
Pauline Van Dongen 3-D Printed Shoes. Featured on Fast Company. (later part of our What Women Make – Women in Design 1st edition show at the London Design Festival, autumn 2010)
Shanan Campanaro surface design reminiscent of Rorschach test
0 CommentsCreative Women Around The World: A Spring 2010 Wrap-Up
The list – WWM has been up since the summer 2009. (GOTS, of course, much much longer). I thought the coming of the sun would be a good time for the first benchmark, a moment to check in on who’s been talked about so far so nothing gets lost in the shuffle. For that purpose, I’ve compiled this list. I have to warn you, it’s not complete because there’s way more content than I thought possible when I started putting it together but I think it will at least set you on your way to navigating through the site as it starts to have a past.
Next bit of news: There’s now a video page here where the incredible women featured on the site and others can come to life. Top notch creativity and thoughtfulness to engage and inspire you. I’ve replicated it here as a single stream but it will be a page (above, in the black top nav) forever and constantly growing:
- Chauncey Zalkin
httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=939C5BC98E37CE3D
WHAT HAVE WE HERE?
(a partial yet substantial list of women featured on What Women Make)
Venia Bechrackis
Fashion Week F/W 2010
Samantha Pleet, Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart, Melissa Kirgan, Xing-Zhen Chung-Hilyard, JoAnn Berman, Lizz Wasserman, CooperativeDesigns
Lorna Walker, Dr. Vicky Lofthouse, Angharad Thomas, Dr. Angela Lee, Beth Perry, Linda Relph Knight, and Rachel Cooper
Rineke Dijkstra, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Dana Schutz, Tamy Ben-Tor, Nathalie Djurberg, Klara Liden, Ellen Altfest, Huma Bhabha, Cao Fei, Misaki Kawai, Mary Reid Kelly, Josephine Halvorson, Tacita Dean, Isa Genzken, Rachel Harrison, Julie Mehretu, Mary Heilmann, Cindy Sherman, Faiza Butt, Jean Shin, Swoon, Maria Lassnig, Janet Cardiff
What Women Bring to the Table – Designers, Artists, Thinkers, & Inventors to Start the Week
Dr. Afsaneh Rabiei, Edyta Cieloch, Front Design: Sofia Lagerkvist, Anna Lindgren, Charlotte von der Lancken, Capsters: Cindy Van Den Bremen, Lynn Jackson, Yin Xiuzhen, Dr. Annalee Newitz, Wieki Somers
Eva Zeisel, Ma ke
Girl Drive: Nona Willis Aronowitz, Emma Bee Bernstein
Dieneke Ferguson
Anita Roddick, Zaha Hadid
Yu-Ying Wu
Janine Benyus, Dayna Baumeister
4 Women on Top 11.09
Herta Mueller, Angela Ahrendts, Kazuyo Sejima, Malalai Joya
2010 Buckminster Fuller Fellows
Sahar Ghaheri, Ashley Thorfinnson (other mentions: Deb Johnson and Emily Pilloton)
Too many. Go to link.
Caroline Swift, Sophie-Elizabeth Thompson, Paola Masi
0 CommentsWomen in Sustainability Part I
*Work of textile designer Marit Fujiwara, graduate of Chelsea College of Art and Design via Behance
I asked a handful of thought leaders about the top women in sustainability. Answers came from marketing expert and author of “Don’t think Pink” (Andrea Learned), the award-winning social entrepreneur and innovation strategist who launched the Creative Graduate Prize and now New Frontiers (Melissa Sterry), and an agency CEO who left it all to better the world, giving inspiring TED talks and most recently launching a plan of action in the form of ifwerantheworld.com defn worth a look (Cindy Gallop) — Here’s what they said:
First, former head of BBH NY and internationally recognized creative superstar
Cindy Gallop
1) What is your definition of sustainability?
A virtuous circle.
2) Why does it matter?
Because everything should work that way.
3) Name 1-3 women on the forefront of changes in the way we approach business and innovation?
