Lakewood Arts Fest

This past weekend was the 29th year for the Lakewood's Arts Festival. Another strong showing for Lakewood, assisted by a beautiful warm, sunny summer day. Look for Bootsie and Mabel to be more involved with it next year.

My highlight every year is an artist named Chuck Wimmer, out of Brecksville, Ohio, who does some amazing computer-aided drawings. They're whimisical and funny, with a great graphic appeal. Check out some of his stuff on his website. The two pieces Stan and I almost bought, "Mocking Birds" and "Family Tree", aren't featured on the site though. We may need to give him a call.

Design Star

New reality show focusing on design. It will air on HGTV starting July 23rd and it pits 10 designers in “clever design challenges” to win “the ultimate prize” – their own show on HGTV. The competitors include David, a “formally trained artist” that also builds furniture; Vanessa, who started her own interior design firm at 20; Tym, who looks like he’ll be the “funny guy”; Teman, who has a Master’s in Arch degree from Harvard, but designs jewelry, textiles and interiors; Teran, who is Teman’s twin brother and has the exact same CV; Joseph, also a Master’s in Arch from Harvard (did they hold tryouts in the arch studios in Cambridge??); Temple, who claims to be a single, stay-at-home mom (how does that work), but does not really identify her design skills.; and Donna, who is holding a pink fur purse in her photo, why?

If Teman and Teran’s design can be judged on their outfits alone, then it looks like they will be great at wooing men in their 60’s who love golf pants. Seriously, they look like they should be teeing it up on the 16th hole.

But that’s nothing compared to Ramona. She calls herself a “trash to treasure designer” because she recycles crap and makes it into…well other crap? Okay I haven’t seen any of her work yet, so that might seem harsh. But when asked who she would love to design a home for this is her answer: “Martha Stewart – because I’m bold.” She is the one who will try too hard to be different, because that’s what she thinks “art” is about.

I’m not sure I have any hope for this show – at least in terms of showing us good design solutions, but we’ll see how it goes. I wish they could have gotten Karim Rashid for this program, instead of the terrible Made in the USA.

Project Runway

Love Tivo! We didn't get a chance to watch much TV last week, so we had to catch up on a lot of our shows on Sunday. Here's my take on the new season of Project Runway...

Great first task. I realize having the designers rip apart their apartments was just meant to stir up drama for the show, it is still a much more creative way of doing that than other shows have used (I'm looking at you Mr. Trump). I cannot believe these guys actually ripped the upholstery right off their furniture. I really hope the production crew never puts the place back together.

I'll make my prediction for the top three designers based solely on their designs for this challenge:

Bradley - not a cut design by far, but very modern. Loved they way he used the duvet.

Kayne - He used a rubber door mat as the bodice on that dress! Amazing. Plus I really liked the ribbons down the model's back

Michael - He made a gorgeous dress out of coffee filters!

And I'd give runner-up status to Robert. His dress, while not terribly innovative, was gorgeous with the beautiful neckline, red sash and bows, and metal chains. I wanted him to win that challenge.

I am sad to admit that I am not yet a fan of any of the women designers. Come on ladies, step it up.

Ingenuity Fest

An infant festival, just the second year, featuring technology and arts in Cleveland will be held this weekend downtown. Last year was a huge success, but this year has been plagued by some budget issues. The “bigger & better” mantra is being blasted about town, so we will have to see if they can pull it off. It is truly an interesting idea, and would be great for Cleveland if it could really take off.

Bootsie and I will be doing our parts. Bootsie is taking part in an arts performance on July 14th. AVAX, Audio Visual Arts Xperience, is a combined effort of 6 fine artists, 6 graffiti artists and the music of Tap It, Inc. Each artist rotates around 12 canvases to mix their art together and create 12 separate pieces. It sounds like an awesome event – and I will be there to support and cheer her on. I’ll try to see as much of the festival as I can and report back – beware the festival's website though, it is woefully hard to navigate and glean information from.

Project Runway Redux

With the third season of Project Runway starting this week, I thought it would be fun to look back at the top four designers over the past two seasons and compare their work after the show. Just comparing websites of the second season contestants with the first season, it's clear the second season is taking the lead here - with the top four from the second season all having slick, up-to-date websites. While on the first season side, only two designers even have working websites (Austin and Kara Saun). Wendy Pepper's domain has lapsed, and Jay's just has an opening image claiming that a new website will be up on July 1st.

Kara Saun's site runs smoothly enough, but the flash animation is too fast, the fonts are immature, and the final navigation is not slick. Her collection can only be seen through grainy video feeds. Plus I'm weirded out by her need to declare herself "The Professional".

Although his site was well-designed to reflect his own personal style, Austin Scarlett only shows the collection he created for the show. The biography portion mentions that he opened his own studio in NYC, but I can find no further evidence that he has done anything beyond the show.

Chloe Dao, the winner of the second season, has several collections featured on her boutique's site. I couldn't find any personal website for her, but clearly all of her energy is being put towards her Houston shop. In fact she is having a show tomorrow night to coincide with third season premiere featuring her own designs and those of her fellow contestants Kara, Emmett, and Nick. Tim Gunn is even scheduled to appear.

Daniel Vosovic's site, like Austin's, only features his collection from the show. That is disappointing. His designs were always a favorite of mine. He is also writing a blog for the third season of PR, and his site claims that he is designing the uniforms for a new hotel in Atlanta, but I can find no evidence that this happened yet.

Although I couldn't find a site featuring his work, true to what you would think, Santino Rice has a blog. He talks about the show a lot, and seems to have a little bit of a grudge with his castmates. In terms of fashion, he made a dress for one of the MTV VJs to wear to their movie awards show. But other than small custom dresses for C-list celebrities, I had a hard time finding any further work from him. Note, he's not showing anything at Chloe's show.

My favorite part about Kara Janx's site is the piping plan she uses as her background image. No idea why she picked that, but I'm having fun trying to figure out what type of building it is for. She is clearly designing like mad, with seven different collections to show on her site, including a Fall '06 collection. Plus her site design is insanely slick - definitely the best designed site.

From what I've read, this season's contestants are for the most part well on their way to being professionals, so I can't wait to see what they can do.

Audrey Kawasaki

Just came upon this really beautiful work by an artist named Audrey Kawasaki.

She has an incredible style that seems to mix anime portraiture with an art nouveau romanticism. Her paintings are done on wood, and the wood grain becomes a wonderful part of the art. Her illustrations, both digital and ink on paper, take on a surrealist bent which comes off quite playful.

She has a new show opening tomorrow in Seatle and running until August 5th.

(thanks to decor8)

Guitarmania, Part 3

In 2002 Cleveland joined the trend of big cities with public art sculptures. Unlike the pig, horse or cow, of other cities, Cleveland went with what it knows, the guitar. Co-sponsored by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the United Way, Guitarmania was born that year. 90 designs of the 10-foot tall Fiberglas Fender's were created - our favorite was designed by Bootsie herself.

In 2004, a second iteration was attempted, and again about 90 guitars were created, but the same magic wasn't there. I'm not sure if it was because it seemed like a repeat, or it wasn't publicized enough, or possibly the bulk of the designs seemed wanting. It barely even registered as an event.

Now I see that they are trying for a third exhibition in 2007. Let's hope that something helps to invigorate this project. Cleveland needs public art. It would be great if the new version involved a different form - drum sets, bass guitars...but I see from the website that the form will remain the same. Possibly a new group of artists will participate and really push the limits. Suspend guitars from buildings, hide them on the lake, melt it down into a puddle of Fiberglas (does Fiberglas melt?)...something that wakes Cleveland up and pushes some limits.