Unique Objects from the MoMa Design Store

MoMA’s Design Store has a great selection of gifts that could best be described as contemporary art in the form of practical objects. Mondrian-inspired vases, the Vitra Eames Bird, and the classic vintage cat wall clock with its tick-tocking tail are just a few examples of the neat decor pieces you’ll find there. One standout is the $85 M.S.S. Wall Clock by Yohei Oki, which replaces numbers with rhythmically arranged geometric shapes. It’s an eye-catcher in black and ice blue.

Phaidon Press Coffee Table Books

Available at Amazon, Nordstrom, and from their own site, Phaidon Press books are coffee table classics, the kind of beautifully printed and fascinating tomes anyone would want to show off. Titles include Great Women Painters, Japanese Interiors, 1000 Design Classics, The Brutalists, Radical Architecture of the Future, and more, available for $49.95 and up.

Minted’s Direct-From-Artist Collection

Want to purchase from individual artists and creators but lack the time to shop in-person at holiday markets? Minted’s Direct-From-Artist collection is a curated marketplace of unique items shipped directly to you from each artist’s studio, and there are hundreds of items to choose from, including ceramics, wall art, baskets, and sculptures. It’s hard to single out favorites, but this $165 marble vanity tray by Brooklyn-based The Parmatile Shop is certainly a standout.

Cozy Cashmere Throws from Quince

Give someone a well-made cashmere blanket and they’ll be thanking you for years into the future. Who knows, they might even start wearing it as a cloak. There’s really nothing else like this ultra-soft fiber. It’s often blended with lambswool, alpaca wool, or polyester to lower the price point, but here’s a secret: you can get 100-percent Mongolian cashmere blankets at the crazy-low price of $129.90 from Quince, a company dedicated to making high-quality goods more affordable.

Colorful Cookware from Our Place

Coated with toxin-free ceramic in a range of shades that are to die for, Our Place’s cookware looks so good you’ll want to leave it out on the stovetop full time so everyone can admire it. The cult favorite Always Pan is the perfect introductory piece, measuring 10 inches in diameter with a matching lid for $99.

Luxe Candles from Le Labo and D.S. & Durga

With names like Spirit Lamp, ’85 Diesel, and Big Sur After Rain, D.S. & Durga’s scented candles ($65 each) clearly go beyond the typical. Fragrance notes like saffron, smoke, Scotch marmalade, and tea create complex and unexpected combinations. Le Labo’s luxurious candles ($82 each) pack a similarly sophisticated punch, filling the room with scents like the herb-infused Laurier 62 and the zesty lime and eucalyptus-based Verveine 32. Both brands can be purchased through Nordstrom with free shipping.

Kelly Wearstler Home Objects

If you’re after gifts that look like haute couture for the home, look no further than designer Kelly Wearstler, whose bowls, platters, vases, and tabletop objects are unlike anything you’ll find elsewhere. Most of these pieces are definitely an investment, but there are cute little splurges to be found, too, like the glass $300 Bubble Pitcher.

The post Sophisticated Home Decor Gifts for the Design Snob in Your Life first appeared on Dornob.

For Mustardo, these fleshy ceramics offer a chance to play with ancient forms, infusing them with the characteristics of human bodies. The sculptor’s series “Anthropophorae,” “Toroid,” “Mug,” “Pitcher,” and “Flablet” make objects traditionally seen as hard and solid appear as soft and mutable as unbaked bread dough. Flablets and “Logoliths” are both puns on the clay tablet, “referencing the form and function of those great, antiquated, and often fragmented recording devices to examine certain mechanisms of visual language.” Their forms droop and dimple, looking like you could poke them with your finger and leave a mark.

The Toroid series starts with a torus (donut) shape, bulging and distorting it in a variety of hues and textures. Mustardo first began using toroids to test glazes in his studio, but soon became enamored with the simple form itself. During a residency in Rome, he closely observed Baroque architectural ornamentation of amphorae and krater with ribbed undersides known as “gadrooning.” Applying this technique to the entire shape, he stretches them into gourd-like sculptures, referencing the early days of humanity when actual hollowed-out gourds were used in place of the pottery that would soon be invented and mastered.

The Mug and Pitcher series take shapes we’re all familiar with and make them strange, abstracted, almost like objects that have been dropped deep into the sea to be encrusted with salt and barnacles. Anthropophorae is perhaps the most striking of all, inspired by the Ancient Greek and Roman amphora jar with two handles and a narrow neck. Exaggerating their roundedness and giving them human-like poses suddenly creates a sense of sensuality that didn’t really exist in these objects before.

Much of Mustardo’s work revolves around “broad, reverential notions of the vessel, the body, and language,” as he explains, animating the inanimate and perhaps making them more appealing to self-obsessed humans in the process. The objects are pushed and pulled, concave and convex, humorous and serious. When he covers them in a shimmering PVC coating for them a stippled, warty appearance, they become even more surreal. Some are finished with a contrasting coat of glaze for an eerie glow.

“Attempts are made to continually dissect processes, revisit forms, and reframe themes to agitate evolution and antagonize static thinking,” Mustardo says. “Objects are focused upon as vital witnesses and participants, reflections and poems, animate and imagined.”

