A Sea Creature Informs the Design of This Biomimetic Pavilion

An urchin inspired a resource-efficient biomimetic pavilion in Freiburg, a joint effort between two German universities using new forms of human-machine interaction.

Made with Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, and Sofistik software, an early diagram shows the sea urchin–inspired livMatS Biomimetic Shell, a pavilion at Germany’s FIT Freiburg Center for Interactive Materials and Bioinspired Technologies, a collaboration between the University of Freiburg’s Cluster of Excellence Living, Adaptive, and Energy-Autonomous Materials Systems and the University of Stuttgart’s Cluster of Excellence Integrative Computational Design and Construction of Architecture, two research groups co-investigating construction techniques that reduce environmental impact.

The hollow modules forming the structure were pre­fabricated in a Blaustein factory using new forms of robotic manufacturing that are more efficient than conventional wood construction.

To form the modules, workers used AR head­sets and a seven-axis robot that sand­wiched together milled spruce panels, insula­tion boards, waterproofing membranes, lighting and acoustic elements, and larch cover plates.

On-site, a robotic spider crane with a vacuum gripper lifted the modules, which measure 52 by 54 feet, while a second screwed them in place.

Biobased hygroscopic materials are incorporated into the pavilion’s glass clerestory, a weather-responsive shade system that was modeled on the moisture-controlled opening and closing of pine cones.

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The Stats Behind the Making of the livMatS Biomimetic Shell

• Dozens of students, researchers, and engineers led by professors Jan Knippers and Achim Menges
• 2,152 square feet of floor
• 127 prefabricated wood modules
• 10+ years of sea-urchin research

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The curved geometries of the prefabricated modules are inspired by the plate skeleton of the sea urchin and integrate LEDs.

The interior of livMatS Biomimetic Shell, which is 33 feet high and being used as a space for free thinking, has a thermally activated floor slab of recycled concrete, making it comfortable year-round without additional heating or cooling.

Compared to a typical timber building, the pavilion’s material consumption was reduced by more than half.

10 Questions With… Mariah Nielson

The opening of the gallery, which is located at Point Reyes Station in California also coincided with a renewed interest in Blunk’s work in wood and ceramic. Kasmin Gallery opened the artist’s first New York exhibition in 2020, displaying a broad range of material and scale. The same year, a self-titled book was released by the London publisher Dent-De-Leone, and since, Blunk’s work has been featured in group exhibitions at Blum & Poe, R & Company, The Landing, and Anthony Meier. In 2022, Kasmin Gallery opened another solo show to exhibit the largest display of Blunk’s jewelry, titled Muse. In February, The Future Perfect will open a show of Blunk’s work at their Los Angeles space during art fair Frieze L.A.; this spring, Martell Foundation in Cognac will open the first European survey of Blunk, with exhibition design by Martino Gamper. 

How Mariah Nielson Honors the Legacy of Her Father, JB Blunk

Interior Design: Could you tell us how you decided to initiate Blunk Space?

Mariah Nielson: I set up the gallery in June of 2021, which is also when we had our first show. The JB Blunk Estate had taken over the lease of this space in Point Reyes Station in May of 2020, and we originally planned to use it as our archive and storage for online products, and an office. Once we moved in, we realized we had enough room to exhibit some of my father’s work. The presentation of JB’s work in June of 2021 kicked off a series of exhibitions. Then we decided to focus on turning the space into a gallery because it can accommodate shows beautifully. The space has a charm to it: it used to be an old mechanic’s garage, where they repaired cars in the 1940s; in the ‘60s, it was converted into a series of retail spaces, so it has a very broad industrial feel. We painted the whole space white and the floor is concrete. There are beautiful wood beams exposed in the ceiling, and there are really interesting angles because of the way the space was chopped up back in the ‘60s.

ID: As the curator, how do you select the exhibiting artists? Do they have to be responding to your father’s work in a way?

