CasaSugar

Artist of the Day: Daniela Cunha Lay

CasaSugar — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:00:05 -0700

It's not unusual to find a 26-year-old who cites Andy Warhol as an inspiration or who thinks she can emulate Jackson Pollock. But, it's a rare thing to meet a young woman whose mixed media, Warhol-inspired pop art speaks of revolution in Spain, war crimes in Iraq, and human perishability, whose Pollock-inspired paintings give you chills. I recently caught up with the young São Paulo-born, Brazil-and-California-raised artist Daniela Cunha Lay at the opening of her exhibit at one of my favorite design stores in San Francisco, Flipp. With little background on her work, I asked what medium she used. "Mixed media, of course," she said, speaking a mile a minute, "Nothing that I do is simple." After a tour around the exhibit, it was apparent that she couldn't have related herself or her work more succinctly.

To create "Divine," a mixed media collage of sorts, she took a 1928 photograph of her quite glamorous grandmother on the day of her wedding, and photocopied it on several different machines to achieve varying tonalities. Then, she "cop[ied] the copy of the copy, so as to crumble down the image, driving it as far away from its original print as possible," further establishing the obvious passage of time, and tore some to suggest that, "we and everything around us is inevitably perishable."

Lay's work speaks for itself, so hear more and check out some images of her work when you read more.

Standing on a 2-meter ladder, she painted "Rust," a splatter painting of a deformed, human-like figure amidst a crimson background, by throwing acrylic paint across a stretched canvas on the floor. I simultaneously felt violently haunted and calm viewing this piece, proving that her efforts to evoke "solitude, stillness, and inner piece in the midst of a violently chaotic world," succeeded.

Be sure to explore Daniela Cunha Lay's website to see more of her portfolio of paintings, photographs, conceptual videos, and graphic art, as well as several artist statements. And, if you live in the Bay Area, stop by the reception for her exhibit at the Diego Riviera Gallery tonight from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

View 32 Photos ›

Artist of the Day: Lee Gainer

CasaSugar — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 07:00:43 -0700

I first stumbled upon Lee Gainer's work when I searched Etsy for the term "circles" for my Trend Alert on circles, and I've been in awe of it ever since. Lee creates beautiful mixed media collages and paintings from a variety of materials like fabric, foam, paper, felt, dried paint, and cardboard. Many of the materials in the collages are hand-rolled into circles and swirls and placed precisely using Golden Soft Gel, forming an abstract representation of imagery we all know and love, like "baby," "seascape," "snowflake," and even "yellow dragon." Lee's eye for color is just plain brilliant, so it doesn't surprise me that she was a portrait photographer for Walt Disney World, America's most vivid amusement park.

Be sure to check out Lee's Etsy shop, and to see more images of Lee's artwork, read more

Although a browse through Lee's Etsy shop suggests that she was born to be a mixed-media artist, her resume is a potpourri of art forms. Lee has always been making art in some way, shape, or form since she could hold a pencil. She earned a scholarship to attend Virginia Commonwealth University where she graduated with a honors degree in Photography. Since then, she's been a portrait photographer for Walt Disney World, run her own photography studio, Hardsun Images (now LeeGainer.com), developed the now-defunct Everquack.com, and created freelance graphics and animated shorts. Whether she's got her fingers on a roll of foam, an acrylic paint brush, or a shutter release, Lee's obviously doing something right.

View 10 Photos ›

Source

Artist of the Day: Tim Groen

CasaSugar — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 09:30:13 -0700

During Dress Your Walls month, I'll be introducing you to a new artist every weekday of the month with our Artist of the Day feature.

One of my back-burner, life-long goals is to be an art collector. So, when I realized that the work of Tim Groen, an Amsterdam and NY-based mixed media artist, was available to private collectors, and at very reasonable prices, I started to mentally rearrange things on my walls.

Groen's mixed-media collages, which frequently incorporate vintage wallpaper, blur the lines between graphic design, illustration, and art. His work keeps a very minimalist theme with influences from the late '50s and from his very own collection of mid-century home accents.

To learn more about Tim Groen and his artwork, read more

Groen has been commissioned to create installations and advertising campaigns for Barneys New York, and has worked for MTV Networks, Maybelline, Cotton, Inc., Levi’s Europe and a variety of magazines including Dwell, House & Garden, Tatler and The New York Times' magazine, B.

