Cha-Jong Rye

I am completely blown away by this artist! Amazing woodwork. I’d like to do this with paper:

Courtesy of Colossal, which is by far in a way my favorite new art/design blog. Great work there.

Playing with patterns

So here’s how I used the first lasercut copy of Caliza.

Cool, no?

Same pattern, totally different effect:

Caliza, Part 2

OK, so where were we? Right. Caliza!

I knew that my Caliza piece absolutely had to be based on a traditional geometric tiling. I wanted a pattern that suggested structure and strength, but that also had “flow”. After sketching through a few options, I settled on this pattern:

Then I copied my pattern, and once my design was set, I laid it on the lightbox, put my paper on top, and started cutting:

The first layer is always the craziest to do:

Then I added a layer of gray for depth:

I knew that I wanted some — a lot — of white in the design, a la Alys Beach, and I knew I wanted some blue in there, too, taking the pool as my inspiration. Then I had some vague idea about reds and oranges in there to offset the blues, and so I painted this to use as one of my layers:

I also painted this blue, which would be another layer:

I started cutting the red-orange:

And I layered it on the blue:

Viola!

Gorgeous!

And…

TOTALLY NOT WHAT I WAS GOING FOR!

As a reminder, this is the Caliza pool that I was taking as my inspiration.

So, I tried removing the blue layer (verrrrrrrry carefully):

Now, tell me that’s not flipping cool. Isn’t it? Gorgeous?

And also totally not at all what I was going for??

Crap.

Crap crap crap.

What to do? I have this beautiful piece of art in my hands, and I put many hours of work into it, but it’s not right for the order. It’s not what the customer ordered, and even if they might love it — it’s not the wedding gift they were meant to have. I wanted to make them something that would evoke some of the feeling that they brought to their wedding . It didn’t have to be at all a literal representation of the actual Caliza Pool at Alys Beach, but it did need to have a certain… feel. And this piece, as lovely as it was, just didn’t have that feel.

So let’s admire it one more time before we very bravely kiss it goodbye, shall we?

Here:

So. I got in touch with my friend Mallory, and told her what was going on, and she said to use my judgment, which reinforced for me what I already knew: I had to fix this. And so I did.

Luckily, I did not have to start over. I managed to separate out the already-cut layers and go back to the white-gray stage. I painted new backgrounds, this time, to evoke the limestone of the pool and blustery day on which the couple were wed, together with a smaller blue square. I cut and cut, and put them together, and this time?

I really, really like how this turned out.

Nice, right?

This story has an epilogue, and it goes like this:

Before I started cutting Caliza, I had copies of the top layer lasercut. Which means, I have COPIES. And you KNOW I am going to use them. In fact, I already have. I’ll be back soon to show you how!

Caliza, part 1

A couple of months ago, my friend Mallory commissioned me to create a wedding gift for friends of hers. But not just any friends! Very interesting friends!

But first let me tell you about Mallory.

Mallory is a BADASS. I can’t say enough about how talented and accomplished a woman she is. And funny and beautiful and thoughtful and kind. She’s an architect and designer, and when she was about five years old she co-founded her own design and development firm. OK, she was a little older, but she is a spring chicken and she is AMAZING. She also has a gorgeous little five year old girl, and when she looked around a couple of years ago and realized she wasn’t altogether satisfied with the educational options available to her daughter, she went ahead and BUILT A SCHOOL FROM SCRATCH. She is that kind of woman.

So when Mallory told me this piece was to be a gift for very close personal friends, I sat up a bit straighter in my chair. And when Mallory told me that these friends were not only dear friends, but were also professional designers and colleagues of hers, I sat up even straighter. It is only a little bit daunting to create art for design professionals. When you’re just starting out. And have only ever done a few commissions before.

Mallory told me a bit about the bride and groom: The bride’s background is middle eastern, and she spent much of her childhood in various ME locales before she eventually moved to Europe. Spent the rest of her childhood there, and then eventually completed her education in the US, where she has remained.

The groom? “All-American.”

Both bride and groom, Mallory told me, are big travelers, enjoy exotic locales. The groom, Mal says, is completely rapt by the bride’s exotic background and experiences (she and Mal were on the same projects that brought them to Beijing, and Manila, and Perth, and Mexico City, and the Baja Peninsula, and St. Lucia, among others — not to mention the bride’s interesting upbringing!). The bride is clearly an art-lover, very aesthetically minded, has that gorgeous European high level of taste. Mal thought she would just love a piece of art as a wedding gift.

But what kind of art?

