Portrait of Candy Hearts by Jud Nelson, 1984, carrara marble.

“Hey Jud, is the Charmin bigger?” Not missing a beat, Jud shoots back, “Charmin Ultra – now 10% larger!” Chuck Close laughs out loud. We all join in the laughter while wandering through Jud Nelson’s 1998 show at the Fishback Gallery. Aside from Chuck Close’s joke, our reaction to Mr. Nelson’s work is complete and utter amazement.

Portrait of Toilet Paper, by Jud Nelson, carrara statuario marble

The Charmin is Mr. Nelson’s portrait of a roll of toilet paper, carved from carrara statuario marble. The sculpting is so masterful that no detail is missing – the texture of the paper, the rolls, the perforations all add up to a breathtakingly hyper-realist sculpture of the most basic of everyday objects. Roberta Smith of the NYTimes describes Jud’s work as “the Faberge of Post-Minimalism”. Continue reading…

…We choose to go to the moon
in this decade and do the other things,
not because they are easy,
but because they are hard,
because that goal will serve
to organize and measure
the best of our energies and skills,
because that challenge is one
that we are willing to accept,
one we are unwilling to postpone,
and one which we intend to win…

2012 is the 50th anniversary of
President John F. Kennedy’s
1962 Rice University Speech

Comment…

Maybe it’s the short, dark days of winter that make candlelight magical. Its glow has been captured in paintings for centuries, from seventeenth-century master Johannes Vermeer in Girl with a Pearl Earring to the living artist Gerhard Richter in Two Candles. Artists have used candlelight to illuminate our spiritual qualities: serenity, faithfulness, and hope.

Or maybe candle light is magical because it is so soft and heartwarming. Just like the kiss of a young child.

Recently, I purchased a faux bamboo coffee table and all these heavy memories flooded back in my mind. As a young child in eastern Europe I was invited to play with a foreign minister’s abusive son. I had little interest to play with the sadist but was eager to be escorted by the ministers egotistical wife who wanted to showcase all the treasures they had accumulated from years of theft. What captured my impressionable eyes was the exotic Chinoiserie – ivory, gold, bronze and lacquered objects, but specifically the faux bamboo furniture. I had never seen pieces made from brass to imitate bamboo and was fascinated by the whole idea.

Continue reading…

My most recent set of postage stamps is the series featuring Pioneers of American Industrial Design. I marvel at the range and beauty of the everyday items featured. Slate has an excellent synopsis of some of the designers behind the stamps, well worth reading here. With all of the homage to the passing of Steve Jobs and his singular ability to combine exquisite design with pioneering new products, it is fitting to appreciate the classic work of Raymond Loewy, Henry Dreyfuss, Donald Deskey and all the others that came more than 50 years earlier and were incredibly gifted and visionary in their own right. Continue reading…

One of artist Susan Rowland’s 9/11 Weed Prints, April 11, 2002.

From Susan:
During the winter after the attack on the World Trade Center I obsessively read W.G. Sebald’s novels about destruction, memory and landscape. His stories reminded me that the butterfly bush, Buddleia, is revered by Europeans as the first plant to return after the firebombing of their cities. I wondered what would grow around our ruins in the first spring after 9/11. Continue reading…

Painter Kamilla Talbot had a StudioScapes Residency during January and February of 2001 on the 91st floor of the North Tower in the World Trade Center. During that time, Kamilla soaked in the views and had a prodigious output of paintings. The painting above is of the view towards Brooklyn, with the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges visible in the lower third of the canvas.

So much was lost on 9/11, that it hardly seems appropriate to mention the loss of the view. It was incredible. Continue reading…

If you have read the book The New American Apartment you are probably familiar with the work of the talented architect Michael Gabellini. Featured on his website is another crisp modern apartment designed by Mr Gabellini with a modern steel and stone dining table surrounded by three wood and leather klismos stools. It is an unexpected pairing and very fresh looking.

Pictured: klismos stools in Olympic Tower apartment designed by Gabellini Sheppard Associates

I have always liked stools for their versatility as well for their lightness in design. Continue reading…