All Photos By Gail
If you like retro foreign cars, and also drinking, here’s a way to combine those two passions without risking arrest or death. The SMEG500, launched in Paris in May 2013, is a Refrigerator / Wine Cooler representing a creative collaboration between SMEG — makers fine retro-look refrigerators and other high end kitchen appliances — and Fiat, the iconic Italian car manufacturer. Talk about a sweet ride! Continue reading Eye On Design: SMEG500 Retro Fiat Wine Refrigerator!
All Photos By Gail
If you haven’t yet been to the Gene Autry Museum of the American West, you need to add that to your list of cool things to do when you are in the Los Angeles area, because the place is just amazing (bonus: the museum is located directly across a shared parking lot from the LA Zoo.). I had the chance to explore this history-rich landmark in December, when I was visiting family for Christmas, and I had all kinds of crazy fun.
This is America (All Photos By Gail)
Artist Will Ryman built a Log Cabin, painted it metallic Gold inside and out, bedazzled its interior walls with collages of gold painted car parts, railroad parts, cotton, computer parts, corn, coal, bullets, arrowheads, chains and shackles, and named the finished piece America. Today, March 30th, is the final day that you can see America on exhibit at the Paul Kasmin Gallery. Here are some photos of or what you are going to miss if you can’t make it over there by 6:00 PM.
Cabin Edge Details
View into Cabin from Exterior
Interior Wall Detail. The round objects on the bottom row are car gas tank caps.
Alternate Interior Wall Detail. As you can see, it is very shiny, and reminded me of walking into a Pirate’s Treasure Chest.
Fireplace
Rear View of Cabin
Paul Kasmin Gallery is Located at 515 W. 27th Street, New York, NY 10001, Gallery Hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 10: 00 AM – 6:00 PM.
After an incredibly disappointing trip to The Whitney to see this year’s Biennial (More like Bi-YAWN-nial), Geoffrey and I took advantage of already being uptown and walked three quarters of a mile along Fifth Avenue (such a gorgeous day it was) to The Guggenheim, where sculptor John Chamberlain — who just died in late December — has a fantastic career retrospective that made my heart go pitter-pat.
Background on Chamberlain from The Guggenheim’s always informative website tells us that the Artist moved from Chicago to New York in 1956 and shortly thereafter got the idea to utilize car metal as his medium. Unfortunately, a lot of people misinterpreted his creative re-use of a ubiquitous material in his sculptures as being a reference to the tangled mess of a car crash. Chamberlain “spent the rest of his life outrunning that association. His primary concern was and continued to be three-dimensional abstraction. More sensitive observers noted a kinship between his works and the dramatic modeling of Baroque art and sculptural drapery studies.”
Geoffrey took a few minutes to warm up to Chamberlain’s bold, colorful and flowy sculptures, but I loved them instantly. Considering that most of these works are made from car parts, it’s really astounding how each one is so different and has its own personality, even. If I lived on a huge estate with a ton of land it would be so cool to have one of these in the front yard, I think, or around back by the pool. The sculptures are organized chronologically from the earliest pieces at the bottom of the ramp to newer sculptures — some that Chamberlain completed shortly before his death — placed further up at the top of the rotunda. The shape of the museum really provides an ideal venue to show off these works, as many of them are very large and you can literally walk all the way around them and examine the work from all angles. Each one has its own story to tell.
Choices By John Chamberlain Runs Through May 13, 2012 at The Guggenheim Museum, Located at 5th Avenue and 89th Street in New York City.
Girl Not Included (Image Source)
The design for this gorgeous and super cool pink bed is inspired by the body of a 1960 Chevy Impala, and I just love it. The bed has storage space in engine compartment when you open the hood and it even has working headlights. Manufactured by Jake’s Custom Car Furniture, it looks pretty awesome, but the price is a little expensive at $4,000.
More photos and info on this bed, plus even more unique furniture made from car parts, can be seen at This Link.