The post Maxwell Mustardo’s Whimsical Ceramics Aren’t Afraid to Get Weird first appeared on Dornob.

One of his more recent pieces, “Still in One Piece III” used porcelain facial features to capture his coronavirus lockdown musings. The outlines of two faces shielded by protective masks press against each other, the hyper-realistic noses brushing and lips locked together. While the image is vaguely unnerving, it also portrays our species’ deep for connection and intimacy.

“At the beginning of May [2020], this idea popped up in my mind from nowhere during my meditation. Ideas came up to me like this very often. Many of my pieces were created with ideas popped up during meditation,” Tsang told My Modern Met of the kissing masks piece. “I have a strong feeling that these creative ideas were not originated from me. But I believe there must be a good reason that it came to me. Maybe just because I have the ability to realize these wonderful ideas and show them to the right people. For this reason, I don’t want to interpret it myself. I think everyone who see my works has the right to interpret them in their own way, according to their own feelings.”

Other works open for interpretation include a grimacing face that appears to be having its skin pulled sweatshirt-style over its head by a pair of arms emerging from the skull. Another features fingers from inside a head prying open the face, causing the features to disappear but still look like the person might be screaming. Tsang’s “Remembrance” has one face melting on top of another, while “Love in Progress” shows a pair of hands wringing out a tortured face like a wet towel.

Although his skill with ceramics seems like it must have taken a lifetime to perfect, art and sculpture are actually a second career for Tsang. Having grown up poor, the artist originally focused on trade labor, first as an air conditioning assistant and then a potato chip fryer. He eventually became a police officer, spending 13 years keeping the streets of Hong Kong safe. During that time, he took a clay modeling class and was transformed by its pliable nature. “The clay seemed so friendly to me, it listened to every single word in my mind and did exactly [as] I was expecting,” Tsang said in an interview with Colossal. “Every touch was so soothing. I feel like I was touching human skin. I found peace and joy in it. I’ve felt in love with it ever since.”

Leaving behind his police work, Tsang jumped into a “new life” of “exploring art.” However, his experiences as a cop with the “dark side of the city and humanity” heavily influence his artist creations. “What affected me the most were the fatal cases,” he said in an interview with the Bein Art Gallery. “I saw people being stabbed and killed by gangsters, a 6-year-old girl who was murdered by her maid, an 11-year-old girl who watched her younger brother die under a big tire of a double-decker bus while she was helping her mother to take care of him, and lots of faces of people who lost their lives in fatal car accidents. Today, I would definitely say that my service plays an important role in my creation. At least, I see things differently.”

Tsang updates fans by posting his latest work to his website, Facebook, and Instagram accounts.

The post Johnson Tsang’s Surreal Ceramics Show the Face of Human Struggle first appeared on Dornob.

Titled “21’ Abandon Darkness,” referencing a new Anglepoise brand slogan, Akhtar’s reinvention of the task light takes inspiration from Anglepoise lamps’ “ability to illuminate and demarcate, something we have all needed help with this past year, as work, study, and leisure have all bled into one.” Her version starts with what looks like a ceramic jug, adding a swiveling strip of LED lights perfect for illuminating a work surface.

Akhtar started with a plaster model “made to get a sense of shape and visualize ideas,” she explains. “At this point, the discussion into how the light source will work within the product began to develop. 21 is the next generation of iconic Anglepoise lamp, revamped and reimagined to encourage deep productive work and support well-being.”

The Staffordshire University graduate created the lamp as part of her final school projects. In the past, she has experimented with different shapes that give her ceramics a variety of moods, like Brutalist forms crafted on a plaster lathe and simple ceramic spheres pierced with holes to act as the base of a small table. But Akhtar’s ceramics are perhaps at their most interesting when they embrace irregularity, softness, and asymmetrical shapes, as with the bases for her Wedgwood lighting project.

The Wedgwood series is a modular lighting concept Akhtar has been working on since 2019. She was invited, along with two other students in the 3D Design Maker degree course, to propose concepts for functional wares and lighting that focus on the theme of well-being for Wedgwood, a British fine china and porcelain company known for being one of the largest manufacturers of Staffordshire pottery.

“Knowing that Wedgwood wanted to continue with my lighting design and believed that it fits well with their brand, has given me a [boost] of confidence in myself as a designer-maker,” Akhtar told Ceramic Review. “It felt rewarding to know that I was able to design a product with a specific live brief.”

Ahktar took inspiration from traditional Wedgwood ceramic designs and her research into contemporary lighting, looking specifically at stackable shapes that would ultimately give her design its modularity. After modernizing the shapes she found in old Wedgwood catalogs, the designer crafted her unique table lamps that glow softly from within the ceramic forms. Akhtar’s Instagram provides a fun inside look at her process, from early sketches to the final finished objects.

“Design made me think in a methodical and rational way,” Akhtar told Wallpaper. “It also stimulated my thinking and got the cogs spinning – I love it when that happens, and I like the practical side. In the past year I’ve come to appreciate ‘thinking through making.’”

The post Soyida Akhtar Reimagines Classic British Lamps with a Contemporary Twist first appeared on Dornob.