MN: The focus of the gallery is JB’s work and the artists from his circle. There are also contemporary artists and designers with links to my father’s work. These are artists who are inspired by his work and in some cases have spent time at his home or have perhaps been looking at his work from afar. Everyone who exhibits has some connection to JB’s practice and is referencing his work in some way, whether historically or in a contemporary way.

ID: Remembering Kasmin Gallery’s Chelsea show of JB Blunk’s furniture, sculpture, and jewelry in 2021, scale is an important element in his work. How does this element of unity between large and small pieces come together in gallery shows?

MN: I love a mix of scales and mediums—that blend of mediums is really important because that’s what my father did on a daily basis. In the summer of 2022, we had a show of large paintings by Jack Wright, as big as we can fit in through the door basically. Last year, we also had large tables and this exquisite redwood mirror in an exhibition of Charles de Lisle and Rick Yoshimoto. We fit the mirror through the door and it looked fantastic, and we called it “The Magic Portal.”

ID: JB Blunk was also heavily influenced by Japanese ceramics. Are you interested in exhibiting Japanese artists and designers at the gallery?

MN: Sure, we had a show of Rick Yoshimoto, who is Japanese-Hawaiian, and in late 2021, we had the ceramic exhibition, Mingei to Modern which included a number of Japanese artists. We have exhibitions lined up next year and into 2025 with Japanese artists, and “100 Hooks” includes quite a number of artists from Japan as well.

ID: How influential is your previous curator role at the Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco today? There must be an emotional element to running a space under your father’s name but does your previous experience influence it in any way?

MN: The museum really trusted me when they hired me to be the curator because I was an architect and I didn’t have a lot of experience working as a curator. I was running the JB Blunk Residency out of my father’s home when I began working at the museum. That said, I had curated shows with the artists and residents and had a bit of experience in terms of bringing work together and organizing a show. But the museum really gave me a chance, which I’m extremely grateful for. What I learned working at the museum was how to put a show together from the beginning to the end, with all of the logistics: How to manage a team, how to do the lighting, or the exhibition text, which was all a great foundation.

ID: The gallery’s previous show with Martino Gamper and Adam Pogue had a humorous element. Gamper’s work feels inspired by the Italian Radical movement of the ‘60s. How did you end up inviting them for a show?

MN: I met Martino in 2008. I helped him curate his design is a state of mind show at the Serpentine and actually lived next door to him for quite a few years in London. I was looking forward to the chance of having a show of his work at our gallery, and there is such a strong connection between his work and Adam’s, as well as my father’s. Martino has been looking at my father’s work for years and is deeply inspired by the home. I am really happy with this pairing.

ID: Obsession, I think, was an element in JB’s work in terms of materials, process, and scale. I see a similar thread in Gamper’s work with his “100 Chairs” project and your current “100 Hooks” exhibition.

MN: The obsessive and the playful qualities in Martino’s work are absolutely in line with my father’s work. There is also the interest in working with salvaged materials. Martino’s “100 Chairs” are those he found on the streets of London, and my father’s salvaged wood comes from up north. They both took what others considered useless and transformed them into something absolutely beautiful.

ID: Function and art are mingled in a mysterious way in JB Blunk’s practice. How does the “100 Hooks” exhibition represent this?

MN: There’s always this element of surprise in JB’s work. What can you do with a hook, which is an object that’s ubiquitous and typically overlooked? How can you create something or play with that typology and create something that’s actually the center of attention?

Go Down the Rabbit Hole at This Whimsical Exhibition Center

2023 Best of Year Winner for Product Exhibition

Alice and the White Rabbit would feel right at home in “Wonderland of Light and Shadow,” Pone Architecture’s mind-bending booth for Nippon Paint at China’s annual Guangzhou Design Week, the largest such event in Asia. The 3,300-square-foot structure comprised a mazelike arrangement of ceilingless spaces above which hung a monumental grid of inverted pyramids, their form inspired by the shape of a character in Nippon’s Chinese name. An interactive lighting column descended from the tip of each upside-down frustrum, illuminating the surrounding walls and sculptural installations, which were painted to evoke the course of a day, from the dusky pink of sunrise through noon’s intense orange to the soft blues and violets of twilight—a magic journey between dream and reality.

golden ho; ming lueng.