Now, here’s where it gets interesting: The bride is a twin, and both were trained as architects. The twin sister and twin sister’s husband have been Town Architects for a project that, not exactly coincidentally, the bride helped design the masterplan for. It’s called Alys Beach, and this is their website: http://www.alysbeach.com/

Alys Beach is a pretty unique place, with a very unique aesthetic. It’s intended to be worldly, respond to the climate (hence the white walls/roofs, the sun-screening, the porches and galleries and overhangs, the shutters and loggias), and generally be very “high design”. Part of that incorporates a lot of east-meets-west details.

Particularly, there are lots of Moorish patternings and such. This, Mallory says, is what made her think of me.

The best example of the style is undoubtedly the pool at Alys, called the Caliza Pool, which twin sister and husband designed. And where bride and groom’s wedding reception was took place.

So Mallory asked me if I could create a piece of art that reflects something — anything — about the pool.

Here are some pictures of the actual Caliza pool at Alys Beach:

Look at these tiles:

Is this place not gorgeous? And what a mission: To create a piece of art inspired by this stunning place, for a pair of design professionals with middle eastern roots.

Think I was up to it? You betcha. I’ll show you just what I did in my next post.

Ratz!

Oded Ezer has released a new Hebrew font, and it’s soooooo cool:

Don’t you love it? I particularly appreciate the calligraphic nod, even as the font seems primed for the digital age.

Ha’aretz has a feature about the font’s release here.

Noah Sakamoto

http://noahsakamoto.blogspot.com/

Peace

Peace, Holiday Season 2010, originally uploaded by Ruth Mergi.

This limited-edition papercut is available for purchase right now, for the 2010 holiday season. The design about 4.5 inches square and mounted to archival white museum board. Hand cut from a single sheet of black silhouette paper. 35 USD.

I’ve got about five of them going right now, and I can do a few more. Let me know if you’re interested.

Commission for Baby Adi

A few weeks ago I got an email from an old friend, MT. A friend of MT’s, whom I also knew  – we all went to summer camp together back when we were twelve, about three million years ago — was welcoming a new baby to her family, named Adi, and would I like to make a piece or artwork as a gift to the mama?

Of course!!! For one thing, MT is a cool girl. I remember her friend, Selig, fondly. I have great love of all things baby, and creating Baby’s First Work of Art strikes me as noble a cause as any. But, most wonderfully and serendipitously of all, Selig’s new baby girl is named ADI!!! Which, as some of you many know, is the name of my own wonderfully delightful daughter.

I love the name. In Hebrew, it means “jewel” or “adornment.” Which is lovely, of course: it is a name that speaks beauty. But another meaning drew me to the name. The Hebrew letters “ayin” and “daled” form the word “witness.” Together with the “yud” at the end of the name, the three letters spell “my witness.” And this, oh this! I love this so. First, the idea of a child as a parent’s witness is a powerful one. After all, who truly SEES us as our children do? If you’re a Believer — you know the answer to Who Sees! And even if you’re not — the concept of witnessing, the process of witnessing has profound meaning in just about any metaphysics. Bearing witness is one of most basic and also most exalted things that consciousness does.

Also, it sounds really cute. Adiiiiiii! Like a little girlie squeal.

So I was good to go.

I got my marching orders from MT: We agreed on size and scale, and MT told me she wanted a piece based on the baby’s Hebrew name. She also mentioned that Selig was Jewish and that her father (the baby’s grandfather,) was Laotian Buddhist, and suggested that I use imagery from both religions in the piece.

Alrighty, then! This one basically drew itself:

  First I started with a sketch, and attached it to the paper I wanted to cut, like nyah:

Then I started cutting. Here’s a view from reverse:

Here’s the first layer, complete:

Then I added a few more layers, as well as some sparklies, and voila!

Here’s the final image:

Pretty, no? There in the center, that’s the Hebrew name Adi. It sits at the center of a lotus form. The name is adorned with Swarovski crystals, both to reflect the meaning of the name, and to remind us of the “crown jewel” of Jewish tradition — the Torah’s wisdom.

The lotus flower is a Buddhist symbol representing purity and spiritual growth. Additionally, in Hindu tradition the 12-petaled lotus represents the heart chakra, and is associated with pink and green — green for the giving of love, pink for receiving of love.

The papercut carries with it the blessings of beauty, wisdom, spiritual growth, and love. Mazal tov to Selig! And welcome to the world, baby Adi!

Mark Langan

corrugated cardboard art:

Nice use of the material, isn’t it? And so very kind to the planet. Gotta love that.

Check it out at http://www.langanart.com/

WIP (work in progress)