Front Porch Twinkle Lights

In addition to adding traditional pumpkins, gourds, or wheat stalks to your front porch, you could wind some string lights into the decor to give your friends and neighbors an even warmer welcome on those upcoming colder nights.

Fall-Filled Jars

Highlight your favorite elements of the season by filling some beautifully shaped vases or apothecary jars with tiny pumpkins or gourds. You could also collect acorns around your yard or local trails to give your jars a similar fall treatment. If you’re feeling more in a spooky mood, you can load them to the brim with candy corn or other aesthetically pleasing Halloween treats.

Handmade Ceramics

Autumn means breaking out the hot chocolate and cider, and that means you need some equally inviting drinking vessels. Cottagecore is still having a style moment, so acquiring an eclectic set of handmade mugs would definitely fit the bill. If you’re not handy with a pottery wheel or don’t have any local artisans in the family, a carefully curated collection of secondhand mugs can also feel cozy. These beauties from Wool + Clay are made by human hands at a ceramic shop in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Seasonal Flowers

The change in weather brings a change in what type of flowers are in bloom. Inserting some rich-colored blossoms on your table or working a new pot of golden mums onto your porch can immediately transform your home into a welcoming fall retreat.

Snuggly Bedding

Bringing in the fall ambiance can be as simple as switching out your bedding. Try warm, neutral colors with lots of texture when it comes to sheets and blankets, and layer a few festive pillows on top to finish the look.

Throw Pillow Covers

You can bring the same feel into your living spaces just by revamping some of the throw pillows you already have with seasonal prints. Of course, this works well if you have a backdrop of neutrals to work with, but there are still plenty of ways to make autumnal colors and motifs blend in with your existing decor.

Table Linens

You may not do any major entertaining until Thanksgiving, but there’s no reason your table can’t be cozy and attractive now. This versatile print placemat from Amazon comes in a set of 6 for just $12.99 and instantly warms up a place setting.

Mercury Glass Pumpkins

Mercury glass is always classy, and its reflective surface allows extra light and warmth to bounce around your space. These Pottery Barn pumpkin versions are both cordial and elegant.

Mantel Trimmings

What better place to deck out in fall coziness than your fireplace? Trim it out with some colorful foliage or a garland of shiny gourds. Natural wood and candles are another quick and easy way to make sitting around your hearth more alluring.

While this isn’t an exhaustive list of cozy fall decor, incorporating some of these ideas is sure to make your house feel more like a home as we jump head first into the new season.

The post 9 Cozy Fall Decor Ideas to Warm Up Your Home first appeared on Dornob.

Architectural firm Abin Design Studio (ADS) drew on this tradition for a beautiful new modern building in the town of Bansberia, West Bengal. “Gallery House” features an organic asymmetrical shape, a facade of rectangular bricks laid in dynamic patterns, and a cantilevered terrace that projects out over the front steps. The client originally purchased this plot of land across the street from his house as a parking lot for his vehicles, subsequently hiring the architects to build a garage with staff quarters above it.

Upon being asked, ADS had just completed the client’s home, “Wall House,” itself a contemporary residence clad in weathered steel occupying nearly 7,000 square feet. Built out to the edges of the plot, the home embraces the ongoing trend of inscrutable street-facing facades concealing luxurious courtyards, lawns, and pools. Not wanting to take up too much of the public lands, the architects managed to convince the client to use the lot across the street in a way that gave back to his fellow citizens instead of expanding his private complex.

The client initially agreed to build a garage on the ground level with a multipurpose public activity space overhead, featuring a design that would symbolically welcome community members by stretching out toward the street. As the project progressed, he decided he wanted to forgo the garage altogether in favor of opening more of the building up to the public. The ground floor then became a community hall, while the upper floor doubles as a dormitory for his resident staff by night and a multipurpose room for community yoga sessions and classes by day.

“The client enjoys a sense of pride and joy of ownership seeing the space put to good use,” say the architects, who add that “as a decision to introduce another architectural expression to the community, the building took cues from Bengal’s terracotta temples. Exposed brick masonry walls inlaid with ceramic blocks define the building character as a contemporary expression of the inspiration. Collaborating with a ceramic artist, rejected ceramic blocks produced for industrial use were collected. Terracotta bricks were procured from a riverside brick field located nearby. These two were combined, using locally prevalent finesse of building masonry.”

Regarding the structure’s name, the ADS team explains: “Every year, this locality holds a festive procession along the narrow, winding neighborhood lanes as a part of a cultural celebration. Reciprocating this, the building steps down towards the street form a gallery for the onlookers to sit, who gather at the street-side during this event. Through judicious planning and play of voids in volume, the integral space of the building was shared with the neighborhood people as a humane gesture of giving back to the local community, without disrupting the privacy and security of inner functions.”

The post Bricks Go Bold with Organic Shapes and Patterns Based on Bengal Temples first appeared on Dornob.

In particular, these nine items are guaranteed to bring in some winter cheer:

Ombre Felt Letter Ornaments

These individual letter ornaments can make for great personalized gifts or just spell out some season’s greetings around the home. Handmade by craftspeople in Nepal in a Fair Trade-certified facility, the felted wool letters are on sale right now for only $0.99 each.

