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‘swell things’ Category

  1. Swell Things No. 44 // Henry Hébert

    June 30, 2017 by Erin Fletcher

    Back for another guest post is my good friend and fellow classmate, Henry Hébert. His picks this year include some fellow bookbinders (and one of their cats), a secluded bookbinding haven and some old comforts.

    1. Zdzisław Beksiński, Untitled, oil on fibreboard: Beksiński’s dystopian surrealism is gorgeous and haunting. My favorite paintings are like this one, combining religious iconography with almost alien textures. You can see a virtual gallery of his work here.
    2. Lahey Hemostatic Foreceps: Adam Larsson, Conservator at Uppsala University Library, clued me in to using long surgical tools for quickly lacing sewing supports through paper case bindings.
    3. Darwin: I picked this print up at Horse + Hero in Asheville, NC. This line from some of Charles Darwin’s 1861 correspondence pretty much sums up how I feel most mornings.
    4. Dark Souls: I think this video game from 2011 is still one of the best games ever made. Fun to play, excellent design, and weird, weird story telling.
    5. Bradel the Cat: Noted bookbinder and artist Karen Hanmer is the caretaker of this wonderful Abyssinian cat.

    6. Trump stress ball: News getting you down? Take your frustration out by squeezing a tiny version of our president’s dumb head.
    7. Rocks: I recently saw some of these decorated, parchment-wrapped rocks made by Shanna Leino. They were just such curious, fun little objects – I had to put them on this list.
    8.  Oxbow: I just attended my first Paper & Book Intensive, held at the Ox-bow School of Art in Saugutuck, MI. It was a pretty magical opportunity to disconnect from the outside world and focus on bookbinding.
    9. Jodorowsky’s Dune: This documentary about Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed attempt to make a film based on Frank Herbert’s Dune is wonderful. Some of my favorite artists were all set to collaborate on the project, and many award-winning projects were produced from the wreckage.
    10. Mini-dividers: Brien Beidler makes some really nice brass tools. I just happened to have a pair of tiny plastic hands on me when he showed me these mini brass dividers. I still laugh every time I look at this mini-hand-modeling photo.

  2. Swell Things No. 43

    May 31, 2017 by Erin Fletcher

    1. With the effects of climate change looming around us and little to no action being taken by politicians, it feels imminent that our majestic National Parks will lose their brilliance. As apart of the New Deal, artists from the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project were hired to create posters that would inspire tourism to our National Parks. Using these impactful and iconic posters, artist Hannah Rothstein reimagined landscapes ravaged by climate change as a new call to action.
    2. This photography series from Joanne Leah is captivating, jarring and definitely not safe for work. In her work, she is contorting and constraining the body to play with themes of exhibitionism and voyeurism, of public and private. How we inhabit our bodies, while simultaneously trying to escape them. Whatever your relationship is with your body, you will find something within these images to connect with.
    3. I would love to stumble upon one of Lewis Miller Design‘s floral arrangements that are popping up around New York City in random empty trash bins.
    4. If you’re looking to hire an illustrator or want some inspiration from a fellow female artist, check out Women Who Draw. This website is a great resource that not only promotes female illustrators, but puts a spotlight on women of all faiths, ethnicities and sexual orientations from all over the world. Above is the work of Liuna Virardi.
    5. Swedish artist Ulla-Stina Wikander, covers common and obsolete objects, with brightly cross-stitched landscapes. Many of her picturesque scenes are reminiscent of discarded paintings one might find in an second-hand shop. But the lush colors and thick threads breath new life into both these unwanted objects and images.

    6. Add a bit of flair and embroidery to your walls with Claire Coles magnificent appliqué wallpaper murals. The embroidery work is a bit chaotic and wobbly, which I love paired with the lush imagery and color palettes.
    7. The British Library recently digitized one of the world’s largest books. With the aid of several people and massive supports, the 41 maps of the 1660 Klencke Atlas are now accessible for everyone. Check out the time lapse video documenting the digitization process.
    8. The British Museum recently embarked on conserving one of the largest prints ever produced. Made from 195 woodblocks on 36 sheets of paper that measure to four by three meters, Albrecht Dürer’s 1515-17 Triumphal Arch was acquired by the museum in 1834 and assembled 1890 for display. Ingenuity and unconventional tools were used to tackle this massive project, such as a nasal aspirator to help disperse pulp infilling. Check out the blog, where the staff at the museum documented all aspects of the process like digitization and removing the degraded linen backing.
    9. In his series, Face of A Nation, artist Guney Soykan splices together the most recognizable portraits of a countries leaders to create a composite representation of each country. The wider the splice the longer that leader was in power. These portraits create an unique visual timeline of a nation’s history with politics.
    10. In The Book of Circles, Manuel Lima explores humankind’s attraction to the circle as a form of data visualization. With so many topics expressed through circular charts from celestial maps and air pollution to population growth and zoology, Lima goes in depth to our universally accepted method of communicating data across cultures and centuries.

