painting as portal

"art is our compass to the cosmos." 

jack whitten

jack whitten, the messenger
MoMA
photos mine or j li

 

American People

faith ringgold, New Museum
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/arts/design/faith-ringgold-new-museum.html

 

writing in the garden

  in riverside park

 

art abstract

at the Biennial, previewing people previewing art... 

Whitney Biennial...

at the photography show

photographer tony vaccaro, monroe gallery booth,
AIPAD, Pier 94 last week...

let it shine

The Royal Wedding was a journey and the haute couture dress told a story crafted to take all 53 countries of the Commonwealth along as Meghan Markle became the Duchess of Sussex at St. George's Chapel on Saturday:

Speaking about the design, Clare Waight Keller (the first female Artistic Director of the House of Givenchy) said: "We wanted to create a timeless piece that would emphasize the iconic codes of Givenchy throughout its history, as well as convey modernity through sleek lines and cuts.

"In contrast, the delicate floral beauty of the veil was a vision Meghan and I shared, a special gesture embracing the commonwealth flora, ascending the circumference of the silk tulle."  (UK Daily Mirror)

sketch of the veil, Givenchy Clare Waight Keller,
photo courtesy of Kensington Palace....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronation_gown_of_Queen_Elizabeth_II

and now, a flashback Friday

in honor of National Library Week, how about The House of Four Seasons and/or The Rescuers?

came across both at NY Public Library shop, the first fascinating me as a child with its celebration of color! 

what's on your list?

at NY Public Library....

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. today...

from And the Pursuit of Happiness, Maira Kalman
http://www.mairakalman.com/books/adult/and-the-pursuit-of-happiness/#1

workaday Wednesday...

Travaux Manufacture...
Braquenie, Pierre Frey

items

at MoMA: is fashion modern?

MoMA
https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2016/04/05/announcing-items-is-fashion-modern/

tall

at Noguchi Museum...

two views of shoes

Great House, Summit, NJ

from anchovy, with love

what's in a name?  

at Anchovy a Lithuania based kids' fashion collection presented at Playtime Show this week, the answer is color!

Giedre, the artist and founder behind the line, works with an interactive, customized app that essentially translates the theme words of her choice into each garment's wash of gradient color. 

sound complicated?  Giedre demonstrated for me with the word of my choice: beauty. 

we simply typed into her phone app and watched as a field of color filled the screen. 

behold! 

the collection, hiding from the sun, and Anchovy's innovative silhouettes, colors and patterns in European sourced cotton, linen and silk, also caught the eye of Pirouette blog, who bestowed upon the team their coveted One to Watch Award!

@from_anchovy
Playtime New York
Pirouette blog 

forest for the trees

Root sequence. Mother tongue (2017) Asad Raza
Whitney Biennial...
http://www.artnews.com/2017/03/13/redbuds-yellowwoods-and-a-weeping-persimmon-asad-raza-brings-a-forest-to-the-whitney-biennial/

healing heart

i lost my cherished, clear crystal Kazuko heart pendant yesterday, gifted to me years ago by a dear friend who then worked at Barneys where Kazuko's jewelry and Kazuko herself were both fixtures.

i wonder if the universe simply needed it back?

once upon a time in a 1998 feature story, an EVP of Barneys said of the Kazuko craze, " the first jewelry we had in the store was the single stones of clear crystal with bold wrapping... They were mostly pendants to be pinned on. Then she did hearts, and I didn't understand. 'Barneys is not a heart store,' I told her. But she kept bringing them back, and it became the right thing."  http://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/22/style/a-priestess-of-zen-adornment.html

i always found it to be an object of incredible simplicity, beauty and calm, light and bright on the body and warm to the touch after wearing.  i already miss tucking it back into its spot in the jewelry drawer of my dresser.

the heart, and the shiny gold wire wrapped around it, also came to symbolize part of my own fashion history.  while it was given to me by one friend from Barneys, another small piece was presented to me years later by Kazuko herself through connection to yet another friend who i came to work with at YSL, all of us neatly and not so neatly intertwined through our roles and grateful for the transformative properties of Kazuko's crystals to instill in us the higher powers we needed to meet our latest, greatest challenges in the line of fashion duty...

and speaking of fashion duty, earlier this week, two of us met up for a lunch meeting at The Modern and even uttered Kazuko's name as i commented on the beauty of the signature, chunky amulet my friend was wearing.  minutes after our lunch, we bumped into none other than the legendary Andre Leon Talley at Manolo Blahnik and a brief but meaningful exchange took place among crystals of an entirely different but equally wondrous sort.

if there is a moral to the story, perhaps it is simply that positive energy and light will continue to find us when we believe they are there to be discovered.  after all, fashion is love.

small Kazuko crystal, circa 1998