10 Top Picks From Dutch Design Week 2023

At this year’s Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, the Netherlands from October 21-29, 2023, collaborations and collectives took center stage. Working under the theme “Picture This,” the city-wide exhibition’s focus was on a hopeful future shaped by inventive design. Here are our top picks from the fair.

Highlights From Dutch Design Week 2023

Messmerizing

Welcoming visitors to the fair was an installation at Eindhoven Centraal railway station featuring items curated by Sandra Keja Planken and Job Keja. Forming a collection meant to spark joy with works across mediums ranging from graphic design to art to fashion, standouts were the oversized Aperture Monumenta, a lamp series by Stijn van Ardenne and Lucas Zito; designer Pepijn Fabius Clovis’ Practice piano gilded in colorful metal by decorative painter and restorer Josephine; and eye-popping plant sculptures by LYb.

Grietje Schepers at Home of Design Kazerne

Ellipt #007, a large-scale installation by Grietje Schepers displayed at Home of Design Kazerne, emits light, attracts the eye, and enhances the space’s acoustics due to its composition of felt industrially cut into 3D shapes.

Ilaria Cavaglià at DAE

At the Dutch Academy of Eindhoven (aka DAE) showing of recent graduates, Italian artist, designer, and engineer Ilaria Cavaglià’s chair made from discarded bubble wrap stood out from the crowd. Cast from the plastic packaging, the project was called The Popping Sound of Bubble Wrap.

Marleen van der Knaap at DAE

Another graduate of Design Academy Eindhoven, Marleen van der Knaap presented Reconstructed Visages, a collection of curtain panels woven from upcycled marketing posters using a laser cutter and hand loom.

Teun Zwets

The designer who frequently dabbles in leftover material presented a collection entitled Splitted, the unique forms and shapes dictated by the process of splitting tree trunks.

MAST

Set in a central square of the Strijp-S area, seating islands constructed of over 1,000 crates covered in recycled plastic by the multidisciplinary design studio from Amsterdam provided respite for fairgoers. The circular materials will be reused post-event.

Emma Lawrence of United Matters

The designer asks how we can mine unique materials from our most mundane objects with their reuse of metals reclaimed from end-of-life household appliances like ovens, washing machines, and microwaves and reused on this sculpted work. It was part of the showing of works by United Matters, a London-based collective of Central Saint Martins graduates.

Piet Hein Eek

Big pieces being another theme for the show, local anchor of the design community Piet Hein Eek presented an overscale, hand-assembled chandelier for VANMOKUM made from glass pipes fitted within brass rings.

The Visionary Lab

Eight fashion designers reworked vintage Vitra chairs with upcycled Levi’s denim waste, including this Eames Shell Chair reoutfitted by Norman Monsanto and Kelly Konings, for The Visionary Lab’s Icons Re/Outfitted show.

Kiki & Joost Studio

Partners in life and design, Kiki van Eijk and Joost van Bleiswijk explored color, freedom, and play throughout their many contributions to Dutch Design Week. Here, Joost’s Tinkered sculpture presented as both abstract and unpredictable.

