Missed

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Somehow I missed the sad passing a month ago of the inspiring Richard Merkin, an artist and professor I had the opportunity to meet during my bid at RISD. I'm not going to go into too much detail about who the man was or any experiences I had with him; he said and did many memorable things in classes and left a strong impression on all of us. As a young'un in school I was barely aware of his sartorial gifts, although his look remains in my mind's eye more than that of any other professor I had there.

One thing I remember him saying to me, which had a sort of existential ring to it and pops in my head every so often: after looking at a drawing I had made, he said, "be careful when you draw a line that runs off the edge of the paper because that line will go on forever."

Here's a selection of his famous pastels and works on paper:

Read The New York Times' obituary here.

Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

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We call this "sleeping like a little man."
Further documentation of this behavior here and here.

Littlejeans of the Hills

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The day before Emily started school a few weeks ago, we hiked up to Rattlesnake Ridge. This little dude welcomed us to the top of the mountain:

Rattlesnake Ridge is about a half-hour from downtown Seattle, near North Bend (where Twin Peaks was set). You just take I-90 to the second North Bend exit, but instead of going left to go to Mt. Si, you go right and follow the signs.

Just in case anyone wants to pay a visit to our friend.

Image of the Day

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The Reindeer Yasha, 1941, by Ukrainian WWII photographer Yevgeny Khaldei (1917–1997).

I got a postcard with this image on it when we were in Rotterdam several years ago and I look at it all the time. (Rotterdam: coolest city ever. Maybe more on that later.)

Yevgeny Khaldei was obsessed with photography from a very young age, inspired by a picture he saw in a magazine. He made his first camera out of a cardboard box and his dead grandmother's glasses.

In a 1995 interview with The New York Times, Khaldei said that "I have just always wanted people to know what really happened in their time. I would have to say that many times my heart was broken. But I also witnessed greatness."

[That being said, Khaldei actually composited three different photographs to make the image above. Probably none of the images on their own (the reindeer, foreground and background; the exploding bomb; the airplanes) would have captured the feeling of being right there, but combined, I think they do achieve the goal and emotions Khaldei discusses in that quote.]

That Sinking Feeling

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"Ryan's Song" by the Athens-GA band Venice Is Sinking – one of my songs of the (glorious, long lost) summer. Video directed by Jason Miller and Ethan Payne. More info at veniceissinking.net

Put it in your pocket:
Venice is Sinking Ryan's Song mp3 [via Team Clermont]
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Image of the Day

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Artwork by Belgian designer/illustrator Géraldine Georges.

Please don't worry, the PS has not devolved into a blog about my dreams (yet). But last night I had a memorable one that I want to mention just this once, if just so I will be reminded of it when I look back at these. Here it is: I was walking home from work in the middle of the night (actually that part is all too often real, lately), and I passed a gray cat sitting under a tree. As I leaned down and scratched the cat's head I realized there was a large, light gray crow sitting behind it. The crow and I looked at each other for a long time. The crow seemed like it was going to say something, and then I woke up. It was nice. On the way to work today I paid closer attention than I usually do to the crow population of Capitol Hill. There, that was it, done.

See more of Géraldine Georges' work below and on her website, and read a recent interview at Yatzer.com.


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It's An Exciting Time

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(Untitled), a movie about the art world directed by Jonathan Parker (Bartleby).

MMM

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Martin Margiela may no longer be part of the Maison, but his years at the forefront of avant garde fashion will live on in the pages of a new book:



Looks pretty great...adding it to the list.

More info: RizzoliUSA.com
See also: maisonmartinmargiela.com

Gallantly Streaming

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The May 1968 and December 1967 issues of Ramparts

Following The New York Times' review of Peter Richardson's new book A Bomb In Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America, the magazine's ground-breaking art director, Dugald Stermer, discusses some of his most significant Ramparts covers with the Society of Publication Designers. Click here.

Cities Need To Act Like Cities

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First & Columbia, Downtown Seattle, 1901 [via Vintage Seattle]

This morning on KUOW, Weekday featured a 20-minute convo with Bruce Katz, the VP and founding director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, which "seeks to redefine the challenges facing cities and metropolitan areas by researching major demographic, market, development and governance trends." Katz's comments regarding Seattle – the 19th largest city in the country and growing quickly – are particularly interesting. Here's one:

You just built this transit system...I think what now has to happen is you need to change the land use and the zoning along that corridor so you really can achieve the potential, the benefit, of having a world-class transit system.

Listen to the podcast at KUOW.org (skip ahead to 4:35 if you've already donated to public radio and don't want to hear the seemingly endless fundraising chatter).

