Although we’re all about interiors, it’s the outdoors that inspire us most. We love to travel, meet new people and discover new places. That’s why we love Randy P. Martin’s work. He has a way of capturing breathtaking places and intimate moments. Makes us want to take the first plain and leave. Fecalface.com interviewed the man behind those beautiful pictures.
How would you describe your work to someone?
Travel documentation.
What or who are your main influences?
Friends, nature, adventure, big landscapes.
What’s your working routine?
I never leave the house without at least one camera at my side. None of my shots are staged so I try to always have a loaded camera and an extra roll of film or two on my hip for when that one scene pops out at me. I develop at whatever chain drug store is in the area, then run home to start scanning. This is the stage when music kicks in. I’m up until sunrise most mornings, and beside the golden hour just before dusk, 6am is one of my favorites.
How do you pay the bills?
Couch surfing, dumpster diving, avoiding bills and rent for as long as possible. Something usually falls into my lap sooner or later.
Describe your process for creating new work.
I never really go out with the intention of creating new work. Almost all of my images are shot during some sort of road trip or travels away from home. I use a 35mm point and shoot exclusively these days and if I see something that catches my eye, I scramble to pull it out of it’s case as quickly as possible and get to the shutter before the moment’s gone.
Tools of the trade?
Yashica T5, generic 35mm Indian Fuji knockoff film, Epson Perfection V750 Pro, MacBook Pro.
Best way to spend a day off?
Summer – Bike rides to the beach and rooftop beers. Winter – Bundled up sledding days with hot apple cider and rum then game night.
What do you love most about living in Chicago?
Experiencing all 4 seasons in full effect, infinite vegan restaurants, not being 2000 miles from the girl that otherwise keeps me awake at night.
Source: Fecal Face
Post by Coco Pastis
NY – Here’s a sneak peek of our upcoming Contemporary Art Day Sale – browse the digital catalogue for fresh and exciting works by Tauba Auerbach, Walead Beshty, Nate Lowman, Matthew Day Jackson and more!
Source : Phillips de Pury & Company
This book gives you a fascinating glimpse into the most significant mid-century interiors of architects, artists and designers. Leslie Williamson captures the houses of influential names like Russel Wright, George Nakashima, Harry Bertoia, Charles and Ray Eames, Eva Zeisel and many others, in a collection of intimate and revealing photographs.
‘Handcrafted Modern’ is a unique masterpiece that will take you for a visit in some very unique, creative surroundings. Discover the home of Walter Gropius, founder of Bauhaus, the rock house of Albert Frey in Palm Springs, the handmade interior of Wharton Esherick in Pennsylvania and so long. Leslie Williamson captures everything in warm, beautiful pictures, resulting in an amazing collection of significant 20th century domestic design.
source: Neest
Post by Coco Pastis
The lovely Magali and Bart invite you for coffee on Coffeeklatch and give you a peek into the eclectic homes and workspaces of Belgian creatives, a collection of beautiful photographs and inspiring chitchats.
We especially loved this last story on interior architect and vintage trader Frederic Hooft.
The 16th century home he shares with his partner Eva Goethals is a reflection of their bold personalities. They mix vintage design with antiques and modern elements effortlessly. “A lot is left to coincidence, never styled or premeditated.”
To read the full interview and more pictures go to Coffeeklatch.
source: Coffeeklatch
Post by Coco Pastis
Celebrating the homes, studios, and workshops of the famed art colony as well as their builders’ lifestyles. Captured in stunning color and warm available light are the plain and poetic, the exotic and beautiful, the funky and rustic shelters and workplaces of generations of creative residents of that unique Catskill mountain village. Its main thesis: great homes can be built cheaply by anyone with the vision and determination to go outside conformist architectural concepts and the usual straitjacket economics.
The Woodstock house, which is many houses, is almost always owner designed and built, using local materials from the surrounding woods and quarries as well as salvage from old farms, logging yards, dumps, and mills. Here is recycling, self-sufficiency, and communal “pitching in” before they were fashionable.
The gorgeous photos were selected out of thousands to permanently record the ingenuity and craftsmanship of these builders, and one can marvel at the varied ways found to keep the elements off easels, kilns, looms, computers, stained glass, table saws, and word processors.
In its original printings a best seller (150,000 copies), “Woodstock Handmade Houses” is a cult classic that was excerpted in major magazines and museum shows in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Now with computer enhanced photos, this new edition is timed to the renascence of the Woodstock Generation values
Source: Hope Farm
Post by Coco Pastis
Philosopher Alain de Botton had the idea for Living Architecture while writing a book about architecture, and feels passionately about the educational mission behind Living Architecture. His mission is to share his love of beauty, his role to select the architects ‘Living Architecture’ works with. He takes escapism to a whole new level. Every detail is perfection.
But there’s more, Alain de Botton’s School of Life offers tailor made Reading Retreats. You stay in some of the most beautiful contemporary houses in the UK and at the same time read specially-curated of relevant and useful books.
A Reading Retreat begins with a session (by phone or email) with one of the bibliotherapists. These experts will carefully consider your reading habits, your current ambitions, desires and stage of life – and then draw up a reading prescription for you, directing you to a highly inspirational, provocative and eye-opening set of books (be they novels, poems, essays or biographies) to read while you are away.
Armed with your reading prescription, you can then take off on holiday to one of the five extraordinary houses of Living Architecture, built by some of the world’s greatest architects on sites in Devon, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk. In these tranquil beautiful houses (all additionally armed with their own intelligent libraries), you will be able to make your way through your list of books in surroundings utterly congenial to rest and reflection.