Experience Andrés Reisinger’s Groundbreaking Art in Quintana Roo, Mexico

Impression, Sunrise has been credited with inspiring the name of the impressionist movement. Now, more than a century later, that Claude Monet painting from 1872 lends its title to a temporary exhibition of digital art at a 125-key island resort in Quintana Roo, Mexico, fittingly called Impression Isla Mujeres by Secrets. The 2023 “Impression, Sunrise” is a selection of five works by Andrés Reisinger, an Argentinian digital artist, designer, and ambassador for the hotel. “Back in the 19th century, Monet’s style was not appreciated because it looked sketchlike or unfinished,” Reisinger says of impressionism. “But this project feels a lot like that style, and that’s a cool thing.” Reisinger himself is savvy in cool. Not only do his ethereal NFT artworks openly embrace the use of AI but his Reisinger Studio also designed Moooi’s viral Hortensia chair. At Impression Isla Mujeres, his digital pieces such as The Wither, a dreamlike scene depicting an abstract shape on a pink-tinged plain of grass, were displayed on an LED wall at Unik, the rooftop bar, so they synergized with the panoramic Caribbean Sea vistas—and its inhabitants: The exhibition supported the Saving Our Sharks Foundation, a U.S.–based nonprofit organization that uses art to raise awareness for endangered marine species.

What Can You Create With 250,000 LEGOs? Ask Warren Elsmore

More than 250,000 LEGO… That’s what U.K.-based artist and author Warren Elsmore used in “Brick City,” his exhibition recreating iconic architecture across every continent (yes, even Antarctica is represented). Among the 37 sites he “built” are the vibrant streetscapes of Old Havana and the Painted Ladies of San Francisco, along with monumental structures like St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, the latter taking 100 hours and 3,000 bricks to construct. There’re a whopping 9,000 in his New Orleans scene, where LEGO minifigures are celebrating Mardi Gras. See them all at the National Building Museum in Washington, through spring 2025.

Highlights from ‘Threadwork: Women Redefining Fabric Art’

The digital realm is an increasingly reliable platform to exhibit and even experience art, but what about mediums that hold three-dimensionality and texture in their DNA? The skyrocketing popularity of textiles within the art sector in recent years prompts curators, organizations, and collectors to seek a range of means to present the most recent and experimental in the practice. This duality encouraged Saatchi Art associate curator India Balyejusa and assistant curator Siting Wang to organize the group exhibition “Threadwork: Women Redefining Fabric Art” on their online platform.

“Saatchi Art has always been an online gallery, way before the pandemic,” Balyejusa says, noting the rise in virtual exhibitions since 2020. “After 13 or so years, the technology has improved but we still work with our exhibiting artists in the same way, most importantly making sure they photograph their work as detailed as possible.” This crispness in detail is particularly crucial for the 17 women artists exhibiting at “Threadwork.” They explore the methods artists engage with textiles today under the influence of technology, climate awareness, and identity politics. “Textiles tap onto a straddle between two and three dimensions,” Balyejusa adds, “they are so tactile but they still can be exhibited on a wall.”

The main thread (pun intended) throughout the show is the material’s prominence as a historically female-identifying means of self-expression. From defying fiber’s association with craft as an inferior practice next to high art to the possibilities that technology has granted artists in production methods, the show’s participants engage with contemporary textiles in fresh ways. “It has been with the feminist movements that fiber art started to be considered fine art,” says Balyejusa. Tapestry, sculpture, needlework, knitting, as well as works that refuse direct classification appear in the online show.

Scrolling down the exhibition website, the visitors encounter works by the likes of Jeeyon ‘G’ Roslie, Susan Smereka, Amadi Greenstein, Puja Bhakoo, Femke van Gemert, Carmen Mardonez, Andie Grande, Vanessa Valero, Thera Hillenaar, or Demi Overton. Breadth in geography is perhaps the show’s biggest advantage. From Japan to India, France, the Netherlands, United States and United Kingdom, artists with studios in various parts of the globe unite in the inclusivity of the digital realm. Unconventional materials on the other hand constitute another important element of the check list. Plastics, leather, or acrylics, for example, are among the mediums artists explore in ways that include 3-D printing with fabrics.

Female Fiber Artists Showcase Their Work in Saatchi Art Exhibition

Thera Hillenaar

Female Gaze

The Dutch artist is a recent addition to Saatchi Art’s platform but she was one of the first artists who grabbed Balyejusa’s attention when she began exploring the artist pages on the platform for the show. “Seeing that she works with leather as a medium was very exciting,” says the curator. Densely assembled, various cuts of leather interject other soft materials such as felt in this energetically abstract wall piece. Hillenaar captures a mantra-like mystery in her arrangement of colorful fabrics in a tight configuration.

