chocolate

Oceanic Craters Ceramic and Glass Dish by seaurchin @ Etsy.

Whenever you come upon the Simply Gorgeous and Beautiful it is better to just sit back and let the artist do the talking :

One-off ceramic sculpture, this low dish has a pattern of large double craters. The bowl is made of sculptural white clay and has been glazed with a matt ivory stoneware with chocolate brown in the craters. Aqua coloured glass has been melted into some of the craters and the edges have been highlighted with gold lustre. Some of the craters are pierced right through, and some are very thin so you can see the light coming through….this gives an interesting effect with the glass.

The dish is 4.5inches/11.5cm across and 1inch/2.5cm high.

All of my sea urchin and coral ceramic sculptures are individual and experimental, and very personal to me….my true artwork!

This is intended as an object of beauty only….it is not intended for food use.

You can read more about Lisa Stevens on her profile and on the “featured seller” page @ Etsy.

She also has a Flickr.

Phony Pie - “Gerry Glitter” + Phony Pie - “Tom Pussy” by Applepiepussy on DaWanda.

I’m a sucker for colors. I just seem to never get enough of them. They’re one of the reasons I started buying toys and as a photographer I don’t think I will ever want to use black & white much more. So of course when browsing sites like Etsy, DaWanda or Flickr colors are mostly what I am looking for and my lists of favorites are bursting with them.

This is why I’m starting this series called “The World in Technicolor”.

#1 Applepiepussy on DaWanda

They’ve got names such as “Crazy Cupcake”, “Phony Pie”, “Female Chauvinist Pig”, “Lucky Bastard” etc and for the most part they are meant to get attached to your phone (or whatever you like). They’re wonderfully cute, beautiful and full of colors. They’re not expensive. They are made by Mariko who has started Applepiepussy to be able to create “cute accessories” while she is mainly working with her boyfriend in their design agency Loaded ink in The Netherlands.

Edit : On March 2nd 2008, Applepiepussy no longer has a shop on DaWanda, you will now find all her creations on applepiepussy.com + she also has a great gallery on Flickr.

Large Whirl #1 + Pebble Cup in Orange + Pebble Pendant in Aqua + Small Whirl #4

When it comes to objects, there’s really Shape & Material. Well I grant you there is also this great dynamic duo called “Form & Function” but let’s just stick to the “Shape & Material” thing. Indeed, you can have the most wonderful color, if the shapes and materials are not right, then it’s just useless, it will never be right.

Kim Westad, since she expresses her art with clay, should know about materials. She used to be a graphic designer but she says her life changed when she decided to take a pottery class. And anyone over the age of 5 having one day put their hands into clay will understand exactly what she means. Because with these arts that require some technique either it’s like some Big Revelation, or more often than not, you just suck at it and you know it will take quite some time before you make anything more than heart-shaped ashtrays - if you ever do. (And although I have had some urges to try myself at the stuff, as you may have guessed to my great dismay I somehow am stuck in the latter category.)

So Kim Westad has this thing with clay, and she also has this great sense of “shape”. To be honest I am not fond of all her creations (some of them are a bit too classical for my taste) but the ones I like I really love. I find her Whirls Collection, and most of all her “Large whirl #1″ - the white ones being my favorites anyway - amazing. Those pieces have a powerful architectural quality (she herself acknowledges to the architectural influences, and they definitely arouse images of the Guggenheim in New York or of some of Niemeyer’s works) and an impressive simplicity about them that make them look more like sculptures than mere decorating objects.

Her Pebbles Cups in Orange or in Chocolate, her Pebble Bowls, Sweet Peas and Votive Holders are also very nice.

She is currently living and working in New York but she ships internationally.

She has been an Etsy Featured Seller in June 2007.
You might also want to read her interview on Crafty Synergy (a great blog I discovered writing this article).

www.kimwestad.com

ice flower tank for girls + camilla, crazy dot, half-apron for girls + playtime sugar cookies in a lil bakery box + playtime sugar cookies in a mini-valise style lunchbox, limited edition by nanaCompany on Etsy.

Those are only a few of the exquisite items you will find in Amy Sinibaldi’s shop!

I first noticed the cookies because I am only just discovering “felt food” so every time I come across one of these things, I feel like a child and look with amazement. But very often having said “how cute” well, there’s not much more left. I mean these things are “cool” and “nice” indeed but, so what? You see them and like them, and then usually forget about them.