Groen's work is available through prime design retailers, such as Velocity Art and Design, rather than through art galleries, because, he says, “I just want to be a part of what people do to make their place look cool.”

Link Time!

CasaSugar — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:00:38 -0700

DIY this rope headboard. - ShelterPop
Check out this craft and laundry room. - AT:SF
Keep the kids in mind while remodeling. - Charles and Hudson
Stitch up a scrap placemat. - Craft
Decorate kids' rooms with these mixed-media collages. - Simply Stated
Find out what grass is best for your region. - This Old House

Casa Interview: Interior Designer Leslie Bamburg

CasaSugar — Mon, 11 May 2009 09:00:30 -0700

Two years ago, Leslie Bamburg formed her company Labexperiment, an interior design business that offers an affordable professional decorator option to the design fiend who lacks mad cash. Labexperiment works on the premise that beautiful design can be affordable, individualized, and integrated to meet the resident's needs. Leslie notes that she doesn't believe that there should be separation between people's fashion, media, tech needs, music, and interiors. With this philosophy in mind, she makes diagnoses of clients' homes, notes what they need to add, subtract, or rearrange, and then prescribes the elements needed to improve a room or home.

I recently sat down to chat with Leslie about her business, design sensibility, and advice for readers.

CasaSugar: Tell me about your initial home visit with a new client. What are you looking for? And what kinds of things do you want to know about them?

Leslie Bamburg: Besides taking all the necessary photos and measurements, I just try to get to know the client, to figure out their style and functional needs for the house. Some things are obvious - if they have little kids and a dog I will want to make sure things are easy to clean. But some things come out only after a good conversation. Inability to keep plants alive (like me), or a childhood trauma involving the color fuchsia, for example. I always bring an inspiration book of magazine cut-outs, so we can look at pictures instead of using vague words like “modern” to figure out what they like.

For the rest of the interview, read more.

CasaSugar: How do you determine where furniture and décor will be purchased from? Does it depend on budget? Do you ever use antique/flea market finds along with retail shops?

Leslie Bamburg: The best thing about a prescription is that with every shopping list item, I explain why I chose it. So if the client wants to look for something similar at another store, or even an antique or flea market, they know what they are looking for and what is important about it. My selections definitely depend on budget, as well as style, timeline, and location of the client. Though I have an ever-expanding list of stores and websites I look at, I like to make sure I personally know the quality of all the major pieces I am recommending. I’m not going to recommend that someone buy a sofa, for example, that they can’t test out beforehand. Comfort is such a personal thing.

CasaSugar: What are your go-to stores for purchasing furniture and décor for clients?

Leslie Bamburg: I do shop at all the major retailers, like CB2, Pottery Barn, and Williams-Sonoma Home, but I don’t want a finished room to look like a page from a store catalog, so I try to mix things in from different sources, as well as the client’s existing furniture and personal items. I like rooms to look like they came together over time, even if everything was purchased on the same day. I also try to take advantage of stores where I get a designer discount, since who doesn’t like to save money?

CasaSugar: How has your fine arts background informed your interior design work?

Leslie Bamburg: I learned a lot about composition, proportion, and color, which I use every day, but I think the most important thing is the ability to edit, and stop when something is done. Also, my focus was on mixed-media art, which meant that I was rarely shopping in the art supply store, but looking for my supplies everywhere - the hardware store, grocery store, thrift stores, and electronics supply stores. This really taught me to think creatively about where good things can come from.

CasaSugar: Do you recommend art for clients as well? If so, how do you go about this?

Leslie Bamburg: Yes, though everyone has a different preference for the type, quality, and price of artwork they want on their walls. I’ve recommended everything from Ikea frames on old family photos to expensive paintings, to DIY artwork like stretching cool fabric on a canvas. From my first meeting with a client I usually have an idea of what they are up for.

CasaSugar: What are some of the most common mistakes or decorating sins you’ve seen with clients?

Leslie Bamburg: When people don’t like to shop, I often see them getting a set of furniture from a store, so they can get it over with quickly. Putting together a well-designed room takes time and effort, so I can see why people sometimes take the easy way out. I also see people who like to shop and have a great sense of their own style, but their rooms are a mishmash of unrelated items, because they don’t have an overall vision and goal for the room.

Thanks Leslie! Check back soon for the rest of the interview. If you want to see what an online prescription looks like, check out the gallery.

