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This is a painting I did as an idea for the cover of our book Tossed & Found, wherein die-cut photos of some of the projects would be floating in front of it in a clear plastic cover, referencing the book Italy: The New Domestic Landscape and of course the Death Star trash compactor #3263827.

It would've been awesome, but unfortunately it turned out to be too expensive to produce and (likely) far too obscure to understand.

Wood Play

From the book "Modern Finnish Sculpture" (1970) by Goran Schildt:

"During the period between 1927 and 1954, especially in the 1930's, Aalto engaged in a series of what might be described as artistic laboratory experiments, making many of the abstract reliefs and free sculptures in which he studied the variations in pliancy of wood fibres."...

" Alvar Aalto himself explains his early experiments in sculpture by referring to Yrjö Hirn. In spite of an age difference of nearly thirty years there was a warm friendship between Hirn, the distinguished and influential Professor of Aesthetics, and Aalto, who was deeply influenced by Hirn's comments on the significance of play in aesthetic creation. It is only by forgetting practical purposes in order to subordinate himself to the inner logic of his material that the artist can raise himself from the established pattern to free creation, inspired by spontaneous joy and delight in play. Aalto's "motiveless" experiments with laminated wood, aimed solely at facing problems of form and of aesthetic effect, in which the wood was bent, split, and fixed in different positions according to its grain, were acclaimed as the first wholly abstract Finnish sculpture."


Above: Alvar Aalto, various wood reliefs/experiments, 1929- 1966
Top: A fountain of Aalto chair legs from Wary Meyers' Tossed & Found. (no presumptions or pretense- our project was only about how to make the white plinth below it...)

related:

Fear and L.L.oathing

Vintage 70's L.L. Bean crazy-patchwork "Rainbow Lake" jacket, of the Hunter S. Thompson school of Gonzo jacketry, made up of every scrap of corduroy and twill in Freeport. I believe Raoul Duke's (as played by Johnny Depp, above) was actually an Abercrombie & Fitch, but the Bean version was a little crazier, and came with a belt/gonzo headband. From a yard sale last spring, it didn't fit either one of us but it was obviously too cool to pass up. But after languishing in a closet (with other "things-that-hopefully-might-fit-when-I'm-a-wizened-95-year-old") it was time to think we'll probably find another one by then and let this one go-along with my future William Holden looks, below.

So we put them all on ebay last month for some crazy bidding as the patchwork jacket went for $610 and the old Abercrombie and Bean safari jackets went for 200 each.

Rainbow Lake old friend: I will see your amazing technicolor dreampatches another time, another place, and in a bigger size. 'Til we meet again!

Progettazione 1x2

Gustav Eiffel/ Enzo Mari- inspired 1x2 plank mantel ("Eiffel Mantel") just after completion in the summer of 2008. Highly mathematical instructions on how to build it are in our book Wary Meyers' Tossed & Found.

Below that is from the following spring, when a winter outside oxidized the nails and they leached into the wood grain, but I like it even better that way. It shows more of "the hand".

Above, a pig working on a Mari-esque progettazione (interlocking end table/s) in the illustration for the book's last page (the end).

also:

Enzo Mari at DesignMuseum.org

Enzo Mari at Reference Library

Enzo Mari at Daddytypes, and Greg.Org

Food & Wine (yard sale edition)

Top: Super-delicious peanut butter mash-up cookies made by two kids in front of their parent's tag sale. "The secret is to smunch the Reese's into the cookie while it's still warm." and barely leave a fingerprint. What a great idea- and so good. 5 stars!

Above: 1990 Mouton Cadet Bordeaux from the deep dark basement of an estate sale. I don't know much about wine, but this was pretty cool to find and how nice would it be to bring a dusty 20 year-old bottle of Bordeaux to a dinner party?

(accepting invitations...)

Enter the Dragon

Osborne & Little's fantastic "Chinese Dragon" wallpaper, designed by Antony Little c.1968.

From a Bondian fashion layout in Oui magazine, 1975.

Collage Prep

From Linda's junior high school notebook, which consists solely of notes to her friends about guys. The cover should totally be made into a poster.

A poster of the cover and a t-shirt of the "Hunk Page".

Or Hunk Page wallpaper, including the notebook lines.

related: John's junior high school notebook

Rising Sunkist

Awesome-graphic-filled 1985 Sunkist cardboard shipping box for the Japanese market. Dew-picked from a dumpster at an estate sale last weekend, where it made its way back from Japan with Gramp's' antique dishes.