Katz is also speaking at 6:30 this evening at the University of Washington's Kane Hall. Read one of his recent speeches, at University of Minnesota, here.

Image of the Day

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Most of these adaptations of Shepard Fairey's Obama poster are beyond lame, but I am powerless to resist this one of Clay Davis.

I Keep You Straight, You Keep Me Straight

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One evening not long ago, we were sitting in the Eastlake Zoo tavern, and noticed a poster on the wall for a 1992 film, American Heart – directed by Martin Bell, with Mary Ellen Mark (one of the all-time heroes of this blog) listed in the credits as associate producer. Now that we've seen it, it's no wonder they had the poster up – many scenes in the film were shot at the Zoo and other recognizable places around Seattle. Turns out American Heart is essentially a different, fictional angle on Streetwise, the documentary Bell made ten years earlier with Mark (his wife) and Cheryl McCall. Click to see the trailer:

You get enough of the basic storyline from that, so I will just say: if you haven't seen it, see it. It's sort of the anti-Sleepless In Seattle.

If you haven't seen Streetwise, though, you might want to see that first. Inspired by Mary Ellen Mark's photo essay on street kids in downtown Seattle, Bell and co. made a documentary film on the topic, and it ended up being nominated for an academy award. I don't think it's on DVD though, so you have to be on the hunt. Here's a little excerpt:



One thing I kind of forgot is that it seems like there are influences on My Own Private Idaho throughout Streetwise (rollerskating in the abandoned building comes to mind, in addition to larger similarities). Whether you live in Seattle or not, it's a great movie – crushingly sad, but also crushingly beautiful, in a latter-day, tightly focused Robert Frank or films-of-William Eggleston kind of way. Or Harmony Korine, for that matter. Good for a cold and/or rainy fall day.

For more info, go to maryellenmark.com and click around. If you go to the books section and scroll down to Streetwise, then click the cover, you can read all kinds of stuff about it and see some photos.

Need vs. Want

. Voyageurs Jac-Coat from Bemidji Woolen Mills. Man cannot live on the shirt-jack alone, but damn, it's getting cold in Seattle, and this one is really nice. It should probably remain a want but we'll see how cold it gets.

Image of the Day

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Signs of the Times, an exhibition of 1960s photography and paintings by Dennis Hopper at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in NYC. Click here for images and info.

Interrupting All Programs

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Let's Take a Sec to Think Back

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Hot Hot Heat

This is Seattle hip-hop duo Fresh Espresso.
Wait. No! Let me finish. Listen. Hey: I don't like the name Fresh Espresso either. I really, really don't like it. It almost makes me a little mad. However: that small hitch does not take away the fact that Rik Rude and P Smoov's debut album Glamour, which I purchased from Everyday Music several weeks ago, is pretty dang solid. Especially this cut, which you can download for free right now from Fabric magazine:

Fresh Espresso The Lazerbeams mp3 

Did you listen to it yet? I mean, the lazerbeams are so hot. It is undeniable. The bassline is hot, the lyrics and delivery are hot, the shaker/tambourine is hot, the drums are hot, the layers of spacey keyboards are hot – hot like Pharrell's little keyboard fill in "Drop It Like It's Hot" hot. I still think the name "Fresh Espresso" is not, and I don't care if it's supposed to be ironic. I am willing to set that aside. The presence of heat cannot be ignored.

Buy you some Glamour at your favorite local music spot, or online at Sonic Boom. Get more info on F.E. here and be sure to steadily check Larry Mizell Jr. on KEXP's Street Sounds for more local hip-hop of note. Rik Rude and P Smoov seem to perform live almost constantly. Tonight they're at the Comet with WE ARE NOT A CULT (Murder Dice), The Let Go, and Eli Porter. Doors at 9pm, $8 cover. $2 Fresh Rainier.

...

PS:
The photo above is by Tyler Soverns (Rabid Child Images), whose photo exhib Snaps opens tonight at Greenwood Collective. The poster features Sir Thomas Gray of Champagne Champagne, who was signed to my own record label for a minute, long ago, in a past life for both of us:

From these two photos I'd say the show is worth a look. Good, warm, consistent color on a white background – no movement is complete without a visual identity and if this is it for the current crop of Seattle hip-hop I'd say they're in good photographic hands.

Need vs. Want

Burberry black brass bangle with raised spikes at Gilt.com.
I was going to buy this for Emily, but then it sold out. Need. Want.

[If you're not a member of Gilt yet, click here to join...loads of good deals to be found for men and women, whatever your flavor.]

