Charlotte Perriand Wins

By the 20th century, major institutional obstacles began to disappear, allowing women to formally train in art, architecture and design. Women enrolled in these schools in droves. At the same time that Modernism was developing, it was also becoming marginalized. As critics and scholars began to define Modernism, the work of women designers was left off the pages.

Women created great original works of quality design, and in significant amounts. They acquired professional skills which they exhibited in public venues, and began to relentlessly pursue active careers. They created a diverse range of style and ground-breaking designs, and many of their names still in the 21st century are obscured by the shadows of men.

In February, a Paris court issued a decision in favor of the daughter of Charlotte Perriand. Perriand wasn't given proper authorship of three of her designs; instead, the works were attributed to her sometime male collaborator Jean Prouvé. Pernette Martin-Barsac, Perriand's daughter, fought against the Sonnabend Gallery for misattribution and won. She had been fighting this for a decade (or more) even when the Pompidou Center hosted a retrospective of Perriand's work in 2005. When these three designs went to auction, Prouvé was credited as the designer.

Perriand dealt with this during her lifetime. In the 1950s the Tunisia bookshelves was launched on the market under the label of "Jean Prouvé Studios."

Tunisian Bookshelf, pic from MoMa

Information gets regurgitated over and over, with assumption and bias. Lately we have come to care more about the look of a design over who designed it and how it fits in. We have a unique opportunity to study the range of activity and information about women designers.

Perriand's floor plan for a student room in the dormitory building, Maison de la Tunisie,
at the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris

Why aren't we doing this?

Student Room, Maison de la Tunisie, 1952
Perriand was put in charge of a group that was to design and furnish 40 student rooms. 

Both images above from Mary McLeod's (editor) Charlotte Perriand: An Art of Living, 2003.

Acclaim to the Women's Clubs

In 1859, Constance Fauntleroy Runcie (1836-1911) founded the first women's social club east of the Mississippi in New Harmony, Indiana. She called it The Minerva Society.

She moved to the city of St. Joseph, Missouri in 1871 with her Episcopal minister husband James Runcie. A lot of things were happening around this time in St. Joe. The railroad reached the town in 1859 where it served as a supplier and distribution point to the entire western half of the country. St. Joe is known for a lot of things -- John Patee opened his luxurious four-story brick hotel just a year earlier where Oscar Wilde later stayed, the Pony Express in 1860 and 61, Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Company established in 1867, and the death of Jesse James in 1882.

The Patee House

In 1894, Mrs. Runcie founded the Runcie club -- the oldest existing women's club today. She wanted to further cultural development and provide an intellectual outlet for the good women of St. Joseph. The club is still very much active today. In 1995, I curated an exhibition of the art purchased, compiled and carefully collected by members of the club over the years. Seventeen years later (boy, that hurts) I was given the opportunity to deliver a lecture to the members of the club where I asked:

Can the decrease of interest and value of domestic objects

be linked to a deeper and more profound change

in how we regard the role of the housewife today?

There are still a number of far-sighted women who over a century later realize that education and civic involvement are essential elements in building a stable community. Although women have made great advancements in the professional world since that time, we still can learn a thing or two from Women's Clubs of the nineteenth century: we still need to open opportunities for women and develop support systems for each other.

St. Joe today

(images from Missouri Western University's digital archives and stjoemo.com)

Women in Design:: Azadeh Shladovsky

I love seeing the success of well-trained designers. My fellow alumni, (UCLA’s architecture and interior design program), Azadeh Shladovsky has been building a practice for seven years.

A great design talent and founder of her own multidisciplinary firm, she premiered her collection of nature-inspired furniture at Jean de Merry.

She marries wood, metal and fur in a non-formulaic manner.

Petit Chene Side Table

love the rough-hewn oak blocks juxtaposed with the sleek, cold steel...

Diva Stool


She uses the principles of proportion, scale, balance and color -- something, i feel, a lot of furniture forms are lacking today.

Torre Stool

 
A tension of contrasts: soft v. hard, lustrous v. matte, sinuous v. linear
 

Infinity+++ Bench

 Beautiful, powerful visual expressions.


All images from Azadeh Shladovsky

Lecture: Das Deutsche Aktwerk

Designer of the Day: Emma Bridgewater

I was in Edinburgh recently and one early morning, I received a special treat to visit one of the shops of Emma Bridgewater before it opened. I am embarrassed to say, I was not aware of her. Functioning only on a few hours of sleep, my initial reaction that her designs were sweet, even fun. But then as the caffeine I slammed 20 minutes prior was beginning to pump through my veins, I began to gain a much, much greater appreciation for her work. I needed to dig deeper to understand what she was all about.

Emma Bridgewater is the eldest child of a large family. She grew up in Oxford and was enormously inspired by her mother’s colorful, mismatched china. With a degree in English Literature, Emma graduated from London University. Her first job was working for knitwear designers Muir & Osborne. There she became involved in every aspect of this small fashion company but she wanted to do something for herself. She had no formal training in design or even business management, but she wanted to make pottery using traditional methods rather than machinery.

In 1985, Emma established her company and began decorating vessels on her kitchen table with the sponge technique popular from the late 18th to the early 20th century. She recognized that the market was lacking fresh, contemporary designs. So she created and array of different patterns on traditional English shapes favoring Josiah Wedgwood's creamware of the early 1800s.

