Lab Craft: Digital Adventures in Contemporary Craft

Lab Craft, the Crafts Council touring exhibition is in its final week at Oriel Myrddin Gallery. It's the last chance to see this extraordinary show as it ends its tour here. 

Here is a link to more images of the show.

Piet Hein Eek

Thanks to Hazel Terry for posting this video of Piet Hein Eek this morning. The ethos behind the company is very inspiring. Oriel Myrddin Gallery will be showing an exhibition of Dutch design in September curated by Pembrokeshire's Freshwest Design - Piet Hein Eek is not part of the show, but the show will feature designers influenced by the prestigious Eindhoven Design Academy including Maartin Baas, Riener Bosch, Formafantasma, Daphna Isaacs, Chris Kabel, Digna Kosse, Christien Meindertsma, Mieke Meijer, Berjan Pot, Tejo Remy (TBC), Frederik Roije, Peter van der Jagt, Nathan Wierink.

The Dutch Collection is particular: its emphasis is creative, questioning, light and holistic.  A spirit of research and adventure has meant that selection, curation and delivery have transmogrified into a Freshwest/Netherlands road trip.  Marcus Beck and Simon Macro (Freshwest Design) and Joby Barnard (photography/design) venture to Holland in a van to meet with designers on a whistle-stop ‘select and collect’ tour from some of the best design studios in The Netherlands.

LUX at Oriel Myrddin Gallery

Laura Plant - Found Blade with Ceramic Handle

I've been flat out this week hanging the next show at Oriel Myrddin, LUX with the team of gallery staff. It's all taking shape now and I'm so pleased with the beautiful work we have selected and invited. Today we received a delivery from newly graduated ceramic student, Laura Plant who incorporates reclaimed domestic knife blades with new ceramic handles to make extraordinary hybrids. Laura states that her father is a butcher and her friend has a fear of being stabbed - she is interested in the paradox of the knife as a weapon and as a functional tool.

Tomomi Sayuda

Tomimi Sayuda - Oshibe - seen here

One of my favourite pieces from London Design Week was shown at Tent London by designer Tomomi Sayuda.

Here is how she describes the work: "Oshibe is a playful interactive music and lighting sculpture which means stamen in Japanese. Oshibe represents our optimistic elements of life, for instance plants, eggs, light and the moon. When you put the eggs on the stamens, Oshibe plays different tender ambient sounds dependent upon the particular stamens."

The One Room Hotel - James Plumb

Hostem - interior designed by James Plumb - seen here

I went along to Hostem, in Redchurch Street, Shoreditch this evening to see the beautiful shop interior that has been designed by duo James Russell and Hannah Plumb (collectively James Plumb). Behind the shop is an adjoining space which the couple have designed as a hotel room as part of London Design Week. Full of their exquisite, lovingly salvaged and re invented furniture, The One Room Hotel is a show of their work during the day and - for the duration of the exhibition - a lucky person gets given the keys for the night (jealous!).

Hannah and James will be showing work with Oriel Myrddin Gallery in our winter show Lux which opens on 6 November - I am so excited to have the opportunity to exhibit their work in Wales.

Hostem - interior designed by James Plumb - seen here

Galerie S O at The Glynn Vivian Gallery

Christian Gozenbach - Erasers - seen here

The Craft space at the Glynn Vivian Gallery in Swansea is hosting a lovely show at the moment, Contemporary Collections: New Work from Galerie S O. A selection of work from the cutting edge Swiss gallery, Galerie S O which has recently opened a London gallery in Brick Lane, representing some great makers including silver smith David Clarke - I really like his work.

Galerie S O is involved with representing and exploring the cross-over between art and design, an area that often seems to be difficult territory for British tastes: "The gallery's main focus is the contemporary object, which through an inherent grace of form and materials is able to convey diverse narratives to reflect, not trends and styles, but the attitudes and expressive intentions of the artist/maker". Seen here.

Hans Stofer - I have not got a clue - seen here

Helen Britton - Nighttime - seen here

James Plumb

James Plumb - For Richer For Poorer (Concrete Stitches series) - seen here

James Plumb - To Have and to Hold (Concrete Stitches series) - seen here

Thanks to David Restorick on his excellent blog, for introducing me to James Plumb (who is actually Hannah Plumb and James Russell). I like their recycled and hybridised furniture. The use of concrete in these chairs is intriguing and contrary, I like that too.

Here's a couple more of their designs that made me smile.

James Plumb - Sampson - seen here

James Plumb - Cluster Chandelier - seen here

Jayne Pierson

We have a wonderful fashion designer working from a studio here in Carmarthenshire, Jayne Pierson has been getting some exciting coverage in prestige magazines such as Vogue Italia and AnOther recently, not to mention Blown Magazine the baby of our own Ric Bower - Carmarthenshire based photographer.

