Vulnerability...

... I have to remember certain things when I question myself or feel like that ostrich wanting to stick my head in the proverbial hole. Why I do what I do...where it comes from...why I love it...

Gail Chovan at PechaKucha Night Austin v06 from PechaKucha Night Austin on Vimeo.

I'm on fire...

...from tar to smoke. Following up on my last entry, I now present to you the mysterious and beautiful work of Maarten Baas. Baas lives and works in the Netherlands, having graduated from the Design Academy of Eindhoven with his graduate project entitled: Smoke. The series was quickly recognized and lauded in the design world as Baas took familiar pieces , mostly furnishings, often vintage or often by well-known designers such as Gaudi, Eames, and Noguchi, and torched them - sending them up in Smoke. He would burn them with a blow torch, disfiguring them, yet not beyond recognition and then seal them in translucent epoxy resin.
He brought his works to the US in 2004 in a show at Moss in NYC. Since then he has collaborated with many designers and has permanently placed his pieces in such locations as the Gramercy Park Hotel. He has also had his creations reproduced and offered by MOOOI, the international design team. If you go to Maarten's website, be sure to check out his other work but moreover, take the time to watch the video...

Smoke room...


Smoke Favela chair by the Campanas Brothers...


Smoke classic antique chair...


Smoke room divider by Sottsass...

Search + Destroy for a new beginning...

...a dear friend of mine once sent me a postcard of the work of Mattia Biagi.
10 years ago he started dipping objects in black tar...the photos for me were transcendent...the tar blocked the tactile texture and shadow yet redefined the form. The black soaked up the emotion and feeling was brought out through the nooks, crannnies and drips of the hardening tar. One of his most famous pieces is the Teddy Bear:


"Consider the most representative work of Biagi: the Teddy Bear. Under the cover of tar, the toy doesn’t lose its characteristic contours but it is instantly recognizable: it is no longer the sweet childhood memory to hug and cuddle, but it becomes an icon of a lost innocence, powerfully evoked. It is not the teddy bear before our eyes right now, but everything is still connected to the image of the stuffed animal. It is the memory of us as children, the laughs, the games, the happy times, evoked thanks to the elegant and sinuous contours imprisoned under the tar." from the website



I am so inspired by these...look at clothing dipped in black paint, wax or tar this spring...

Silence the violence...

...stop the haters!...


Blackmail Boutique & Atelier: store window No.1, 2011

Winter Jewells...

Jewell Magazine has featured 2 of my designs in their winter editorial feature "Fashion Industry:



"Mignonne dress" - muslin, hand=embroidered...$850


"Swing coat" - wool,acrylic...SOLD

thanks to Kerri Curtis & Jane Vanisko McCan for the styling and Tania Quintanilla for the photography.

Ahhh...les japonais...

“If I do something I think is new, it will be misunderstood, but if people like it, I will be disappointed because I haven’t pushed them enough. The more people hate it, maybe the newer it is. Because the fundamental human problem is that people are afraid of change. The place I am always looking for—because in order to keep the business I need to make a little compromise between my values and customers’ values—is the place where I make something that could almost—but not quite—be understood by everyone.”

-Rei Kawakubo, designer and founder of Comme des Garçons


A recent interview in WWD...
"…[young designers] get satisfied too easily. They’re not strict enough with themselves. They’re too soft on themselves."

Re-designing the atelier for the new year...

“I’m fed up with every store looking like the
same bloody place...
Shopping should be about discovery.”

- Sir Paul Smith

How to start a new year...(NOT for the faint hearted)

...by thinking that anything is possible. Spoke to an old friend on the phone today, he spoke of things he would have liked to have done, places he'd like to go, things he remembered fondly...
Stop sitting! Get up! Do it!
Another acquaintance bemoaned at age under 30, how could he ever fit "decades" of experience in a required 6 sentences.
Holy shit! You have just begun to live...it only gets better! Do More! Don't stop! Be alive! Practice those 6 sentences each year with added experiences...
I found this photo in my stash of old polaroids. This was when I was in design school in Paris, before I went out on my own...I loved this time in my life and so many more wonderful things have happened since then...


and this is me now...believe me, you can all do anything you set your mind to! And keep on doing whatever you need to do in order to feel alive... Sleep when you're dead, but not before... xoxo love, love


Be productive, be creative, and enjoy life...