Looking sharp. Photograph from V55 by Richard Burbridge, with styling by our lil' buddy Brian Molloy.

Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

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Remember when I said that I was sure Littlejeans would resume his duties as Em's study buddy now that she's back in school? This is what that looks like:

And here's Inez, a/k/a Lil' Bandit:

Not particularly helpful but at least she's consistent.

Image of the Day

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Andrew Wyeth photographed by Bruce Weber

There's just over a week left to see Andrew Wyeth: Remembrance at the Seattle Art Museum – definitely worth the trip and if I can find them time I might go again.

Click here for more Andrew Wyeth on Pacific Standard.
More info on the show at seattleartmuseum.org.

Type Raw

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Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that it's free.
Chad always finds the coolest shit on the www.

Need vs. Want

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Common Projects sneakers (Fall/Winter 2009). These are my favorite shoes from Common Projects yet – kind of half-way between Vans and Clarks. Don't really need another pair of shoes though. Want.

Visit The Moment (the blog of T: The New York Time Style Magazine) to read a recent interview with Common Projects founders Flavio Girolami and Peter Poopat, who I used to work with at Visionaire.

Image of the Day

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A detail from the front of the building that houses Lawrimore Project. Matthew posted previously about Lawrimore's current exhibition – truly one of the best shows I've seen in a long time, and Joey Veltkamp posted an excellent interview with the artist, Leo Saul Berk, along with a bunch of images – head over there and have a look, why don'tcha.

Irving Penn

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I am sad to post the news that one of the greatest photographers of all time, Irving Penn, died this morning at the age of 92. Read Andy Grundberg's obituary at The New York Times – undoubtedly the first of many remembrances in days to come. Above, a 1950 Irving Penn photograph of his wife, the model and artist Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn, who died in 1992.

Antonio's Girl

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Yesterday I posted about the brand new, previously unreleased Betty Davis CD Is It Love Or Desire, which is now in stores. Here's a sample:

Betty Davis Is It Love Or Desire mp3 [via Light in the Attic]

Today I'm posting about the other new Betty Davis release that came out this week: her third album, Nasty Gal. I didn't do a ton of design work on this one (other than the booklet) because it's a re-issue of a classic album that Betty released in 1975 – but I wanted to post about the illustrator of the front and back covers.

Antonio Lopez in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, ca.1975

Antonio Lopez was arguably the most influential fashion illustrator of all time, inspiring fellow artists from the 1960s up to his death in 1987 (from complications related to AIDS), and on up through the present. Here's a small sampling of his other work:

Antonio Lopez illustrations for British Vogue, ca.1960s

A 1967 drawing, and a 1973 drawing for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine

Brigitte Bardot by Lopez for the cover of Interview, 1975

In the 1960s, Lopez, who had emigrated to New York from Puerto Rico with his family as a child, went to the Fashion Institute of Technology and shortly thereafter rose up quickly as a star illustrator for fashion magazines such as Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. In 1969 he moved to Paris with his long-time partner and fellow F.I.T. grad Juan Ramos.

Jerry Hall, ca. 1975, by Antonio Lopez

Jerry Hall moved out of the apartment she shared with Grace Jones and in with Antonio and Juan. It must have been quite a scene.

Jacques de Bascher and Karl Lagerfeld, photo by Antonio Lopez

Lopez opened a salon with his good friend Karl Lagerfeld – a hang-out for various models and people in fashion society, and a place where Lopez taught workshops on illustration and American pop art. Somewhere along the line he met Betty Davis. Antonio photographed Betty and worked with her on the album cover for Nasty Gal.

It's crazy to me, imagining this miniature cultural eruption – a gay Puerto Rican artist, an explosive black soul singer ex-wife of Miles Davis, a Texas-girl supermodel with Bryan Ferry in the wings, a German expat fashion genius on the rise, Grace Jones and Jean-Paul Goude doing their thing – all of them trading inspiration and creative pursuits. The influence that emanated out of those years could fill up its own blog, and then some.

Jerry Hall and Antonio Lopez in their Paris apartment, ca.1975, by Norman Parkinson

Eventually returning to New York in the late '70s, Lopez continued to design for magazines, as well as for Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Fiorucci, and Studio 54. He published a few different books, the most sought-after being Antonio's Girls (1983).

One of Antonio's many "Shoe Metamorphosis" drawings, ca.1978

Antonio Lopez continues to be a major force in fashion illustration. I can't say I love everything he did in the '80s – I just happen to prefer his earlier work – but at this point it's all classic. The cover for Betty Davis' Nasty Gal – similar to the style he perfected for the covers of so many Interview magazines – is a favorite of mine, and there is no doubt Lopez deserves his status as an underground legend.