Andie Grande

Summer of Dreams

Another newcomer to the platform, the French artist Andie Grande intrigued the curator with her “decompositional” approach to weaving in a way that flirts with sculpture. Working with discards wrappings, she orchestrates intricately chaotic compositions that in the case of this work drapes from its frame. The material’s past life and role in the environment crisis meet with Grande’s elegant handling of different colors and cuts of plastic.

Susan Smereka

Harbinger

An energetic serenity inhabits Smereka’s woven monotype on paper wall piece in bright pink. The artist uses various forms of paper, including family photos, letters, and found printed media, to cut in various shapes and print monochromic colors on, followed by her process of machine-sewing the pieces together. Layered and textured, the abstract work holds traces from the materials’ past lives.

Carmen Mardonez

Imaginary Topographies

Discarded pillows and bedsheets provide the base for Mardonez’s three dimensional work which also features yarn, cotton, and fabric. The intimacy embodied in bedding materials is enveloped by colorful threads that eventually yield a mysteriously corporal work that resembles intertwined bodies as well as colorful mountains. The inspiration that the Chilean artist finds in California where she lives is reflected in homages to natural landscapes and light associated with the west coast.

Leili Khabiri

Silent are The Ghosts of Stones

The Iranian British artist’s practice of hand-weaving is not only a productive curiosity but also a meditative exploration of history, lineage, and the self. Using elements from poetry, dream journals, and oral histories, Khabiri weaves both figurative and abstract elements together, blending the immediacy of written words with subtlety of drawing. Minimal and intimate, lines of yarn unite in works such as Silent are The Ghosts of Stones, which operates like a visual poetry or a sketchbook, yet written in fabric.

Jeeyon ‘G’ Roslie

Aquarius

Vibrant colors dominate ‘G’ Roslie’s energic tapestry that replicates a sunrise backdropped by a pink sky. A lush greenery which also resembles a waterfall accompanies the dawn, or maybe the arrival of the sunset? It is this bright mystery that energizes her tapestry which hangs from a wooden beam. The artist’s play with colors and forms salutes the genre of painting and pays homage to artists who pair nature’s own forms with abstraction to juxtapose their own spiritual visual lexicons.

Puja Bhakoo

Fragmented PB/FM-01

The female form finds its direct representation in Bhakoo’s fiber painting of a woman. Portraying the figure fragmented, partially with the lower half of her face and shoulder lets the Indian artist grapple not only with complexity of the self but also hints at notions of process, patience, and meditation which are all associated with the practice of weaving. Balanced with a pointillist abstraction with the other half of the vertical tapestry, the female figure inhabits the fiber surface with confidence and precision.

Vanessa Valero

Topography

A potpourri of textures and colors renders Valero’s wall-hung work as irresistibly vivacious. From powdery pink to earth brown and alluring red, vibrant colors radiate soft textures, including tassels that sprout from the work’s fuzzy surface. The Colombian artist’s composition has a topographic feel, like lakes or fields observed from a bird’s eye view, with the tassels accentuating the surface like gushes of wind or a summer rain. 

New York’s Noguchi Museum Spotlights Filmmaker Marie Menken

Despite the commonly-held belief that influential creatives achieve genius through isolated practice, the reality is that most do so through collaboration and mutual critique. No artist is an island. This is especially true for interdisciplinarians like Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988). Foraying into almost every available medium, the era-defying polymath often worked with or alongside like-minded talents, pushing the boundaries of material and practice in equal measure. The groundbreaking concepts he put forward in terms of form, composition, and loosely defined function would have been nothing without the feedback or interpretation of his contemporaries. Leading experimental filmmaker Marie Menken was one such force.

