Camping and Tool Roll

4Q Tool and Camping Roll from Cross-country Trip

Leon Levinstein

Leon Levinstein's New York Photos at Met

The Age of Golden Phones

A couple of days ago, I gold leafed my phone. It would be difficult to describe the effort as a success in any conventional craftsman sense, but it really has been enlightening. More on this later.

Elvis 1956

Ten Days with Elvis by Alfred Wertheimer

The Well-Photographed Tool

The awesome Detroit artist Liz Cohen is showing her Trabantimino at Salon 94's space on the Bowery. In fact, she's demonstrating the hydraulics tomorrow, so hop to.

But also, this, on the wall behind it:

the gallery will be showing a series of photographs called the 5 P’s (Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance) from 2005. Cohen documented every tool amassed by her original mentor, Bill Cherry, throughout his thirty-plus years as a mechanic. The tools are photographed starkly, in black and white on a cement ground, and are reminiscent of Walker Evans’ 1955 project “The Beauty of the Common Tool.”

And thus Cohen simultaneously pays homage to Walker Evans, even as she punks him on Google.

Because Evans' original portfolio--really, just five photos were published in the July 1955 issue of Fortune--was actually called "Beauties of The Common Tool," and so every search result mention of "The Beauty of..." is purely on Cohen's terms. Also shot a lot more tools than Evans, for which I, for one, am grateful.



For the student or scholar, the Metropolitan Museum has provided digital images of the 16 negatives in the Walker Evans Archive pertaining to the Common Tool project. The only tool that didn't make the cut [sorry] was a "'Grape Harvesting?' Knife."

Liz Cohen: Trabantimino, through Nov. 11 [salon94]
Walker Evans, "Beauties of the Common Tool," Fortune, July 1955 [fulltable.com]

Pierre Cardin - Parisian Time Capsule

(click for big)

If I told you these photos of Pierre Cardin in Paris were from 25 years ago, I bet you'd believe me.


In fact, these photos were taken last week. Still located on the high end of rue Faubourg St Honoré (sharing real estate with Hermès, Prada, YSL, Cartier, Lanvin and occupying the same intersection as the Palais de l'Élysée), the Cardin boutique appears unaltered for many decades.


Peeking in through the windows on a Sunday when the store was closed made it feel all the more like a time capsule. I can't even imagine it open. Is it really there, or did I find a wrinkle in time? If I went back, would I discover it had been a mirage? If I rub my eyes does an H&M re-appear in its place?

Link

Gold Leaf Iphone

I accidentally gold leafed my cellular phone. This drama is unfolding real time.

Texting? Forget it. I have flakes of 23k gold all over my face.

This is not relaxing, watching The Office. I am having oligarch problems over here. Things are very Kanye right now!

Italian Canned Goods Packaging (by Art Frahm)

At the Sartorialist 

UPDATE: As kind readers Bidly, Louisa and Ed direct us, this is the work of the legendary Art Frahm.  As Louisa states, "You just can't see the can as wholesome once you know about the whole underpants theme." Original here.

Nutella & GO!

The wife just got home from Germany, and look what she brought me! I promptly ate it, and while doing so, I imagined that a US version of Nutella & GO! would probably be cupholder-shaped. And thus a bit unwieldy. +1 for Germany.

Leica M7 Edition Hermès in Orange

Boy, I'd sure like to find one of these at a garage sale though I admit that the chances would be better to find an unattributed Picasso. Mickey Drexler, the merchant prince, cited Hermès as being the only luxury brand that delivers the promise. I paraphrase, but check the New Yorker Drexler profile for the full story.
 
Leica M7 limited Edition Hermès

Onitsuka Tiger Aisen Collection

Onitsuka Tiger Aisen at Highsnobiety

Jello of the Northeast San Fernando Valley

On any given day, Carillo's in San Fernando may or may not have the best carnitas in Los Angeles. If it is fresh, it is superb but I am hesitant to recommend without reservation as it lacks consistency. That said, it appears they are wizards of Jello. The Jello bundt cake in the lower right looks particularly impressive with the suspended eyeballs.

Graphic Designer Headstones

Via Kottke, this beautiful monolith of a headstone Peter Saville and Ben Kelly created for their longtime collaborator, Manchester music mogul Tony Wilson.

The comments on the Creative Review post would be pretty awesome even if they didn't mention that Wilson's coffin has a FAC number [501], and even if they didn't include a link to Allison Wilton's photo of Paul Rand's headstone. Which was apparently designed by a Rand colleague, Fred Troller. No pressure.



For a long time--or a long time ago, when I was thinking of it--I figured I would get a late sculpture by Isamu Noguchi for my headstone, the kind where it's mostly a raw, basalt stone with a few polished and shaped elements. After a few funerals lately, though, I've wandered around cemeteries and thought, maybe an old school, marble obelisk where the engraving will fade away after a few decades of acid rain or whatever. Clearly, I need to step up my headstone game.

[image top, by Jan Chlebik via Creative Review]

Unarius Space Cad

For a minute there, when all the images of the Space Cad the Unarius web page were broken, I was worried that maybe the 1969 airbrushed automotive ambassador to our alien brothers had transitioned off this plane of existence.

But seeing the Space Cad opening the 63rd Annual Mother Goose Parade in El Cajon last year with a little Copland and a peace dove release, I again felt at one with the universe. The Space Cad is looking very cherry indeed. And it appears to have a drop kit.

Meccano Babbage Analtyical Engine Just The Beginning

You know, I should probably check the archives; Tim Robinson's functional model of a key control mechanism of Charles Babbage's visionary, c. 1837 ur-computer, the as-yet-unbuilt Analytical Engine, made out of Meccano seems like exactly the kind of thing that might have already been mentioned on D+R.

