Furniture fit for a grand seat (pun completely intended).

While I spend most of my day sitting on a plastic Ikea stool, this is born out of my studio apartment's tight space and its owner (um, I mean renter)'s limited budget. If I could, I would park my rear end on finer stuff. Stuff that was equal parts art to functioning furniture. Stuff that was pleasing to the eyes and other senses rather than just to the sitter's itsy bitsy pocketbook (what, you didn't think I was going to say itsy bitsy butt, did you? That would just be a lie). I would park my seat on the likes of the gorgeous furniture designed by Azadeh Shladovsky.

In her first limited-edition furniture collection, Living with Art, Schladovsky explores nature to create powerful expressions that are as beautiful as they are functional. See for yourself how her pieces are superior to your Ikea bean bags at her upcoming show at the Ruth Bachofner Gallery.

Opening Reception
Saturday, March 19
5-7 p

Ruth Bachofner Gallery
Bergamot Station Art Center
2525 Michigan Avenue # G2
Santa Monica, CA

Jessie B. R., branded.

I'd like to introduce you to my initials, made better and brighter by the talented Marta Cerdà Alimbau. Some people just leave everything they touch in better shape than the way they found it. Marta is one of those peeps. The biggest thanks to her for making my ole J. B. R. stand loud and proud.

Cool Hunting's pop-up gift mecca. [NYC]

 

Shopping for the holidays can be like a slow, month-long death to the creativity and authenticity of generosity.

How much did Jimmy Jo spend on me last year? I'll have to get him exactly three and a half sets of wool socks to make good.

Or, little Janey is just growing so quickly these days. A gift card seems best. Is Starbucks credit appropriate for a 4 year old?

Well, Cool Hunting--blogging purveyors of pretty much everything awesome and fresh in culture, arts, tech and design--have launched a pop-up shop with Gap in NYC this holiday season which guarantees that each and every gift you get will at least start a conversation that doesn't end in Where's the closest location for me to return this?

From frivolous items like customizable trophies (I want an 'Imma Winner' engraving) to books by cool peeps (like Amy Sedaris) to decorative collaborations with design gods (like Jonathan Adler--check out his butt bust below) to unique edibles (like some amazing chocolate--yes, I sampled, and tasty pickles), the store is an amazing treasure trove of gifts for your nearest and dearest [and yourself].

Below the jump, some of my favorite items in the store. I didn't officially register or anything, but ya know, take this as an official hint of my holiday wish list...

Corporate design that's more art than ad.

In plowing through hundreds of portfolios recently on Behance, the web's awesome crowdsourced network of designers, artists, and other creative types, I discovered the work of Spanish artist Marta Cerda Alimbau. Alimbau has created designs for international brands including Ray Ban, Nike, Coca Cola, Beautiful Decay, Kleenex, and more.

A note to the artist: Your work, dear Marta, is sick.

Ice Cream + Art + Gadgets = Blood is the New Black's Summer Fling

What happens when two beautiful people get together and [fill in the blank] and then invite a 3rd amazing partner to [fill in the blank more]? A beautiful love child is conceived, that's what.

Am I being too metaphorically obtuse for you? Allow me to be explicit. Two of my favorite brands, revolutionary tee-shirt meets art collection, Blood is the New Black, and magically delicious ice cream sandwich purveyors, Coolhaus, have joined forces and brought in handy-dandy gadget protectors, Case-Mate, to bring Summer Fling, A Mobile Pop Up Shop and Ice Cream Truck to Los Angeles this summer.

You'll be able to customize your own phone cases with incredible art courtesy of BITNB's roster of sick artists. You'll be able to indulge in ice cream flavors like pistachio with black truffles. And you'll be able to hang out with me. Cause I'll be hanging around them all summer.

The launch party for LA's awesomest new mobile retailer is this Saturday. Find the details below and find me at the party!

Saturday, June 5th
8 PM - 12 AM

Nomad Gallery
1993 Blake Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90039

Live Performance by Dunes
DJ's Jacob Safari and Sara T
Live Screen-printing by Nomad Gallery
Open Bar available thanks to Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer

RSVP info@bloodisthenewblack.com requested but not required

Can't make it? Stay tuned to twitter.com/summerflingtruk and bloodisthenewblack.com/summerfling to find the truck near you this summer!

Tobias Wong. His awesome killer ring. & his passing.

In a year of seemingly endless celebrity deaths, it is always hardest to embrace those of great talents who pass too, too young. Tobias Wong, the Canadian-born, New York-based artist and designer, passed away on Sunday morning. Wong’s brief body of work was overwhelmed by creativity, innovative design, and twists on tradition.

Wong’s ‘Killer Diamond Engagement Ring’ (pictured left) is my favorite example of Wong’s subversive style. To take a romantic icon and turn it on its head–literally–to create a piece so much more interesting and inspiring than the original–genius.