View 7 Photos ›

Source and Source

How-To: Collect Art, Part One

CasaSugar — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:00:22 -0800

If it hasn't arrived already, there'll come a point in your life when you grow out of your poster phase and begin to collect original artwork. A curated art collection puts the finishing touches on your decorating, and is a fool-proof way to personalize your home. But, buying a "collection" all at once won't add any intrigue to your home; it's the piecemeal effect that makes an impression. I have a few helpful tips for you to consider before you begin to fill up your walls and empty your wallet. The first step to starting a collection is to be studious about art (short of enrolling in art school). There are a lot of ways you can and should help yourself to learn all you can about art. To hear some of them, read more.

Visit any and every museum, auction house, and gallery you can, and visit often. Don't miss an exhibit. Pick up pamphlets at museums and read them. Take guided tours.
Keep in touch. Join your local museums, and sign up for mailing lists or newsletters from museums, galleries, and artists you like. Attend any special events or lectures you hear about.
Talk art. Talk to friends, family, and other art collectors about their purchases, experiences, and sources for collecting.
Be informed. Talk to gallerists and art dealers about any pieces you're interested in. Learn what you can about the artists and styles, etc.
Visit art fairs and expositions that pass through town.
Read up. Add art blogs to your RSS feed, take out books from the library on art history, artists, and collecting, subscribe to art glossies, read critiques and reviews, etc.
Know your mediums. Obviously, the price of a piece has a lot to do with the artist, subject, history, and edition. But, the medium used also contributes to its value. From lowest to highest, it goes something like this: prints, drawings, watercolors, mixed medias, pastels, acrylics, and oils. Obviously, sculptures and more nontraditional artwork are on a different scale.
Once you've done the above, you should have a good idea about what you like and what's worth investing in. You should strengthen your eye before you curate a collection. Until then, don't be hasty with your purchases.

Source

Gift Guide: Modern Art Lover

CasaSugar — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:30:39 -0800

If you've got a friend with a membership to the MoMA, who lists Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol in her Top Five, lives in a West Elm showroom, and despises Impressionism, get out of Manhattan. No, just kidding. If you have a friend like that, the perfect gift for him or her this holiday season is some contemporary wall art. Everyone's got space on the wall to fill up, especially those Modernists that favor minimalism. So, I've collected a few modern wall art pieces for your dearest friend. I'm sure you'll see something that makes you think, "That's so her." In my case, it's the Tim Groen Osmosis ($500) mixed media collage at left (hint hint).
For more gifts ideas, holiday home decorating tips and more, check out HolidaySugar, and to see my finds, read more.

Casa Interview: Vern Yip

CasaSugar — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 08:30:47 -0700

Designer Vern Yip is a household name for many Casa readers, thanks to his judging on Design Star as well as his hosting and creativity on his tear-inducing show Deserving Design. Vern is currently contributing his design expertise to two very worthy community organizations, the Tenderloin Family Apartments, which are home to 4,000 low-income San Francisco families, and the West Oakland Boys and Girls Club, which has been serving youth in this neighborhood for over sixty years. I was thrilled to talk to Vern about his design renovations for these two community spaces.

CasaSugar: I’ve been out to both the Tenderloin Family Apartments and the West Oakland Boys and Girls Club, and they’re very excited about their renovations.

Vern Yip: This is such a wonderful and amazing opportunity for me. The renovations are being funded by Bank of America. This is part of their celebration of renovating their 118 Bay Area banking centers, so as part of the celebration they’re renovating two spaces for two Bay Area non-profits. Having been there, I’m sure you can tell that these are two organizations that are really deserving and could really benefit from a facelift.

To read more of the interview, read more.

CasaSugar: What's happening with the Boys and Girls Club?

Vern Yip: The Boys and Girls Club is providing such a huge service and a lot of these boys and girls would not have a space to go to otherwise. We’re giving them an activity room facelift so they can have a beautiful, and functioning place to hang out. That’s a really great thing. I’ve been talking to some of the people involved with the boys and girls club and gauging what they need . . . Initially I was looking at the floor in pictures and thought it was nice, but apparently it’s really worn, so we’re doing a top to bottom renovation including new flooring, new lights, and of course great new paint colors and a new space plan so this space can work much better with a new layout. We’re also going to do some really functional things like a new check-in desk and a new media corner. We’re going to use really durable materials so this facelift will hopefully last a good long time.

