Art/Design Moooi: Temple to Dutch Cool

July 9, 2010 - 10:22 am

mooi

Walking into Moooi in Amsterdam is like walking into the Nubby Twiglet home planet.

Like my frequent collaborator, Moooi revels in the symphony of hard black and white.  Moooi is a top Dutch design gallery, opened in early 2009 and now weighted with awards and selling around the world.  When you step inside, you’re nearly blinded by the light coming off the shining white floors.  Then, you look again.

Table sized silkscreens.  Lamps so large they reduce you to a post-potion-quaffing Alice.  A silver horse grinning over the couch where you leaf through art books. A chandelier that’s a spiderlike Borg of a dozen desk lamps.

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Art/Design The Amsterdam Urban Art Festival

July 8, 2010 - 11:44 am

Amsterdam Urban Art Festival - 07

On June 26th, girlthings and art monkeys were let lose over Amsterdam.  They climbed trees, jumped from buildings.  The little bastards even bit.

Amsterdam Urban Art Festival

Unleashing evil art imps was my part in the Urban Art Festival.  Produced by the sprawling American Book Center and sponsored by Red Bull, the UAF is a celebration of craft, street, DIY and underground art.  Creators gathered from as far afield as Greece and the US to transform the Spui into a guerilla art playground.  The Ladies Fancywork Society crocheted elaborate cozies for bikes.  Autobahn carved tweets in stone.  The stunning Lotta from Utrecht rocked a pirate hat at a free, sun-drenched Dr. Sketchy’s.

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Art/Design Confessions of a Yarn Bomber

July 6, 2010 - 10:45 am

Yarn Bombing 101

Imagine a city after it snows.  Imagine the white blanket softening all the sharp edges, hiding the filth.  Now, imagine that blanket is real.

This is something of what yarn bombing strives to do.  Yarn bombers do knitting as street art- creating cozies for chain link fence – throwing lace and flowers over the harsh contours of urban life.  Yarn bombers mix the illegal daring of graffiti writers with a traditionally female craft-form, making something both joyous and subversive.

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