Chris Ware

The other day I was looking through my books when I rediscovered how much I love the work of the awarding winning, Chris Ware. I remember writing an essay about him at uni just when he published his graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth in 2000.

I have to say I'm not a huge comic book fan (although I was brought up on children's comics such as Rupert the Bear and Beano). But I just fell in love with Ware's comic book style as it is so graphic; beautifully laid out and disarmingly lighthearted. Amazingly he draws all these precise images by hand using 'old skool' techniques such as pencil, rulers, compasses, set squares etc so no computers are involved in the process. The amount of detail he adds to his pages is just outstanding and they have a very filmic feel about them, especially when he pans out on an image or magnifies it.

Quimby the Mouse is perhaps his most autobiographical character which bears a similar resemblance to the early animation characters like Felix the Cat and he is also well known for the series called the Acme Novelty Library.


Strangely Ware also illustrated issue 13 of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern book (which is a quarterly literary review of various writings). McSweeney's are an American publishing house which helps young writers, which coincidentally is part of the 826National group. Such a small world...

Pen-Paper-Scissors at the V&A

My busy weekend started on Friday night when I went to support my man who was partaking in the Secret Wars live drawing battle at the V&A between the illustration agencies: Debut Art and Dutch Uncle.

Three illustrators from each agency went head to head against the clock (they had an hour) and could only use black pens to draw on the white boards. They also weren't allowed to prep beforehand. The illustrators were: Chris Price, Craig Ward and Serge Seidlitz from Debut Art (the board on the left) and Noma Bar, Dermot Flynn and Kustaa Saksi from Dutch Uncle.

I was of course biased, but the best team won, it was 3-0 to Debut (two judges votes plus the audiences). A good night was had by all. The rest of the weekend we spent painting, of a different kind...dreaded decorating!

Roos invade London

Twenty of these life-sized Roos have popped up over London for a week to promote Kangaroo Island and South Australia as a tourist destination - as if it needs it!

They have been each uniquely designed by South Australian and UK celebrities, students, artists and sponsors such as Elle Macpherson, GMTV presenter Richard Arnold and South Australian artists Peter Coad and Emma Hack. At the end of the promotion they will be auctioned off for charity.

Once you have spotted all 20 kangaroos go here to enter to win a trip for four to Adelaide and Kangaroo Island.

Somewhere over the rainbow...

Amy Casey's house series reminds me of Dorothy Gale's house (from The Wizard of Oz) which gets swept up in the tornado before landing in Oz. Which led me to think that maybe she grew up in a hurricane state...But after reading an article about her, I now understand that these paintings are a reflection of the current global housing crisis and her anxiety towards the state of the world; “natural and unnatural disasters, personal fiascos and the never-ending stream of bad news coming in from the media”.

Her houses balance on stings, stilts or are strewn as debris but they all play characters in her narrative, inspired by a reoccurring nightmare:

She started painting houses in 2006 to protect their inhabitants from huge, choking alien-like plants. Casey moved the houses up on to stilts. The stilts collapsed. The plants disappeared, replaced by growing piles of demolished houses. She attached her houses to ropes. Ropes broke. Couches and toys spilled out through broken floorboards. Clumps of houses sit in mid-air tangled, yet temporarily rescued, in telephone wire - Megan Lykins Reich, curator

For me the earthy sepia-esque tones; her eye for detail and the playful compositions, depicting fragility of the way houses are built so close to each other, are what I like the most. I hope that I get to see her work exhibited soon.

Toynbee Tiles

We went to Philadelphia for the day back in May, and I couldn't help but notice strange tiles on the roads. I've since looked into these mysterious modern artifacts and found out that they appear all over the USA - with different varieties and some as large as a car number plate. They are called Toynbee tiles (or Toynbee plaques). It's believed that the first, and larger ones, were placed in the 1980s. Over time they have got smaller and have varied in fonts and styling. It's uncertain whether it's the work of a single person or a group.

The graffiti tiles tend to be located in the middle of busy streets and highways where they wear away quickly or instead they resurface. Apparently tiles are wrapped in tar paper and placed on a busy street early in the morning, then the pressure of heavy vehicles driving over them for weeks on end pushes it into the road surface. Eventually, the tar paper wears away, exposing similar messages:

TOYNBEE IDEA MOVIE 2001 RESURRECT (sometimes "RAISE") DEAD PLANET JUPITER

The tiles might be made of layers of linoleum and asphalt crack-filling compound, but again no-one is sure. I think that something so cryptic that can cause such controversy is just fabulous, but it does annoy me that I might never find out what they are for!

