IKEA PS collection

I've been known to bang on a bit about wishing we had IKEA here in South Africa, and I think these pieces from the PS Collection illustrate exactly why I feel we are so awfully deprived:

The wonderfully wonky PS Svarva lamp is designed by Swedish wunderkids Front - a delightful bit of craziness.
Swedish speakers, I'd be most grateful if you could fill us in on what the IKEA PS Sprakka is for? I think it's a spice grinder. Whatever its practical purpose, it would make a wonderful sculptural piece.
And my favourite, the nifty little PS Karjohan sidetable . It's so darn cute, I'd be tempted to paste eyes on it and take it for a trot in the park.

Oh, and South African readers, you may feel a little better knowing that we're not the only ones without access to these amazing pieces - the PS Collection is only available in Sweden (for a while, anyway)!

Sanna Annukka for Marimekko

I'm so excited to see that illustrator Sanna Annukka has created fabric designs for Finnish design legend, Marimekko. Her inspiration for this range comes from the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala.


The Kanteleen kutsu design shows forest animals listening to folklore hero Väinämöinen playing a string instrument, made from the jawbone of a giant pike.

This print ranges over other highly covetable household items, like this tray,mugs and tea towels too.


The Taikamylly fabric (below) shows the Sampo, a wealth grinding magic mill, doing its work. I love the closeup version on a porcelain plate too.


Lastly, the Ihmemaa art print shows the landscape of Kaleva, the Land of Heroes, and Lake Alue, in whose depths a whitefish has swallowed fire fallen from the heavens.

See more of this collection, and other designers' work at the Marimekko website.

Cat house

We've all probably experienced the kind of unholy combination of cats and apartments that results in an unstylish concoction of shredded furniture, and more than a hint of ammonia stink.

However, cat lovers will be pleased to know that their love of felines doesn't necessarily sentence them to a domestic landscape of sisal-carpeted scratchposts, and Japanese architect Asahi Kasei’s Plus-Nyan house is more than enough evidence of this.

Everything in this house has been designed from the start with the integration of cats' and humans' needs in mind, resulting in an extraordinarily good looking home-slash-cathouse!

Sorry, dog owners, I don't think this would catch on with your canine companions. Somehow, I can't imagine a Sharpei galumphing around in the rafters!

Via Modern Cat

Report from NYC: Meet Peter Lane

Are they vertebrae? Coral? Insect pods?

This week I introduce you to the ceramic artwork of Peter Lane, who shares a studio with the subject of last week's post, Pamela Sunday.

The installation above, called 'Seabed,' was originally commissioned for the lobby (below) of super-swanky apartment building 350 West Broadway in Soho by real estate developer Aby Rosen, under the direction of architect William Georgis.

Lane will soon exhibit 'Seabed III' and IV - a much larger version and a smaller, half-scale version - at the Pavillon des Arts et du Design in Paris in April. He will be represented there through Chahan Gallery, whose sleek modernist furniture presents the perfect counterfoil to Lane's rough-hewn aesthetic.

Rough in texture it may be, but Lane's piece has a poetic quality captured in his artist's statement accompanying 'Seabed':

I love the vision of a school of fish and their mysterious, silent coordination, of ghosts, or spirits, the ghosts of whales, their bones lying in peaceful patterns of the floor of the ocean, the demon spirit of Nature that we try to shelter ourselves from, but can only rejoin, hopefully as something rich and strange.

You can read about how Lane came up with the idea for the piece, and how he made it, on my blog, The Brooklynist.

Lane exhibited a number of pieces at Chahan Gallery in Paris last September. He is known for his "birch bark" lamps, vases and drum tables using a ceramic process that happened to turn out looking like, well, you guessed it, birch bark.

The lamp base on the table above is part of his 'Scholar's Rock' series, amorphous masses of clay that he stacks up and squeezes into shape. They are named after Chinese scholar's rocks that are chosen because of their uncanny resemblance to things like tigers or clouds.

"I'm experimenting and trying new things. I don’t have a specific style," says Lane. "My favorite things are most spontaneous and come directly from the clay itself."

