Agnes Martin

The cool Portland summer, mixed with a yearning for the ocean – and the beautiful soft and worn styles and colors that seem to be fashionable everywhere, are making me dream of Agnes Martin paintings. I feel like it’s time for a resurgence of her work. So, hello world, bring back Agnes Martin. We are ripe for the kind of slow looking that her subtle and glowing paintings and drawings demand (and it’s a sweet kind of demand).

These digital versions are nothing of course compared to the real paintings. She constructs an atmosphere out of carefully drawn/painted lines and the canvases seem to radiate with the light of the desert (where she painted).

Actually some beautiful summer reading if you are feeling creatively inclined (or stuck) are the writings of Agnes Martin. They are strong, quiet and very inspirational in a no-nonsense kind of way.

Oh no! I just googled them to find them for you and see that they are out of print. Uh oh, I hope I can find my copy. Well, borrow them from a painter friend (make sure you return them) and enjoy!

New Dishes!

I am loving my new set of dishes, made by the fabulous Kim Lust! (You may remember John Lust from an earlier post - talented family! And I haven’t even got to the amazingness of their daughter - known around these parts as toodleberries.) Anyway – they are stoneware with a lovely white glaze that feels natural and a little rustic because of all the rust-colored oxidized spots. I love the mix of stone and a white glaze because they feel relaxed and earthy but also elegant. Plus – they inspire me to make (and eat) nummy food! The wide salad bowls are my absolute favorite as they are perfect for holding summer bounty – delicious pastas and salads. Its amazing what a difference nice dinnerware can make; the way your food looks on it, the sound that your fork makes grazing across it. I also really love how the glaze ends before reaching the edge to show the raw material. So sensual! Thanks Kim!

P.S. for anyone interested, you may not see a whole dinnerware set on her site or etsy page but I do believe she does custom orders. yay!

RGB wallpaper

RGB wallpapers by Milan-based collective Carnovsky. Amazing.

images via: thinking for a living and designtrotter

Michelle Summers

I’m currently loving the illustration based ceramic art of Portland artist Michelle Summers. I was lucky enough to snag several of her beautiful illustrated cups at last December’s Crafty Wonderland. Her Etsy store is currently on vacation but these are good enough to wait for.

Breed Retreat

As if there weren’t enough reasons to own chickens! Dutch designer Frederik Roijé has created the oh-so stylish chicken coop “Breed Retreat”. There IS something really retreat-like about this little house. The intimate scale, the cozy hay – it’s enough to provoke one into daydreaming about being a chicken. Isn’t it?

kenji fujita for freeman lederman

About a year ago during one of my bins adventures I found three tiny coffee cups. I had never seen anything quite like them before: a black matte finish and porcelain so thin that light passes through them. I could not pinpoint the era of the design although it seemed to have elements of mid-century and modernist influence. The mark on the bottom — a red square with a FF and a LL , K and an F — reminded me of a traditional Japanese artist mark, although the design felt very Danish. I brought them home and they immediately became my favorite cups to drink espresso from. So delicate and elegant, the liquid inside seems to transform into something much better than just ordinary coffee.

A week later at the bins I happened upon a unique coffee carafe, It had a wicker handle and sort of a “Chemex” drip style design. Made with the same quality of china as the cups — and voila… as I turned the carafe over to see the mark, there it was again in slightly different form: A FF and a LL in a red square.

Where did these delicate treasures come from? Who designed them? And how was it that I had discovered them all within the span of two weeks? I searched every imaginable combination of the red square, 4 mysterious letters and physical qualities of the items. It turned up nothing. Not even a clue. Still, I knew that these were special.

Then, today. I was browsing Google Reader when I came across this post from h p n f r h p y a c d n s.

What! Could it be? The mystery revealed! The F and L in the mark stands for Freeman Lederman, an American ceramics company that produced pieces between 1950-1960 by modernist designers like La Gardo Tackett. The addition of the K and F on my favorite cups denotes that they were designed by Japanese ceramicist Kenji Fujita around 1950. Modernlove20.com says Fujita is known for his “elegant, minimalist forms with humanistic touches” and that he “created some of the finest modernist ceramics of the last century.”

Image by Dino Paxenos from Modern50.com