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Posts Tagged ‘yayoi kusama’

  1. Swell Things No. 49 // Hong Kong

    December 31, 2018 by Erin Fletcher

    1. In the center of the city is the historic Hong Kong Cemetery, which we got a glimpse of while sitting in a double-decker bus.
    2. A view of my two favorite buildings in the Hong Kong skyline from Hong Kong Park.
    3. Just one of many stone wall trees throughout the city, where trees are effectively growing out of the stone walls and defying gravity.
    4. A visit to the Man Mo Temple in the Central neighborhood where dozens of incense cones are hung from the ceiling.
    5. The view of Hong Kong Island from the Star Ferry on Victoria Harbour.

    6. We passed by this mural everyday on our way to Wong Chuk Hang train station, so on our final day I made sure to get a photo with it.

    7. A visit to Pak Tai Temple had me gasping at the array of paper flowers hanging across the entire ceiling. 

    8. Posing with Yayoi Kusama dressed as Princess Leia at the Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum. You know, just a typical Saturday night in Hong Kong.
    
9. Eating our only hot pot dinner while in Hong Kong. Amongst friends and their family, we dined on steamed seafood, congee and steamed honey cakes!

    10. The view of Hong Kong from Victoria Peak. Such a gorgeous and dense city filled with the most skyscrapers in the world.

  2. 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!

  3. 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.

  • 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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