I used to think this was the ring I'd want should some poor guy ever propose to me. He'd be poorer for having me cut him in his sleep though.

[This post originally appeared on Curated.]

This is an illustration. I will give it no other disclaimer.

In searching for illustrators for a project today I came across this interesting designer with an, um, interesting perspective.

Thought it was worth sharing.

Do Good: score tickets to Coachella in an artsy-fartsy, clean-green way.

You're pretty handy with a paintbrush, you love the earth (in a totally platonic way), and you're dying to go to this year's Coachella (we've all seen you seat dancing to Jay-Z on your ride to work). But, sadly, tickets are expensive and you wouldn't dare to go without VIP access, you poor, broke snob, you.

Enter, Global Inheritance's 'Get TRASHed' contest.

We invite you to submit your artwork and be considered to design one of the 20 recycling bins featured at Coachella. What's even better is that the non offensive redesigned bins will be placed in schools throughout Southern California after Coachella to inspire the future recyclers of the world! Next steps? Send us a link to your artwork, concept and/or website.

Find out more and enter to win on Global Inheritance.

We Like To Party: the Silverlake Art Crawl fiasco.

When folks talk about a 'crawl' it generally involves a group of destinations--similar in theme and close in proximity. The Silverlake Art Crawl would have better been called a scavenger hunt. One with stops very, very, very far away from each other. In which guests are tasked with finding good art and interesting activities. Which were, as it turned out, relatively hard to find on the crawl's itinerary.

But here are some of the more interesting things and places spotted along the crawl.

Gogosha is an optical store for those with, shall we say, taste. We came upon it by accident after the first two stops along the crawl failed us. Pictured below are a ridiculous pair of sunglasses by Mykita and Willhelm that I tried on for kicks (as featured on Sex and the City).

We discovered Lawson-Fenning, a fabulous furniture and design store. Especially awesome? These big, big feet.

In the back of the store is yet another store, Ivanhoe Books, with beautiful coffee table books to last your living room's lifetime.

Materials & Applications hosted a fish taco party in their courtyard. M&A is a seemingly very cool research center, specializing in architecture, urban landscaping and design.

The fish tacos were made with tilapia fish bred in the center's most recent installation. This is either really cool. Or really gross depending on how you look at it. And depending on if you happened to overhear that tilapia are bottom feeders.

There happened to be some great street art right outside our parking spot. This was not thanks to the Silverlake Art Crawl. This was simple and pure luck.

The folks at Subliminal Projects Gallery (Shepard Fairey's Echo Park art lair), let us in early to get a sneak peak at WK Interact's show, 'How to Blow Yourself Up' which opened later on that night. I became aware of WK's work during a show I worked for Seth Carmichael of Carmichael Gallery. A-mazing.

We stopped by Junc Gallery to celebrate Blood is the New Black's 5 year anniversary with founder Mitra K. Great people. Great art. Great cupcakes (c/o Lemonade, my new favoritest spot for food in LA).

And worth sharing, is my new friend at the vintage lingerie shop next to Junc Gallery. She's fun. She's fabulous. She doesn't talk much.

Food Find: Yogurtland (with a splash of Japanese design culture)

For those of you who aren't yet familiar with Yogurtland, it's like a Pinkberry 2.0 for Americans who prefer a shot of sugar with their tart frozen yogurt. Amongst the celebrated Angelenos who heart the fro yo chain include Lauren Conrad, Lindsay Lohan, and now, well, me. I didn't get it before. You make your own dessert. You put on your own toppings. Great. There's a frozen yogurt machine in the cafeteria. I can deal without Yogurtland...I thought.

Turns out that Yogurtland takes making your own dessert to new levels of awesome with yogurt flavors like Peanut Butter, Pumpkin Pie, NY Cheesecake, and Double Cookies & Cream. Toppings range from the healthy (I opted for fruit on today's adventure) to the decadent (cookie dough, Heath bar, and the list goes on).

 

And as an added bonus, tokidoki, the colorful Japanese design house [brought to the US via an Italian] is in stores right now to brighten up the already cheery yogurt experience. Cause everyone likes colorfully creepy bears, cats and kids with their non-fat frozen yogurt.

The busiest location I've passed by is on La Brea. For a quicker, quieter Yogurtland experience, try the Downtown spot.

Yogurtland - Little Tokyo
1670 South Central Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012

The RSVP Line: Hello Kitty's 35 and doesn't look a day over 5.

This Saturday, Hello Kitty will be celebrating her 35th anniversary all day and all night long with her coolest LA friends at Royal/T. And what better venue to celebrate a love of all things cute and Japanese?

The party starts at 10 am with a brunch with DJ Valida, continues throughout the morning and afternoon with a meet and greet with the Hello Kitty design team, workshops and more. And come evening time, Hello Kitty will be throwing down with our friends from Lovemade.

Don't miss the cutesy fun. Maybe Hello Kitty will even share her secrets for keeping her youthful look well into her 30s...