  3. Swell Things No. 42 // Callen Evans Williams

    April 30, 2017 by Erin Fletcher

    Callen Evans Williams is a super cool gal living in San Francisco. We met through a mutual friend at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, but after graduation we fell out of touch. However, some years later we both ended up in Boston at the same time working at the same Paper Source. How serendipitous! I knew Callen would be a perfect fit for Swell Things. She approaches art and design with so much appreciation and consideration to both the artist and their process. I second her nod to Travel Man, as Callen was the one who introduced me to the show, it’s quite hilarious and you’ll especially enjoy it if you love The IT Crowd.

    1. Steve Reich is Calling: This witty project by Seth Kranzler (found via Kottke) made me laugh and wonder what else in my daily life could be a Steve Reich composition.
    2. Multidisciplinary sculpture artist Cindy Zell manages to arrange rope into so many unique and appealing forms (and watching her process could be a meditative practice!)
    3. Porter Teleo’s wallpaper and fabrics are completely hand-painted. As you might imagine, this is the kind of luxury that shows up in celebrity homes and interiors by design-giant Kelly Wearstler…but what I really love is how they hire art graduates in the midwest and employ them to make one-of-a-kind work.
    4. In Travel Man, Richard Ayoade invites other funny people on 48-hour vacations to foreign lands. Short, sweet, hilarious, awkward–it might be the best 25 minutes of your day.
    5. In his new book Finding Shelter, photographer Jesse Friedin shares touching portraits of shelter animals and the volunteers who care for them.

    6. In this frustrating, fearful and uncertain time, I am buoyed by the outpouring of activism and artful response to our national politics. It often seems that these issues are out of our hands when in fact many individual actions and voices do make a difference. Love Letter America shares postcard art (like this one by Oliver Jeffers) that you can freely download to send your legislators some snail mail. (If you want something even easier that doesn’t require printing or postage, check out resistbot –you write a text message and they make it a fax to your senators!)
    7. San Francisco artist Jen Garrido reminds you that even if you’re a grown-ass professional woman, you’ll never be over florals, especially when they’re this lush, delicate and evocative. (If you are also a fan, you may like to know she has a current collaboration with Anthropologie.)
    8. Erin invited me to tag along to Codex this year, and it was an eye opening experience! I was amazed at the amount of skill, creativity and craftsmanship under one roof–and by how very well-read you bookbinders are! One piece that caught my attention was Precipitous by Nicole Pietrantoni. These accordion books display striking photographs of rising sea levels with overlaid poems by Devin Wootten. They are at once beautiful and foreboding.
    9. It’s been almost 2 years since we moved from the east coast to Northern California, and it’s grown on me fast. I am starting to see how the style and culture of California, and the bay area in particular, influence aesthetics nationwide. Mason St. Peter is an architect whose work seems to embody that laid-back California spirit.
    10. One of my favorite aspects of my work as a design assistant is product research and discovering amazing artists, designers and makers of all kinds. Willie Weston is a company in Australia that collaborates with Indigenous artists to create textiles and wallpapers. I’m especially fond of the colors in all the variations of Singing Bush Medicine by Colleen Ngwarraye Morton.

  4. Swell Things No. 41

    March 31, 2017 by Erin Fletcher

    1. Back in December at the Northampton Book Fair, I got a chance to visit with Laurie Alpert and discuss her sculptural work with Joomchi paper. There is so much texture and color packed into each piece, absolutely gorgeous.
    2. This guy is so wonderful, he creates a sweater of a scene and then takes a picture of himself wearing that sweater at that location.
    3. I love the design work of artist Michelle Leigh.
    4. Ever wonder how the peace symbol was designed?
    5. In his book, Gowanus Waters, photographer Steven Hirsch captures the vibrant and galactic qualities of the toxic waters of the Gowanus Canal in New York.

