SKAGGS

I stopped by my favorite cafe on this cold, cold New York morning to get a cup of tea and warm up. Doug, the owner of Le Colombe, served me and told me he had something to show me. He pulled out a book of his photography, which included a series of photos of birds in flight, sitting on power lines and perched on window ledges. The several shots he had in his book were beautiful and mysterious. He told me he wanted to show this to me because of the building artwork we had done on the front wall of our office. He also told me about a photographer named Masahisa Fukase who had inspired him.
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Sticking with last months theme of Extreme Makeovers, Elspeth’s post and inspired by some of the most fantastic street art on display throughout Tribeca, we decided to finally — do something — with our fabulous little 2 story building (might we add that it’s one of the only ones left in Tribeca). With the permission of our very cool neighbors downstairs at Province Chinese Canteen, we set to work on the windows and already tagged door of 305 Church Street.

“What’s with the birds and the tree?” we hear you ask…Our birds are visiting relatives of Huginn and Muninn (Thought and Memory) — the ravens from our crest, and the tree is an abstraction of the World Tree - of which you can read more about here.

It took hours of preparation, one wrong doing and the braving of the winter weather…before we got it absolutely right! You can see more photos and the entire well documented process here.
We’d also love to hear your feedback and thoughts…don’t be shy!

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Why not? Add something provocative and beautiful. At SKAGGS, we’re constantly inspired by the variety and innovation of the street art surrounding us in TriBeCa (please stop tagging our door though).

The Grafitti Project takes street art to a whole new level. The idea was to “take the vibrant and often transient art form of Brazilian graffiti out of its predominantly urban context, and apply it to the ancient and permanent walls of an historic rural castle in Scotland.” For those of you who might be upset about altering a landmark in this way, don’t worry: we have more castles than we know what to do with in Scotland.

Brazil’s leading street artists created artwork covering turrets, battlements and chimney-pots. They actually lived with the organizers inside Kelburn Castle for a month while they set about transforming the building into a Technicolor wonder. Check out their site for more photos and some fantastic time-lapse photography.

Karl Lagerfeld is one of the most influential fashion designers of our time. He’s on my list of fashion obsessions, alongside Kate Moss, Hedi Slimane, Steven Meisel, Carine Roitfeld and Agyness Deyn. He’s mysterious, notoriously aloof and has that “Anna Wintour” sunglasses type thing going on. He was also one of the most popular Halloween costumes this year (next to Amy Winehouse). On Saturday I decided to see the much talked about Lagerfeld Confidentiel. Like many others I was hoping to get a behind the scenes glimpse of the self proclaimed “Apparition” and I wasn’t disappointed.
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GleamLab produces beautiful, dreamy creations exploring the nature of light and the structure of glass with hand-blown sculpture. Their site shows every stage of the process, from concept and research to 3-D modeling, molding and project installation.

Offering a contemporary reinterpretation of a classic building material, we intend to design a unique, provocative aesthetic through the effects of blown glass. This common material affords us the opportunity to manipulate light and vision … We are aiming at the production of a particular spatial mood, a three-dimensional wallpaper of light, the possibilities of playing with visual distortion and varying transparency, and ultimately the production of a beautiful and intriguing experience.

Deleted Images is an art collective that exhibits unsharp, blurry and unfocused photographs which would ordinarily be destined for deletion. They accept submissions from around the world, and the result is an engaging, rotating gallery of unintentional art (this is my entry).

I came across this article and can’t believe what I’m reading. Apparently, David Hockney has a problem with the iPod and believes the ubiquitous music player is contributing to a decline in visual awareness and even making people dress badly. What?

“We are not in a very visual age,” Hockney said. “I think it’s all about sound. People plug in their ears and don’t look much, whereas for me my eyes are the biggest pleasure.

“You notice that on buses. People don’t look out of the window; they are plugged in and listening to something.

“I think we are not in a very visual age and it’s producing badly dressed people. They have no interest in mass or line or things like that.”

I, for one, plug in my iPod nearly every morning on the A Train to Manhattan and still find myself peering out the windows of the train into complete blackness (very inspiring) or standing there looking at everyone else who’s staring into the black abyss. So what if I’m on a bus and decide to read the newspaper? People have doing this since the day that buses and newspapers were invented. Last I knew, listening to something didn’t require the eyes, however, reading certainly does.

Perhaps the real problem is with the television.

You can read the full article here. I have to agree with Ben Quilty and think somebody needs to give Mr. Hockney an iPod. Just don’t let him know you can look at pictures and video on it…

An intriguing look into the New York City Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet from Cool Hunting.

BANKSY has a face!

I’ve been a huge fan of his work since GNVQ Art and Design days and never knew what he looked like. Yes, yes it shouldn’t really matter and in all honesty, it’s his work that counts, but who can resist a sneek peek at the Illusive Street Art Master.

The guy on the left says: “Maybe one day we’ll be on that wall”
The guy on the right replies: “Impossible”

Actual factual large-scale print on the streets of Milan. More discouragement here (thanks to the Wooster Collective).