Aaron: GQ Covers

I came across one of GQ's Pinterest boards this week and it's amazing going back through all of their covers. I especially like this one from Summer 1965. Tough as it was to pass up on a couple Cary Grant covers, this one looks like it came right out of Alexander Girard's workshop.

Anna: Disassebly Series by Todd McLellan

Todd McLellan has been disecting and shredding familiar household items for years. His original still photography, Disassembly Series, has now turned messy and into motion. Things Come Apart is his new set of images that explores items in our everyday lives, in a way we would never see them in. The book with the same title published by Thames & Hudson will be available in May.

Diana: Happy Belated Birthday, I.M. Pei

Last Friday, April 26, I.M. Pei turned 96. To pay homage to the Guangzhou-born architect, Instagram pulled together a photo set of his buildings. Noticeably absent? Pei's Hanckock Tower, somewhat of a blunder in modernist skyscraper design.

Michele: Culture Shock 1913

This is from last December but was recently rebroadcast. Sara Fishko of WNYC discusses the legacy of the Armory Show of 1913 in honor of its centennial, exploring the events that led to this "mad, modernist moment," in which the avant-garde came to New York, introducing Picasso, Cézanne, Kandinsky, Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase (perhaps my favorite painting), and so much more to America. The podcast also includes sound clips from curators, scholars, musicians, and other thinkers, including fascinating reccordings from the show's 50-year anniversary in 1963.

Julia: The Brown Sisters Over 36 Years

This beautiful series of photographs shows the Brown Sisters as they grow up, change, and experience life.

Amanda: Lotta Agaton

One of my longtime favorite blogs to periodically peruse is that of Lotta Agaton, a Stockholm-based stylist who prodigiously posts about fashion, architecture and design. She is also a contributor to one of my favorite Danish magazines, RUM, and she often shares shots from the incredible residences she's outfitted in her sophisticated Scandi style. In fact, it was through her blog that I first read of architect Jesper Brask's home in the forests of Denmark—a discovery that led to a feature in our most recent May issue. Agaton also maintains a shop filled with treasures that makes me long to live in Sweden.

Cortney: Fabricating a Future with Atelier Dion | Working Title

Working Title is a new collaboration between KQED and Little Paper Planes, hosted by Kelly Lynn Jones of LPP and Andrew Martin Scott, co-owner of Needles and Pens. Through this program, they explore how local artist entrepreneurs are re-inventing the American Dream, creating alternative economies and redefining success in the Bay Area.

The recently released episode focuses on Oakland-based ceramicists, Atelier Dion. Owners Jay and Rie Dion are a husband and wife duo who met in 2008 while attending graduate school at California College of the Arts. After graduation, the couple realized that they could use their skills as ceramic artists to create a business focused on custom fabrication. In this episode, they discuss the ins and outs of starting a business and the sacrifices and compromises they have made to get their vision off the ground.

Jami: Drawstring Lamp

The Drawstring Lamp is a fruitful, eco-friendly lamp, composed of recyeled sunscreen fabric from Returhuset. The idea was formulated by Design Stories, based in Gothenburg, Sweden after they began brainstorming various ways to repurpose wasted materials.

Ivane: Pretty Colors

For all you design nerds out there: Pretty Colors is a Tumblr that compiles, well, pretty colors, along with their six-digit hex codes for easy insertion into your HTML or CSS code.

Jaime: World's Largest Rubber Duck

For an essay in our recent Special Interest Publication dedicated to Bath & Spa, we delved into the (sometimes dark) history of that friendly bath toy, the rubber duckie. Writer Erika Heet revealed that over the years it has taken many forms, from a phthalate-ridden plastic toy in the 70's to, in 2007, an 85-foot-tall inflatable sculpture that Dutch artist Flortijn Hofman began sending down the world’s rivers. This week it arrived in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor, where it will remain until early June.

Eujin: At Home with Hanna Putz

One of my favorite photographers, Hanna Putz, is the latest subject of one of my favorite sites, Freunde von Freunden. Her white-bricked Hackney space is sparse, but carefully scattered with all the things I love: photos, plants, books, magazines, and that glorious natural light.

Olivia: NPR’s First Listen: Music From Baz Luhrmann's Film, The Great Gatsby

Building on the excitement over the release of The Great Gatsby on May 10, NPR released the full soundtrack for the movie featuring Florence + the Machine, Jack White, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Andre 3000, and other pop heavy hitters. Meant to invoke the way jazz would feel to Gatsby and his guests rather than mimic the 1920s tunes exactly, the soundtrack is extravagant and ebullient, with appropriate musical references to that roaring decade.

Kelsey: Sharktooth NYC

Typically, rug dealers who specialize in antique carpets aren't accessible to the man on the street—or the man on the street's wallet. Which is why I am so enamored with a little storefront in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn. Right on Atlantic Avenue, Sharktooth NYC sells a rotating assortment of old rugs with modern sensibilities: Swedish shag, Amish rag, 19th century Persian and Caucasian rugs, Moroccan Beni Ourain, even American quilts, and French linen. The selection is constantly changing from what the owners scour to find at estate sales, flea markets and auctions, and there are no reproductions. Current offerings include a Southwestern flat weave in shades of dusty pink ($325), an Anatolian kilim from the 1970s ($575), a 19th century overdyed Caucasion carpet ($825), 1960s-era neon Menonite twine mats ($85 each), and a heavily patterned Swedish rag rug ($220).

Appears In

Friday Finds 05.03.13