July 2008

Vaughn Bell: Biospheres at Mass Moca Museum (Badlands Exhibit)

Dave and I had a really spectacular long weekend in the beautiful Berkshires. Everything there is lush and green. We went for some fun hikes, we swam, picked and ate wild blueberries on the top of a mountain, and enjoyed a visit to Massachusetts Museum Of Contemporary Art (Mass Moca). I’ve posted about it before here. One of the exhibits we enjoyed was entitled Badlands: New Horizons In Landscapes. The exhibit features many artists perspective on landscape art engaging new ideas about exploration, land use politics, and the relativity of aesthetic beauty. One artist, Vaughn Bell created Personal Home Biospheres suspended from the ceiling. They were small scale natural environments encased in Plexiglas domes. We put our heads through the opening in the bottom of each biosphere, literally inserting ourselves into the micro- environments. Bell uses the natural fauna from the Berks. I thought each biosphere was aesthetically interesting and I enjoyed the interactive experience of entering the mini environment.

Mary Jo Matsumoto created my perfect weekend get-away get-up. Yay Polyvore.

Hi everyone, I could not be more excited to welcome one of my favorite bloggers and designers in the world, Mary Jo Matsumoto of Trust Your Style. I told her I’d be off this weekend to the Berkshires for some blueberry picking, swimming, hiking etc. and just look what she whipped up at Polyvore! If you have not already checked out her fabulous blog and stunning jewelry, accessories, + clutches, do so now. I truly want everything she picked especially that hat, those jeans, that high wasted skirt….the ring….ok everything! See you Monday.

Here’s what MJM says:

Hello everyone! This is Mary Jo from TrustYourStyle and I am so honored that dear Samantha has invited me to put together a blog post for you all today! This is a little dream-vacation wardrobe I put together for Samantha so that she could better pick blueberries, hike, dance, and do some lake-swimming. If you click on each image it will take you to the source in case you want to scoop it up for your own dream-weekend.

Celebrity portraits in progress: Amy Winehouse, Madonna, + Judd Apatow

Here are some celebrity portraits I’m working on. They’re not finished. I have to add the Yankees symbol to Madonna’s jersey and decide if I will color them or not. When I was younger I used to dream of doing the Rollingstone contents page but now I never do celebrity art. I just thought this would be fun to do. I chose Amy Winehouse cause I thought it would be funny to add junk into her beehive. I put in a crack pipe, cigarettes, and other garbage. I did Madonna in A-Rod’s jersey, and Judd Apatow who I think is a total genius from Freaks and Geeks to Superbad (hence my Michael Cera portrait), in a superlative yearbook page as “class clown”, “most likely to succeed”, and “most reliable”. I can’t wait to see Pineapple Express starring my celebrity crush James Franco. Anyway, so this is totally diverging from prints and pretty illos but I just needed a break.

Mad Baker pink and purple macarons + pink and purple apparel and palette

Color by COLOURlovers

I feel inspired by this Mad Baker macaron color palette so I made a little apparel collection that matches:

1. Chanel pink polish
2. Marc Jacobs pink sunglasses
3. Rebecca Taylor pink top
4. Barney’s cashmere knit dress
5. Built By Wendy dress

Zillion: Using kimono fabric for modern hats and accessories

I just had the greatest weekend ever! I went out for dinner with Dave on Friday and saw Werner Herzog’s fantastic new documentary. Then went up to Nikki‘s for a really fun Sat-Sun evening with my best friends of over 17 years (we truly know everything about each other)! Then got back to Brooklyn and went for a beautiful bike ride/picnic with Dave and watched fireflies, swallows, and clouds in the park while talking about quantum mechanics and the difference of opinion in the scientific community about what it is.

Anyway, check out Zillion:
Coolhunting found a really cool company that make modern clothing using the traditional patterns of Japanese kimonos, Tokyo-based French designer David Guarino’s line Zillion reinvents the fabric by making caps, belts, shoelaces, hoodies and other modern staples out of the delicate material.
Here’s an interview with the maker from Pingmag. Here’s a link to Zillion‘s site where you will see a list of shops that carry the goods including Rare Device.