June Cohen, TED
Rosabeth Kanter, Harvard Business School
Ursula Burns, Xerox
4) Name one sustainable product or service that you’ve come across in your research.
SHE, a fabulous example of what I’ve recommended to founder Elizabeth Scharpf which she calls Ragonomics
Elizabeth Scharpf created ingenious sanitary napkins out of banana leaves for women in Africa
Find her at cindygallop.com
Next: U.K.-based social entrepreneur extraordinaire:
Melissa Sterry
1) What is your definition of sustainability?
My definition of sustainability is an approach which acknowledges and addresses both environmental and social challenges using informed, intelligent, innovative, interdisciplinary and inspired solutions. Truly sustainable concepts are developed when the interactions between humans and their environment are fully understood. While many goods and services are labelled ‘sustainable’, ‘green’ or ‘environmentally-friendly’, in reality few actually are, some are the result of deliberate greenwashing, others are the result of a lack of research and due diligence in the design process.
The best design solutions are built on the most robust research, not off the back of cliches and assumptions. But at a time when most investors are focused on ventures that can potentially provide a quick return, significant R&D will be compromised. Until such time as the international investing community acknowledges the fact that stable and ‘sustainable’ future markets will be built engaging pioneering and at times radically innovative ideas that have been carefully crafted to meet both society’s existing and future needs, the world’s most promising sustainable innovators will find the tide is against them.
2) Why does it matter?
It matters because if we don’t act now and act to the very best of our ability, our species may not walk this Earth by 2150. (read the rest of Melissa’s passionate and articulate answer after the jump.)
3) Name 1-3 women on the forefront of this issue?
Naming just one or two is difficult but three inspirational women from the UK are:
1.) Multidisciplinary scientist Dr. Rachel Armstrong , a senior research fellow at University College London exploring the potential of living architecture and self-repairing buildings with their own metabolisms
2.) Joanna Yarrow, one of the UK’s most senior green living experts and a presenter, broadcaster, journalist, writer and founder of sustainability consultancy Beyond Green.
Joanna Yarrow
3.) Servane Mouazan – founder of Ogunte – the UK’s foremost organization for women leading the Social Economy.
All three are working hard to develop a blueprint for a sustainable society – all thinkers and doers with the creativity, commitment and courage to throw out the rulebook and set out on a journey to find the new frontiers. Often facing adversity and opposition to their ideas, these three women innovate their way around the obstacles, no matter how overwhelming or great they may be.
4) An insight on the future and advice for the female creative entrepreneur.
My insight – the future isn’t going to be easy, whichever way you look at it, the challenges are enormous. My advice – never under-estimate the value of the role you have to play in creating a better future.
5) One sustainable product or service you love or that caught your eye
.
The Aptera epitomizes what sustainable innovation is all about. The Aptera is uber efficient – achieving 300 miles or more to the gallon through minimized air resistance and drag, as a result of having a bullet-shaped body and three wheels, not four. The vehicle has interior and exterior LED lighting and a solar assisted climate control system. The Aptera also features recycled materials and comes in both electric and hybrid versions, achieving a top speed of 90mph and 0-60 in around 10 seconds. While it’s the most sustainable vehicle coming to market in the foreseeable future, it’s founders have pledged to continuously improve the sustainability of the vehicle as more innovations become available to them. Beyond it’s environmental credentials the vehicle is iconically beautiful and a design classic destined for the history books. My only regret about The Aptera is I wont be able to drive one in the UK any time soon.
Find Melissa Sterry at About Me.
Next Expert in Female Insights and Marketing:
Andrea Learned
1) What is your definition of sustainability?
To pursue a state of life/work in ways that mean what you do now will flourish and develop without taking away the resources that others, in future generations, will need to do the same. I love the awareness raised by something Paul Hawken wrote – there is a difference between “growing” and “developing.” Developing/development is the sustainable approach.
2) Why does it matter?