Jayne Pierson: design - Alice Gibb: Model - Donald Christie: Photographer - seen here

Design Academy Eindhoven

Studio Formafantasma - Autarchy - seen here

We went to London on Monday - first stop - Sotheby's in New Bond Street to see a show curated from the 2009 graduates of the Design Academy Eindhoven. This exceptional academy has been incredibly influential in current design concepts and products. Beautifully curated, displayed and lit, the show used a series of design led questions as catalysts for the work on show. For instance: "Can we use easily available ingredients to produce?" is tackled by Studio Formafantasma in a beautiful range of domestic ware called Autarchy (Vessel).

Other questions included like things : "Where do you like to take a bath?", "Why aren't we using a hot water bottle anymore?", "What kinds of feelings does hair provoke?". One piece I really liked was in response to the question: "How can we make tender the last goodbye to a loved one who has died?", responded to by Roos Kuipers with a beautifully crafted elmwood bier which replaces the harsh physical and emotional idea of the coffin with a softer ritual for saying goodbye.

Atelier NL

Modern Painters May 2010 - seen here

I used to subscribe to Modern Painters magazine, but I gave it up a while back - it seemed to get less and less relevant to me. This month's cover really tweaked my interest however both the objects shown in the image and the painterly treatment of the shot.

The pots shown here are part of a collection called Drawn from Clay, made by Nadine Sterk and Lonny Van Ryswyck of Atelier NL in the Netherlands, the winners of the inaugural 2010 re:vision Design Award, set up by Modern Painters. The award seeks to address "...the disjunction between our material culture and the resources exploited to support it..." The magazine sees 'design' as the perfect intermediary discipline through which to consider these issues without adopting a "...Luddite attitude toward consumption."

The makers met in 1999 at the Design Academy Eindhoven and after graduation launched Atelier NL in 2006 to pursue their interests in local resources for clay. To make the Drawn from Clay series they studied geological soil maps and set about visiting and seeking the permission of landowners to collect buckets of particular soil types from Dutch regions to make clay. They have discovered 14 clay types from different regions (Polders) of the Netherlands. Nadine Sterk says of the project "What I really like about this material is that so many details, so much history, jump out from a little piece of soil...the surviving brick factories still use natural clay, but they mix it with all different minerals to get the perfect colour"...because of this homogenisation, plus the prevalence of white-glazed porcelain, we tend to forget that ceramics are made of earth or that towns and nations have forged identities through architecture, tools and tableware whose peculiar characteristics owe much to the dirt beneath the inhabitants' feet.' P.65 May edition of Modern Painters

There is a beautiful balance between the rustic simplicity of the form and materials and the contemporary additions of pewter and glass; both elegant and earthy.

Atelier NL - Drawn from Clay - seen here

Nacho Carbonell

Nacho Carbonell - The Diversity series - seen here

Nacho Carbonell is a Spanish designer based in Holland, his new series of experimental pieces, Diversity is now on show at Palazzo Ferre in Milan.

Nacho Carbonell, Diversity (preview) from robertanderson on Vimeo.

“I like to see objects as living organisms, imagining them coming alive and being able to surprise you with their behaviour. I want to create objects with my hands, then I can give them my personality. I turn them into communicative objects that can arouse one’s sensations and imagination. In short, what I want to create are objects with a fictional or fantasy element, that allow you to escape everyday life.” Nacho Carbonell

Ralph Turner - Crafts curator

Ralph Turner talking about Collecting a Kaleidoscope curated from the The Crafts Council Collection

The Glynn Vivian Gallery in Swansea has a small space which is used to show exhibitions of craft and design objects, the shows are curated by Ralph Turner. A former exhibitions Officer for The Crafts Council, Ralph Turner is renowned as a curator, writer and craft critic. Quiet and understated, these shows are exquisite little gems showing important and significant makers.

The current exhibition is called Sitting Pretty and features chairs as design objects.

Mario Botta - Seconda Chair 1982 - photo Louise Bird

The gallery says: A well designed chair can bring a sculptural element to any room and, as this exhibition shows, there are a number of ways of achieving this. Starting in the early 20th Century with the revolutionary work of Gerrit Rietveld and Alvar Aalto, the exhibition includes later examples of Italian design from the 1950s & 60s by Giancarlo Piretti and Anna Castelli Ferrieri.

Swiss architect, Mario Botta is represented with structured work from the 1980s, alongside Britain's Richard La Trobe-Batemen and Fred Baier. More recently, BarberOsgerby's successful London practice covers a wide range of products, as does Jasper Morrison, whose cool handling of aesthetics has established his global reputation.

