Passport, luggage and our Google Spreadsheet.......

We have been preparing for our up coming trip to Europe and doing research on galleries we plan to visit.   I love this time prior to going on holidays.  The pre-holiday research time, to me, is where my holiday begins.  This is where I get to read about the places that are off the tourist track, a little bit odd or unusual and very interesting. This time ALWAYS involves the birth of a big Google docs spreadsheet.  It is then filled with places we want to check out.  Cafes to walk to, restaurants to sample, exhibitions to see, little fabric/handmade shops to visit (me)  and bicycle/shoe shops (martino) to check out. Its like putting together our own personal guide of the cities we will go to.   We have been very fortunate to do this for many cities we have visited.  Tho, not something we stick to in absolute, its good to know we have a list of places we can walk to after a long and lazy lunch and bottle of Pinot ;-)

Researching Copenhagen at the moment I came across this Brooklyn based artist Tom Fruin. His work Kolonihavehus is located in the plaza of the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen.  Tom works with reclaimed pieces of coloured plexiglass sourced from various locations in the cities he has installations in.  For the Copenhagen installation he used plexiglass from a frame shop, a closed down plexi glass distributor and even the trash from the Danish Architecture Centre.

Kolonihavehus:: Allotment in Danish

His most recent work :: Watertower ::  is located in DUMBO,  Brooklyn until June 2013.   For this work he used thousands of scraps of plexiglass sourced from such varied locations as from the floorsof Chinatown sign shops, to the closed DUMBO studio of artist DennisOppenheim, to Astoria’s demolition salvage warehouse Build It Green!NYC.





A beautiful addition to an already magnificent cityscape. 

Hope to share more of what I discover......

ETSY Portraits - Arts for Transit - Sophie Blackall

I recently watched this Etsy Portraits video featuring Australian born Brooklyn based Artist Sophie Blackall, a successful children's book illustrator, as well as author of Missed Connections - Love Lost and Found. Sophies illustrations are inspired by the many ads placed in the Missed Connections section of online bulletin board Craigslist. For those not familiar with Missed Connections/Craigslist, the idea is this: You are on a train/at a park/at a private party in some trendy Soho Loft and you happen to make a connection with a stranger and by some twist of fate, nothing ever eventuates. You cant get that person out of your head and you hope that by some chance, they feel the same. So what does a New Yorker do? they place an ad in Missed Connections. Where they hope, by some chance, to reconnect with that person. Sophie spent many hours reading the ads and drew inspiration from them to illustrate her favorites. Here are some of mine:

The New York MTA recently invited Sophie to create a poster for their Arts for Transit program for 2012.  The program invites 2 artists a year to design Subway related posters that will then appear on the trains all over the city.  For this Sophie had to to narrow down her list of characters to only 34 (as that was what the space provided would allow).  I imagine this would have been very hard for her, as looking at all her work, there is surely enough there for at least 3 posters!

Here are my 2 favorite scenes from the poster:

 

 Having ridden on the subway many times, I can assure you that Sophie would have enough inspiration to draw her characters from for many years to come.   One of the many reasons why Martino and I love the city.

View and purchase the poster via the MTA site here

Visit Sophies Etsy store to purchase her work here

Ole! Ole! Olek...

Polish born NYC based artist Olek has done it this time.....taken her magical super duper crochet skills straight to the bull.....the Wall Street Bull that is!

This very imaginative artist has crocheted ladders, tents, cars, windows - entire rooms even! Check out her cool video below and enjoy the music. Very clever. To think her main reason for crocheting was so that she could do two things at once - watch movies and make art.


OLEK AND THE CHARGING BULL ON WALL STREET from olek on Vimeo.

Visit her website to see other bright works she has completed.

Coffee or tea with your creations......

I recently read an article about the growing trend of coffee shops combining with yarn stores to create a place where both experienced and newbie crafters come together in the one place to hone their skills.   I for one LOVE this idea.  What a great way to create community and be able to interact with like minded people.  Also a good way to share skills and be able to swap ideas or even work on group projects with others.  With communal tables, cups of tea/coffee and yummy treats, what a wonderful way to spend a few hours (or your day off from the office) being in a place conducive to creating.

Here are some places around the globe doing it nicely:


Wool and the Gang - NYC

Cool kits to knit!

A party like no other!

Started by a Swiss and a New Zealander now based in NYC.  They specialize in selling funky knitting kits as well ready made pieces made from quality wool sourced from the Andean Highlands of Peru. Apart from a cool cool name, they also have fun events like knitting brunches!

For more info visit their site


Sweatshop - Paris

Wool chic comes to the the 10th arrondissement

More photos and details available via Cool Hunting

Here in Sydney we now have A Coffee and a Yarn located on the south side of King Street in Newtown.  I went to check it out earlier this year and although I was only there for a quick coffee, it looked like a great space and somewhere I would come back to, once I was ready to pick up the crochet or knitting needles.   Amy from Badskirt did a great review and also got to chat to the owner Ellie.  Here are some photos from Amy's blog.

I dream of one day owning a place like this, where not only knitters and sewing artists come together, but jewelry artists, softie creators, beaders, sculptors, paper cutters,  all creative types are welcome. A really fun place where we all come and share our crafts and learn new ones from each other.

Brooklyn wall art - May 2010

Feeling a little nostalgic I sat with a nice cuppa and went through the photos of a trip to New York City we took for my birthday earlier this year.    NYC is a long way away from Sydney.  It takes almost 22 hours to fly there.  These pics take me there in but a second.....oh how we love you NY!