Monday, April 30, 2007

Another find





Selection of prints from matteart etsy.

Another find from Green Chair Press' etsy favourites. I really like the playfulness, colour combinations and composition of matteart's prints! It kinda reminds me a bit of the Powerpuff Girls - but that's a good thing! (click here for the etsy shop and here for the website)

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Deborah Bowness hand-printed wallpapers










Selection of hand-printed wallpapers by Deborah Bowness

I haven't seen these wallpapers in person, but I really do like the unusual quality they convey.

Deborah Bowness exhibits regularly around the UK. Her wallpapers have been featured in World of Interiors, Elle Deco, Vogue and the Guardian amongst others.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Turning Back. A Photographic Journal of Re-Exploration.








Turning Back. A Photographic Journal of Re-Exploration. Photographs and text by Robert Adams. Fraenkel Gallery/Matthew Marks, San Francisco, 2005. 234 pp., 164 tritones, 9¾x11¾".

Publisher's description
"Turning Back: A Photographic Journal of Re-Exploration is published to coincide with the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The narrative begins at the Pacific Ocean and moves eastward through what was formerly one of the world’s great rain forests. Photographs at the center of the book report on the forest’s destruction. Elsewhere they trace a search for hope. Two hundred years ago, Lewis and Clark reported finding in the American Northwest a vast forest of ancient evergreens. In Turning Back Robert Adams looks again at the region’s trees, discovering evidence both of America’s failure and of a continuing promise. President Jefferson’s primary charge to Lewis and Clark was to prepare the way for American commerce. Today, historians still speculate about why, upon his return, Lewis lapsed into depression and apparently committed suicide. "Going east," Adams suggests, "was more difficult than going west." So then, what is the future? Turning Back documents two kinds of predictive evidence. On the one hand we observe the results of greed so unrestrained that they are indistinguishable from those of nihilism. On the other we see what still lives, whether by our design or neglect, or Providence; in these 164 pictures the tone is celebratory, as in a prayer book. From coastal landscapes populated with tourists to timber clear-cutting and small family farms in eastern Oregon, here we reflect on what was lost, what is retained, and what we value both regionally and as a people with a common history."

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Makeshift by Pascal Tremblay








Selection of prints/canvas from the makeshift shop

Very annoyingly I can't remember where I firstly saw the first makeshift typo print/canvas (third from top), but I really really liked the print at the time and now when I've had a proper look through these above are my absolute favourites.

Makeshift is the personal website/shop of Pascal Tremblay, a 25 year old designer/illustrator based in Montreal, Canada - go here for more!

UPDATE: The lovely Emily at Verve reminded me that she posted about makeshift and of course that's where I first saw the great print!
Thanks Emily! Have a look at Verve for lots of great stuff on design, photography and more!

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Great prints



Selection of prints from SweetAnnieJeanne etsy

People's favourites on sites such as etsy or flickr for example can often give you great inspiration (if you like a person's creative work it's probable that they'd like stuff you like). Through Green Chair Press's favourites I found these great prints by SweetAnnieJeanne.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Fokus Fabrik


Selection of fabric designs from Fokus Fabrik.

Swedish and Finnish are nothing alike whatsoever (it's literally as understandable as Chinese would be to a Swedish person). Finnish is one of the oldest languages in the world and is not related to any language other than Samiska (the language of the very small indigenous population in Sweden). In Finland however there are entire Swedish-speaking areas and all Finns have to learn Swedish at school. Due to that (and a lot of other reasons I'm sure) Sweden's largest immigrant group are the Finns with the result that we get one of the Finnish TV channels here. Clearly I can't understand a word of it, but I'm absolutely mesmerised and have been known to spend hours trying to decipher anything at all ...which clearly I can't!

During one of these sessions there was fantastic visuals of fabric and print making / print techniques. As it was so wonderful I spent ages mindlessly browsing around the website of the Finnish TV channel hoping against hope I'd somehow find some link.... Ergo above! Enjoy!

Monday, April 23, 2007

Beguiled by the Wild: The Art of Charley Harper








Images from Beguiled by the Wild: The Art of Charley Harper. By Charley Harper. Flower Valley Press, 1995. 132 pp., hardcover (coffee table book).