Ceramic Tea Light Houses

This trio of tea light homes is a modern take on the classic miniature Christmas village. In simple white and terra cotta, the houses (starting at $20 for the smallest) make a sweet gingerbread-esque display on their own, but they can also be paired with West Elm’s Ceramic Christmas Trees to create an entire yuletide scene.

Light-Up Mercury Glass Globes

These eye-catching globes would look great on your tabletop or windowsill this holiday season. When illuminated by flameless candles or LED lights, these orbs transform from speckled silver to glowing amber. And at just $12 for a set of two, their cozy radiance is sure to set the right mood for any festivities you might have planned.

Shiny-Brite Tree Topper and Ornament Set

This collection-within-a-collection ($58) includes a set of 20 colorful glass bulbs with painted pastel stripes and a stacked-glass tree topper. Created exclusively for West Elm, these tree decorations are reminiscent of the signature Shiny-Brite originals dating back to World War II. The packaging is just as satisfying to look at, with each ball wrapped in printed tissue paper and nestled into its own chocolate box-like compartment.

Leaf Kraft and Glitter Garland

This 72-inch jute string of golden, shimmering leaves will up the holiday wow factor in any room you put it in. Mantels, doorways, and trees can all get an instant pick-me-up with this piece of sparkly foliage.

Geo-Embroidered Stockings

These stockings elevate traditional hanging socks into works of art, with embroidered gold rectangles inventively placed on their creamy cotton fronts. Measuring 20 inches long and fabricated in India, each stocking sells for $40.

Glass Menorah

This might be the most sophisticated way to light each night of Hanukkah. Constructed of crystal glass, the lines of this menorah ($60) are sleek and allow for light to pass through from every angle.

Luxe Lines Runner

This table runner, selling for $39, is an extremely versatile piece perfect for all every holiday from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. With its delicate slashes of gold on an ivory cotton base, this 90-inch runner helps dress up every meal.

Quince Wreath

Any door decked out with this wreath is destined to be a conversation piece. Made of quince slices, tallow berries, juniper, spruce cones, and other freshly cut plants and herbs, it measures 22 inches in diameter and sells for $120. Best of all, the ring’s eucalyptus leaves and cinnamon sticks provide a welcoming aroma to all who approach.

Even if the holidays look a little different this year due to COVID-19, dressing up your home in these festive accessories can help it feel a little more like a normal and cheery season.

The post 9 West Elm Holiday Decor Pieces You Don’t Want to Miss first appeared on Dornob.

Sandra Apperloo straddles that line with some of the most fun and creative ceramics you’ve ever seen. Based in the Netherlands, she crafts a range of objects brimming with personality that you could use in both a practical sense and hang on a wall as art, including dishes, ornaments, pots, vases, and decorative “plant friends” that poke out from among your philodendrons and monsteras.

With “Weirdo Bud Vases,” Apperloo turns spindly bud vases into adorable characters that interact with each other to express a variety of emotions. Some twist around each other anxiously. Some gaze into each other’s eyes. Some glance with curiosity, or stare in seriousness. Each little anthropomorphized vessel seems to have a life of its own.

Apperloo’s adept use of color and pattern give the pieces a style that’s all her own, whether they’re painted in pastel blue, mint, pink, spring green, yellow, or black and white. Polka dots, leaves, branches, flowers, and other markings add visual interest. Among these “weirdos” are also a few in a color scheme clearly modeled on “Delft Blue,” the world famous pottery historically produced in the Dutch city of Delft.

“I love colors and patterns,” the artist writes on her website, adding that she “h[as] a weak spot for pastel shades, I like to sculpt tiny eyes, paint weird freckles, and I challenge myself to try out fun new things all the time. From the biggest vase to the tiniest dish, I put love, thought, and effort into every single piece I create. Unloading my ceramics from the kiln gives me the best feeling ever. I love to see how the different characters turn out after the firings! I hope my work makes people laugh and daydream. I hope they distract from daily businesses, leave warm feelings, and tickle imaginations.”

“I hardly create plans or designs before I start working on a piece. I usually decide on the shape when I am building it, finding what feels good at that moment. This is the case for every part of the process: shaping, sculpting, choosing the colors, and painting the patterns. It helps me to stay open-minded and try out new things, which I feel is really important in my work.”

Apperloo sells these vases, along with her other works, on her website, “The Pottery Parade.” Prices usually range from €48 — €144, but her work is so popular, her whole shop is often sold out. You can keep up with her latest creations on Instagram @thepotteryparade to jump right on a new release when it’s available. Apperloo also curates a fun blog called Artistic Moods, which highlights artists with aesthetics similar to her own.

The post Weirdo Bud Vases: Functional Ceramic Characters by Sandra Apperloo first appeared on Dornob.

It’s the latter characterization that interests Yuko Nishikawa, a Japanese designer and contemporary ceramicist based in Brooklyn. Her new lighting collection, “You See a Sheep,” is just as much a sculptural installation as it is a series of hanging lamps with organic shapes. If it feels a little disorienting to be surrounded by these strange objects, all the better.