...and into our car despite Linda's wishes...

masculin féminin

c. 1960's pastel from an estate sale a few years ago.

Everything's Gone Green

Recent green things from yard sales, a couple landscapes, and a car.

From top:

24"x36" framed silkscreen by Tony Johnson, signed on the back "To Mom, thanks for everything. Tony"

The Who flyer at a garage sale

L.L. Bean Swiss Army knife

Frog pond and old hippie houses in front of Linda's parents' house, Long Island, Maine

Greenpeace New England cap from 1982

Vintage Vera towels

Prehistoric vegetation looking like a museum diorama behind Linda's parents' house

1970 Porsche 911S, from Fantasy Junction

Another Swaine Adeney Brigg umbrella, $3!, in British Racing Green.

(related)

PCD '69

Arp/Seussian/my-new-favorite painting from 1969, $3.50 from a church charity shop up in Lewiston.

Lift up your feet and put them on the groundthe grass was greener then, when we were young.....

etc..............

A few random spreads from the brilliant new book 70s Style & Design by Dominic Lutyens and Kirsty Hislop.

This is a mind-blowing book and easily the best 70's resource book you'll ever see. Imagine Caterine Milinaire and Carol Troy's Cheap Chic (1975) mixed with Charlotte and Peter Friel's 70's Decorative Art (2000) and how they would make sense together. The research is extraordinary, and the scope is radically extensive.

It's also nice to read a book that doesn't just reduce the 70's to kitsch, but really shows you how amazing it was.

First I take some triangles....

Besides Richard Scarry and Al Jaffee, another artist-hero of my Marvy Marker-stained youth was Ed Emberley, whose how-to-draw books taught me and countless other kids how simply drawn lines and shapes can be put together to make fish, trains, dragons, spiders, barns, Indians, sauce pans, pigs, hot rods, weirdos, entire worlds, etc...

A rare opportunity to see some of his original drawings and book layouts is on now, so if you're in Los Angeles in the next week (hurry!) you should absolutely check out this show:

From the LA Times:

For generations of creative kids, some of whom are now fine artists, Ed Emberley's step-by-step cartooning manuals such as the 1970 classic "Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Animals" can be summed up in a few words: Best. Books. Ever. On Saturday, Emberley will make a rare Los Angeles appearance at an exhibition featuring original mock-ups from his beloved drawing books -- 13 of which are still in print -- along with new works.

The show, "Ed Emberley & Friends," will also feature murals by five contemporary artists including curator Caleb Neelon and Los Angeles-based painters Seonna Hong and Saelee Oh -- all of whom learned to draw the Emberley way.

Breaking a drawing down into simple shapes and squiggles, the award-winning children's book illustrator crafted easy-to-follow visual recipes for colorful characters that have an innocent charm and super-cute factor that have endured for 40 years after they were created. (I mean, just look at that little yellow mouse, below.)

For the show, Emberley has created a signed, limited edition of 18-by-24-inch prints of the animals, above, and one of his lessons, right.

Ideal for a nursery or kid's room, and mighty tempting for nostalgic adults who also admire midcentury design, the prints will sell for $30 each. Original Emberley drawings are priced at $300 and all proceeds will benefit children's hospitals and the Art for Kool Kidz program.

The artist reception, which is open to the public, is Saturday from 7-10 p.m. at the Scion Installation L.A., 3521 Helms Ave., Culver City. The show runs until Aug. 7.

-- David A. Keeps

related: Draw a Sasquatch the Ed Emberley Way (Boing Boing)

and

the rarity of The Wizard of Op, including endpapers, at Stopping Off Place, (and the missing couple of pages, but no endpapers, in 1997 gif-style at Maurice D. Wagschal's homepage)

Koji Tatsuno

Designer Koji Tatsuno's (Alexander McQueen's old boss) very cool Paris apartment. From British Elle Decoration magazine, 1998.

70's sofa and rug found at the Marseilles flea markets.

"Home is about creating a space you feel comfortable in, and to me a comfortable environment is one that is aesthetically pleasing."

Fiam glass nesting tables

Three thick glass nesting tables made by Fiam Italia, makers of Cini Boeri's Ghost Chair. Linda found these browsing Craigslist one day but the listing was over a month old. We called anyway and the guy said he still had them, that no one had responded. They were his boss's, who had a yard sale after he got divorced, but nobody bought them there either so the guy took them. Crazy. they were $40.