Styrofoam artwork by Jenni Rope

On this grey and sludgy Tuesday, my eyes feast on these large mobile sculptures by the Finnish artist Jenni Rope - they look like slow motion explosions. They are big works, more like room installations, and are not the only type of thing she does - she is also a very fine painter and graphic artist (I love those brushstroke works and also her textile pattern design). But mobiles are something I was always quite crazy about, and the way she uses styrofoam slabs to make these, is really cool.

When you paint styrofoam, it looks like all kinds of other things: rocks, minerals, concrete - heavy, somehow. And a bit unreal. 

I always find it an enormous inspiration, when artists work in anywhere available and inexpensive materials, such as these. You don't need brass, bronze or granite to make fine sculptural expressions!

Sometimes she does on-the-floor installations with these odd, painted shapes, I really love this one from 2011, 'The Findings'.

Inspiration: giant mobiles by Xavier Veilhan

Xavier Veilhan is a French sculptor / installation artist, who does these massive mobiles - among many other things. The mobiles are the part of his work I really like, they are fantastic. He doesn't stray much from his style: they are always done with very simple elements: spheres, sticks and sometimes round discs.

Sometimes they hang from a contraption, that becomes part of the work (the one above is particularly great, I think), and at other times they hang from the ceiling. What makes them intricate and really impressive, is the sheer scale of them, they are huge! Wow.

All images here are from his own very informative website - which you can check out here.

Here is a bit about him on Wikipedia 

This year he will be representing France at the Venice Biennale.

And now: the mobiles! Or a small handful of them, anyway.

Ruth Asawa

Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) is one of those artists I had never heard of, until I randomly stumbled upon an image somewhere - only to discover that she is a very important American artist, who had an amazing life, made some stunning art and was a tireless activist for education, especially children's arts education. She left quite a legacy in her native California, and in several other places. Perhaps some of my readers have missed out on her, like myself, so here she is - surrounded by some of her signature metal wire sculpture.

She was born in California by Japanese immigrant parents, and was interned during the US/Japanese conflict in World War II, and was subject to much sad racism in her own country - for instance she had to leave teacher college without an actual degree, because no one would hire her for the needed internship. Later she went to art school, and studied under the Bauhaus legend Josef Albers, who inspired her to experiment with commonplace materials. And her one of favorite materials ended up being wire.

I've read somewhere, that her crocheted/woven three dimensional metal sculptures comes from childhood memories of studying insect's wings - and from a later meeting with some basket weavers on a vacation in Mexico, who taught her the particular technique. 

Just see how beautiful they are..... Like pods, fruits, clouds - primitive, in some way. And yet so sophisticated and cool, so very mid century modern. And they look so light! But imagine what they must weigh - and imagine the work involved in making them, and the sheer physical strength she must have had! 

A few more photos of her wire work: a portrait of her from 1952 by Imogen Cunningham and underneath that, her studio with masses of suspended sculptures - and last an installation of hanging pieces, very well lit, so the shadows become an integral part of the work.

Almost as famous as for her artistic work, she was for her many projects with children. 

A most amazing collaboration with children, is the work she did on the San Fransisco Fountain, a massive bronze thing, depicting the history of San Fransisco in bas-relief - mostly based on children's work in play dough, done by kids in her school groups, among those, her own six children. 

There are so many great stories about her, too many for a little blog post like this - but if you feel curious, study a bit more, for instance here, on the official Ruth Asawa website. 

Last pics: Ruth Asawa working, surrounded by her kids - and the last one is from 1975, from one of her many sculpture workshops with children.

Irving Harper

A few days ago, Irving Harper, one of my new found design heroes, died at 99, in his home in Rye, New York - surrounded by a lifetimes worth of work from his hands; and his house was, quite literally, filled with something that interests this blog particularly - his fantastic paper sculptures and model experiments.

Not many people in Denmark know of Irving Harper. I discovered him by chance, browsing around on mid-century modern Pinterest boards. In US he has become the widely acclaimed designer of that particular era, that he deserves to be - and now I am going to pay him a little tribute as well, and here's hoping that some of you feel like getting to know this abundant, wonderful design mind a bit better. 

He was the man behind lots of iconic designs from the era, mainly as an employee for George Nelson and Herman Miller (many of these have just lately become credited to him), but he worked for other manufacturers as well, and in many fields of design. He did lamps, furniture, kitchenware, textile design and graphic design. He made Herman Millers logo and had great impact as an design director for the company. 

He loved modelling in paper, he found paper to be a versatile, inexpensive, quick medium to work in, and one that only required a knife and some glue. And his work in paper - which filled his house to the brim - was simply amazing. It leaves me breathless. 

Here is a little taste. I will end the post with some nice links, also to a couple of very fine YouTube videos, if you have gotten curious. 

Images for this post are very hard to credit - they seem to have been reposted over and over again.
Some are by Leslie Williams, some are from Elle Decoration, some unknown by me. 

Some may be from this 2013 book: Irving Harper: Works in Paper.

Here are two fine videos from YouTube:

About working in paper 

From Rye Arts Center: Irving Harper: A Mid-Century Mind At Play

Confetti System on the last day of 2014

It's the last day of the year, and I am making very rich chocolate-pecan pie and vacuum cleaning everywhere, in honor of our guests, arriving later this afternoon.