CasaSugar: I was reading up a little bit about your plans for the Tenderloin Apartments. What are you excited about with this project?

Vern Yip: You know, the really great thing about this space is that it’s used by the entire community. Everything happens in that space, from weddings to birthday parties to meetings and movie nights. So you want that space to really pull people together and feel celebratory. Right now it doesn’t feel celebratory. It’s a little dour and office-like, so I was talking to some of the Tenderloin Family Apartments staff trying to gauge who lives there and what are there needs. And it’s really a wide array of people, a mix of Russian, Asian American, Chinese, African-American, and Hispanic people.

I was doing some research to determine what were some key colors that represented all of those communities, and oranges and reds are two colors that are represented in all of those groups. So we’re putting in a new floor that’s going to be beautiful and patterned, but it will be made of VCT [vinyl composition tile], so it will be really durable. We’re going to do a custom mural on the wall that’s a tree with a large canopy done in a white silhouette on top of these wonderful warm orange walls, so it’s really going to stand out. A tree to me is really symbolic of bringing community together, it’s that life force. Another issue was, just like the boys and girls club, the residents didn’t feel safe hanging outside, so I thought, if we can’t bring them to the trees we’ll bring the trees to them. And then we’re hanging these incredible George Nelson lamps in a series, in two shapes, in a saucer shape and a cigar shape. We just want to make a space that the residents can be in and enjoy. That’s the goal and the purpose. I’m really excited that Bank of America made all of this possible because certainly these two non profits definitely deserve it.

CasaSugar: Definitely. And of course without outside funding they could’ve never done such an extensive renovation. Is this renovation going to be on Deserving Design?

Vern Yip: No! I wish it was. I wish we could fly our whole crew out and shoot this. I do hope it will be an inspiration to the show and network to tackle community-oriented spaces. We’ve been focused on individual spaces, and we’re just starting to branch out to community spaces. As you can imagine, it’s pretty cost-prohibitive to renovate such a large space. It really takes someone like Bank of America stepping up to the plate and saying, “We’ll do it as part of our renovation celebration.”

I’m very excited about this. My whole show and my heart and soul is all about giving back to the community through design, and the power of design to affect people’s lives. This is such an amazing opportunity to affect so many people’s lives in just two spaces.

CasaSugar: It’s going to make a huge impact. Thanks in advance for flying out and making such a wonderful contribution on the Bay Area community.

Vern Yip: I’m thrilled for the opportunity and thrilled that Bank of America brought me on board to do it. It’s a wonderful opportunity to change people’s lives.

Source

Photographer(s) to Watch: The New Orleans Kid Camera Project

CasaSugar — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:00:11 -0800

The New Orleans Kid Camera Project was created to address the psychological and emotional impacts of Hurricane Katrina on children returning home to New Orleans. Through the use of photography, creative writing, and mixed media, children from flooded neighborhoods explore their environment and express themselves, their stories, and feelings with their friends. You can donate to the project with monetary gifts or through the gift of your time and skills. Source

View Slideshow ›

Weird Furniture: Allen Jones Chair

CasaSugar — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:00:22 -0800

More sex-centric potentially misogynistic furniture, anyone? The other week we brought you some sexy furniture in wood, and now we have this chair. This oddity was designed by Allen Jones in 1969. Constructed of painted plastic and mixed media, if you want to get a closer look at it head over to the Tate Gallery in London.

I don't know about you, but I just can't imagine those stilettos being a very comfortable headrest.
Source

Campbell Laird - Balanca Series - #1, Limited Edition - $39.00	Fauna Balsa Wall Hangings - Eve - $350.00
Focus Print II - $229.00	Marimekko ® kulkue wall hanging - $24.95
Tim Groen Abstract #1 - $500.00	Parvez Taj - Claire Stretched Canvas - $36.00
Tim Groen Minimalism - $500.00	Jefdesigns - Legna Lightbox 3 - $1,500.00
Hybrid-Home Limited Edition Print Anatomical - Light Blue - $40.00	Fauna Balsa Wall Hangings - Leopard - $350.00
Amenity Cove Cream + Cocoa Flat Print - $330.00	Matte Stephens Upright For Speaking - $140.00
Inhabit Wall Flats - Shangri La - $84.00	Spontaneity Metal Wall Sculpture - $149.99
Tim Groen Osmosis - $500.00