It matters because we’ve hit a brick wall – the perfect storm of bad economy, huge environmental problems due to waste of resources, and an emerging more relational, less linear (all about me) way of thinking by citizens. People are starting to face the facts that endless growth and consumerism for the sake of it doesn’t really feed and nourish our daily lives – and greatly harms the environment. If it continues, we will actually leave hugely negative effects for our children and grandchildren to deal with. Now – that’s a realization to contend with!
3) Women on the forefront:
Eileen Fisher – Fisher and the women’s apparel company she launched in 1984 have been successfully (and fairly quietly) operating with a sustainable approach. The materials and supply chains used in manufacturing her clothing and the way the company treats employees and contributes more broadly to women’s empowerment has become what I’d call “best practices” long before “sustainable” or “socially responsible” were trendy terms.
Joyce LaValle – Some have heard or read about Ray C. Anderson, CEO of Interface Inc., and his evolution toward sustainability (he is now considered a pioneer in the “movement”). LaValle is the former Senior Vice President of that company and is credited for originally inspiring Anderson’s vision on the topic. She also co-founded the Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future, which should get more notice (in my opinion) because it brings sustainability thought leaders and best cases to light so conventional businesses might learn (and it is not just about and “for women”).
Kira Gould – By way of the interviews conducted and synthesized in Women in Green, the book she co-authored with Lance Hosey, Gould’s influence has been key in my personal move to study and promote the concepts of sustainable business development. She is an architect and the director of communications for McDonough + Partners (founded by another quite recognized sustainability pioneer/author, Bill McDonough).
4) An insight on the future and advice for the female creative entrepreneur
Businesses can do well and still “do good” with regard to people, planet and profit – the oft-mentioned socially responsible, “triple bottom line.” The future is already here in that consumers have become very savvy and are much more intentional/deliberate in their buying. Businesses, however, have been slow to catch on to that. So, entrepreneurs that authentically believe and commit to the journey toward more sustainable business practices – in materials, supply chain, human resources, community support, energy use and so on – will have a significant advantage. Women, in particular, have a natural tendency toward a more holistic perspective. “Just business” really doesn’t exist, because they naturally know there’s a lot more to it.
Find Andrea at http://www.learnedon.com/
Read More…
1 CommentFull of Grace: Questions Raised by Vogue Documentary “September Issue”
1947 Vogue, one that I own, still wrapped in its plastic, somewhere in storage.
Half a review of the documentary “September Issue.” The other half a review of how differently I see things now from 15 years ago.
I wrote my thesis on Vogue magazine. Up there in that old Vogue library on the top floor of the former Condé Nast building, I lived and dreamed in the pages of Horst P Horst and Man Ray’s dramatic lighting, in the whimsical pithy fashion prose of Diana Vreeland with her face painting and pony fantasyland. From Edna Woolman Chase’s days of the corset to WWII fabric shortages, from the New Look to Grace Mirabella’s power suit, I was fascinated.
But just as Anna Wintour said in the tedious bedraggled documentary, September Issue, some are not let in. But far from making me envious and mournful of all those lost years not spent at Vogue, I was ultimately empowered by fate. I thought about all of the broken hearts and broken spirits of the young girls who went there full of dreams and came out beaten and diminished and possibly anorexic and I wondered, ‘what do you do with that?’
If a girl has any sense (but who does at 21? And why should she?), she’d never get wrapped up in the first place. She pursues her dream whatever it may be, undaunted. Hopefully it’s something noble, helping mankind, that sort of thing, but if not noble, something personal, something that takes discipline, dedication, some measure of purity of intent.
