Don Mangus' "It Only Hurts When I Smirk.": June 2017

Friday, June 30, 2017

Unusual Emotions That People Feel But Can't Describe

David Milne

David Milne

"According to one of America's foremost art critics, Clement Greenberg, David Milne was among "the three greatest artists of their generation in North America." Milne's highly original paintings from his early career in New York City earned him critical acclaim, acceptance in the famous Armory Show of 1913 in New York, and a silver medal in the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

At age sixty-five, Milne was still considered, by curators and other artists, as "Canada's most innovative artist."

Since Greenberg was into accentuating the "flatness of the canvas," I can see why he'd like these...

Thursday, June 29, 2017

Harry Bertoia: Jewelry

Harry Bertoia

In commemoration of the centennial of the artist’s birth, Bent, Cast & Forged: The Jewelry of Harry Bertoia was the first museum exhibition devoted to Harry Bertoia’s designs for jewelry.

The former Cranbrook Academy of Art student and metalsmithing instructor has received international acclaim for his metal furniture and sculpture, but his exploration of the medium originated in jewelry design while still a high school student in Detroit.

Out of the hundreds of jewelry pieces attributed to Bertoia, the majority was produced during his years at Cranbrook, and this display of over thirty works offers an early glimpse of a creative vision that would crystallize as his career matured.

Additionally, several early monotype prints are featured to illustrate how the artist harnessed the same intuitive and experimental approach to making in his planographic compositions.

The objects in this exhibition highlight Bertoia’s investigations of form, dimension, and material on a concentrated and bankable scale -- establishing him as a pioneer of the American Studio Jewelry movement and a master of elevating fashionable adornment to objets d’art.

Monday, June 26, 2017

George Nakashima: Live-Edge Free-Form Wooden Table

George Nakashima

Born in Spokane, Washington, to Japanese immigrants, George Nakashima traveled widely after college, working and studying in Paris, Japan, and India, and at every stop he absorbed both Modernist and traditional design influences.

A turning point in Nakashima’s career development came in the United States in 1942, when he was placed in an internment camp for Asian-Americans in Idaho. There, Nakashima met a master woodcarver who tutored him in Japanese crafting techniques.

A former employer won Nakashima’s release and brought him to bucolic New Hope, Pennsylvania, where Nakashima set up a studio and worked for the rest of his life.

Nakashima’s singular aesthetic is best captured in his custom-made tables and benches -- pieces that show off the grain, burls and whorls in a plank of wood. He left the “free edge,” or natural contour, of the slab unplaned, and reinforced fissures in the wood with “butterfly” joints. Almost all Nakashima seating pieces have smooth, milled edges.

Nakashima also contracted with large-scale manufacturers to produce carefully supervised editions of his designs. Knoll has offered his “Straight Chair” -- a modern take on the spindle-backed Windsor chair -- since 1946. The now-defunct firm Widdicomb-Mueller issued the Shaker-inspired “Origins” collection in the 1950s.

In 1973 Nelson Rockefeller gave Nakashima his single largest commission -- a 200-piece suite for his suburban New York estate.

Today, Nakashima furniture is collected by both the staid and the fashionable -- his work sits in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution, as well as in the homes of Stephen Spielberg, Brad Pitt, Diane von Furstenberg, and the late Steve Jobs.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Doodle Tips on How to Deal with Frustration

Toshiko Mori: Architecture

Toshiko Mori

Prior to establishing her own firm, Toshiko Mori worked for Edward Larrabee Barnes. Mori is licensed as an architect in Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Washington, D.C.. At the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, she received tenure in 1995 and chaired the Department of Architecture from 2002–2008. Mori has taught at the graduate level at Cooper Union School of Architecture, Columbia University, and Yale University.

Mori is known for her "concern with material innovation and conceptual clarity." Her projects include the A.R.T. New York theater, the canopy at the Brooklyn Children's Museum, Pembroke Hall at Brown University, exhibit design at MoMA and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and numerous residential projects in the United States, Taiwan, China, and Austria.

As a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on the Future of Cities, Mori leads research and inquiry into sustainable architecture, enhancing cities' livability, and creating efficient urban services. Mori is also on the board of directors of Architecture For Humanity, a nonprofit dedicated to design innovation and community involvement.

She has been the recipient of numerous international awards and honors, and her work has been widely exhibited and published. She was awarded the Cooper Union's inaugural "John Hejduk Award" in 2003. In 2005, she received the "Academy Award in Architecture" from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the "Medal of Honor" from the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter. Her projects have been exhibited in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s “Design Life Now: National Design Triennial 2006” and at the Guggenheim Museum.

A monograph of her work, "Toshiko Mori Architect, "was published by Monacelli Press in 2008. She has contributed to many publications, as well as editing a volume on material and fabrication research, "Immaterial/Ultramaterial."