The circular sculpted mirror frame hanging above the table is a spin-off of a larger project that Lane is currently working on, called 'Homage a' Palissy.'

This piece, above, is a preliminary study for this work-in-progress, which will ultimately be a ceramic relief 8 feet tall and 12 feet wide.

"Bernard Palissy was an important artist and folkloric character," Lane told me. "He was a stained-glass artist originally who basically had to invent ceramics from scratch. He burned all the furniture in his house trying to fire up his kiln to the right temperature!"

Apparently, Palissy's masterpiece was a grotto that he made for Catherine de Medici. "The walls were encrusted with sculptures of seaweed, salamanders and shells to resemble an ancient Roman ruin underground."

Clearly, Lane's imagination is up to the task of capturing this fantastical underground cave, as these other studies and tests for 'Homage a' Palissy' show.

Lighting the way

French-made Jieldé work lamps have been around since the 1950s, when Jean-Louis Domecq grew tired of searching for a reliable lamp to equip his own machine-tools, and made his own articulated Standard lamp.

Over the years, Jieldé work lamps have gained iconic status, as they excel in both form and function, and are now available in a variety of shapes and forms.

If you'd like to get your hands on one, get in touch withTonic Design in Joburg, as they have the agency for Jieldé in South Africa.

Ribbons

At the end of last year, Japanese fashion label minä perhonen had an exhibition exploring the forms and uses of ribbons. For the show, architect Ryuji Nakamura put together this ribbon installation, called Catenarhythm, using ribbons designed by minä perhonen.


You can see a vimeo of the installation here, and see more pics here. Read more about Ryuji Nakamura at the website.

via Ah-yi

Chicken vs Puppy

I for one, have had enough of the plastic Puppy by Eero Aarnio. To me, it's a little too ubiquitous to be considered the icon it appears to be held up to be. I propose that it gets replaced by a new plastic animal, and would like you to consider Jaime Hayon's chicken.

What do you think - reckon it'll catch on in the same way?Via Orange you Lucky

Report from NYC: Pamela Sunday

"A hobby that consumed my life" is how Pamela Sunday describes the exquisite ceramic sculptures she makes in the studio in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn that she cycles to every day. Her iconic pieces have been embraced by the interior design world here in the U.S. and as far afield as India, Japan and Singapore.

Pamela studied economics and math at college, did a stint working on Wall Street, and then became a stylist and art director at Bergdorf Goodman. She discovered she loved clay while taking a class with some colleagues. "We decided to try different classes after work instead of going for drinks," she said.

She's been at it full-time for eight years, during which her style has refined itself into a bold, highly crafted expression of her love for natural forms. Her current work was inspired by microscopic forms such as plankton and algae.

Pamela often uses metallic glazes fired to a high temperature. The result resembles metal more than clay.

"I'm working on the edge of my materials," she said. She works very methodically, labouring over her pieces for weeks sometimes.


While some pieces are lustrous and glossy, others have a more matt texture. "I play mad scientist with the chemicals," Pamela explained while showing me the different kilns she bakes her pieces in.


The beauty of her pieces to me is that they evoke so many different kinds of forms. Many of her orbs look like intergalactic objects.


"Everything starts with an orb and then I either add or subtract elements," she said.

Pamela is experimenting with oval forms now, so watch her website for updates on those. And read about her husband Paul Sunday's paintings on my own blog here.

Cole and son

Cole & Son has recently released their Contemporary III wallpaper collection with more archive designs from the 1950s and 60s together with original designs.

Just a warning: should you spend some time visiting the Cole & Son website, you'll probably start eyeing the blank walls in your house appraisingly. I know this, because that's what's happened to me!

Design Indaba 09 coming up

February is Design Indaba month, and I've no doubt that the diaries of design-savvy types are already blocked out form 25 - 27 Feb to attend the conference and the Expo too.

I'll be covering the Indaba, letting you know what I heard from the impressive lineup of international and local speakers, which includes Patricia Urquiola, Bruce Mau, Barber Osgerby, as well as the "best chef in the world" El Bulli's Ferran Adrià.

I'm getting very excited about the Design Indaba conference, and also about all the fresh new design on show at the Expo. Hope to see you there.