The bulbs are housed within hand-built ceramic shells and suspended by thin metal wire so they appear to float in midair. Holes cut into the paper-like surfaces emit “a mysterious yet warm glow,” and the effect changes depending on how you arrange them, which ones you pair together, and how many you install.

“The title You See a Sheep is inspired by two stories. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, where The Prince finds his favorite sheep in a drawing of a box, and Model T Frankenstein by Hideo Furukawa, which opens with the line “You see a goat,” suggesting that it is in our perception that the goat exists. I mix paper fiber in a wet clay body to achieve strong lightweight shells, using a coiling technique to emphasize the uneven surface and the irregular enclosed forms. Then, once the clay firms up, I cut out the holes. Next, I apply color clay to the surface, and then finally fire them in an electric kiln.”

“This chandelier that you see with 24 ceramic shells was made for the group exhibition ‘In Good Company,’ held in Fernando Mastrangelo Studio | FM/S in New York in September 2018. I saw this exhibition as a celebration of art and design and an opportunity to build a supportive community of the designers and the users. So I designed this chandelier with some shells hanging low to the ground, others floating high, altogether creating a conical volume. It becomes an environment where people can walk through and physically engage with the installation.”

Each one is handmade without a mold, and although the artist roughly reproduces individual designs, they’re all slightly different. They’re especially striking in large installations, but notable alone as well. Each one is also available for purchase. Hoh-Tel, for instance, is a pendant lamp consisting of three “You See a Sheep” ceramic shells — the Hoh-Tel, Key-Low, and Wun-Wun designs — installed with a single canopy. Cables hold the shells aloft while their electrical wires flow a little more loosely, becoming a part of the overall composition.

Nishikawa specializes in “fantastical installations, whimsical lighting, and collectible objet d’art,” all of which perfectly describe this collection. She was raised in a beach town in Tokyo, which clearly influenced her sense of aesthetics. She currently works out of a studio full of furniture handcrafted by her friends and herself in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The post Yuko Nishikawa’s Organic Floating Lamps Made of Handcrafted Ceramic Shells first appeared on Dornob.

Jewelry by LinguaNigra

Designer Alicia Goodwin creates gorgeous organic-inspired sculptural gold and silver jewelry, selling her unusual pieces at her Chicago-based shop LinguaNigra. “Some of my stuff is really smooth, but for most of my line I use reticulation and acid etching techniques — I want that older kind of feeling, and I like for the work to show,” she says in her Etsy Featured Shop interview.

Ceramic and Textiles by MadeByRheal

Oakland, California-based shop owner Rheal has cultivated a dreamy vibe with her artsy woven blankets, hand-cast concrete plant pots, decorative resin jewelry vessels, and modern marbled glass coasters. Every unique item is handmade to order.

Vegan Cork Goods by MindTheCork

Cork production is unique because cork bark can be harvested from live trees, which continue to grow and produce more bark afterward, making it extra sustainable. Mind the Cork, based in London, crafts this material into all sorts of stylish vegan objects, from gilded planters to versatile zip pouches. “Imprinted with the traits of the tree that produced it, cork leather is not only durable, versatile, and simple to maintain, but incredibly beautiful and ecologically sound,” says designer Jenny Espirito Santo.

Embroidery by CreateTheCulture

Erykah Badu, Beyonce, Prince, and other pop culture icons get the embroidery treatment with modern thread-based works of art by CreateTheCulture. Brooklyn-based artist Krystle Collins embroiders her line drawings onto shirts, pillow cases, tote bags, hats, and embroidery hoops for display.

Leather Goods by KingsleyLeather

Kingsley Thompson of Cheltingham, England crafts leather goods like wallets, bow ties, cuff links, wallets, and belts. His shop, Kingsley Leather, is a great source for refined gifts for the people in your life with more masculine sensibilities. “I design my pieces to be simple, clean, and timeless,” Kingsley says. “Everything is built to last.”

Gardening Kits by HortikiPlants

If you’re a novice gardener or just like the convenience of kits, HortikiPlants has you covered with items like the Organic “Leafy Greens” container gardening kit, which contains organic seed sachets, biodegradable pots and water catchment trays, bamboo plant markers, organic potting soil, and a glass mister bottle. Owner Victoria LeBeaux is based in Washington, D.C. and gets rave reviews for both her products and her expertise.

Illustrations by PairABirds

Artist Tabitha Brown creates vibrant, beautiful portraits by pairing digital hand drawing with vintage images for a collaged effect. In addition to the prints available in her shop, PairABirds, she also offers custom portraits. “My inspiration comes from nature, midcentury modern style, and 60s and 70s photos,” she says. “I also spend a ton of time at the library checking out art books and magazines.”

Furniture by ArcherHomeDesigns

Ntebo Archer of ArcherHomeDesigns in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, builds beautiful wooden furniture and home accessories. “The wood we use features one-of-a-kind character unique grain patterns and highlights nature’s distictive fingerprint,” she says. “This produces a finished product that is uniquely yours.”

The post Our 8 Favorite Black-Owned Etsy Shops for Style and Home Decor first appeared on Dornob.

Each of these “habitats” are encased within wooden boxes, tempting viewers to step forward, look closely at each tiny detail, and fully immerse themselves in their individual worlds. The compositions are purposefully monochromatic to produce a disorienting camouflaged effect. Picking out the different natural patterns, some of which have been fictionalized, is like a game.