A new showcase at The Noguchi Museum in Queens, New York looks to highlight Menken’s filmic translation of the sculptor’s explorations but also, her ultimate contribution to his ever-evolving practice. On view from September 27 to February 4, 2024, “A Glorious Bewilderment: Marie Menken’s ‘Visual Variations on Noguchi” will center on the continuous screening of Visual Variations on Noguchi (1945–46/1953), her inaugural film. The showcase also marks the 100th anniversary of the invention of the 16mm format.

Examining Marie Menken’s Impact in the Art World

“It is our pleasure to screen Menken’s film at [our institution] for the very first time and to illuminate the unexplored cross-connections between Menken, Noguchi, and Dlugoszewski,” says Kate Wiener, Noguchi Museum curator. It’s almost as if the film is making a long overdue homecoming. “While working in different mediums, all three artists sought poetry and revelation in fracture–and inspired us to salvage meaning from disorder. Menken’s daring 4-minute film is a document of this shared ambition, and an extraordinary cinematic experience in its own right.”

A Glimpse at The Noguchi Museum Showcase Ongoing Through February, 2024

Behind ‘Fibration,’ New York Textile Month’s Main Exhibition

The brainchild of trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort and her business partner Philip Fimmano, New York Textile Month surveys a vast array of talents and collective initiatives looking to revive and innovate age-old fiber and fabric craft traditions. Encompassing a robust calendar of talks, walks, workshops, studio tours, and exhibitions throughout September, the festival—now in its eighth edition—paints a comprehensive picture of how this tired-and-true medium is being approached by today’s practitioners. With events accessible to the general public and, in some cases, available through digital streaming, New York Textile Month communicates how the medium continues to play an integral, if not overlooked, role in everyday life.

“The cultural undercurrent of New York Textile Month has become increasingly important as we see a deeper interest in anthropology and artisanal craft emerging everywhere,” says Edelkoort. “Throughout interiors, we will continue to embrace textiles, from accessories to drapes, upholstery, and wall hangings. At a time when AI emerges as a threat to the handmade, loom textiles and industrial weaves become metaphors for the human imagination translated into a fluid piece of cloth.”

A central component of this year’s New York Textile Month is the “Fibration” group exhibition. Held at Chelsea’s L’SPACE Gallery through October 13, the show brings together format-defying works by American fiber artists Liz Collins, Joy Curtis, Melissa Dadourian, Regina Durante Jestrow, Courtney Puckett, Lelia Bacchi Curotto Levy, Michelle Segre, and Denise Treizman. Curated by fellow interdisciplinary textile talent Ragna Froda, the showcase reveals a wide range of unconventional sculptures and tapestries that place particular emphasis on how the medium increasingly intersects with fine art. Expect vibrant colors, visceral textures, and playful juxtapositions of unlikely materials.

10 Highlights from “Fibration” during New York Textile Month 

Broken Promise by Melissa Dadourian

By integrating found fabric scraps into cohesive yet texturally varied collages, Brooklyn- and Hudson Valley-based Melissa Dadourian’s abstract Wall Works seem to transcend definitions of 3-D sculpture and 2-D tapestry. The 2021 Broken Promises piece utilizes different geometric patterned fabrics that when placed together, create an almost trompe l’oeil effect.

Corner Grids by Melissa Dadourian

Dadourian’s more recent Corner Grids work, 2023, demonstrates how her career-defining preoccupation of combining disparate materials can be expressed in entirely different applications. In this instance, elements of open knit rather than tightly woven textiles are brought together in a cohesive interplay of color, texture, negative and positive space, and captivating jarring proportional composition.

Lamplighter by Courtney Puckett

Hudson Valley-based artist and educator Courtney Puckett often implements various wrapping, knitting, and weaving techniques to replicate the contours of everyday design objects that have been discarded. Found furnishings and household items are repurposed as armatures for her cumulative, human-sized works. Pieces like the wonderfully exaggerated Lamplighter, 2023, take on personified characteristics.

New Day by Courtney Puckett

Puckett’s earlier New Day work, 2020, has a more conceptual and universal connotation. The totemic sculpture emerges from a nondescript metal frame structure and is imbued with a wrapped mesh-like material structure that progressively moves between the different colors of the rainbow. The piece is both a demonstration of the artist’s mastery of her own bespoke techniques and aptitude in constructed composition.