    6. Photographer David Burdeny traveled to western Australia, Utah’s Great Salt Lake and the Mojave Desert to capture salt pans and dry lake beds. The otherworldly colors resulting from both human and organic forces.
    7. Check out this New Yorker article on a box at the Institut de France labeled Objet Un. The contents of this box are the charred remains of papyrus from Herculaneum. Along with Pompeii, Herculaneum was destroyed during the eruption of Mr. Vesuvius in A.D. 79. After a bit a history lesson the article goes into how technology may finally reveal what the scroll inside this box actually says.
    8. The embroidery work of Danielle Clough is mind-blowing. Danielle creates her pieces with a heavy stroke of bold and layered stitches. Many of her pieces are beautiful portraits, but she has even created some embroidered pieces on tennis rackets.
    9. A restoration project recently began on the Purrington-Russell Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage Round the World, an 1848 panorama owned by the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts. This particular panorama stretches 1,275 feet in length and stands eight and a half feet tall, that’s about the same length as 14 blue whales. You can read more about it here.
    10. Jim Gaylord is an artist based in Brooklyn making large scale painted paper collages. I’m amazed by his ability to create depth and movement with layered paper.

  5. Swell Things No. 40 // Jason Fletcher

    February 28, 2017 by Erin Fletcher

    Another year of Swell Things guest post are back and I’m excited to present this collection of bookmarks from my husband Jason Fletcher. As a Science Visualizer for the Charles Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Science, Jason has been focusing on the growth of VR and 360º video. Check out his blog, The Fulldome Blog, to read more about interests surrounding the planetarium community. Enjoy!

    1. This is a short film called Waiting Far Away, I created as a backburner project at the planetarium. It’s about an explorer of the cosmos has traveled much too far… And can’t find his way home.
    2. And I just can’t ignore Missy Elliott. She’s so weird and I love her style.
    3. Wanderers is a vision of humanity’s expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like. The locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where available.
    4. Black Snake in Sacred Waters is a VR documentary about the North Dakota Oil Pipeline protest. It’s powerful to watch as one of the crowd.
    5. Mathew Borrett creates wonderful labyrinthine drawings of interconnected rooms within blank space.

    6. Constructive Interference is a sculpture designed to mystify the senses. It’s a static object that appears, impossibly, to be moving.
    7. While astronauts are onboard the ISS they often take photos of earths surface for scientists to study. But each day they have some free time to relax and sometimes they experiment with long exposure photography.
    8. Goro Fujita wanted to experiment with the infinite canvas of “Quill”, a VR painting app. This wonderful piece is appropriately named Worlds in Worlds.
    9. Jonty Hurwitz creates anamorphic sculptures which can only be understood when viewed through a cylindrical mirror. So it’s both an abstract and realistic sculpture at the same time.
    10. Stardust is a story about Voyager 1, which is the unmanned spacecraft launched in 1977 to explore the outer solar system. The probe is the furthest man-made object from the sun and witnesses unimaginable beauty and destruction.

  6. Swell Things No. 39 // Zürich Edition

    January 31, 2017 by Erin Fletcher

    To ring in the new year, my husband and I went to Zürich with a few friends. This walkable city was filled with delightful street art and museums, breathtaking views over bridges, scrumptious cheese and delectable chocolate (and did I mention cheese). Here are a few of the things I enjoyed during our trip.

    1. It was so fun to wander through the large-scale installation work of Phyllida Barlow that was on display at Kunsthalle. We got to navigate through wooden beams splashed with paint, massive foam sculptures and other curious construction items.
    2. The cloister at the Fraumünster Church, a women’s abbey built in 853, is adorned with several floor to ceiling frescos by Paul Bodmer. The style of painting was more reminiscent of oil pastel, with the movement of the hand being quite visible. The frescos were captivating, but not the reason for our visit. Check out number eight for more about the Fraumünster.
    3. There are so many medieval-style paintings on building facades around the city. I was particularly pleased by this one of “Der Bücherskorpion”, such a pesky little creature.
    4. After strolling along the Viadukt, a unique collection of shops and restaurants built within the viaducts of the Industriequartier district railway, we passed by an alley adorned with floating umbrellas.
    5. During a trip to Kunsthaus, I discovered a new admiration for the work of Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler. On the second floor of the Kunsthaus, an entire room is dedicated to his large-scale Parallelism paintings and small-scale landscapes. His creative use of color to create shadows and highlights were inspiring to see up close.