Now that we’ve opened up a whole new platform for people to create and be heard without any golden gates barring entry, what will become of Vogue’s primacy? Or maybe we should be looking at the real monster these days - the ghastly tasteless celebrity circus with its gobs of drooping collagen-implanted lips and tight foreheads with forced squirrel eyes. That whole ordeal makes Vogue look like Glenda the Good Witch — or maybe Hollywood and Us magazine are so vulgar and absurd that it makes you yearn for a high priestess arbiter of taste again, the kind they had in the old days, the kind that, well, it seems Grace Coddington carries with her in her disappointed expression looking out over the Tuileries on a grey Paris day. ‘Maybe I’m just a romantic’ she muses, and you feel sad for her, all those lovely frocks and dreams on glossy pages and for what? Surely there is something more she can do with it all. If she couldn’t then, she can now. Create a book of all the fantasies in her head without Anna’s veto power. Or costume a ballet or an opera like Chanel, Picasso or Cocteau. Or move to a new medium and have an exhibit of her own work, her own vision, without the dress price tags. Write a book… It’s ironic that her face in that scene, the only one that resonated for me, reminds me of all the women and girls out there I want to promote, applaud, and support. A spirit that needs saving.
There’s something lost and something gained in every generation. I’d take autonomy and freedom of expression any day. Let the curators and editors find their artists and let the artists find their curators and editors among the millions of profiles and networks and shouting voices out there, politics and pecking order be damned.
-Chauncey Zalkin
Here’s the TRAILER:
0 CommentsSustainability Initiative New Frontiers Launches in Manchester, England
Rachel Amstrong
Dr. Rachel Armstrong is a Senior TED Fellow working on building a living building, she’s also a teaching fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture and a science fiction author.
Tuba Kocatürk wrote Virtual Futures for Design, Construction and Procurement.
Leonora Oppenheim focuses on turning information into conversation in public spaces with her company, Elio Studio.
The founding team also includes: Lorna Walker, Dr. Vicky Lofthouse, Angharad Thomas, Dr. Angela Lee, Beth Perry, Linda Relph Knight, and Rachel Cooper – editor at Design Journal, author of The Design Experience. All of them are supremely intelligent beings and highly contributive to the initiative for a more sustainable world. New Frontiers should be an exciting new addition to the sustainability playing field, headquartered in Manchester (as they point out, home of the first industrial revolution) and with the support of NGOs, Universities, and some of the world’s best thinkers in support of the endeavour.
The brainchild of futurologist and design scientist Melissa Sterry and developed in partnership with environmental scientist Matt Prescott, New Frontiers is working with leading universities, professional institutions, NGOs, government agencies and pioneering global brands to embed a strong understanding of sustainability; form new collaborations; and promote the best innovation for this new and fast-moving sector.
1 CommentWhat Women Bring to the Table: Designers, Artists, Thinkers, & Inventors to Start the Week
Ideas and Design on my radar right now. An eclectic bunch.
Cutaway vase by Polish designer Edyta Cieloch
Dr. Afsaneh Rabiei of Iran, awarded a CAREER award in 2003 by the National Science Foundation, is the inventor of a new tough metal foam material that will have a huge impact on life saving devices such as car bumpers. “inserting two pieces of her composite metal foam behind the bumper of a car traveling 28 mph, the impact would feel the same to passengers as impact traveling at only 5 mph”-LiveScience.com
Swedish designers Sofia Lagerkvist, Anna Lindgren and Charlotte von der Lancken make up “Front Design” on StylePark.com (and everywhere else!)
Capsters: Dutch designer Cindy Van Den Bremen invented an elastic flexible sports hijab that guards against harsh noises. The product, approved by an Imam and now with worldwide sales, addresses complex aesthetic, social, and religious issues where they intersect in the real world.
Lynn Jackson’s art on Mocoloco
Yin Xiuzhen. Portable City: Melbourne, 2009 from her “Portable Cities” series on Space & Culture.org
Frog Design’s blog posting on how James Cameron and Steve Jobs vision of the future might not be the best or most cutting edge citing articles by Annalee Newitz (below)
Dr. Annalee Newitz of Technosploitation and now of Gawker Media’s io9.com. An academic-cum-journalist, she writes kick ass cultural criticism like “When Are White People Going to Stop Making Movies Like Avatar” quoted on the Frog Design blog.
Frozen Lamp from Frozen series by Wieki Somers of Rotterdam. Also love her “mattress stone.”
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