I think Amy’s cookies go beyond the “cuteness thing”. They have this special quality, a kind of perfection achieved no doubt with carefully chosen materials and great care and love making them. Look at the full sized image on her Flickr here. Aren’t they just the nicest cookies you ever saw? Don’t you feel like touching them? I myself am not into pinky things and yet they appeal to me in a way I cannot totally explain.

Somehow I think there is something magical in Amy’s creations. She writes :

My husband likens me to a magic elf who only works when everyone’s asleep — pretty little things “magically” appear on the kitchen table in the morning!

I like the Fairy Tale imagery, because I think it acounts a lot for the beautiful world nanaCompany proposes. Those creations seem to me to be more related to a fantastic and ideal world than to the “real” world.

They are meant to be gifts :

a unique and special gift… perfect as a birthday present, end of school surprise, or merry happy un-birthday treat!

And this is exactly what they are, “unique and special”, thus clearly stating to the child you are offering them “you are unique and special and deserve to have beautiful things because I care about you”.

Amy Sinibaldi is making them for little girls, and the modern woman in me - noticed how I managed not to say the word “feminist” here, oops now i’ve said it - the modern woman in me is wondering why it is still only girls who should get offered cooking ustensils (the miniature “just-her-size” wooden spoon) and aprons. Some might argue that the fabrics nanaCompany uses have definitely “girly” patterns and colors. I am not so sure. And anyway, cookies are not just for girls, are they ? And the kitchen is no longer the realm of women exclusively, at least not in my world…

This being said, Amy Sinibaldi’s creations are more modern and less “conservative” or “nostalgic” than they might appear at first sight. The fabrics she uses are elegant and I particularly like the from tokyo with love apron, and pink lemonade is fresh and nice too. There is also another tank with a bit more color and less classical feel to it : pretty posy tank.

Note that she can customize your order. For instance you can ask for your favorite color for the buttons on the ice flower tank. You can also order an adult size apron for 28$… (Anyway she pretty much makes everything upon order, so that you have to allow 2 weeks for your order to be ready to ship.)

Enjoy !

nanaCompany on Flickr

Designers of Tomorrow : Ragnheidur Osp Sigurdardottir

I stumbled upon Ragnheidur’s work on This is Blythe Forum and even though she showed only a few pictures of her work - she is still young and is currently studying product design at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan - those few pictures clearly pointed to some strong personality and a great talent. Ragnheidur was born in 1981 and comes from Reykjavik, Iceland which accounts for her Northern sounding name : Ragnheidur Osp Sigurdardottir.

Her work is both elegant and familiar. The objects she makes are beautiful without being intimidating. They have something of the obvious in them - a quality not easily attained and which requires work and talent. They have not yet been produced but you wish you could already find them in shops.

Amongst those projects she would like to see produced, the Pick Me chocolates look very promising. She has thought of making them herself and selling them, but what she really wants is to work with a chocolatier that makes premium chocolate. There is also her Aromalarm, an alarm clock that wakes up and puts people to sleep with aroma. Here is what she wrote to me when I asked her how it was really working :

The Aromalarm is still a concept but I thought of it working in a way where you buy little capsules containing different aromas and inserting them inside the clock (on bottom). They would then get attached to tubes that would release the aroma depending on if you are falling asleep or waking up. If it ever gets made and could really function, I would like there to be all kinds of different aromas to buy.

And although it is not exactly the kind of things I like, I must admit that the way she worked on the BENJAMIN stool designed by Lisa Norinder and produced by IKEA by drilling holes in it and decorating it with brodery - she calls it Bentey - is very interesting. I came to think about it afterwards which is always a good sign with objects. I think it works better with some color and the brodery on top so that you don’t get to see the reverse side of it, but on the other end, this version has a more modern touch and is really inspiring.

And I love her digital patterns for ceramic tiles! I think it goes way beyond what you usually see that has been made with a computer. (Edit : The tile patterns are not available any more on her new website. You can only see this one on her Portfolio at coroflot.com. 27 August 2007)

Ragnheidur Osp Sigurdardottir’s links :
Umemi : her website.
Her Portfolio.
And Everything Nice, part of her research for her thesis on cuteness.
And would you believe it, she has a pug too! Hers is called Panda, you can see pictures of her on Ragnheidur Osp Sigurdardottir’s Flickr.