Occasionally, you may spot something altogether unexpected in these tableaus — like a human body part amidst the flowers, plants, and animals.

“I began to engage with these organic forms after mediating on the relationship of humankind with nature, and our current inclination of irreversibly harming the environment,” says Buyruk. “As an alternative to this act of destroying, I wanted to create something new, and create spaces where all species live together without hierarchy. Therefore, my work is very much informed by Darwinian processes of evolution.”

“I feel the use of color, particularly when working with depictions of the natural world, dictates meaning. I like to avoid using descriptive elements such as color. I also prefer to encourage the spectator to immerse themselves into the work and get lost in the details, discovering something new with each viewing. Using color would separate forms more succinctly, and I am interested in non-hierarchical hybridity.”

The animals that can be found in the habitats include rodents, a pig, a bearded dragon, a hawk, and several other birds. There’s a reason the elements of each piece are so uniform, too, with nothing popping out of the field to dominate the others. The Istanbul-born artist says this choice reflects a desire to reject hierarchies within nature, including those involving humans.

“I actually chose these animals on the basis of the fear that they biologically instill in humans. Certain animals pose a serious threat to human evolution, which has been engraved in our DNA. We find some animals uncomfortable or frightening because of their shape or color, causing us to negatively and incur a ‘flight’ response. I wanted to juxtapose our age-old, biologically rendered fear against our socially conditioned admiration for flowers, and position them together.”

Buyruk says the pandemic hasn’t affected her artistic practice, since she was able to merge her studio and home in a quiet residential area of Istanbul months before it hit. She’s trying to take advantage of this time to avoid distractions, channeling the urgency of this situation into her work. She hopes the shutdowns and quarantines will encourage people to listen to themselves, think about what kinds of activities they truly value, and continue to make room for these things in the future.

“HABITAT” recently wrapped up an exhibition at Leila Heller Gallery in Dubai, representing the first time Buyruk’s work has ever been seen in the United Arab Emirates, but you can view it in full online at the gallery’s official website. The artist is also a porcelain specialist at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Selçuk University in Turkey.

The post Camouflaged Creatures Hide Within the Porcelain Sculptures of Melis Buyruk first appeared on Dornob.

For designer Patricia Urquiola, it looks something like modern sculpture. It’s fun, it’s fresh, and best of all, it’s still extremely functional. Her new SONAR collection for Swiss brand Laufen introduces a new look for the company’s ultra-thin ceramic material SaphirKeramik, which enables the creation of lighter, smoother bathroom design elements without sacrificing durability.

A description on Laufen’s official website explains: “Where once there was the curve, now there’s the tight edge-radius. Fuller forms have given way to slim, but robust, des walls; SaphirKeramik [is] a super-strong ceramic material that allows itself to be fashioned along minimal, architectural lines. The further development of the design language of ceramics makes perfect sense, as it is the most hygienic, hard-wearing, and recyclable material in the bathroom. Laufen itself is renowned for maximizing the creative potential of ceramic materials.”

“A revolution in the formal language of ceramics: strong and malleable, SaphirKeramik permits the creation of wafer-thin walls and tight-edge radii of just two to three millimeters while retaining the traditional production process. Its slender profile renders it space-saving, lightweight, and environmentally friendly.”

The material is infused with a colorless material called corundum, which is also found in sapphires and has the same bending strength as steel. The result, in this case, is a groundbreaking collection full of wash basins, bath tubs, bidets, and toilets that look like they’re made of the most delicate porcelain.

“A cannettata texture covers the edges of the products, accentuating the volumes’ severity and allowing for an unconventional refinement,” says the Spanish-born, Madrid-based Urquiola. “The rigorous geometries accentuate the plans and enhance the movements of the water: the inclined surface of the fund leads toward a transverse slot [that] hides the discharge with a simple gesture.”

“Cannettata” refers to the ribbed texture seen on many of the pieces, which Urquiola adds was inspired the dynamic energy of sound waves and their relationship to water. For the third iteration of SaphirKeramik, Laufen wanted to explore the 3D aspects of the material, asking the designer to play with shapes that haven’t been seen before in bathroom design.

Just as importantly, the pieces have to fit into compact spaces. Living spaces may continue to stay the same size or get smaller in the coming decades, rather than expanding, and it makes little sense to design fixtures and furniture that feel bulky and out of place within their intended environments. Each piece in the SONAR collection can fit easily into a small urban bathroom, making them accessible to more than just those who can afford luxuriously spacious residences.

For instance, one floor-standing wash basin made entirely out of Laufen’s revolutionary ceramic hides all of its own plumbing from view, yet manages to stand just over 16 inches at its widest point. The rounded corners make it easy to navigate around within tight spaces, too, resulting in a profile so compact that one double sink ends up taking up about the same amount of space as a single conventional one.

Shimmering transparent panels with iridescent pastel tints top off the collection, some smooth and some with that same corrugated wave-like texture, casting beautiful refractions of colored light around the room. The overall effect is that of a thoroughly modern bathroom — and not a single touchscreen in sight!

