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‘swell things’ Category

  1. Swell Things No. 14

    May 31, 2014 by Erin Fletcher

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    1. Heck Yes Craft is an excellent source of links for various craftsman from the American Craft Council.
    2. Sugar and spikes and everything somewhat nice is exactly how I would describe the wild illustrations by artist Wishcandy.
    3. Check out these delicious and beautiful vegetable illustrations by artist Ryo Takemasa.
    4. Believe it or not, these cameras are ceramic pieces! Not a painting or paper sculpture, but ceramic! These marvelous pieces are created by the talented Katherine Morling.
    5. I recently stumbled upon the work of artist Susan Joy Share. Her artist book Grace of Wit, of Tongue, and Face is an accordion binding made from cloth and what appears to be printed and paste paper panels. The book is an interpretation of a 16th century poem by Sir Walter Raleigh.

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    6. Back in 1692, an artist known by the name of A. Boogert embarked on creating an educational guide on color by explaining how certain hues can be mixed by altering the tone. Nearly 800 handwritten and painted pages in Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau can be viewed in its entirety online here.
    7. Same But Different is an International Emmy Award winning and BAFTA nominated collection of short documentaries that showcase eight children from across the United Kingdom who are living with a range of disabilities and medical conditions. The films are wonderfully guided through the eyes of the child and their experiences, challenges, friends and aspirations.
    8. A “drinkable book” is being developed to teach water safety and to act as a filter to treat filthy water into a drinkable resource. Each page is coated in bacteria-killing silver nanoparticles, which can be easily torn out and used as a filter for up to a month. Instructions and educational facts are printed on each page in food-grade ink, the initial run of 100 copies was printed in English and Swahili for distribution in Kenya. The organization behind the book, WaterisLife, plans to distribute it around the world.
    9. Ivor Robinson, was an exemplary master bookbinder in the 20th century whose work will continue on as inspiration for future bookbinders. You can read his obituary here.
    10. Check out the wild and disjointed portraiture work of Erik Olson.

  2. Swell Things No. 13

    March 31, 2014 by Erin Fletcher

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    1. After a successful Indiegogo campaign, artist Sipho Mabona was able to construct a life-sized origami elephant from a single sheet of paper. The elephant is beautiful and quite impressive, but I’m a bit skeptical about its construction from a single sheet of paper. 
    2. I am both entranced and repulsed by these paintings from artist Lauren Roche. 
    3. I am always impressed by the meticulous work and patience needed to construct an object, animal or whatever out of paper. New paper illustrations from the French duo Lucie Thomas and Thibault Zimmermann aka Zim&Zou are just beautiful and brilliant. 
    4. Last year at the Venice Art Biennale, artist Odires Mlászho put on an exhibit of sculptures that really tested the flexibility of the book as an object. Each sculpture is constructed of at least two books that have been contorted into beautiful and unusual shapes by interweaving the book’s pages and covers. 
    5. I bet he’s just saving those Flaming Hot Cheetos for later. In an ongoing series called Will It Beard, photographer Stacy Thiot tests the lodging capabilities of her husband’s beard by sticking as many objects that can fit within his tangled facial hair. 

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    6. Marjory’s World I is just a beautiful and peaceful photographic series from artist Rebecca Reeve.
    7. A German manuscript from the 1530s contains illustrations and text about the use of ‘Rocket Cat‘. Unfortunately, it’s not as cool as it sounds. Cats were nabbed off the streets and strapped with an explosive sack. After the sack was ignited, the cat was set loose in the hopes that it would run and hide behind the walls of an enemy’s fortress. I bet that plan didn’t work very well. 
    8. After cutting out images from over 700 discarded books on the subjects of flora and fauna, artist Andrea Mastrovito began the task of collaging each piece for the installation. The Island of Dr. Mastrovito II includes a ceiling consumed by bats, while butterflies cascade up the wall in a frenzy, the base of the installation is filled with various mammals, insects and plants. Quite an impressive installation. 
    9. These whimsical dioramas are not animated scenes, but layers of precisely cut watercolor paper lit with various flexible LED lights. Hari & Deepti are the artist couple behind these fantastic pieces. 
    10. Sophie Blackall has been illustrating the online listings put forth by lovelorn strangers hoping to reconnect known as Missed Connections. She’s even published a book of the illustrations, which are beautiful and lovely and endearing. 