New Years Eve is always a bit weird for me, it will never be my best evening - I get too moody and reflective, but I insist on a bit of celebration all the same. I love champagne, and kids can stay up as long as they like. People may kiss or cry as they prefer, and on this one night of the year we do hook up our mirror ball (on display all year round) with its little spin-around motor.

Let's pretend I was a lady of independent means with enormous ceiling height in some vast space: then I would throw a grand ball for everyone I like - and you, all you out there, who have found your way to these pages and enjoyed them through the seasons - you'd be more than invited.

I know exactly who I would summon to do the blingbling-ing for this fantasy party: Confetti System.
They are my paper craziness heroes: a duo of artists from New York, who have taken tissue paper and all kinds of metallic foil to very sophisticated heights.

Read more about them in this article from www.dwell.com.
You could also check out their blog.

Now, back to my fantasy party. There would be champagne, of course. It is one of my favorite beverages in the world. There would be ice cream. There would also be drinks with fresh mint in them, because we mustn't forget our vitamins, and there would be a salsa band playing all night long. Since no band can play non-stop, they would take turns with this very fantastic classic motown disco-type band, with a kick ass horn section. If you wanted to rest your feet, there would be a bonfire outside and cosy chairs around it.

And you could stay as long as you liked.

On this note I will post the last images this year: various projects by the amazing Confetti System.

Happy New Year!

Kasia Gasparskis FLOOR PLAANs

The other day I was walking along one of the small streets in central Copenhagen, and passed some of my favorite dream windows - and you all know what I mean by that! They belong to the fantastic goldsmith and jewellery designer Kasia Gasparski, and I have been coveting her jewellery as long as I can remember, especially her gold pieces with red enamel. In the windows were these fantastic filigree like objects, which turned out to be little architectural silhouettes, when you looked closer....

There was a small note in the window about them, but the shop was closed, and I went home and googled, but found nothing. A couple of days later, I went back and knocked on her door, and found her busily at work on these very interesting objects! Here is what the windows looked like, from the inside, maybe that gives you a better idea.

So, I got the story. Kasia Gasparski has always been fascinated with architectural images in her work, and has made some wonderful pieces using that very basis for all architecture, the floor plan, as a motif, sometimes symbolizing something very intimate and private, and sometimes things much grander. A couple of examples:

The gold brooch is based on a modern Danish family house, and the silver brooch depicts the plan of the old Copenhagen Castle, which stood from 1370 to 1713! Now, she is a very interesting artist, indeed, and I urge you to google her work, and find out more yourself, for her work is both humorous, philosophical, sensual and much more. And very wearable too! She explained that her website is under reconstruction, but I will give you a link anyway, because a new one will definitely emerge here:
Kasia Gasparskis website, www.kasia.dk 

I will try to stay with the subject, and not talk much about her jewellery right now, even though it's hard (that would require so much more space), but about her FLOOR PLAANs, as she has named her invention: the floor plans of some of the most significant and beautiful churches in the world, done as hanging ornaments. She has just started a commercial production of them, and was working on the first batch, fresh from the people who precisely laser cuts them in wood. Then Kasia herself will sand them, base coat them, sand them again, and finish with a layer of matte white. 

They end up looking so crisp and almost snowflake like, and if you have an interest in architecture, they will make you rediscover the magic beauty of the plan. They could be Christmas ornaments to some, icons or crosses to some, and architectural mobiles to others. I just love the idea, and I think you are welcome to read into them what you feel like!

She told me that she is working frantically on making them available online, but until now, you have to buy them in her shop in central Copenhagen. They start at around 32 euros.
Adress: Kompagnistræde 25, DK-1208, Copenhagen K. Phone: +45 33 14 16 80.

She has made two series, one of churches from Istanbul, Aachen and Jerusalem, among other places, and a series of Danish churches. I will end this post with the Danish series. 

FLOOR PLAN website on its way here

A Facebook page is here (and probably the best place for info right now).

Danish churches from top: Roskilde Domkirke / Grundtvigskirken / Vor Frelser, København /
Skt. Bendt, Ringsted / Vor Frue, Kalundborg

Giant red himmeli

Readers of this blog will know that I am obsessed with all kinds of mobiles, and for a long time I have been into folksy ones, such as the Finnish 'himmeli' or the Polish 'pajaki'. I tried making various himmeli myself, and have gathered some practical advice on this page.

It's fun making them, and I keep saying that I will get some natural straw in the late summer, but for two summers I haven't been able to pick any - all the fields in my summer neighborhood seems to have only wheat and rye grown with straw-shortening chemicals. Sad, in so many, many ways. One of the lesser, for sure, is that it makes himmeli-making tricky. So I go for the plastic version, and every time I come across interesting plastic straws, I buy them! I found some silly maxi ones here (70 cm. long!) in a beautiful red, and decided to make a BIG and very Christmassy himmeli. I really went all the way, and decided on tissue paper tassels as well. Very festive.
 

Here it is, and it's almost too enormous for our otherwise relatively spacious bed/work room.