Daphne, my intern on the Bovenlanden Proiect, and below, Henriëtte with her mother Ria. For some reason these snapshots, taken almost without noticing, hit me as very 'true' when I imported them and looked at them for a while. Silhouettes have an intense effect on me, more than faces. It's as if I could feel them walk away from me. And I like how they stick out from the surrounding flatness. And the space between mother and daughter fascinates me - so close and yet so distinct in their features.
This is a pet's cemetery, and the top picture the grave of a canary bird (!) in Het Groene Hart (the green hart of The Netherlands). Notice the cat following Ria, Henriëtte's mother, like a loyal guardian. Henriëtte & I have been visiting the area for the past weeks for a project we are working on - about how to frame (mentally, visually and in terms of recreation) the area of De Bovenlanden, an agricultural polder destined to become 'nature' in the near future.
Michel de Lucchi
- SO HAPPY TO COME ACROSS THIS, THE TACTILITY, THE SENSITIVITY, THE URGENCY ALSO -
Michele De Lucchi @ Ingo Maurer
Ingo Maurer Showroom, Kaiserstrasse 47, Munich, 5 February - 20 March
The quiet pleasures of whittling versus the frenzied sounds of the chainsaw might be at opposite ends of the sound spectrum, yet for Italian architect and designer Michele De Lucchi the move from sharpening pencils with a penknife to picking up a power tool was driven by the same joy: shaping ...
Erik Sep, details of his scale model city. Mediamatic wrote a review about Sep's methodology.
Frank Halsmans, 'Motel Insomnia', 1996-.... - INSIDE ARE THE ROOMS HE ONCE SLEPT IN, BUILT FROM MEMORY AND CONTINUOUSLY REFINED, DETAIL BY DETAIL - (I wonder if Halsmans will ever reach the point where these 'place-memories' will 'fall into place' and 'feel right')
Ron van der Ende: 727 woodrelief UNDER CONSTRUCTION size: approx. 3m10 wide 16cm deep
- OUF -
Ron van der Ende: Flagmans House / Baanwachtershuis 2009 (detail) bas-relief in reclaimed timbers, 90×80x10cm - LOOK AT THOSE DETAILS!!! THOSE COLORS!-
(If the world was shaped with such care and detail it would be a whole different place and we would all act more elegantly, I' sure of it) 
Ron van der Ende: Flagmans House / Baanwachtershuis 2009 (detail) bas-relief in reclaimed timbers, 90×80x10cm - I WANT TO HAVE THIS ONE IN MY HOUSE A.S.A.P. (just need to save up a little....) -
Ron van der Ende: Signal Box 2 / Blokpost 2 2008 bas-relief in reclaimed timbers, 65×85x10cm (left: the flip side image) -THIS ONE TOO- 
Tracey Snelling @ Cokkie Snoei Gallery
Market (New Orleans), 2008, mixed media,136 cm x 85 cm x 61 cm
- I DREAMT ABOUT THIS ONE ONCE (I THINK) -
Object Rotterdam was like last year, the boring one of the two shows, with hard neon light, static presentations and important looking (wannabe) designers - in contrast to the tipsy, out of line, talkative artists on the other side of the road (which I feel a lot closer too, to be honnest). There was ONE thing that gave me shivers, Scholten & Baaijings's Total Table Design, a cooperation with Royal Leerdam Crystal (glassware), Koninklijke Van Kempen & Begeer (cutlery/table accessories) and the Audax Textile Museum. Scholten and Baijings are real shapers (vormgevers), in the crafty sense of the word, with a sense of aesthetics, details and texture that left meunder their spell for a while. Thank you Stefan and Carol for taking things this far. It proves that good design can renew our sensitivity to the world.
Tracey Snelling @ Gallery Cokkie Snoei # Bad Motel, # 2008, # mixed media, # 106 cm x 58 cm x 36 Either I'm addicted to dream-like houses and scale models, or the art world is. The 2010 opening of Art Rotterdam was busy as always, and my hurried visit amidst the bubble wine frenzy left me with a homesick feeling and four names in my notebook: Snelling, Sep, Halsmans, and Van der Ende. They make bad motels, uncanny markets, flagmans houses, insomnia motels, a slow city. I decided to start a collection of beautiful alternative homes, also because these days I'm fevereshly sketching on a weather house (a house with the weather inside) for a project, whatever that may become..
forest gate, 2005 a/w
Over a hundred 30x30 cm textile print studies by mina perhönen fill the tiny exhibition room of the Textile Museum in Tilburg, which I am visiting with Mara and Monique on a icy sunny saturday. Pictures are not allowed so I draw some of the patterns I like most. The one above is shown in original format in an adjacent room. It's a beautiful, breathing charcoal drawing. I want to touch it. I want to be the little orange tiger at the edge of that endless forest. Now I understand why Perhonen's work feels so rich. It's literally layered, condensed attention, hours spent with sheets of paper, later scaled down and transferred to textile, and ultimately shaped around the body.
~
Monique is as much more fervent blogger than me (I only come round to processing what I've lived, seen and aprreciated every few weeks or so, also because INSTANT messaging just doesn't feel right) - so she managed to get hold of the 2010 collection book via a special japanese website, uguisu. I found a super funny paper bird which I will fly over here to brighten up my studio!
Big string-sofas, 2008, Bertjan Pot
For the café of the Textile Museum Bertjan placed four comfy cheerful seaters in each corner - frames of metal woven into hamock like alcoves. They are elegant, funny, well made and they work - they literally frame the space, in a hushed manner. Wonderful.