The post Futuristic SONAR Bathroom Collection Features Revolutionary Ultra-Thin Ceramic first appeared on Dornob.

Throughout it all, kitchen design has evolved based on trends and needs. What once was a rustic and functional part of the home, is now a vital space for entertaining, gathering, and food exploration. Of course, other rooms in the home have also undergone changes with the introduction of things like indoor plumbing. But the kitchen has perhaps seen the longest list of innovations in the form of appliances, structural requirements, and interior design.

Interested in tracking this unique evolution, the creative team at HomeAdvisor recently did a deep dive into the past 500 years of kitchen design. They then put together a digital compilation of all the changes they observed over that time.

For accuracy, the HomeAdvisor team worked with noted historians Sara Pennell, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Greenwich and author of The Birth of the English Kitchen, and Nancy Carlisle, Senior Curator of Collections at Historic New England. They then began with a kitchen in England circa 1520, moving to America as the new world evolved and bringing the interiors all the way into modern times.

The first example is a 16th-century Tudor manor kitchen (1520-1620), whose cold stone walls are counterbalanced by the warmth of the multifunctional fireplace. Cast iron frying pans and a quintessential cauldron above the fire show the nature of cooking during these times, while ceramic pots, the primary means of storage then, line the shelves. Nearby, a wooden trough functions as a bread-making station.

Next, the 17th-century Late Stuart-era kitchen (1680-1720) boasts improvements in overhead candle lighting, storage, and display options. Teacups grace the space as afternoon tea becomes more common, and a cast iron coal gate makes the hearth more efficient to use. Another new device called a mechanical roasting jack was set up with a series of pulleys and weights that would automatically turn the spit inside the hearth, freeing up the cook for other tasks.

With the 18th-century Colonial Williamsburg kitchen (1720-1780) comes another light fixture upgrade and the advent of tile flooring, along with newer hearth features such as a swinging iron crane used for supporting Dutch ovens and other cookware.

The 19th-century Victorian-era kitchen (1870s) features the very obvious addition of modern cabinetry used for storing food and other cooking implements. Another innovation is the wood or coal-burning stove as a replacement to the traditional hearth. Not only is this form of cooking infinitely more efficient, but it also spares the cook from stooping over the fire. The kitchen sink was another enhancement of the century, although it still wasn’t the critical component it is today. Ceramic is still the storage option of choice, although much of it is now housed inside the cabinets.

In the 20th-century fitted kitchen (1960s), electric appliances and other conveniences finally enter the scene. An electric refrigerator offers storage for perishable goods, and the gas range modernizes the cooking experience. Plus, new materials for counter and floor coverings make the space easier to clean. Even small appliances such as toasters and coffee pots change the face of the kitchen during this time.

Jumping into the 21st-century designer kitchen (2020), we see ultra-efficient and streamlined design coupled with copious entertaining and gathering space.

Check out a visual compilation highlighting all 500 years of kitchen design with HomeAdvisor’s official video on its evolution.

All photos and videos courtesy of HomeAdvisor

The post HomeAdvisor Looks Back on the Last 500 Years of Kitchen Design first appeared on Dornob.

To some, this might seem like a troubling development. What does it say about modern society, that so many of us would choose to close ourselves off to our communities to enjoy our own private oases, with seemingly little care for how unfriendly they might appear from the outside? Psychologists and sociologists might have answers to those questions, and it’ll definitely be interesting to see whether this trend continues to develop in the coming years. But the truth is that many of these “introverted houses” are actually responding to environmental conditions, whether it be harsh climates or densely populated cities where privacy is hard to come by.

And while some seem to have little regard for how they fit into their neighborhoods, others retain a sense of cohesion with the local architectural vernacular, striking a better balance between privacy and interaction.

In Toledo, Spain, architecture firm OOIIO pulled off the latter with “Casa GAS.” This single-family detached residence was designed for a young couple who wanted a comfortable, bright, and unique home that was fully personalized to their needs, from the architecture all the way down to the smallest details. OOIIO oversaw not just the building design but also the interiors, including the final materials, furniture, and lighting.

With its clean lines and almost exclusive use of white, the home projects a sunny disposition that’s well matched to its Mediterranean climate, and, just as importantly, its material palette echoes those of other houses in the neighborhood. Completely walled off from the street, including all outdoor areas, the home is unquestionably inward-facing, but it doesn’t look like a hulking, antisocial bunker, either.

The architects describe the ceramic seen on the roof and within hexagonal tiles on the facade as “the protagonist” of the design, taking inspiration from the traditional patios of La Mancha. The array of hexagonal tiles on the facade is meant to mimic the way dappled light might fall upon it.

And it’s really light that makes the home special in every regard. The courtyards draw natural daylight deep into its subterranean levels, and the single coolest feature, appearing like a secret oasis in the desert, is a shimmering reflecting pool that’s partially open to the sky and partially enclosed.

The firm explains that they decided “to organize the program of the housing project that the clients needed in the most efficient and simple way possible, always around natural light. To do this, the orientation of the plot was studied and the house program was distributed by strategically placing four patios, which are four light wells, four natural ventilation distributors, alternate and distributed throughout the site.”