  3. Swell Things No. 12

    February 28, 2014 by Erin Fletcher

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    1. Click the link to check out these animated GIFs from artist Fong Qi Wei. He combines my love of collage, animation and ombre patterning to create stunning and mesmerizing visuals. 
    2. Framed book edges from Canadian sculptor Maskull Lasserre. This artist focuses on a much overlooked area of any paperback and highlights the years of use and dirt. 
    3. This dress is apart of a Spring 2013 collection from designer Erdem. I just can’t resist the bright colors, lace and florals. Spring is coming. 
    4. The fall collection from Lyn Devon embodies fashion of the 60s. Lines cut dramatically across the female form creating a graceful and powerful feminine silhouette. 
    5. An absolute stunning binding by Micheline de Bellefroid. I’m absolutely in love with this binding. It harmonizes color with design and seems greatly inspired by the talented Sybil Pye. 

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    6. These complex and detailed series of pop-ups come from artist Colette Fu. We Are Tiger Dragon People is the result of a trip to China’s Yunnan Province, where Colette collected images of the rich life and colorful culture in which her mother grew up. 
    7. Artist Aganetha Dyck drops small ceramic sculptures into beehives and gives the bees opportunity to artistically modify the pieces. I had a somewhat visceral reaction to these pieces, the process is quite unique yet the outcome is a bit unnerving. 
    8. A 16th century binding that can be read 6 different ways. Click on the link to watch the book in action. Once I recovered the the awesomeness of the this binding, I decided that I must investigate further and make one of my own. 
    9. These wacky Paper Plants from Adam Frezza and Terri Chiao are just fantastic. I would love to step foot on the planet where plants like this could thrive. 
    10. Aakash Nihalani uses tape and sometimes cardboard to construct 2-dimensional illusions. His pieces are mostly installed outside and have a flair for humor. He often is posed interacting with these forms, creating a unlikely narrative against a bleak landscape.

  4. Swell Things No. 11

    December 31, 2013 by Erin Fletcher

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     1. Purely a fashion find: Three Floor, offers up some unique and interesting garments with unusual structural elements. 
    2. The Bristol Central Library just celebrated its 400th anniversary and as a tribute to its history installed a massive living sculpture cleverly referred to as Book Hive. Robotics collective, Rusty Squid, designed this interactive installation to respond to the movements of the library’s visitors. Each book, 400 in total, open and close in a range of breathtaking patterns, creating a satisfying creak that one expects to hear when opening an old book. Check out the video here.
    3. Temari balls originated as Chinese folk art and were introduced to Japan in the 7th century. These balls were hand embroidered with the thread from old kimonos, then given as a gift from an elder to children on New Year’s day.  
    4. When I clicked on the Fruit & Vegetable series from Heidi Voet I was quite surprised and immature giggling quickly ensued. But in all seriousness, Heidi used images from Chinese magazines and completed the naked female bodies with various perishables to highlight both our consumption and their perservability.
    5. Exhibition a is one of two sites I discovered recently that offers original art and prints at reasonably affordable prices.  The image featured is a print titled Persian Princess Mourning Her Peacock from artist Tony Cox.

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    6. Philippe Parreno recently premiered his work Atlas of Clouds, an animated neon book. This piece is visually stunning and I think Parreno artistically captures the movement of a book in a stationary object. View the other pages at 1301PE Gallery.
    7. Gorgeous paper sculptures from artist Richard Deacon. Each piece is crafted from sheets of hand marbled paper. The patterns and colors are quite unusual from a bookbinder’s point of view, but absolutely striking. 
    8. The Art of Clean Up: Made Neat and Tidy is a playful book from Swiss artist and comedian Ursus Wehrli. His crusade to organize the chaos of the world seems quite daunting even when the objects seem so simple from a bowl of alphabet soup to a pine branch.
    9. 72 Editions is the other affordable website I discovered recently to offer original art and prints; from the web to the wall (as their slogan goes). The image featured is Glacier d’Argentiere I from artist David Denny.
    10. Haute Papier SS 2014 is the latest collection from designer Bea Szenfeld. Showcased at Stockholm Fashion Week, the models walked the catwalk with beautifully crafted ‘garments’ created from 3-dimensional paper sculptures. 