Rise and Shine by Denise Treizman

As the title of this work might suggest, Chilean Israeli artist Denise Treizman shapes her practice around playfulness and critique in equal measure. She often coalesces found materials in abstracted multi-dimensional pieces that indirectly poke fun at rampant consumer culture. Bright colors and even unlikely materials like neon tubes are brought together to riff on commonplace imagery. Cast in blue and yellow hues, Rise and shine riffs on the over use of this expression.

Jazz by Liz Collins

Over the past decade, Liz Collins has emerged as a prominent figure in the fiber art and textile design worlds. From fashion to site-specific installations, the Brooklyn-based heavyweight has worked across innumerable mediums and applications. Collin’s Jazz tapestry, 2020, stems from her ongoing exploration of geometric patterns and herringbone motif lines. This piece, like many others, breaks the third wall so to speak, with 3-D acrylic and rayon fabric yarn threads emerging from the 2-D composition.

Olga Depicts this Kind of Life by Lelia Bacchi Curotto Levy

Pushing the definition of fiber arts even further to incorporate the age-old tradition of woven basketry, Lelia Bacchi Curotto Levy creates otherworldly sculptures. The Olga Depicts this Kind of Life piece, 2023, transforms materials like Cochineal and marigold-dyed rattan reeds into a multi-appendaged creature. The Brazilian talent is known to allow the materials she is working with to emerge as characters.

Meteor Voidsorption by Michelle Segre

Not unlike her exhibiting contemporaries, Michelle Segre blends otherwise seemingly disparate materials. Works like Meteor Voidsorption, 2022, combine metal, yarn, plaster, papier-mâché, plasticine, and paint. The almost talismanic work sees materials forming a controlled spider web over a curvilinear armature which plays host to an abstractly-painted textile. The drip effect one might associate with paint is expressed as a loose-end yarn threat that forms as a contour fringe.

Vulnerability & Resilience 2 by Regina Durante Jestrow

Miami-based artist Regina Durante Jestrow first forayed into quiltmaking as a way to stave off homesickness. Her practice—one that has morphed into something that is more experimental than conventional—now harnesses this age-old technique to evoke her reflections on American history and the recontextualizing of its vast array of craft traditions. Comprising ink, watercolor, acrylic paint, burnt muslin, second-hand shirting material, and thread, Vulnerability & Resilience 2 takes on a viscerally tense geometric composition. The almost haptic work includes what appears to be sharp cutaways loosely connected in what one might describe as a zipper formation.

Vulnerability & Resilience 12 by Regina Durante Jestrow

Stemming from a similar exploration, the Vulnerability & Resilience 12 work reveals Durante Jestrow’s dexterity when it comes to both technical skills and visual composition. More organic in nature, the graphical piece evokes the oscillation of emotional responses we all experience at times in a contrasting black and white configuration.

Egg Collective Unveils a Collection Inspired by ‘Thing Power’

“Snake Eyes,” an exhibition that coincided with the New York studio’s 11th anniversary, showcased new furnishings from cofounders Stephanie Beamer, Crystal Ellis, and Hillary Petrie alongside works by myriad artists. Joining Casey McCafferty’s oiled walnut Cairn wall sculpture, for example, are Egg Collective’s Kerman cork coffee tables, sinuous powder-coated steel Robins armchair, and shapely Eden Leaf rug in cashmere, silk, and wool. The collection is inspired by “thing power,” a term coined by philosopher Jane Bennett to encapsulate the notion we live in an enchanted world occupied by lively matter that has a will of its own. “As a creator of objects, I couldn’t agree with her more,” Ellis says. “For the past three years, Hillary, Stephanie, and I have held back on releasing new work, instead focusing on growing our business by other means. We let our creative energies percolate and what resulted is a series of objects willing themselves into the world, each asking us to consider what power they could hold.”