Hello Kitty 35th Anniversary & Fan Party

Three Apples Exhibition
Celebrating all things Hello Kitty

Saturday, October 24th
5 - 7 p
= ( ^ . ^ ) =

ROYAL T CAFÉ/SHOP/ART SPACE
8910 Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232

The Prada Tranformer: innovative or idiotic?

Is Prada's Tranformer innovative and interesting? Or a $10 million toy for a really bored fashion designer?

[Source: WWD - Prada Unveils Its Transformer Project in Seoul]

[Photo Credit: Nasha Lee]

An evening with Peter Saville. A genius and a gift bag.

On Wednesday night, good pal Renee invited us to an especially special event – An Evening with Peter Saville at the Paley Center for Media, the designer responsible for the album cover art of Joy Division and New Order, campaigns for Stella McCartney, Jill Sander, Dior and Yohji Yamamoto, and most recently, the creative direction of the city of Manchester.

I didn’t know much about Peter Saville, nor about Factory Records which Saville helped found, nor any of the legendary bands he’d worked with. I do, however, know the following now thanks to Saville and his genius, articulate, flippant dialogue…

Peter Saville on his work in the music industry…

• “The first significant money that Factory made was made off of Ian Curtis dying. And no one knew what to do with the money…there was no plan for the money. So we built a hacienda.”
• In the US, in the 70s and 80s there was a mandate from the album artwork to include the artist name and title of the album in the top 1/3 of the cover. Bollocks.

Peter Saville on cities…

• ‘I liked Los Angeles when I had a ticket out.’
• ‘We understand places from what they’re doing…the brand of a city is brokered by what’s going on there [as opposed to through logos, fonts and design].’

Peter Saville on fashion…

• ‘I flipped through a copy of British Vogue last week and the whole thing was rubbish.’
• ‘This kind of endorsement to a story [told by Prada, Gucci, etc] is desperate.’ Genius!
• ‘Handbags—it’s fashion working its way off the body…very soon they won’t even need the handbag.’
• ‘I had worked with Stella [McCartney]’s dad. So I was never really obliged to take Stella seriously.’

And lastly, Peter Saville on everything else...

• ‘Pop culture is our culture now. It needs to be better understood’

Thanks to Emmy and Todd Kasten for producing the event, Manchester and Use Hearing Protection for hosting, and art darling Ramses for his contribution to the limited edition print found in the gift bag.

Photo Credit of Peter Saville: Anja Jahn

[LA Times: Peter Saville on the Manchester revolution]

White women and their love of Africa.

In the last couple of days, I've been struck by a few white women who are very confident in their relationship to black, or African, culture. I hold judgement...for the most part.

Exhibit A: The white, female handler of a very famous R&B singer asking what time he really had to be on-site because she was dealing on 'black central time.' I believe there was also a reference to 'black playschool.' As the lone white girl amongst the event's front of house staff, I obviously had to wait for permission to laugh at this. After receiving confirmation from my black coworker at the table, I smiled. I am still not sure if I am hugely offended or wildly amused.

Exhibit B: Lauren Hutton 'Africa' eyeglasses. In the optometrist's office yesterday, I came upon this collection of eyewear [right next to Sophia Loren's--really?]. I understand Lauren loves her some travel and philanthropy, but c'mon now--Africa? Eyeglasses? What's the connection? Do Africans have an affinity for unattractive designer spectacles?

Giving thanks for yesterday's carb count.

Thanksigving 2.0 proved, on almost all counts, a success. The morning's turnout to Gobble Gobble Give was astounding. I'm pretty certain that every hipster in a 15 mile radius of The Echo turned out to pack, pass and send out hundreds of packaged meals to LA's homeless. Note for next year: rolls and pie do not a Thanksgiving meal make people. By the end of the day, we'd run out of turkey and were sending out whole pies in the stead of meals. But a pumpkin pie is better than nothing to eat. And I left inspired by the community's come-togetherness. And especially impressed by my very own DJ Scott T. Sterling's 2 hour set which had volunteers shaking their tail as they doled stuffing and pie out.

The rest of the day was equally satisfactory.

The centerpiece turned out...well, it turned out alright. A little gliterry for the occasion, perhaps. But now we've just got a headstart on decorating for Christmas...

Scott and I made a pumpkin pie. Because the one pie we'd already purchased, simply put, needed a pal. And because no Thanksgiving would be complete without pumpkin products...

We snacked on brie and my all time fave cheese, Cave-Aged Gruyere...

Heating up the dinner from Auntie Em's, picked up the day before, was quite the production for me and had me baffled more than a couple of times--further proof that I should never, ever attempt to actually create an entire meal from scratch. It also could probably have fed 4 people...

As you'll see by the amount of food leftover, which looks nearly identical to the amount of food which we started with...

Next year, perhaps we'll opt for a dinner out. Either that or the purchase of a stomach pump.

Til the next holiday. When we'll do it all over again...