     

  5. Swell Things No. 10

    November 30, 2013 by Erin Fletcher

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    1. My husband is an animator for the Planetarium at the Museum of Science in Boston. At a recent event called Cosmic Loops, the planetarium became the stage for musician Ian Case. As a treat from the regular space imagery, the animators got to play around with ethereal visuals to compliment the live music. 
    2. Korean artist Do Ho Suh just created his most impressive large-scale installation to date entitled Home Within Home Within Home Within Home Within Home. The installation centers around the artist’s previous residences on a 1:1 scale. Each home is built within the next out of blue silk evoking a blueprint. His childhood home, a traditional Korean structure is suspended inside his first residency in the United States, a modern apartment in Rhode Island. 
    3. Behold the amazing woven optical illusions and other works of Samantha Bittman!
    4. Auto-aerobics is a wonderfully convincing 3d-illustrated series from artist Chris Labrooy. By experimenting with stretching, space and interaction, Chris is creating some fascinating and perplexing imagery.
    5. Just lovely, lovely fiber art from the talented Emily Eibel. Don’t glaze over the illustrations, they are equally spectacular! 

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    6. After 5,000 hours of work over 3 years, Polish concert pianist Slawomir Zubrzycki has created his own version of the viola organista. The initial inspiration came from Leonardo Da Vinci’s 15th century notebooks containing page after page of various inventions. The instrument is quite striking in appearance and plays magnificently. You can check out the debut performance here. 
    7. Julee Yoo is quite a talented illustrator combining iconography from Victorian, Korean and Japanese culture with bright bold color palettes. 
    8. Mark Twain’s little-known book Advice to Little Girls was written in 1865 with wonderful illustrations by Vladimir Radunsky. In this short story he encourages little girls to think independently as opposed to following rules and social cues. 
    9. Have fun with the quirky work of illustrator/ceramicist extra-ordinaire Amy Louise Worrall. 
    10. Richard Balzer has been collecting vintage moveable imagery for the past 40 years. And during the past 5 years, he’s been curating a virtual gallery of his collection; turning 19th century vovelles into 21st century GIFs.

     

  6. Swell Things No. 9

    October 31, 2013 by Erin Fletcher

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    1. I was pleasantly surprised during my last visit to Paper Source, where I had the delight of purchasing a wedding card designed by my good friend, Laura Szumowski. On her blog Geometry is Awesome, she posts these wonderful in-progress sketches of her designs. 
    2. Enjoy the lovely illustration work of Lily Padula. Some of her pieces involve flashes and blinking eyes.
    3. Another lovely illustrator and textile designer: Vikki Chu
    4. 100 Natural Laws is apart of a larger mixed media project by Sophia Wallace called Cliteracy. In this project Sophia brings to light how our culture sexualizes the female form while suppressing and ignoring female sexuality. It wasn’t until 1998, that the clitoris was proven to be larger and more complex of an organ than what was known before. 
    5. Photographer Leland Bobbé captured these extraordinary portraits of drag queens in Half Drag…A Different Kind of Beauty. Each portrait captures the male subject and his female counterpart by literary splitting the two personas down the center of the face. It’s so interesting to see how makeup can manipulate and enhance the structure of the face. 

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    6. I’m quite jealous of the talented Oana Befort. I wish her watercolor illustrations were hanging all over my walls. Her blog offers free print outs, DIY projects, in-progress videos of her work and more. Get ready to drool. 
    7. Staxpeditions is a bi-weekly video series from the University of Iowa Special Collections & University Archives. The librarians ask for your favorite Library of Congress call number range, then go hunting through the rare book stacks. A single item is pulled and explored throughout each episode. It’s a very fun and creative way to view item in a library’s collection.
    8. Brian Gennett creates beautifully patterned table tops, headboards, wall hangings and more. The designs are crafted using old book covers, which are cut up and arranged into an array of geometric patterns.
    9. Everything That I Know is an ongoing project by Amanda Tiller where each volume is filled with factual information from her own memory on a particular subject. In other projects, Amanda has often relied on her memory to guide her work as a form of rebellion against the internet. 
    10. The Seed from Johnny Kelly is an older video on vimeo, but it combines paper and hand-drawn animation in such a lovely and fluid manner, I wanted to share it with you. This short follows the life of a seed; I especially enjoy its journey through the human body.