I hadn't heard of Charley Harper before, but when I saw the comment by Aesthetic Outburst on designsponge's post about Bantie (saying that Bantie's bird patten was reminiscent of Charley Harper) I just knew I had to learn more ...and I must say that I just love above!

To learn more I found this article in dwell magazine interesting and this selection of his work great for example (or otherwise google perhaps)

Friday, April 20, 2007

Book By Its Cover









I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this site! (found via Aesthetic Outburst).

Every day a book is added in the broad categories of Children’s, Comics, Design, Fine Art, Handmade, Other... "I wanted to share all the nice books I regularly notice and have collected over the years." as Book By Its Cover is described as - an absolute dream for anyone who loves books! (as literature, an idea, concept, other)

I have only begun to look through, but above is some I had an immediate feeling for.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Anita Elgerot exhibition


"I rörelse" ("In motion") by Anita Elgerot

If you're in Stockholm this weekend or any time during the following two weeks most definitely don't miss Anita Elgerot's exhibition at Galleri Riddaren!

If you read Swedish you can go to her blog for some thoughts around the upcoming exhibition (and more...) Her articles / post are always immensely well-written and thought-inspiring. They are regularly reprinted in a number of artist's mediums.

If you don't read Swedish have a browse through her wonderful work (the website will soon also be in English).

UPDATE: Galleri Riddaren is located at Köpmanbrinken 8 in the Old City, Stockholm. The exhibition is 21 April - 4 May and opening hours are Mon-Fri 12 noon-6pm and Sat and Sun 12 noon-4pm.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Type Collages




Selection of Type Collages from Green Chair Press etsy shop.

I love letterpress and wood types ...and I do love mustard colours!

These also takes me back to typography at university - we had a teacher who wouldn't let us use computers at all and preferred hand-drawn or hand-carved letters and/or collages. It was limiting, but considering the environment we were in it definitely gave us a new eye.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Hokkaido.







Hokkaido. Photographs by Michael Kenna. Nazraeli Press, Tucson, 2006. 104 pp., 84 duotone plates on uncoated paper., 12x13". Available in a print run of 250 copies, the limited edition of Hokkaido - each copy signed and numbered by the artist - will be housed in a specially made slip case, itself covered in delicate Japanese paper.

"The Northern Japanese island of Hokkaido has abundant natural forests, clear lakes, and magnificent mountains. It is perhaps best known for its intense and brutal winters. Snow and ice make many parts of the island inaccessible and the local Sea of Okhotsk routinely freezes over. Kenna has been photographing throughout Hokkaido, in these extreme conditions, for the past several years.

The 84 photographs in this book are the result of his explorations. Beautifully printed on heavy, uncoated Japanese paper using special black inks, Hokkaido is bound in thin maple wooden boards and housed in a special slipcase. The book is designed by renowned Japanese designer Hideyuki Taguchi, and opens with an introduction by Daido Moriyama. Published to coincide with a major exhibition of Kenna’s work opening in Spring 2006 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography."


With Spring, with its' light and warmth, refusing to leave us here in Stockholm I can now step away from the oppressing feeling of our winters and see the beauty of extreme weather conditions - at least in imagery. Beautiful and calming!

Monday, April 16, 2007

Approaching Nowhere.








Approaching Nowhere. Photographs by Jeff Brouws. W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2006. 160 pp., 100 color illustrations, 11¼x12"

"Some images look outward to the edges of suburbia where sprawl is encroaching upon nature. Others turn inward, documenting the devastated inner cities. All the stunning color photographs reflect the complex beauty and desolation of visual life in our time."

This post is for Robin who finds these kind of incidental stuff fascinating - and whose own collection of photographs from travels is more than worth its' own book

Friday, April 13, 2007

T-post








Selection of previous T-post designs.

"Subscribing to T-post is a lot like having a subscription to a magazine but instead of receiving magazines in your mailbox - you receive T-shirts. Every six weeks we design a t-shirt based on a news item and print the shirt's topic on the inside. You may not always hear about your T-post's story from traditional news media but in our opinion you should have."

I love the ethos, the thought-process and execution of T-post - fantastic!