A memorial from Bloomingdale's that ran in The New York Times when Lopez died, and a drawing for Saks ca.late-'70s.

Visit artnet for more images and info on Antonio Lopez.

Head over to lightintheattic.net for more info and/or to order Nasty Gal and Is It Love Or Desire, the new CDs from Betty Davis.

Image of the Day

. Honestly I think the barnyard Chanel show is a little ridiculous... but the Chanel logo on burlap is fresh. Photo by Garance Doré.

Kid A

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Hey, guess what – it's Thom Yorke's 41st birthday. Here's a video of his yet-to-be-named new band (that's Flea on bass).



Happy birthday Thom Yorke.

Image of the Day

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Jacques-Henri Lartigue's Solange David, Paris, December 1929, from a show up through Saturday the 10th at G. Gibson Gallery in Pioneer Square, Seattle. I wrote previously about the Imogen Cunningham prints they have for sale, but the rest of the show, featuring work by Lartigue and Marion Post Wolcott, is also not be missed. It's a smallish selection, but absolutely captivating – if you work downtown, head over there one day this week on your lunch break and catch it before it's gone. Info here.

Viva Betty Davis

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Today marks the release of two new CDs I designed for Light in the Attic Records, both by the legendary funk queen Betty Davis: Nasty Gal (which I'll post about later) and Is It Love Or Desire, a previously unreleased album Davis recorded in 1976. Here's some info on Betty excerpted from a review in a recent Other Music update:

As a young fashion model in New York in the mid-'60s, [Betty Davis] ran with the cutting edge of black musicians from Sly Stone to Jimi Hendrix to Miles Davis, whom she married in '68. Miles himself says that Betty played a significant role in the development of his groundbreaking electric sound of the period, but the young fireplug was just too wild for the jazz genius (it's also been said that an affair with Hendrix contributed to the breakup), and Betty moved to London, where she began writing the songs that made it onto her self-titled 1973 debut. Everything that made Davis' music breathtaking and beautiful – her raw, outspoken, often shocking lyrical content, her tough-as-nails funk grooves, and her blistering vocal delivery – also ensured that she would be marginalized in the tame pop market of the time.
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Is It Love Or Desire is every bit as intense and soulful as any of Davis' best work, a heavy, grinding, howling album of sex, wine and deep deep worries that fueled this iconoclast from the beginning, that made her spit blood and fire and ultimately marginalized her art for all these years.

Here's the cover:

When I started working on these CDs, Betty's whole flavor – her personal style, her strength and fierce independence combined with her raw sexuality – reminded me instantly of Viva, "The International Magazine for Women" published between 1973 and 1979 by Bob Guccione (of Penthouse infamy), and edited by his wife, Kathy Keeton. The typography I used on the cover, which is gold and silver foil-stamped, was inspired by Viva's logo.

Viva pushed its sex-meets-sophistication point of view with extremely smart art direction and the use of very high quality photography and styling. Anna Wintour was the magazine's fashion editor, before moving on to Condé Nast.

Click here to read more about Viva magazine in a feature we ran in V magazine a few years ago.

Visit Light in the Attic for more on Betty Davis and to order the new CDs, as well as Betty's first two albums, Betty Davis and They Say I'm Different.

Image of the Day

James B. Wyeth Screen Door to the Sea
(1994, oil on panel, 36" x 30")

Jamie Wyeth is Andrew Wyeth's son and an amazing artist in his own right. He was kind enough to sign this postcard for me a couple years ago in Rockland, Maine.

Away We Go

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Pacific Standard regrets the error.

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Back in March I posted the trailer for Away We Go. I didn't have a chance to see it in the theater. It came out on DVD last Tuesday. We watched it last night. It might be the worst movie I've ever seen. It is two hours of contrived, smug, ironic sweetness that I will never get back – two hours in which I experienced the unusual sensation (to me, at least) of hating my generation. There are some great people in Away We Go (Josh Hamilton, Jim Gaffigan, others) but it doesn't matter. The people who wrote this movie are very smart people, I'm told, but it doesn't matter. Away We Go is a colossally dumb movie.

If you saw this movie solely because you saw the trailer here (highly doubtful, but possible), I apologize. You probably feel toward me the way I feel toward Maya Rudolph right now. I don't know what else to say. Can we please just never talk about it again? I will buy you a milkshake or something next time I see you and everything will be normal again.