     

  7. Swell Things No. 8

    September 30, 2013 by Erin Fletcher

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    1. Origami is a series by artist Kumi Yamashita, where a single sheet of paper is slightly crinkled and hung on the wall. The magic of the piece happens when a perfectly placed light sources casts the shadow of a human profile. Quite brilliant!
    2. This is just an awesomely hilarious image with an unknown source. Check it out here.
    3. Monica Ramos is a wonderful illustrator and is the hand behind Shelter, a display of books propped on their foredge giving the appearance of a tent-like structures or rooftops in a village.
    4. Artist, Matthew Cox, has transformed the way you view an x-ray by layering on beautifully coordinated threads. The ghost-like images of the x-rays are partially covered with images of the human body, replacing bone with skin and lovely natural elements such as flowers and blue skies. 
    5. A new app called The Human Body is available as an aid to teach kids about the human anatomy. The greatest part, the visuals are created by animating paper. Check out the trailer or purchase the app here!

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    6. An interactive online catalog of French Art Deco bindings. The entire book is written in French, but the images are spectacular. 
    7. The Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art recently put up an exhibition called Haunted House to engage a younger audience into the world of classic art. Through a secret passageway, kids can manipulate artwork into new abstract forms.
    8. A series of maps created by Dustin Cable from the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service are the most comprehensive survey of racial distribution in America. The image above represents an area of Omaha, Nebraska (my home town). These maps can be quite surprising with overwhelming populations of a single race as well as very visible divisions between racial groups. 
    9. Diana Beltrán Herrera has transformed paper in a most brilliant manner. These paper sculptures of birds are so highly detailed, one may not believe they are made from such a simple material.
    10. In his series Boys and Their Fathers, photographer Craig Gibson took portraits of both father and son. Each portrait is then overlapped creating visible evidence to any identical physical traits. 

     

  8. Swell Things No. 7

    August 31, 2013 by Erin Fletcher

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    1. The work of outsider artist Charles August Albert Dellschau was discovered in the mid-1960s by a junk dealer in Houston, whom acquired 12 notebooks discarded after a house fire. Dellschau worked as a butcher and became a self-taught artist after retiring in 1899. His work began with 3 books entitled Recollections describing a secret organization called the Sonora Aero Club. The pages are filled with highly detailed and colorful watercolor-collaged pieces that include newspaper clippings. Dellschau’s work is quite fascinating and worth some further reading.
    2. I’m just in love with the work of ceramicist, Amy Louise Worrall. She is currently featured as a Young Artist on Buy Some Damn Art. Her work is sold out! Darn!
    3. Fascination with maps began at an early age for Jerry Gretzinger. Since 1963, Jerry has been chipping away at the same map that scales to over 2400 individual 8×10 sheets. 
    4. Sandwich Book is a wonderfully creative and deliciously realistic book mimicking the layers of a sandwich from graphic designer Pawel Piotrowski
    5. The University of Iowa’s library just unveiled the smallest book of their collection. This micro-miniature bible measures at 0.138 inches square and 0.04 inches thick. The book was originally sold with its companion at the World’s Fair in New York in 1965.

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    6. Touching Strangers is a unique project from photographer Richard Renaldi, where he asks strangers to physically embrace one another for a portrait. A recent kickstarter project received substantial funding for an upcoming photo book of the series.
    7. These watercolor portraits from artist Oriol Angrill Jordà are quite breathtaking, blending together a range of textures and colors so effortlessly.
    8. Drawn the Road Again is a blog run by artist Chandler O’Leary. She is quite the traveler both in America and Europe, she often frequents the back-road looking for sites few have seen. She documents these excursions with beautifully painted watercolor-scapes and includes wonderful handwritten captions.
    9. Photographer I-Hsuen Chang embraces the restrictions of a bound book that many photographers face. In his latest work, In Between, he uses the gutter of the binding to hide the focal point of the image.
    10. Portraits of Boston is just a delightful and honest site, documenting the wide range of people who call Boston their home. As a fellow Bostonian of 3 years, it’s wonderful to get a glimpse at those whom I quietly interact with everyday walking the streets and riding the trains.

