Photo By Gail
London-based artist Otto Schade lends his signature “ribbon” style to this fun Spiderman mural, which he painted in memory of Spiderman creator Stan Lee, who passed away in November of 2018. The mural is part of the East Village Walls project, which rotates new murals on the wall outside Julie’s Vintage Clothing Boutique at 84 East 2nd Street (just west of First Ave) every three to four months. See it while you can!
Detail
All Photos By Gail
Seemingly random bits of e-waste make up the Ore Streams collection of office furniture, designed by Italian duo Formafantasma.
Cabinet (2017) is a clear glass-encased filling cabinet created from up-cycled aluminium computer cases embellished with a digital print of the surface of Mars, a reference to the extra-terrestrial origins of gold, which is widely thought to have arrived on earth via a meteorite shower.
Cabinet, Front Drawer Detail
Formafantasma’s Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin created cabinet and accompanying furniture series as part of their Ore Streams project, a two-year study into the current state of electronic waste recycling that proposes new approaches for designers working on gadgets. The furniture is designed as a poetic response to the findings.
Cabinet, Side and Rear Detail
The pastel-hued metallic objects incorporate decontextualised bits of electronic waste, like the casings from iPhones and laptop keyboards. One cubicle features a pigeonhole formed from a microwave, while a rubbish bin is lined with gold scavenged from circuit boards.
The duo chose objects that were familiar within the office, but made them slightly odd and unfamiliar. In addition to the filing cabinet, the collection includes a table, rubbish bin, two cubicles, a desk, chair, lamp and shelf, all made primarily of dead stock.
Photographed in the Giustini / Stagetti Booth at the Salon Art and Design, at the NYC Armory in November of 2018.
Photos By Gail
Do you like cheese? I sure do. Cheese is my favorite food group! For me, one of the most exciting things about making a quesadilla or grilled cheese sandwich, or heating up a slice of pizza, is when a bit of melting cheese oozes onto the surface of the hot pan and bakes into a little cheesy wafer of impossibly delicious goodness. Step away from the crunchy cheese, I say — it’s mine! But seriously, if the idea of eating crunchy cheese is exciting to you, but maybe the process of grating cheese into a hot pan and waiting for it to get all golden-brown and crisp seems too labor intensive, then you will be glad to learn that Just the Cheese crunchy baked cheese snacks are a thing that exists.
Just The Cheese crunchy cheese snacks are made with 100% natural Wisconsin cheese with no artificial additives or preservatives, so they are gluten free and low carb. Each packages contains two snack bars (just 75 calories each) of crunchy baked cheese that tastes just as delicious as you would imagine. Since Just the Cheese needs no refrigeration, it is the perfect grab-and-go snack for your purse, back pack or desk drawer. And if a cheese-loving friend or co-worker becomes curious when they see you snacking blissfully on your delicious crunchy cheese, well, you have bar to share wit them — that is, if you can bear to part with it.
You could even use Just The Cheese snack bars as a cracker substitute, adding a variety of your favorite toppings (more cheese, anyone?) to create fancy snacks for your next party!
Just the Cheese crunchy baked cheese snacks, made with love by Specialty Cheese Company, come in three simple flavors: Jalapeño (with real jalapeño pepper bits baked right in), Grilled Cheese, and Aged Cheddar. These snacks are currently available only in select brick-and-mortar markets, but you can buy them via online outlets such as Amazon Prime and others. Visit Just The Cheese Dot Com to order yours now!
Photo By Gail
Euro-American traditions of landscape art tend to work differently from those of Native peoples, often picturing the land from afar as a space to behold. James Doolin (1932 – 2002) carefully studied the landscape to create Bridges (1989), spending a week at the off-ramp from the 110 Freeway to Interstate 5 in Los Angeles. Using principles that originated in European painting, Doolin designed an expansive vista in which a vast space is seen from a single vantage point. The small figure in the foreground — intended as a stand-in for the artist or viewer — also appears in many traditional landscape paintings. By applying these motifs to 20th Century Los Angeles, Doolin refers to the power of historical images in shaping our modern experience of place.
Photographed in the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles.
‘Transcendent’ is not a world that I find myself using very often these days when talking about modern music, if I talk about it at all. I looked at the Billboard charts a couple months ago for the first time in probably a decade — just being serious — and when I realized that every band or artist in the top 20 or so positions on that chart was either someone I’ve never heard of, or someone I am familiar enough with to have a strong distaste for their songs, I knew l’d made the right decision to abandon rock journalism and start writing about art and food. Because I would rather listen to The Beatles or Led Zeppelin for one hundred million billion years than any of the boring, shitty, derivative, eardrum excoriating garbage that ‘the kids’ are downloading for 15 minutes. Fuck the kids.
Of course, it’s not that everything sucks, but the really good stuff is now back in the underground, and this is why it takes me a week to uncover even one song worth featuring in this column. Fortunately, hard work pays off. This week’s clip, “Spiked Flower,” comes to us from the band Swervedriver, who were being pitched to me when you were in diapers: when I was cranking out CD reviews and long-form interviews with top musicians at a pretty steady clip. How are they still around, and how do they still sound so fucking good? “Spiked Flower” is song that’s transcendence distilled, and I don’t even feel compelled to defend it beyond offering that it sounds like if Husker Du had a baby with the Jesus and Mary Chain. Sometimes the only quality that good music has to have to is that it sounds good. “Spiked Flower” can be found on Swervedriver’s upcoming album, Future Ruins — earning bonus points for featuring Coney Island’s iconic Parachute Drop and Thunderbolt roller coaster on its cover — which will be released on January 25th, 2019 on Dangerbird Records. Enjoy!
Photos By Gail
OK, you can probably tell that this not a “proper” Pink Origami Dinosaur but, rather, what is meant to appear as a Dinosaur Wrapped in Pink Paper, as if it were gift waiting under the Christmas Tree! Other pink-wrapped gifts include a Guitar, a Swan Pool Floatie, a Globe, a Bicycle and a Cactus, among other items easily identified by their distinctive shapes.
It’s all part of a fun Holiday display that I spotted at H&M Clothing Store on 5th Avenue and 48th Street in Manhattan!
All Photos By Gail
On my last full day in California, I spent a couple of late afternoon hours strolling through the very beautiful Descanso Gardens, a 150-acre botanical garden located in the La Cañada Flintridge area of Los Angeles. The daylight was already starting to fade, but I got some good shots of the many varieties of gorgeous flowers that are still blooming even in late December. Enjoy!
Descanso is well-known for their signature pink Camellias, of which there are numerous varieties.
Of course, I love anything that is pink. This one has a tiny wound on one petal, but its beauty is unspoiled.
You would almost think you are in Hawaii when you see flowers like this!
For the Holiday season, Descanso hosts a special evening event called Enchanted Forest of Light, which competes with the numerous Chinese Lantern Festivals going on at the LA Zoo, the LA Arboretum, and elsewhere. This prismatic star is just one of the many added features that help to transform the nighttime garden into fantasy wonderland for this always sold-out event!
I’m guessing that this prism is illuminated from within once the sun sets.
While the beds are not necessarily lush at this time of year, the Roses are still in bloom and looking good!
I love how the petals of this delicate pink bloom are almost transparent.
This flower is called an African Daisy.
These Yellow Snapdragons have a tiny visitor!
Yellow Chrysanthemums!
Red Thistles – gorgeous!
Daffodils!
I don’t know the proper name of this tropical-looking plant with its tiny pink berries, but I have seen one like it at the NYBG in the Bronx.
Purple Irises!
Descanso Gardens is Located at 1418 Descanso Drive, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011.