On the other hand, the recent campaign by Geek Atlas author John Graham-Cummings to crowdfund the fabrication of a real, whole Analytical Engine, is new.

Campaign builds to construct Babbage Analytical Engine [bbc]

Twelve Cubes By Glenys Barton

I saw this ceramic sculpture in the background of Ready For The House's photo of the ceramics gallery at the Victoria & Albert Museum, and had to figure out who made it. Fortunately, the V&A allows you to search their collection by object location, and since it was clearly in the same vitrine with Hans Coper, it was pretty easy.

Glenys Barton is "the most purely sculptural" of a group of important female ceramicists who graduated from the Royal College of Art in the early 1970s, and the first to be represented solely by a fine art gallery. These bone china cubes are filed to a crisp edge, then silk-screened with their abstract geometric design.

Which is very interesting, because I think the reason I like them is that I've been looking at some other silk-screened cube sculptures lately, Andy Warhol's Brillo Box, and I immediately though that Barton's Mondrian-esque cubes would make awesome wooden sidetables. If someone will start knocking those out, thanks...

Twelve Cubes, Glenys Barton, 1971 [vam.ac.uk]
Hmm. A lot of ceramic heads on Barton's site [glenysbarton.com]

Heuer Formula 1 Helmet Clocks

I never knew these existed. A bit corny, to be sure, but I would have loved to have one of these as a kid. And, I am not ashamed to admit, I would still like one. The most humble offering from a giant Heuer collection which includes other cool stuff, cheesy stuff and cool-but-cheesy stuff.

Heuer Helmet Clocks at Bonhams

J P Gaultier x Roche Bobois

Who hasn't dreamed of wearing Gaultier when sprawled out on a Bobois sectional? Well, it is probably cheaper to go to Century 21 in Manhattan, buy an orange rubber tanktop and head for the Roche Bobois showroom, but they would probably get tired of you lying on their sofa after 4-5 hours.

Jean Paul Gaultier for Roche Bobois (Thanks, Susan!)

The Kusama Yayoi X Coca-Cola Vending Machine Is In Matsumoto.

Though I'd be happier to see some Kusama Yayoi X Diet Coke cans--and to see some cans I could actually buy--I'm as psyched as anyone to see a photo of the Japanese dot sensei's colabo.

But I'd also like a little context. The project is now reduced to sculpture. Here's a Chinese blog with more photos of the original installation, which included several Coke machines, and a dot-covered bench.

And the date of the piece, 2005.




And the location, the Matsumoto City Art Museum, where the above photo was taken of the apparently sole remaining Coke machine and bench, which is located in the interior courtyard. Kusama is originally from Matsumoto. [via c-monster]

Alexander McQueen Paris Fashion Week

Alexander McQueen at 2010 Paris Fashion Week

Walt Whitman's Butterfly

For the author portrait in the seventh edition of Leaves of Grass, published in 1881, Walt Whitman chose a photo taken in 1877, sitting in a twig chair with a cardigan, and a butterfly perched delicately on his finger.

To people who asked, Whitman told them what they wanted to hear: "Why yes, yes it was a real trained butterfly, that's how down with Nature I am, buy my book at Brentano's." [I paraphrase.]

Of course, it was not. It was a die-cut cardboard promotional tchotchke, common at the time, which had the lyrics to the third verse of an Episcopal Easter hymn printed on it. [Hmm, though the butterfly credits it to the Anglican priest John Mason Neale (1818-1866), the Hymnal itself says it was published in 1804 by Rev. Thomas Kelly. Copyfight scandal?]

Anyway. The Butterfly was included, along with 24 of Whitman's notebooks, in a massive collection of Whitman material that the Library of Congress acquired in 1918. And shipped to the Heartland for safekeeping in 1942. When the LC's collection came back a couple of years later, 10 notebooks were missing without a trace.

Flash forward to 1995, when a guy shows up at Sotheby's with four notebooks his late father had received as a gift around 1965. Four notebooks and The Butterfly. "Scholars concluded that the butterfly in the photo was in fact the cardboard model found among Whitman's papers after his death in 1892."



Walt Whitman Notebooks, 1850s-1860s; handy list of highlights [loc.gov]
The Photographs of Walt Whitman, Virginia Quarterly Review, Spr 2005 [vqronline.org]

Garth Johnson's "Orientation" Exhibition

Fellow D + R guest-blogger and contemporary craft aficionado Garth Johnson recently completed a residency in China studying (and making) ceramics. The result of his work is now on display at Brenau University in Gainesville, Georgia. Garth says about his work:

The series of vessels I created in Jingdezhen are all based around the idea of traditional Chinese symbols and decorations filtered through my Western worldview. For example, the motif of a child riding on a rooster holding a fish is common in Chinese folk art. "Fish" and "rooster" are both ciphers for happiness and abundance. When they're combined with a child, the combination is said to represent a multitude of descendants and money.

Link

45 Walnut Bowling Balls

$130,000 seems awfully high for--you know what, no.

$130,000 is the best price I have ever seen for a 100+ year-old rack of 45 custom carved walnut bowling balls. [update: that'd be turned lignum vitae. sorry. -ed.] If you really need to economize, buy the rack of 27 bowling balls. Presumably, they're 40% less.



Early Walnut Bowling Balls [wyeth via anonymousworks, who has stunning pics]

Vendramini Boots

 

Old stock Vendramini boots from a garage sale. I found them about 5 years and have worn them 100 times since then. They are perfect, both as a casual hiking boot and as a bad ass city boot. As opposed to most hiking boots of this style, they have the beautiful slim toe box of a pair of oxfords.

Vendramini still makes motorcycle boots, but it appears you will need to troll eBay to find a pair of hikers.

Vendramini Boots