Getting Cultured in New York

Last weekend I took a long overdue trip down to New York City to see friends, family and everything else New York has to offer. A friend and I made Saturday a getting-cultured sort of day and spent the entire afternoon-evening viewing some wonderful art.

First stop was the New-York Historical Society for John James Audubon’s original watercolor paintings for his huge (in size and content) print edition of The Birds of America (1827–38).

More about the day after the jump...

Day #6&8: William Morris & the Arts and Crafts Movement

The Arts & Crafts movement was a design movement that arose in the second half of the 1800’s. In response to the aggressive expansion of industry and shoddiness of mass produced items, artists of the movement sought to return to hand produced crafts. William Morris became the leader of the group with the establishment of his business Morris & Co, which produced many handmade textiles, wallpapers, and furniture, as well as his Kelmscott Press printing company.

A very strong underlying theme in our trip was the Arts & Crafts movement, we visited lots of relevant sites and it somehow managed to sneak into unsuspecting places as well. So obviously the first stop on our Arts & Crafts tour had to be the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. This we followed up later with another walk along the Thames past the original home of the Kelmscott Press in Hammersmith and on to the home of Emery Walker, the immaculately preserved Arts & Crafts home of a printer who worked with Morris.

  Along the River Thames in Hammersmith

Read more about the stops on our Arts & Crafts tour after the jump...

Day #4&7: The V&A

The Victoria & Albert Museum in London is one of my favorite museums I have ever been to. It’s the worlds largest design and decorative arts museum with a collection housing over 4.5 million objects. Oh and did I mention admission is free? Because it is. I love that most of the museum is not just pictures on a wall, instead there are whole galleries dedicated to iron works, mosaics, theater design, stained glass, jewelry and so much more. We had visited the V&A on our last trip to London and realized we hadn’t even scratched the surface of their collection and had to return. We spent most of our time in the Theater & Performance Gallery as well as in their Cast Courts. See more of our favorite pieces after the jump...

Long Time, No See

It was a busy whirlwind of a summer. It felt like every weekend I was shipping off to some other event, family gathering or adventure. And I know, the blog got neglected. But I hope to be back with a vengeance. And I have quite a few things to post. But first, here is a quick glance into my summer in art & design:

1. Graphic Design—Now in Production 

Co-organized by Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and the Walker Art Center. Held on Governor's Island off New York City.

Pages of exhibition catalog from the Cooper-Hewitt.

 Unfortunately while this exhibit is now over, it was a wonderful collection of all forms of design. The small building was packed with so much information, it was extraordinary. Not too mention you then get to spend the day on Governor's Island, which is such a wonderful place for a public park (and free!). While the group I was with did not quite have the patience to explore the whole exhibit (it was an overwhelming amount of content) we found a few choice pieces. I particularly enjoyed the collection by Anthony Burrill:

The piece on the bottom right, Oil & Water Do Not Mix is screen printed with oil from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster. For more information about the exhibit, look at the Cooper Hewitt Website: Graphic Design - Now in Production

2. Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations
Curated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in Manhattan, New York 

The success of the Met's Costume Institute has been on the rise in the past few years and the exhibits are becoming more and more popular. A fashion-savvy friend of mine chose this trip for us and while I'm what you would call the opposite of fashion-savvy it was still a fun exhibit. Regardless of your knowledge of fashion, it is fun for any designer to see the comparisons between the works of these two icons. Unfortunately this exhibition is also over, but you can see more on the Met's website: Costume Institute

3. The Allure of Japan
Curated from works housed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts

The Modern Poster by William H. Bradley (1895)

Now for an exhibit a little bit closer to home. The Museum of Fine Arts, like most museums, has an extensive collection that you rarely even get to see. So they fill several of their smaller galleries with exhibits curated from their own collections. This is always fun as you get to see a broad array of work from many artists with nice simple themes. This year, the MFA's Allure of Japan explores the American fascination with Japanese art around 1900 and the impact it had on artists, particularly poster designers. While the exhibit only fills one room I found myself taking pictures of everything on my phone so I could look up the artist later. In short, I loved it.This exhibit is still running! Hooray! It will be open until the end of the year.

4. Summer Reading
Books acquired over the summer...

McSweeney's Issue 13 - This McSweeny's Issue is compiled solely of comics, even the dust jacket is a comic poster that is folded up and wrapped around the cover! This one was quite a find at the used bookstore basement at the Brooklyn Booksmith for only $15.




 

 The Illustrated Life:Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers by Danny Gregory - This awesome books is a collection of pages from various artists sketchbooks including R. Crumb, James Jean and many others.

Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton - I took a typography class over the summer and this was one of our required readings. It was a wonderful compilation of interesting reading and excellent graphics (including this one).

5. Poster Project 

Working at Massachusetts College of Art and Design (even in an Admin. Assistant position) exposes to me to some really great projects people are working on. I spent the summer working on the administrative side of a traveling gallery show of posters designed to raise awareness on a variety of issues, from natural disasters to social injustice. I got to see a whole lot of incredible work and artists I had never encountered. Here's a small sampling:

(Left to right) Lives in Danger by Hiroyuki Matsuishi, Susana Machicao, Weapons of Mass Creation by Angryblue

More posts (of my art!) to follow soon...