    6. During a stroll through the old part of Zürich near our hotel, we stumbled upon an art installation with a variety of interactive pieces. Driven by artist Mark Ofner, this work, from what I can gather through translations, is about the creation of life and Zürich’s attainment of clean water and how that negatively impacted the landscape. You can check out images of the work here and watch a video of the largest interactive element.
    7. The best shop we visited during our trip, by far, was Fabrikat! The women running the shop were so delightful and knowledgable about the products. I think I looked at everything in the shop two or three times in the hopes of adding them to my basket. Fabrikat sells a collection of new and old tools, vintage emphera, drawing and writing utensils and other randomly beautiful objects. The image above shows four sheets of handprinted paper from Atelier Neuweg that I purchased. Can’t wait to use them.
    8. The main draw that brought us to the Fraumünster were the stained glass windows independently designed by Augusto Giacometti (1940) and Marc Chagall (1970). Both artists created a unique style of imagery for stained glass. The lines were thick, harsh and expressive with small amounts of color peering through.
    9. Walking up to the second floor of the Migros Museum, I was hit by an aroma of plaster. To my surprise, I was greeted by Karla Black’s piece Principles Of Admitting: a 115 x 34 feet spread of plaster powder mixed with powdered paint, which gave off an icy blue hue. Along one side, the plaster mixture had been built up into a wide cliff, that almost seemed to defy itself. It was such an extraordinary piece to see in person.
    10. These curious paintings were all over Zürich and this was one of my favorites.

  7. Swell Things No. 38 // Paris & London Edition

    November 30, 2016 by Erin Fletcher

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    1. Nearly everyday, my husband and I would pass by the Opéra Garnier, a 1,979-seat opera house built from 1861 to 1875. We never saw the inside of the building until our visit to the Musee d’Orsay. At the end of the nave sits a massive and highly detailed model of the building and its interior. No detail was left unnoticed. Quite amazing.
    2. At the tail end of my London trip, I spent two days in the studio with Tracey Rowledge to learn her technique for gold tooling. I was in awe of this piece that hung on the wall in the back of the studio. What appears as ordinary scribbles on a background of red, it is actually painstakingly carbon-tooled shapes on leather to mimic a scribbled handwritten note. The heavy and light flow of the ink was represented with the right balance of carbon on the tool.
    3. I idolize Sheila Hicks and her work. Growing up in my home state of Nebraska, Shelia eventually made her way to Paris, fell in love and set up her studio. Her work was recently exhibited in three parts and we were in Paris for the second installment. At five seemingly random spots throughout Paris, we gazed upon her work through shop windows. The pieces ranged from hanging skeins to puffs of yarn acting as bookmarks to massive flat balls of wrapped yarn.
    4. We visited a surprising number of churches during our trip, but my favorite was definitely Sainte Chapelle. Construction began around 1238 and the chapel was consecrated in 1248. During our visit the interior was flooded with colored light as the sun beamed through 15 stained-glass windows reaching around 49 feet high. A total of 1,113 Biblical scenes are depicted amongst the stained glass. It holds the world’s most extensive collection of 13th century stained glass.
    5. During a stroll through the Jardin des Tuileries, nestled between the Louvre and Place de la Concorde, we came upon modern sculptures amongst the perfectly manicured gardens and classical statues. I particularly loved this piece of cubes built from rusty mattress springs.

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    6. Invader is the pseudonym behind the global art project: Space Invaders, which places pixelated creations on buildings and structures at a running total of 67 cities. My husband and I enjoyed the hunt as we walked around Paris, which has 1,258 pieces out of the grand total 3,397 pieces worldwide. My favorite find was Han Solo and Chewbacca.
    7. While in London, I stopped by the Leighton House Museum, which is the former home of Victorian artist Frederic, Lord Leighton. The Arab Hall was stunning, with its recently restored gilded dome, detailed mosaics and beautiful Islamic tiles featuring arabic script.
    8. Before our trip to the Catacombs, my husband and I strolled through Montparnasse Cemetery. There were many stunning and unique grave markers, but I became overly fascinated with the weathered plastic floral pieces left behind; they had transformed into these gloomy, muted objects.
    9. At the beginning of my trip to London, I took a private workshop with Mark Cockram. Here he is, so proud of his piece Dicated, Untitled No. 1. Brilliant, Mark, just brilliant.
    10. I love the Victoria and Albert Museum and I make a point to visit anytime I’m in London. This time around I was delighted by an extraordinary exhibit on English embroideries from the 12th – 15th century. I was astonished at their condition, so many of the pieces were in near perfect condition. If you happen to be in London before February 5th, check out Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery.

