Paul Villinski

Paul Villinski - Consonance - seen here

I have recently discovered the work of American artist Paul Villinski. He has a particular focus on the reclaimed and recycled in his practice. The pieces he has made using found gloves are particularly captivating. The artist finds lost work gloves on the streets and uses hand sewing, gilding or drawing to bring them into a new existence as art. The wing pieces (mostly from the early to mid 1990's) are incredibly striking, but I actually like the quietness and profundity of those with gilded finger tips.

Paul Villinski - Lift - seen here

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

Seamus Nolan

Seen here

We had a visit at the gallery today from Elizabeth and Siobhan from Wexford Arts Centre in Eire. We were really impressed by their exhibition programme and their lovely space! In particular the venue has shown the work of Irish artist, Seamus Nolan. His to-scale, recycled cardboard Caravan, part of a show called Demense, was installed in the main gallery space in 2007. We also heard about a really interesting project headed up by Seamus Nolan called Hotel Ballymun in which an abandoned high rise was converted into a hotel space in which people could come to stay. The rooms were furnished with the reclaimed furniture left in the building.

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

Derick Melander

Derick Melander - Flesh of My Flesh - Seen here

I'm catching up with the blogs I like to visit this week. Today, of paper and things posted work from New York artist Derick Melander. Second hand clothing graded and stacked by various criteria into sculptures. They speak for themselves - wonderful!

Derick Melander - Where do I stop, where do you begin - seen here

Derick Melander - Grasp - seen here

Sara Hubbs

Sara Hubbs - Angle Grind - seen here

Thanks to Abigail Doan for reminding me about American artist Sara Hubbs today. Sara works with old shoes using their inherent sculptural qualities to make new assembled forms: "... I create assemblages from discarded remnants of shoes and other personal ephemera. I investigate the relationship between these forms, and their materials while at the same time, providing these relics with new meaning. I am interested in the play between narrative and form and how it shapes the way we see. Looking to use and accumulation as points of contact with the world, muted and unseen spaces take shape..."

Sara Hubbs - Frequency Radio - seen here

I have often excused the compulsion to buy shoes by claiming them to be wearable sculptures (oh, the indulgence and self delusion!). Of all the personal possessions surely shoes are the most poignant as they mould their substance to our bodies and the nuances of our movement, recording our travels and encounters.

Sara Hubbs - The 4 M's: Material, Movement, Metaphor, Memory - seen here

Bottle Tree Ranch

Elmer Long's Bottle Tree Ranch on Route 66, image: Ken Rockwell, seen here

Finding out about Elmer Long's Bottle Tree Ranch this morning has reminded me that this is a wonderful world! A beautiful piece of roadside art. Taking up welding after his retirement, Elmer started his project with his father's bottle collection and it has grown and grown from there. Here's a You Tube piece about him and his creation.

I found this image too, which is a similar project by Winter Zellar (Zero) Swartsel in Ohio.


Winter Zellar (Zero) Swartsel, Bottle Farm - seen here

The Bottle Farm no longer exists, but there is a plaque to mark its location - here's the text:

"A direct descendant of original settlers in Jackson Township, Winter Zellar (Zero) Swartsel was born in 1876. Throughout his life he was a natural born showman, teacher, eccentric, anarchist, and “possibly the grandfather of American Pop Culture.” At a young age and tired of the routines of Farmersville, he declared that, “He would live by his wits while his brothers lived by the sweat of their brows.” He and a friend bicycled first to New York City and then turned around to head west and eventually the world. Later his home would overflow with items collected while traveling the world. Outside was a similar story. While chiding the American people for their wastefulness and abusing their environment, his 22 acres of farmland became his artist's canvas filled with the thousands of items he collected from the “wasteful.”

Winter Zellar (Zero) Swartsel's farm property became a field of glass as he adorned it with sculptures and “art” using glassware of all kinds, bells, bed frames, wood, and other discarded items. His finest works, fashioned from bottles titled “Kindly Light” and “Full Measure” created the popular Farmersville Bottle Farm. The farm also provided interesting listening experiences. In addition to the bells and twinkling glass that rang out in the wind, residents in town could count on hearing “The Old Rugged Cross” played on loud speakers on Sundays. Bells on grazing sheep added to the “noises” he described as restful. The farm attracted visitors from every state in the nation except Delaware. Dying in 1953, Swartsel bequeathed his land to the community to become the Farmersville-Jackson Township Joint Recreation Park to be used for the pleasure of children."

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

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

J. Morgan Puett and Mildred's Lane

Seen here

Hold the front page! I've just been finding out about an American artist, J. Morgan Puett. I am in a little funk of excitement. I had not heard of her before and now I don't know why! Her vision is singularly focused and currently extremely pertinent. This passage from her artists' statement is extraordinary and inspiring to me:

"My career and trajectory as an artist/cultural worker was shaped and determined very early. In 1984 I was attempting to research detailed aspects of working people's clothing from 1900-1930 in the costume archives of the Metropolitan Museum, and I was told that no specimens of these clothes survived. The actual reason for this was a shock to me—the clothes had been worn to dust, altered, patched, turned into quilts, chair backs, and curtains, passed down, and eventually used as rags. It was the fact that everything that was part of early vernacular culture was constantly being re-used, re-shaped, and re-worked—in a continuous act of invention that permanently shaped my practice. Categories shifted—clothing became furniture became architecture and vice versa—this changed my thinking about material culture and the inherent fluid nature of things. I realized that these histories and practices needed to not only be preserved and represented in museums but also activated in contemporary public life. At this moment I realized that I had to find a way to reconstruct historical practices and networks - making products and systems that could activate all the categories of everyday life. Art alone, I found, is singularly lacking in the tools to do this. I strategically came to situate myself at the nexus of art,architecture and principally in the world of fashion".

Seen here

Seen here

In the last 10 years, J. Morgan Puett has been working with her ex-partner to establish an artists' colony at her home in Noth East Pennsylvania. Called Mildred's Lane after the former occupant of the 96 acre farmstead, Mildred Miller. The project provides a space where artists, interns and other folk can come to 'locate their own creativity' in this living, breathing, vernacular installation.

Seen here

Here's a lovely article from 2008 about the artist and Mildred's Lane.

Here's a link to the the artist's gallery, Alexander Grey Associates.