Photo By Gail
This vintage metal cocktail tray is absolute perfection and a dream to own for any fan of mid-century modern design! Embellished with a design of assorted Pink Cocktail Glasses and a boarder of prancing Pink Elephants, this 5 x 7-inch tray, officially known as a “tip tray,” was originally sold in sets of four. Currently, lucky collectors can find them in stores that specialize in vintage pop culture collectibles, and on eBay and other auction sites.
Photo By Gail
Ah, the cuteness. This super comfy smiling Shark Lounge Pillow was spotted at the recent NY Now Winter Market and we find it irresistible! A lounge pillow lets you effectively make a chair out of your bed, so you can read, watch TV, or mess around your electronic devices all day long! Made of soft, easy-care fleece with polyfiber fill, this pillow sells for $71.00 and is from I Scream products. You can purchase one for your shark-loving self on their website at This Link!
Photo By Gail
Endearingly known as Chicago’s Mad Hatter, Benjamin Green-Field established the Bes-Ben label with with his sister, Bessie Friedlander in 1919. Green-Field’s designs were equal parts fantasy and practicality; their chic, relativity compact forms were designed to work in concert with the costly coiffures of the period. The year 1941 is regarded as a turning point in his career; the material restrictions that were imposed during World War II roused new levels of creativity in his work and introduced what would become a lasting devotion to crafting whimsical conversational pieces like this Lobster Hat circa 1946.
Detail
Photographed as part of the exhibit In Pursuit of Fashion: The Sandy Schreier Collection, on view through May 17th, 2020 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
Photo By Gail
The Papyrus chain of gift stores is going out of business at the end of this month, so if you are in need of fancy greeting cards and such for 50% off (or more) of what are generally pretty steep prices, get thee to their closest location before they close their doors forever on February 29th, 2020! There happens to be a small store located in Grand Central Station, and that is where I spotted these Aladdin Sane-Inspired Gift Bags! With the discount, I believe the price was about $4, so once I have the occasion to use it, the bag will definitely be part of the gift!
Photo By Gail
In Remedios Varo’s The Juggler (The Magician) 1956, the titular juggler (or magician) stands on a platform of a carnivalesque cart filled with fantastical objects and animals. He performs before seemingly identical figures robed in a single gray cloak. To produce this composition, Varo worked in the manner of early Renaissance masters; she transposed preparatory drawings onto a a gesso-primed panel which had been scratched to give it texture. She also deployed decalomania, a technique favored by the Surrealists in which materials such as paper or aluminum foil are pressed onto wet paint to transfer a pattern that may be embellished. Its atmospheric effects can be seen in the magician’s garments and in the background trees.
Photographed in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.
All Photos By Gail
Happy Valentines Day, Bitches! Remember a while back when I stumbled upon this Pink Graffiti Mail Box on Chrystie Street? I didn’t know it at the time, but the box was part of the Love Letters Project by an LA-based street artist who calls himself Poet. Through the magic of Instagram, Poet (#poetwastaken) made himself known to me and I’ve been stalking his art ever since.
In January, Poet was back in NYC creating more Pink Mail Boxes like this one on Elizabeth Street near the corner of Broome Street. As you can see, many people stop to photograph it for their own Instagram feeds. Very meta.
I thought it would be a perfect Pink Thing for Valentine’s Day! Watch for more cool art by Poet to hit the blog in the coming weeks!
All Photos By Gail
The NY Now winter retail market and gift show is behind us, and I came home with a ton of photos of cool stuff to share with you here on The ‘Gig; including several excellent additions to our beloved Shark Attack series (one of which you saw right here just last week)!
These adorable felted booties are sold by The Silk Road Bazaar, a fair trade wholesale representative of marginalized artist groups located in Central Asia. These fiercely cute booties are part of their Zooties series of baby booties designed in the likeness of animals. Watch out for your little toes!
Shark Attack On Your Tiny, Baby Feet!
Photos By Gail
This Pink and Black Sequined Mini Dress (autumn / winter 1983 – 84) is characteristic of paradoxical charm of the work of Stephen Sprouse (1953 – 2004). He often sited the cutout, mini-skirted styles that designers like Andre Courreges and Rudi Gernreich introduced in the 1960s, yet he reartciluated these silhouettes within the distinct cultural context of 1980s New York. From his debut collection, he established a unique look, artfully integrating pop culture and street style into youthful fashions executed in luxurious materials.
Sprouse was particularly known for his ability to sketch: the graffiti motifs developed for his textiles were frequently drawn by his own hand. The scrawled neon print of this dress has been skillfully engineered and embroidered with a gleaming layer if clear paillettes, lending a patina of glamour to an otherwise edgy garment.
Photographed as part of the exhibit In Pursuit of Fashion: The Sandy Schreier Collection, on view through May 17th, 2020 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
All Photos By Gail
It’s been months since we had a lovely, sunny weekend day in Manhattan where I wasn’t also otherwise occupied with a trade show or a museum visit, or some other plan that was going to keep me indoors all day. But this past weekend we enjoyed enough good outdoor weather to venture out on an Urban Art Safari, and that’s just what I did!
As I turned onto Broome Street, walking west near the corner of Forsyth, I spotted this fantastic, Bright Red Horse which towers up five stories of a six story mixed-use building. A bit of Googling revealed that the artist, Shai Dahan (whose name is clearly visible at the top right corner of the mural) painted the horse in October of 2019 as a gift to NYC, his former home. Dahan currently lives in Sweden.
This particular Red Horse is modeled after the Dala Horse of Sweden.
You can read more about the artist and this fantastic Red Horse in a Q&A with Brooklyn Street Art located at This Link.
Photo By Gail
“At the start of the fifties, Uruguayan artist Maria Freire (1917 – 2015) recalled, “I abandoned figuration for the perspective of the imagination, anxious to create a new space.” To develop her own style of abstraction, she initially experimented with sculpture, creating virtual volumes through a single, dynamic line. Complex spatial effects also characterize her abstract paintings, such as this Untitled piece from 1954. Though free of perspective, Freire’s painted interwoven forms seem to recede, even dance, in an ambiguous space in tension with the painting’s flat surface.
Photographed in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.