Figs (1987) also the year she married Matthew Rice, who joined her company


Emma believed to be a good designer, one needed to have control over pattern and shapes. She also keenly recognized that this was a time when women were working in increasing numbers and formal dining was quickly fading into the past. She smartly concentrated on providing forms needed for less ceremonious dining.

Emma Bridgewater opened her first shop in 1990 and within six years her wares were in high demand. Each year she creates a new pattern -- some more popular than others -- with Polka Dot launched in 2002 still being the most popular pattern today.
Her company is currently the sixth biggest employer of potters in Staffordshire.

Hellebore

Her company is the only English factory today producing the traditional underglaze sponged pottery.

Dogs

Birds (I bought this french bowl while I was there)
lithographed birds designed by her insanely talented husband Matthew Rice who is an incredible watercolorist. He now has rendered over 60 birds.

Toast and Marmalade
My most favorite pattern, introduced in 1992 with lettering designed by Matthew Rice. The typography is applied to the glazeware and then refired. I am determined to trade in my plane jane white dinnerware for this series.

Starry Skies (2010)

Union Jack

She offers tea towels and wrapping paper and cutlery and advent calendars too....

(all images from Emma Bridgewater)

I Scream You Scream We All Scream for Ice Cream !

There are a number of great things about my home state of Missouri. And a number of not so great things. But cicada ice cream?

These crunchy, creepy insects with their haunting screech apparently are quite flavorful.



Employees of an ice cream store in the college town of Columbia plucked these prehistoric looking creatures from the trunks of trees, riped off their wings, boiled them, ground them up, then coated them with brown sugar and added this crackly crunch mixture into a base of buttery-flavored ice cream. The first batch made sold out within an hour.

Would anyone try this ?!?

I've had a fear of these things ever since I was a kid. When the sun begins to set in the hot, steamy months of late summer they start up in chorus from the branches of trees -- a mournful mating-call howl. The family dog would always catch one of these dumb, fumbling things when it fell on the ground and bring it inside. The bug flying and flailing about letting off a screeching, piercing, unsettling sound. My mother would chase it with a broom trying to sweep it through the back door.



These chitinous insects climb out of their skin and leave the outer shell perched on the side of a tree. In my youth, my brother would always pry the skin carcass off and try to scratch my arm with their prickly, gross legs.


(images from: How Stuff Works, Cletus Lee's Flicker Acct, and What's That Bug.)

The Sky Over Downtown Kansas City Today

Photo taken by Gary Lezak, (television meteorologist).

Item of the Day: Boyd Reath Wallcovering

I canNOT get enough of this wallcovering designed by James Boyd of Boyd Reath. Colonial Revival -- an American favorite -- has been revived and revived and revived. But regurgitated and never reinterpreted in a new an unexpected way. Boyd has taken it and put a new twist. Not only has he made it whimsical but featured in his silhouettes such figures as as Nefertiti and Charles de Gaulle, (though my favorite is the dog).

Mint

Vermilion

Ecru

Azure

Maize

Rose

Which one is your favorite?

(see Studio Print Works HERE and Boyd Reath) HERE

Designer of the Day: Sophie de Vocht

Sophie de Vocht is a young Dutch designer.

She has designed a number of different creations from clocks to furniture to plastic frogs. (I'm crazy for her frog.)

For the Italian furniture company Casamania she designed this lounge chair.

The Loop Chaise Lounge features a metal frame constructed with gigantic woven yarn.


She was inspired by the technique of tufting.

The seat and back are tightly woven, the weave gradually becomes looser spilling out on the floor.

The concept is an object that works as both carpet and furniture.

What triggers your thoughts?

Crochet pot holder from the 70s?

Beautiful 18th-century dress with a fitted bodice that explodes into a skirt?

Or disemboweled intestines?*


do not google
image these words. i anticipated to see woodcuts from the middle ages,
but this horrendous practice apparently still continues in some parts
of the world.

Images from Sophie de Vocht, Casamania and designboom

Design Idea of the Day

LOVE this fabric by Michael Miller Fabrics. It is called Dressform.

For down pillows. An upholstered shaped and sculpted headboard. Something to dress up windows.

Or, upholster walls of a small room. You can also buy from here.

Item of the Day:: Planter Table by Emily Wettstein

I'm not getting any exercise. After the terribly long and cold winter, I made myself promise to run several miles a day. Now that spring has arrived, I still haven't upheld this declaration. I've been walking. Slowly. There are too many glorious tulips to see. Cut tulips don't seem to last that long and there isn't enough impact when potted for the indoors. And then I came across this:

Emily Wettstein's Table.

The 25-year old Brooklyn resident created this reclaimed timber and metal dining table she designed for her graduate school application.

A pair of reclaimed walnut planks raised in 1/4" sheets of steel. The sinuous, elliptical shaped opening between the planks reveals a Lucite planter underneath -- very unexpected. (And very feminine.) I love the rough rigid rusted steel sheets (very masculine) juxtaposed by the warm patina of the curving wood, and then finished off with the textural lushness of the grass. This is where I'd plant my tulips. See more of her stuff HERE ; (all images from her site). Down, down kitty!