  8. Swell Things No. 37

    October 31, 2016 by Erin Fletcher

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    1. A group of astronomers and physicists at the University of Texas have banded together to attempt to place Sappho at the time that she wrote her poem Midnight Poem. Existing on fragments of papyrus, the verse references the position of the moon and the visibility of Pleiades, giving clues to what time of year she may have wrote this piece of work.
    2. Considered to be the first modern artist’s book, Depero Futurista (known as “The Bolted Book”) was published in 1927 by the Italian Futurist Fortunato Depero. Less than a thousand were produced at the time and copies of it are extremely difficult to find today. The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto (home to the Depero archives) and the Center for Italian Modern Art have a launched a Kickstarter campaign with Designers & Books to republish this groundbreaking piece of art.
    3. The original stuffed animals that inspired A.A. Milne to write Winnie-the-Pooh became part of the collection at the New York Public Library in 1987. Over the past year, the animals underwent a transformation in the conservation department. They have been beautifully restored and are now back on displayed.
    4. I’m really digging the work of Rachel Beach, in particular the hand-painted hands.
    5. I’m loving these portraits by Chambers Austelle.

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    6. Cosmic Animal Gloves by Bunnie Reiss. A painter who transforms something old into something so stunning!
    7. Marra is a dying language; an estimated 90 percent of indigenous languages in Australia are now endangered. In as little as 10 minutes, you can learn part of a dying culture through My Grandmother’s Lingo, an interactive animation. Narrated by Angelina Joshua, rediscover her grandmother’s language through voice-activated interactions.
    8. Centaur turns one hundred: In 1915, Bruce Rogers designed Centaur after a 15th century typeface designed by Nicolas Jenson. We stock Centaur in our studio for its pure elegance and grace, so happy to celebrate its subtle contribution to the world.
    9. Chie Hitotsuyama is a Japanese paper artist, who creates these magnificent realistic sculptures of animals out of rolled up strips of wet newspaper. It’s quite stunning.
    10. Want to stand alone in a mirrored room filled with thousands of tiny lights for a full minute? Well, now you can (or at least until October 2017). On view at The Broad is Yayoi Kusama’s piece Infinity Mirrored Room. Oh, how I would love to make a trip to Los Angeles to experience this!

  9. Swell Things No. 36

    September 30, 2016 by Erin Fletcher

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    1. Shapereader is an experimental way of storytelling purely through tactile-sensory graphics. Designed by Ilan Manouach, these graphics are mostly meant to be read by blind or visually impaired readers. Shapereader indexes the 210 different shapes and patterns; these are divided into different groups such as characters, props, settings, actions, and affections. The first actual graphic novel is titled Arctic Circle, a 57-page original relating the story of two climatologists digging in the North Pole searching for patterns of climatic change inscribed on ice columns.
    2. The Poetry Society of New York partnered up with the Parks Deparment to install The Typewriter Project: The Subconscious of the City, a wooden shack inviting anyone to contribute to a collaborative poem. The typewriter is outfitted with a 100-foot paper scroll and a equipped to transmit all submissions to a website, with the most recent post being: “mouthspine moonprow kitten bitten forwardness a kind of scent”.
    3. Yayoi Kusama illustrates Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.
    4. The highly realistic and detailed paintings of Casey Gray.
    5. An exhibit of Fritz Scholder’s work was recently on display at the Phoenix Art Museum. Scholder was one of the first Native Americans to be recognized for his significant contributions as a contemporary artist (beginning in the late 1960s). His colorful and abstract pop art paintings challenged the cultural stereotypes surrounding American Indians.

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    6. Using wire mesh and colorful rope, artist Raquel Rodrigo, is creating urban embroidered installations around the walls of Madrid.
    7. If you go to Sigalit Landau’s portfolio website, you’ll find an entire page dedicated to salt. Sigalit has a love affair for the Dead Sea. In her piece, Salt Bride, a 19th century dress was weighted and submerged in the waters of the Dead Sea. Overtime, the salt crystallizes on the fibers of the dress.
    8. A 36-foot long by 13-feet wide mosaic was recently discovered in Cyprus. This particular mosaic is the first of its kind found in Cyprus and depicts a 4-chariot race in great detail with the names of the racers and even some horses. There are even some bystanders, one holding a vessel of water and the other brandishing a whip.
    9. Annie Vought has an obsession with handwriting and letter writing, which has blossomed into large-scale paper installations of intricately hand-cut letters.
    10. Graviky Labs, an India-based research company, has developed a way to turn exhaust from cars into a line products for artists. The device known as Kaalink, is placed on a exhaust pipe to capture pollutants without comprising the vehicle’s performance. The soot is then stripped of its carcinogens yielding a purified, carbon-based pigment, which is then transformed into pens, spray paint and oil-based paints marketed as Air Ink.