Madewell

Madewell (a J.Crew Group spin-off) is a lovely shop in Soho, NY. Madewell, established in 1937, was inspired by a Massachusetts workwear label of the same name. It's two-storey store has a nice feel to it with its white washed brick, wooden floors and lovely old New York sepia maps on the walls - shame I don't have any interior shots for you, but if you are on Broome Street then take a peek.

Letterpress

I love to see something en masse, which is why I love Tor Pettersen's reception. This type spans 2 floors of the design agency just off Soho Square and looks so amazing.

The letterpress collection in Tor Pettersen reminds me these unique woodletter collages from The Old Printing Shop. They are also inset in the original type trays, that have been cut to size, which I think is a nice touch. A larger version would make for a very lovely coffee table.

Bermondsey Street

On the way to the Jam Factory, we walked down one of my favourite streets in London - Bermondsey Street. I love it here becuase it's unlike any other London street, it's a real slice of old London. Although it looks slightly run down due to the age of some of the buildings (not helped by the paint peeling off them) nestled between these eclectic edifices are lovely conversions, old painted signs and quaint and yet funky pubs.

Hartley's Jam Factory

On Friday we were invited to a friends for dinner at The Jam Factory. Working in the London Bridge area I've heard about the historic factory many times and so I took the invite with much enthusiasm.

Hartley's jam factory was built in 1901 and can be found between London Bridge and the Old Kent Road. In 1999 plans were in place to convert the factory into live/work warehouse/loft spaces, mixing the old with the new. The site is an impressive 285,000 sq ft. The factory's blueprint lofts and penthouses were pre-designed by some of Britain's leading young architects, such as the likes of Ian Simpson, Maya Vuksa, Paul Daly, Azman Owens and Softroom.

The flats (some spanning two floors) are impressive and have been converted beautifully whilst still keeping lovely elements of what it used to be. I've always had a huge soft spot for any kind of conversion - whether it's a Victorian school; church; barn or factory the Jam Factory certainly didn't disappoint.

Ladder bookcase

So I was trawling the net looking for some kooky side/console table for our living room when I got completely side tracked and found this beautiful ladder bookcase. Luckily our ceilings are tall enough to house it, but unfortunately with prices starting at £1,695 my bank account is not as accommodating!! So it's back to the drawing board for my table...any suggestions welcome!







This 'Ladder Bookcase' is designed by Autoban (Seyhan Özdemir & Sefer Çaglar) for De La Espada. Although it is too expensive for me, you can't deny this gorgeous handcrafted ladder bookcase is worth every penny. Its unusual height (over eight feet tall) and slim profile make it versatile and the lowest rung is the ideal height for a nightstand or side table. Oh well...

Good as Gauld

Another talented illustration duo are Tom Gauld & Simone Lia - they again met at Uni and started self-publishing their own comics under Cabanon press.

Their first comic book together was aptly named First and they then followed it with Second. Later on they published both editions in one book entitled Both. They do their own stuff too and I've picked up a few of their editioned comic books in my favourite London bookshop - Magma. Tom is one of my favourite all time illustrators. I just love his sharp-witted and simple line drawings. If I could draw like him, I wouldn't stop! My favourite is The Hairy Monster a guide - 7 plates drawn by Tom Gauld in edition of 500 copies (2006).

kozyndan

kozyndan are a husband-and-wife team, based in LA, who met on a painting course. Kozyndan is their joint pseudonym. I first came across their prints in the V&A museum shop and just had to get them:

Rabbits have become their hallmark - mainly because they had rabbits at home and they became their only life models. This is certainly apparent in the images above; if you look closely you'll see the waves, blossoms and leaves etc are all made up of hundreds of bunnies! There are also nod's to Kozy's native country, Japan, with the use of Japanese parchment textures and the references to Hokusai. Their witty urban landscapes are amazingly detailed.
"We love the human energy of a city and the hustle and bustle. So we're bringing animals into that and fusing two loves - the natural world in opposition to the technological world"- Dan Kitchen, kozyndan.

Random type

Here are some random type treatments I spotted around Chelsea and the Meat Packing district in NY.