Alongside Rietveld, there are four more contemporary Dutch contributors to the show with individual approaches to furniture: Ruud-Jan Kokke, Tejo Remy, Erik de Graaff, and Tord Boontje. In Britain, Jim Partridge and Edward Teasdale both work with wood, whilst Joe Wentworth, the youngest maker in this exhibition, produces unexpected designs such as cement stools, demonstrating that experiments with unorthodox materials can pay off. Seen here

Mary Sikkel and Simon Gaiger

Treasure Trouvé - from World of Interiors (February 2010)

We're all a little bit proud in the gallery of our Education Officer Mary Sikkel and her husband Simon Gaiger. Both trained as sculptors, they met at college many moons hence. Their exquisitely beautiful west Wales home is featured this month in World of Interiors magazine (February 2010). Feast your eyes - but go out and buy a copy too to keep forever!

Radu Comsa - Ice Age Chair

Radu Comsa - Ice Age Chair seen here

Thanks to Mandy Prowse on her Feltbug blog for posting about In Praise of Shadows, an exhibition at the V&A as part of London Design Festival. The work uses the EU directive to phase out low efficiency light bulbs to explore designer's ideas for alternative lighting sources and is curated by Jane Withers.

I love this chair by Romanian designer Radu Comsa.


Radu Comsa - Ice Age Chair see here

Ma Ke

Image seen here

Thank you to Mady Dooijes on her blog Abundance for posting about Chinese fashion designer, Ma Ke and her Wu Yong collection. A hybrid between art and fashion, these extrodinary sculptural garments embrace ideas around sustainability and challenge notions of value, especially in the fashion industry; Wu Yong translates as 'useless'. Ma Ke sees her garments as "things which are the bearers of values for the future."

Here is a You Tube piece about her work at the V & A Fashion in Motion showcase in 2008.

The Wu Yong concept has expanded to a set of truely beautiful photographs by Zhou Mi.

Images by Zhou Mi seen here

Telling Tales: Fear and Fantasy in Contemporary Design

Jurgen Bey - Linnenkasthuis - seen here

I finally got down to London last weekend to see Telling Tales: Fear and Fantasy in Contemporary Design at the V & A Museum. Really excellent show - so glad I have seen it. Split into three themed areas the emphasis is on designers rather than artists, many of them Dutch. The exhibition sits between art/craft/design , and its themes allow for the bizarre and the unsettling to enliven the debate. Curator, Gareth Williams '...explores how more-or-less overtly functional objects – ‘designed’ objects – can be made to carry meanings and associations, or tell tales'. Seen here

My favourite section was The Forest Glade with its allusions to fairy stories and in particular Linen-Cupboard-House (Linnenkasthuis) by Jurgen Bey. Reminiscent of the ginger bread house in Hansel and Gretel, the hybrid 'guest' room is created or amalgamated from old furniture and textiles. The piece on show is number two of an edition of four; with no photography allowed, and no image of the V & A piece available - the image above is a similar piece.

I also particularly enjoyed the giant ceramic tulip vases made by various makers in the Enchanted Castle section and the creepy little taxidermy Moulded Mole slippers by Niels van Eijk in the Heaven and Hell section with their disquieting invitation to consider the use of fur in design and fashion.


Neils van Eijk - Moulded Mole slippers, seen here

Here's a really interesting little film about the show.

Piet Hein Eek

Piet Hein Eek - seen here

I really like the Scrapwood range of furniture from Dutch designer, Piet Hein Eek. Simple but incredibly distinctive. It speaks for itself, but here's what he says about the range:

"The scrapwood cupboard from 1990 was my reaction against the prevalent craving for flawlessness. I wanted to show that products that aren't perfect still can appeal to our sense of aesthetic and functionality. I also wanted to design a product that could be made with limited means, material that was abundant. The combination of uncommon material and also uncommon, but simple methods of working became the thread through our work." Seen here

Piet Hein Eek - seen here

Émilie Faïf

Image seen here

Émilie Faïf is a French artist - a set designer. She works with Paris based fashion designer Isabel Marant making installations and interventions for spaces connected with Marant's collections. This piece and the others in this collection are such an interesting idea; landscape images printed on the inside of the garment. It plays with the function of clothing, especially high end designed clothing. The image can only be seen when the piece is off the body and is made to be viewed when hung from a coat hanger. It turns the piece instantly into an art object in a really simple and direct way. The nature of the image, and especially it's painterly quality underlines the idea. There's also the lovely idea of keeping a secret whilst wearing the clothes; it's a very seductive notion. I love the thought of wearing a landscape on the inside, it's a bit like dreaming. It blurs the boundaries of the real and imagined.

Outside of the conceptual, they are just very beautiful, haunting, dream-like objects. Simple and multi layered at the same time. Clever!

Image seen here

Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in Contemporary Design

Jurgen Bey 'Linen-Cupboard-House' ('Linnenkasthuis') from V&A website

I've just found out about the new show at the V&A in London, Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in Contemporary Design...GOT TO GO... I'm reeling a bit because of the correlations with some of the work I've been doing lately, always lovely when things connect.

Until I can get to see it - this image is pinging in my head!