I’ve been hanging onto this photograph of Jacob Hashimoto’s Untitled piece from 2006 for some time. Using paper, nylon string, bamboo, and acrylic, his work has a pearly, translucent appeal. Generally speaking, almost anything round/circle and paper attracts me, but this piece makes me particularly happy. The meticulous detail is mind-boggling - it looks incredibly intricate and delicate; the layers create such inviting depth and texture.
I love the description of his work as offering a sense of being uplifted. The lightness of the paper and thread, and the lightness of translucent spheres, to me, are incredibly uplifting. He draws on traditional methods of kite-making (tying the thread into knots, tying the paper, floating the pieces) - weightless.
Then I saw Jacob’s incredible tree sculpture (above left), created for a private landscape in Dusseldorf (via Black Eiffel via LabourofHeart). Having created some big, synthetic garden sculpture in my previous job, I’m immediately drawn to anything arbitrary or synthetic that interrupts the immediate green or traditional exterior architecture. I love the jolt of energy it provides an otherwise fairly typical (though beautiful) garden. It reminds me some of landscape architect Claude Cormier’s spectacular tree at Cornerstone Gardens. (At right, above, is his Microbursting Thunderhead, including 700 plastic spheres with an illuminating system.)
Part of an enormous stretch of a wall sculpture, the paper circles in LO VII are mesmerizing. Via Apartment Therapy, from his show at the Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago last autumn.
Above, Untitled 2004, via Designboom. The pinks and greens fading to translucent are also so light; the piece evokes feelings of springtime, and what could feel lighter and more uplifting than a fresh new Spring?
The highlight of my Wednesday came at the verrry end of the day, when I decided to drive around Detroit while I headed from College for Creative Studies to the Detroit airport to pick Ross up. I spent a day taking blurry indoor pictures (some at a fantastic store in Kerrytown in Ann Arbor called V2V*), not buying a C&P Pilot press (he’d sold it already**) and being rather uninspired at my InDesign class.
Using the car door as my tripod, I snapped a load of pictures of Detroit buildings, from vacant, abandoned and graffitied industrial to amazing, enormous and architectural wonders of churches sitting in the most unsightly locations.
At this building, I lucked out with some spooky street lighting. The yellow paint was brilliant, and the entire place was entirely vacant - odd corrugated steel patches were peeled away so you could see all the way through the building. I was pretty proud of my photographs considering that I still need some serious help with the camera (blasted blurry indoor stuff!) and despite the fact that I know next to nothing about photography (f-stop? seriously?)…
[If you want some evocative (and better) pictures of Detroit, you should visit Jim/Sweet Juniper, for SURE. (He's even selling some of his photographs on etsy... take a look... but I promise you'll be tempted to buy...)]
*V2V doesn’t seem to have a website, but if you happen to be in Ann Arbor, I recommend a visit. I’ll spare you my blurry pictures of their Parkhaus felt pieces (hurrah!), Lotta Jansdotter journals, lovely pieces for home organization (can’t remember the name), Marimekko mugs and aprons, collections of decorative and travel books, greeting card sets… and let’s not forget the fabulously curated collections of clothing (including a new collection of for wedding that was, like, wow). It was like an independently-owned, totally charming and unique local version of Anthropologie, but not in any way a copy; it very much had its own vision and focus - very special and worth supporting if you can afford to. Big time kudos - if/when I get a job or hit the lotto, I am so headed back.
**My new letterpress friend had, unfortunately for me, sold his C&P Pilot already. I’d thought it was still available but someone else snatched it up - lucky dog. All was not lost; I was totally overwhelmed by seeing his collection of presses and linotype equipment, woodcarving tools (he creates the most amazingly detailed woodcarvings from which he makes letterpress posters), punches, paper cutters, and more type than I have seen collected in one place. He also had a fantastic and enormous collection of pencil sharpeners - antique, vintage, new…
(Anyone near Detroit looking to unload a C&P Pilot? I’d gotten myself so excited for it, so I was bumming yesterday when I returned home empty handed…)
I happily discovered Kristina Harrison and Blink Press when I was skimming through the exhibitors at this year’s National Stationery Show in New York. It was her greeting cards that got me there in the first place (bold, modern, mix of graphics, typography and photography), but when I looked a little further and found her photography -much of it created using a Holga!- I was hooked. (Kind of like, “you had me at Holga.”)
Kristina says she had had a steadfast “black-and-white only rule” in her work, but she happens to have some beautiful color photographs in her portfolio.
Mike and Doug Starn have been a long-time source of inspiration for Kristina; she says it is because of them that she “fell in love with the real beauty of black and white images and with the idea of combining images to create a mood”. Other favorites are Joseph Cornell and John Evans; you can tell from her graphic notecards that she’s very interested in the way graphics, photography and type can combine to create deeper images.
After college, Kristina worked for a graphic designer and digital fine art photographer couple in Maine; she learned so much about using clean, open space and opened her eyes to color (in lieu of sticking to that steadfast B&W rule!). Afterward, having spent several years doing graphics-based work, she returned to using her camera again (she both bought a digital camera and has been using her “trusty Holga”) and has now combined both graphics and photography in her Blink Press notecard designs.
It seems only natural that Kristina has arrived at creating notecards; first, she is an avid reader and letter-writer. (She has maintained a letter-writing relationship for 19 years!) Between her ongoing love of paper, type and printed media and her experience with graphic design and photography, she has a lot to draw on when creating her designs.
All images are courtesy Blink Press. She has so many other notecards and photographs to check out; Kristina currently has two collections of 24 different cards. Or, you can find her booth at the Stationery Show this May!
