Cool Hunting

Grain Surfboards
While sheer beauty of the sloping wooden forms is enough to sell us on Grain Surfboards, their non-traditional approach—skipping the foam makeup of other boards in favor of a Northern White Cedar and air composite—makes a pretty good case for them too. The upshot is a gorgeous and sustainable product, made by a couple of East Coast surfers. After years spent riding the waves...

Cameron Martin: Analogue
Part concept, part traditional monograph, Cameron Martin's "Analogue," published by Ghava{Press}, is an engaging study of man's relationship with nature and his shifting notions of the sublime. At its heart, the book is a compelling amalgamation of grand landscape imagery that includes appropriated advertisements, travel snapshots, found images and studio photos, juxtaposed with Martin's own haunting paintings of barren landscapes. Eschewing the typical devices of...

Elizabeth Peyton: Portrait of an Artist
Curiously, for someone releasing a retrospective photography tome, Elizabeth Peyton doesn't consider herself a photographer. But throughout the painter's two-decade career, photographs have played an integral role in the genesis of her intimate, expressive paintings (which were the subject themselves of a recent major retrospective at NY's New Museum). Particularly with her early paintings, the final product came from the snapshots she incessantly took....

Photographer Maarten Wetsema
Dutch photographer Maarten Wetsema (b. 1966) has some of the most fetching canine portraits I've come across. I've been particularly taken with his series on Daan and Jacob (left and right, above), in which the two dogs are photographed on a variety of seating elements against a seamless background. The deadpan of Daan's gaze is priceless, while Jacob looks to be the most cuddly dog...