I love every piece in the small collection offered by Lonewa, a modern home furnishings and accessories company from Louisiana. Everything is multifunctional and well thought out, yet classical and meant to be enjoyed for years to come. My favorite is the Incense Burner No. 1 Corian. It’s their newest version of the standard Burner No. 1, made with with powder coated aluminum, solid copper or solid brass cubes, and corian and can hold either incense sticks or cones.
Katherine Tromans‘ tiny slices of paradise look just about perfect. The Birmingham, UK-based artist uses a mix of illustration and painting to achieve the nebulous, floating masses that all but beckon to you to walk right in.
Around the age of 10 I wanted anything in my bedroom other than the twin canopy that had been handed down to me. I had my sophisticated eye set on a white metal framed daybed, you know the kind with the gold finial balls on each post? In other words, the cheap one. My grandparents had offered to buy me a daybed, just not That One. Off to the furniture store we went, eventually settling on a real beauty – cherry wood, scrolled head- and footboards, spindled back. After I moved off to college the day bed was retired to my Grandma’s spare bedroom, where it still sits in wait for me to one day (hopefully) hand down to my own daughter. All of this is the longwinded way of saying how thrilled I am that daybeds are having a moment again!
I had never really considered how many artists focus on females until I came across the paintings of Kris Knight, the male form is the subject of his work. His exploration in oils are ambiguous and intimate in one fell swoop, never directly addressing the viewer.
1/Edward Hopper’s paintings are brought to life by film director Gustav Deutsch. 2/Ralph Graf documents the emptiness of abandoned houses and military bases. 3/In Pizza Hunt friends travel the world taking photos of old Pizza Huts. 4/Laura Zalenga creates dreamscapes inspired by the Brothers Grimm. 5/Lee Stewart‘s minimal tattoo style mimics brushstrokes. 6/Haruka Misawa‘s 3D printed waterscape aquariums. 7/Molekule, the molecular air purifier. 8/A wheelchair that might actually change lives. 9/Truck-A-Float, a hotel in Rockaway. 10/Vivid Sydney cloaks the city is a display of vibrant lights.
I’ve always preferred my yard (landscaping seems like a stretch) to be more on the wild side than the pristine. It fits both my mind and my homeownership skills, and the work of Su-Jeong NAM gives me the same vibe. Her illustrations show off her vision of harmony in the world and its minute details.
Cécile van Hanja finds inspiration for her paintings in the Modernism of the beginning of the 20th century finding order in a time of chaos in the work of Bauhaus and De Stijl. The transparant layering of each painting intensifies the depth and the confusion within each structure she captures.
Besides the beauty of their creations, I’m also fascinated by the lost idealism of progress and malleability where this movement stood for. In my paintings the images of modern architecture are based on a rhythmical pattern of verticals and horizontals in which an uncertain world is created; a multi coloured labyrinth of spaces and look-throughs in which it’s not clear if one is inside or outside. The painted façade seems to consist of parts that come forward and recede. The window sections in between may reveal something of the interior, in vibrating light. A lost modern world symbolising confusion and uncertainty that depict our time.
If you’ve been reading Design Crush for any length of time, you probably know that along with having a love for art and design I’m a huge advocate for animals. My five pets are my family and they all have a six week old kitten to thank for it.
At the start of my sophomore year of college I was struggling to find my place and fighting off depression. Attending a school with a huge Greek system that I didn’t want to be part of meant lots of evenings spent in my first apartment with nothing to do besides study or watch TV. (It was just as exciting as it sounds.) About six weeks in my Mom’s neighbors brought two tiny kittens back from their family’s farm in Arkansas, two because one was the runt and they wanted to have a backup plan should the he not make it. He – Ghost – thrived, and they asked my Mom if I might be interested in adopting the other orange and white kitten. I didn’t have pets growing up (aside from fish, a turtle, hermit crabs, and an albino frog) and hadn’t spent much time around cats, but I jumped at the chance to have a companion.
That kitten is about to turn 17 years old next month, and has lived in four different states and countless apartments and houses by my side. Her sass and stereotypical cat-ittude never fail to make me smile and laugh.
Peanut, age 16
A little over a year later we added a second kitten to our family because I never wanted Roxy to be lonely when I wasn’t home. Peanut came along by way of Roxy’s vet, he’d been abandoned in a parking lot inside a covered litter box that had been taped shut. A few weeks of rehab at the vet’s office later and I brought him home, both of us crying the entire car ride. After a cursory walk around his new house, Peanut jumped into an armchair and promptly fell asleep. We both knew he was home. He’s by far my most mischievous furball as well as the only boy in our clan, but he’s also my teddybear.
Rainey, age 3
Some people talk about unexpected pregnancies bringing an extra kid into their lives, I got an unexpected cat instead. After the 2013 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma I fostered two litters – eight kittens in all. One litter of five was all but immediately adopted by friends and family, while the other initially tested FIV positive (as is possible from umbilical blood) and were taking longer to find their homes. A few months later they retested negative and the two boys in the group of three went to their forever homes. Rainey was the last (wo)man standing and acted like she’d just won Survivor or The Hunger Games, and in a way she had. I adopted her after making sure she got along well enough with everyone else and am so happy I did. Rainey is easily the most affectionate of my three cats, climbing onto my lap to cuddle every evening like clockwork.
Because my cats are like family I want to feed them just as well. This year Purina Cat Chow is focused on delivering great nutrition to cats in the care of animal welfare organizations with its Nutrition to Build Better Lives program, ensuring they’re healthy and ready for their forever homes. During the month of July for every bag of Purina Cat Chow you purchase a meal will be donated to a cat in need (up to 5 million meals!) through Rescue Bank. Rescue Bank is a non-profit organization that operates on a national food bank model to collect and distribute high-quality pet food and supplies to pre-qualified animal welfare organizations throughout the U.S. These organizations are then able to use the savings from their food budgets for critical veterinary care to increase the adoption of healthy pets. Please support shelter cats by buying a bag of Purina Cat Chow now through July 31. Roxy, Peanut, Rainey, and I all thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
This post sponsored by Purina Cat Chow. Since 2013, Purina Cat Chow has supported animal shelters across the country and has donated more than $845,000 in food, supplies, and renovations to advance the rescue, nutrition, and adoption of cats in shelters. While I received compensation, all words and opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that help keep Design Crush creating fresh content!
Angel Oloshove‘s sculpture and pottery pieces are downright dreamy in their abstractness. You can’t help but see her past experience as a toy designer in Tokyo trying to escape from the seams of each piece.
