Haus Ware

Form and function duel like warriors in a Wagner opera: The more intense the distinction, the more sure you can be that they are, in a sense, really one and the same. The first time my eyes took in the improbable Byzantine curves of the 7 White Matte Bottle Collection by Sara Paloma, I knew that no matter how well these stoneware vessels might pour, they can be no question that their purpose is to create an atmosphere all on their own. With a soft upward movement that draws to a point, calling to mind perhaps the minarets of the Near East, or alternatively, the irresistible, smile-inducing shape of soft-serve ice cream, Paloma has succeeded in crafting a set of bottles that could conceivably class up the loft or beachhouse-- but would be far more appropriate as a haus conversation centerpiece in a properly modern environment. The verdict: Form wins, but so do we all, simply by learning to appreciate the delicate, painstaking process by which something so superbly unique is finally achieved.

Visit Sara Paloma Pottery here to view her collection.

Of Pipefittings and Prettiness

In an age of hemp and compost, it’s intriguing to find anyone, let alone a jewelry sculptor, whose material of choice is a thermoplastic polymer. But then, it’s all in how you look at it: What greener use of PVC can there be than to wear it? One glance at the Harvest Cuff, its mesmerizing faux-glass surface gathering light in intricate grooves, illuminating a pattern of overlapping seashell or chandelier, and it also quickly becomes evident that Kath Inglis of Wear No Evil is celebrating pure ingenuity with every hand-carved inch of her elegant bangles. This, I suspect, is where the future of jewelry lies, in products that capture the aesthetic of a traditional material yet inject a new element (in this case, elasticity) via technology that just wasn’t available in the old days of Bombay bungri. Bravo to Kath for a gutsy reinterpretation of an accessory worn by at least half a billion women worldwide, and pity anyone who fails to appreciate the sweet irony of salvaging something genuinely beautiful from the forge of chemical madness.

Organic Abstractions

I like to think of a surrealist as someone who hears Barack Obama speak of putting “lipstick on a pig” and immediately wonders how that image would play on canvas. In the narrowest sense, the art of youareconstance, its human commentary streaked with the bold rhetoric of chartreuse, apricot, and a hundred other unexpected hues, finds its mark as a somewhat abstract example of digital modernism. For me, however, it’s the surrealist spirit that seems intuitively most obvious in prints such as What is Likely to Happen When One is Full of Bull and the white space-mastering Squid in Blue.

Of course, as a sentimental favorite, Perching Ravens seems to capture the irony of its subjects’ haughty, monarchal sense of indifference—and oblivion to that irony-- about as well as any illustration I’ve seen. In the end, I love this kind of art because it transcends category. Agile and deep-knotted, humourous yet at turns layered with connotation, it is simply a remarkable gallery of images that even the snobbiest art critic will have a hard time soon forgetting…and that an online reviewer hard-biased against clichéd art themes can scarcely evaluate without descending into hyperbole. To enjoy the full complement of prints offered by youareconstance, visit her shop here on Etsy.

Doll Days Revisited

Designers such as Jess Brown know that the crucible of dollcraft is not the touch test, but the feel test. As early Americans proved in the swaddling of figurines with cornhusk and pine needles, fingertips are notoriously overrated in the evaluation of a doll. A fabulous doll, rather, is one that appears to feel, and inspire her owner to feel, an emotion true to the human condition. What I love about the Jess Brown collection goes far beyond the uniqueness of each design or the earthy sensibility of composing art from fabric remnants. The allure of her craft is in the nascent femininity caught in the expressions of the dolls: curveless bodies, teardrop-shaped heads adorned with nondescript faces, swordstitched dashes sufficing for eyes not yet opened to appreciate real evil.

While the temptation here is to link Brown’s work with an overall movement toward minimalism in toy design, or perhaps a cyclical revival of Folk Art, the truth is that the cloth doll genome maps out over centuries, as evidenced by the resurgence of dollmaking at the hands of Shoshone, Lakota Sioux, and other such tribal craftsmen. Brown’s special contributions to this tradition, however, are truly her own: bold, funny, and often intentionally incongruent design schemes, marked by unconventional hoods and hairpieces, clothing prints that are chic and mature, and a sense of time and place that is well-rooted without losing the whimsy that makes a girl fall in love with that doll in the window. Keep your Barbies and Cabbage Patch Kids. Jess Brown knows who she is, and something tells me the rest of the world soon will, as well.

Visit Jess Brown Design at: www.jessbrowndesign.com