     

  9. Swell Things No. 6

    June 30, 2013 by Erin Fletcher

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    1. House of Holland :: Resort 2014 // Baby Love is bursting with colors and patterns
    2. Léo Caillard and Alexis Persani digitally dress up classical sculptures at the Louvre in some hipster threads; taking a humorous spin on the contrast between contemporary and classic culture. | snagged from Design Boom
    3. In 2009, for Barbie’s 50th birthday a series of photos had the doll reenacting famous works of art and scenes from pop culture. Above Barbie poses in Portrait of Sylvia Von Harden, a journalist painted by Otto Dix in 1926. 
    4. Strawberry People is an Etsy shop run by artist Jessica Caputo Macon offering a range of vibrant and psychedelic geometric paintings. 
    5. Vogue Japan March 2013 — striking fashion and make-up inspired by Roy Lichtenstein and Peter Max

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    6. At the opening of Sculpture by the Sea in Denmark, works by 64 artists from around the world were unveiled. Including Once by James Dive of The Glue Society, a 4×4 metric cube that holds an entire amusement park (crushed). 
    7. Sarah Koik founded The Grandma Museum after 28 years of receiving and collecting objects gifted to her by her grandmother. Sarah also runs a blog alongside her archive, where she asks participants to share images of gifts from their grandmothers. 
    8. OCD: Obsessive Cat Disorder is the latest window display in my sister-in-law’s shop — The Burlap Bag.
    9. I’m wildly addicted to the tattoo stylings of Marcin Aleksander Surowiec.
    10. The Book Cover Archive is well just that. One can search by designer, book title or typeface. But my personal favorite is to randomize the page. Each time you randomize, the letters within the word randomize become random. Try it out! 

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    11. Harm Less is a new series from Sonia Rentsch featuring weapons made from various flora.
    12. Tree series from photographer Myou Ho Lee is such a simple idea that engages a larger concept (art don’t you just love it) | snagged from But Does it Float
    13. A Japanese ad takes a softer approach to funeral services | snagged from This is Colossal
    14. If you can’t get your hands on a doughnut to eat, then wear one around your neck! Dipped in dark chocolate brown glaze and real gold (sprinkles available), these doughnut necklaces from TADAM! jewellery are quite delectable!
    15. Maddie the Coonhound is a sort of by-product series from photographer Theron Humphrey. Met with a crossroads, Theron embarked on a journey throughout the United States to photograph one person a day for a year, which turned into the series This Wild Idea. Maddie, a rescue from Atlanta, became Theron’s travel companion and star of her own photographic series.

  10. Swell Things No. 5

    May 31, 2013 by Erin Fletcher

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    1. a photograph by Guy Bourdin (1978) // found on SUPERMODEL SHRINE
    2. Dirtsa Studio offers the most perfect “paper” towel, which are perfect for two reasons: they are reusable and I’m a paper fanatic.  
    3. Paul Miller stepped away from the internet for an entire year. Read about his experience on The Verge.
    4. A Boy and His Atom // IBM has created the world’s smallest stop-motion film by animating atoms under a magnification of over 100 million times. 
    5. brilliant idea :: paint each primary color on the wing of a fan to make a rainbow effect during fanning

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    6. Blinded is a stunning limited edition print by Petra Holländer Photography, whose work you can purchase on Etsy
    7. Color Collective is a blog about design and color and inspiration, where photographs are reduced to their palettes.
    8. Brooklyn-based artist Phillip Stearns experiments the effects of high voltage and household cleaning products on instant pull apart film.
    9. Photographer Robin Schwartz captures intimate moments between her young daughter as she interacts with wild animals.
    10. Stitched Fish: Fish and Chips and Peas // the crocheted artwork of Kate Jenkins

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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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