Sources: The School of Life / Living Architecture
Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde has created this installation where, by controlling the humidity and atmospheric pressure in a room, he can conjure up surreal clouds that float elegantly inside a room. An ephemeral beauty that lasts for just a brief moment, but is captured forever as a photograph, proving Daliesque scenes occurred with a little help from science.
Source: Lost at E Minor
Belgium is a country of art collectors (in fact Belgians are even avid collectors in general), but it’s also houses some really talented young artists. One of those young art wolves is Antwerp native Andy Wauman.
His works speak about the possibility of freedom. They are messages with a romantic sense for anarchy and love. In his statements, he often uses images that have been violated, multiplied and copied by commercial media. Within an upcoming movement of new young artists using the language of the social context they grew up in, with the so-called popular culture and media as basic ingredients, Andy Wauman’s feeling for materials and authentic meaning is a marker.
Andy, who is also a talented skateboarder, tries to inject the spontaneous energy from the street into his artistic practice. In his own words: “I try to create my own contribution to the ‘revolution of everyday life’ in the shape of texts and objects.” His latest exhibition called “The Golden Bullet that takes a million years to hit.” took place at the Deweer Gallery in the tiny city of Otegem (but please do check the artists they’ve already put on show). Below you can see some of the exhibition images and if you’re in Brussels to go to Art Brussels or SLICK (the first OFF fair of Art Brussels) in April, don’t forget to check out his works.
Biography
Andy Wauman’s works speak about the possibility of freedom. They are messages with a romantic sense for anarchy and love. In his statements, he often uses images that have been violated, multiplied and copied by commercial media. He recuperates common metaphors and symbols and gives them back their original romantic touch or even ideological meaning. The poetic quality is striking.
Within an upcoming movement of new young artists using the language of the social context they grew up in, with the so-called popular culture and media as basic ingredients, Andy Wauman’s feeling for materials and authentic meaning is a marker.
In a personal statement, Wauman comments on the nature of his artistic personality:
“Generally my work has it’s origins in my conviction that a truly living culture can only arise from social structures and that the only theory a contemporary artist can feed on is necessarily a social one. I do not recycle existing forms, I try to make new ones based on my own background. Which is what distinguishes an artist from a marketeer. I try to inject the spontaneous energy from the street into my artistic practice, and I create my own contribution to the ‘revolution of everyday life’ in the shape of texts and objects.Therefor, a recurrent element in my work is my protesting against cynicism and a preference for the sensuality and romantic value of the materials of the street, the ones the vagabond knows better than the bourgeois. But rather than a political activist, I like to call myself a poetical terrorist. “
Source : ilovebelgium.be l deweergallery.com
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Andy Wauman
City Cement Productions
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Mobile + 32 (0) 474 678 558
Url : www.andywauman.com
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http://ratflowerets.tumblr.com/
http://www.facebook.com/AndyWauman
from Building an Igloo by Ulli Steltzer (text and photos), Douglas & McIntyre, Toronto, 1981
Tookillkee Kiguktak and his son Jopee demonstrate building an igloo. They live in Griese Fiord, on Ellesmere Island (Canadian arctic).
source : stoppingoffplace.blogspot.com
“The locals call the Unité d’habitation La Maison du Fada – the crazy guy’s house. Photos from the early 50s show a huge, stark concrete building floating like a enormous ocean liner in a sea of French bungalows.”
The 6th floor.
We had three full days in the apartment. Time enough to discover for ourselves what life might be like living in a modular designed space; in a “machine for living” Le Corbusier style. The apartment was on the 6th floor of the Unité dʼHabitation in Marseille. We had a view out towards the sea from the living room on one side and a view of the city stretching out to the rugged limestone hills of Marseille from the other.
The locals call the Unité dʼhabitation La Maison du Fada – the crazy guyʼs house. Photos from the early 50s show a huge, stark concrete building floating like a enormous ocean liner in a sea of French bungalows.
It must have been a startling sight.
This was postwar public housing.
It was idealistic modernism.
Perhaps it could only have been built with the tenacity and ego of a man like Le Corbusier. If the building was a little didactic, it was also thoughtful and generous. This was an apartment which remarkably for most of the last 50 years had remained virtually untouched by its original owners.
The current architect owner has modernized around these original fixtures, so that Jean Prouvéʼs oak wooden stairs & window frames and the cast aluminium & tiling of Charlotte Perriandʼs kitchen, remain classic features. The kitchen was cabin like and by our modern standards perhaps too pokey. In fact Le Corbusier wanted the kitchen to be like a cockpit : “to have everything within reach, functional & easy to use”. I did like having everything close at hand. I liked the built in shelf behind the sink for soap and scourers. I liked the pull out wooden chopping board, the serving hatch opening the kitchen out onto the dining room and the cubby hole where your morning baguette & paper could be delivered.
I spent a lot of time pottering around in the apartment : reading, thinking, making cups of tea, watching the changing light, taking photos & resisting any suggestions of venturing out. My mathematician husband raided the supply of childrenʼs drawing paper to work on some computations. It was a good sign. He could concentrate in the space. It was stimulating but at the same time relaxing & intimate.
Le Corbusier was very keen on a metaphor, especially a nautical one.
He said that “life in a building is a journey on a liner”.
Our stay felt a little like being at sea, albeit in a very roomy cabin.
Mary Gaudin is a New Zealand photographer living in Montpellier, France. Currently she divides her time between France and London and as much other travelling as she can do. If you’re interested in a Life Book or for any other photography please contact her at … mail@marygaudin.com
source : youhavebeenheresometime.blogspot.com , antipodeuse.blogspot.com
