Cool Hunting
| 30 October 2007view entries from: this week | this month | view previous day | view next day |
Re*Generation Art Auction
by Tim Yu
Once again Virgin Mobile is doing their share of goodwill with their annual Re*Generation Art Auction benefiting homeless youth charities across the U.S. With works from an all-star line up of artists like Jordan Isip (pictured right), Melinda Beck, Calef Brown, Thomas Campbell, the Clayton Brothers, Greg Lamarche and Matt Leines, among others, it's a chance to get your hands on some great work while helping to assuage the often overlooked problem of homeless youth. Marking the beginning of National Youth Homeless Awareness Month, all donated works are up for public bidding at Re*Generation until 1 November at 10pm EST.
The benefit ends with a party on 7 November at Skylight Studios in NYC where all auctioned works will be on display. There will also be a few LG mobile phones redecorated by five of the artists up for grabs (above). Everyone is welcome but capacity is limited. You can pre-register as a VIP to ensure your spot by making a $25 donation. Check out and bid on all of the works up for auction at Re*Generation.
Re*Generation Benefit Party
Wednesday, 7 November 2007, 7-11pm
Skylight Studios
275 Hudson St.
New York, NY 10013 map
Andrew Kuo: No Lifeguard on Duty
by Ami Kealoha
NYC-based artist Andrew Kuo's obsessive charts that analyze musical events have been popping up in the New York Times' music section for the last couple of months. His latest graphic representation that appeared there over the weekend takes on this summer's series of concerts at Brooklyn's McCarren pool and is by far his most nerdy yet.
Diagrams represent his own sets of quirky data ("My Summer Mood Swings," "Times I Wish I Knew Somebody at the Show") in visually pleasing arrangements of color and pattern. As someone who likes to daydream at concerts, I appreciated the graph representing what was going through Kuo's mind during the shows. On the Slip n' Slide participants: "It's really hard to watch some people flopping around in bathing suits." His generally positive approach and lighthearted first-person critiques are OCD reviews for the geek chic generation.
Laurie Rosenwald: And to Name but Just a Few
by Wendy Dembo
Multifaceted New York-based designer Laurie Rosenwald is one of my favorites—her illustrations and graphic design has appeared in the New Yorker, The New York Times and almost everywhere else. She teaches a great workshop on creativity called “How to Make Mistakes on Purpose” (try to take it if you can) and her first book New York Notebook has a fun local perspective. She both wrote and illustrated her first children's book, And to Name but Just a Few: Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, and it's like no other.
The mix of collages with found pictures, photos, scraps of paper, crayon and ink drawings and the rhyming text in bold type explore color. Lines like "Do you have a bright blue suit? Do you have a small blue fruit? Blues are just the song to sing, when you don't have anything!" make for a wild kids book that ignores convention. I read it to my four year-old niece, Eva, and she loved it and took it with her.
See more (and read her grownup stories) on her hilarious site. Buy And to Name from Amazon, Powell's or Chronicle Books.
Vintage French Soap Hook
by Ami Kealoha
by Passa Chattra
After realizing this wasn't an egg screwed into the wall, I had the "ah-ha!" feeling upon learning it is in fact a vintage soap hook. Made by Pro Ven Di, it was originally designed for French public school bathrooms and adds a little charm to a daily (at least, we hope) process.
The solid chrome bracket can be mounted near the sink while the refillable vegetable soap screws on and spins when used, eliminating the soap swamp created by dishes. The hook is now available in the U.S. after five years of searching by Apartment Therapy. They've got it in their store for $40 and you can find refills there too.
Jon Pumper
by Lost At E Minor
We recently checked out the launch of Sydney-based men's fashion label Jon Pumper, a fresh athletic range drawing inspiration from a fictitious character with "legendary status as a ladies man" who has been 'linked with nearly every high profile woman." Rather fittingly, the launch took place at Sydney's Deus Ex Machina, a motorbike shrine packed full of fast metal and retro moto-style threads, providing the perfect backdrop for fashion based on such strong male charisma.