“Between these patios grow volumes that reach different heights depending on the function they host. Thus, the highest will be the one that corresponds to the most “noble” living-dining room area and the lowest to the garage. But the facades of the patios could not be shown like the rest of the house, they are the raison d’être of the project, the heart of its architecture, that is why we express its importance also in the materials that cover them, playing with some hexagonal ceramic pieces that highlight them and complete the composition of the entire house.”

The post A Reflecting Pool Glows at the Heart of This Urban Spanish Home first appeared on Dornob.

Made with a base of blue-black glaze dotted with oily-looking spots, the bowls were likely unappreciated in China, where rainbows were considered unlucky. Somehow, a number of them made their way to Japan, where they were prized by collectors and valued for use in tea ceremonies. The style was eventually recreated by Japanese ceramicists, but today only a small number of artists still work with the style.

The beautiful crystalline patterns on the bowls appear spontaneously during the firing process, which are different from the “oil spots” found on other forms of pottery baked in the Jian kilns of China. Modern potters, for all their new techniques and technology, can’t seem to replicate the workmanship of the originals.

A new crowdfunding campaign called “TENMO” pays tribute to their uniqueness while enhancing the qualities that make them look like “the cosmos in a cup.”

The campaign’s official Kickstarter page reads: “Tenmoku, also known as Jian Ware, is a legendary, precious type of porcelain that produces unique designs that are both mystical and unpredictable. It’s impossible to produce two identical Tenmoku porcelains. The name of Tenmoku comes from the word ‘Tenmo(天目).’ It means the eyes of the sky in Chinese and Japanese.”

TENMO founder Tom Fu adds that “other than just being a cultural symbol, many elderly people from China and Japan appreciate Tenmoku for its potential ability to soften water and enhance flavor thanks to the special clay and glaze used to produce [it]. One time when I was getting my morning cup of coffee, I serendipitously used a Tenmoku teacup for my coffee instead of my normal coffee cups. The feeling I got when drinking my coffee out of the Tenmoku was unlike anything else I had experienced with common coffee cups.”

“Drinking my morning coffee out of the Tenmoku that day made me realize that there are no authentic Tenmoku coffee cups on the market currently and that the delicate and exquisite designs of Tenmoku perfectly match the elegant and fine flavors of coffee.”

The result is a Kickstarter campaign aiming to revive the tradition, created by an engineer of magnetic materials in collaboration with master ceramicist Sun Whenzha. They’re made of the very same natural iron-rich clay from Fujian, China that created the originals, and they feature a nano-porous surface that’s believed to enhance the flavor of coffee and tea.

The TENMO campaign page contains lots of fascinating details about the science behind the clay and why its iron content affects the glaze in a way that produces these gorgeous nebula-like patterns. And while the campaign itself may have already ended, you can still follow the project to be notified when the cups are made available to the public.

The post TENMO: Cosmic Coffee Cups Revive an Ancient Chinese Craft first appeared on Dornob.

Through her series “Alien Autopsy,” Swedish artist Åsa Stenerhag experiments with these feelings. The artist, who taught herself sculpting techniques by watching YouTube videos, engaged in an unusual collaboration with design firm Massproductions for the installation, which opened at the firm’s showroom in Stockholm.

The series of stoneware sculptures was designed to be displayed atop Massproductions’ new Landa table, a minimalist design with the unusual ability to support a long surface with just four to six wide-spaced legs. The design uses two parallel steel beams to support the long tabletops, creating “significant and comfortable voids” underneath. The result is streamlined and lightweight, leaving plenty of room for chairs and objects atop the table to shine.

“It’s easy to make tables, but we decided to make it difficult by developing a system that can make very long tables, with fewer table legs and without visible fittings” says Chris Martin, Design Manager and Co-Founder of Massproductions.

The designers took inspiration from NASA’s lunar module for the table, which in turn guided Stenerhag’s creative direction. Looking at the ceramic sculptures, you can see why the installation is called “Alien Autopsy” in a nod to a controversial 1995 short film by Ray Santillis. Stenerhag used unconventional media and methods of coloring them, like gouache, shoe polish, and linseed oil, so they soaked up the color unevenly.

“It started with a request to do something in connection with the launch of Landa,” she explains. “The name of the installation challenged and helped me to further develop the design language. It’s like lighting a spark. When parameters are set, ideas are triggered. The idea started from the long table. How we could tell a story, create a feeling, an exciting one, unified together. For me, creation is primarily about intuitive work though also about channeling a feeling. In this case, it is a life energy, which is shaping and explor[ing] itself. Both on the inside and the outside.”

“My work usually starts with a feeling, an energy and desire that then comes down to material, surface, and shape until it becomes a whole. It’s also about being fully present in what I do. Clay is a living material and must be taken care of in different ways throughout all stages of the drying process. It is a constant collaboration between me and the clay. For me the process is as important as the result. That’s what drives me.”

Whatever your feelings may be about Stenerhag’s sculptures, there’s no denying that “Alien Autopsy” is an interesting way to bring fine art and product design together around a fun, albeit somewhat odd, narrative.

The post Alien Autopsy: A Series of Strange Ceramic Creations by Åsa Stenerhag first appeared on Dornob.