  10. Swell Things No. 35 // Brien Beidler

    July 31, 2016 by Erin Fletcher

    I so rarely get the chance to hang out with Brien Beidler, which is a shame since he is so delightful to be around. After first meeting in Las Vegas during the Guild of Book Workers’ Standards of Excellence Seminar, I’ve come to find that Brien is also so incredibly talented, so supportive, and so very hilarious. Brien currently lives and works in Charleston, South Carolina as the Director of the Bindery and Conservation Studio at the Charleston Library Society. He’s a Jim Croft enthusiast and proponent of historical bookbinding techniques and materials.

    Brien gave me the brilliant idea of inviting contributors for the Swell Things column, joking that his own would just be various shades of brown and not the typical vibrant colors readers are used to seeing. So the idea was planted and Brien is now the fourth contributor of Swell Things. His selections for this month are especially fascinating. His witty, yet thoughtful comments will entice you to investigate each pick further. And you will find a surprising amount of color beyond the hues of brown. Enjoy!

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    1. An incredible combination of historical inspiration and contemporary setting, George Holt and Andrew Gould of New World Byzantine design buildings inspired by past practices and executed with solid materials and technique. The house in this picture, which burned down Spring of 2016, is even beautiful as a ruin, which to me serves as a testament to the timelessness of their designs.
    2. Based out of Charlottesville at the University of Virginia, Rare Book School is a one-of-a-kind academic wonderland for the book-driven flock. I just returned from an incredible week with the intrepid Todd Pattison where he taught the class 19th Century American Publishers Bindings, and I look forward to applying to many more classes in the future. Be sure to apply for the scholarships if you don’t have institutional backing!
    3. Brienne.org is a growing list of resources and research surrounding an incredible 17th century postal treasure trunk containing over 2600 undelivered letters, now located at the Hague in The Netherlands. Amazingly, 600 of them are still unopened, giving researchers and conservators an unprecedented opportunity to study the material culture of the early modern period by pushing the envelope in how to access the information without sacrificing the material that supports it, while also expanding their knowledge of early modern document security practices.
    4. Garip Ay is a Turkish artist who practices Ebru (what we would call marbling) in ways I’ve never really considered, and probably will never come close to emulating. Watching videos of him at work also give it a very real and substantial performance aspect. Thanks to James Davis for introducing me to Garip’s work.
    5. A medieval construction project in Treigny, France, where for the last 20 years (and for another 10 or so to come), scholars, craftsmen, and government funding are all combining forces to build a 13th century castle using only authentic materials and techniques. Now that’s a wall whose construction even I could get behind.

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    6. Who knew that a tent revolution was even possible? A dynamic combination between a tent and a hammock, Tentsiles have opened up a whole new world of outdoor lodging possibilities. Soon any rainy camping trips will just be ‘water under the Tentsile.’
    7. Most of the time the only thought I give to flatware is just enough to make sure I have a means to get food from my plate to my face. Well, the ocean inspired pieces designed and executed by Ann Ladson will certainly change your whole perspective on what it means to reach for a fork. Her work is a true hybrid of function and art (the hybrid of those words, functionart, is not and should never be a word).  
    8. Living in a disposable culture gets me down sometimes, and so any time I come across someone who does their part to minimize waste is as refreshing as a slice of watermelon on a summer afternoon. And when that someone someone finds a way to make minimizing waste beautiful, it positively inspires me. With his breathtaking knives made from 100+ year-old saw mill blades, Will Manning of Heartwood Forge does both of these things, and it makes me glad.
    9. Becca Barnet, proprietor of Sisal and Tow Fine Fabrication, makes anything, and she means ANYTHING. From designing children’s museum installations, to painting fried chicken on tiles, to taxiderming fish, Sisal and Tow can make even the most boring office seem like an exciting cubicle to be in.
    10. The Lewis Chessmen are 93 late 12th – early 13th century Northern European chess pieces that were found on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland in 1831. Aside from inspiring the Weasley’s chess set in the film adaption of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the Lewis Chessmen have been the subject of much scholarly ado, and many interesting books on their cultural significance and materiality have been published. I mostly just like the expressions of the Bezerkers (pictured here) – they look so scared and human. I am not sure if I pity their state of perpetual fear, or envy their long and prestigious lives.

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  • My name is Erin Fletcher, owner and bookbinder of Herringbone Bindery in Boston. Flash of the Hand is a space where I share my process and inspirations.
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