The Runny Bunny

Robin Van Valkenburgh is one talented lady. I had the pleasure of selling her work several years ago when I owned a craft gallery, Artifex, in Franklin, Tennessee. Although I do not miss the stress, incredibly long hours, and financial strains of owning my own business, I DO miss being surrounded by all the creativity. I miss the buying trips, incredible markets, shows and artist studios I had the pleasure to visit. I miss the excitement of opening up new shipments of artwork. I miss the joy of creating the perfect display to showcase the amazing pieces art I was lucky enough to carry. And I miss Robin. The funny thing is that I have never even met her. I did, however, talk to her on the phone many times...usually because I was having to place more orders for her unique clay sculptures of pears and decorative spheres. I would have a waiting list of anxious customers to notify when new shipments of Robin's work would come in. Artifex closed in January of 2006.

Flash forward three and a half years. One day, while admiring all the incredible artwork and shops on etsy, I ran across a shop called "The Runny Bunny." What I found was a world of surreal and intriguing characters...animals with human heads, humans with animal heads, and so much more. After studying and coveting every single sculpture, I decided to click on the artist's bio, and to my surprise...there she was. Robin Van Valkenburgh WAS The Runny Bunny. The work is totally different than those pieces represented in my gallery years ago, but I love the new work even more. Take a look at The Runny Bunny's etsy shop here. These unique sculptures are priced so well that they go VERY fast, but Robin (being the hard worker that she is) keeps new items added frequently, so check back often! I look forward to having a nice collection of some of these little guys...as soon as I can make up my mind on which ones I like best.

Art Noir

"Deepa Vekaria has recently completed a Masters in Communication Design at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. She is inspired by the character roles found in Film Noir. Her work reflects a sense of period, setting and location with a strong sense of atmosphere and mood within filmic compositions." From Deepa Vekaria's website.

I am in love with this work. In serious love with it. Anything inspired by film noir is all right in my book.

For more info and images of Deepa Vekaria's inspired illustration, visit her website.

'Tis the Season!

Amazing and intricate snow globe sculptures by Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz. Their work is absolutely amazing! You can see more of their designs here.

Happy Holidays from Art, Design and Home!!

The Brainwave Sofa

The Brainwave Sofa is a collaboration between Lucas Maassen and Dries Verbruggen from Unfold. The design/shape was entirely determined by recording Maassen's neural activity while thinking of comfort.

This is one of several unique works from the traveling exhibit, Bits n' Pieces, featuring work by international designers, architects, computer scientists, and material and technology researchers.

Below is the description from the show's website:

"The shape of the Brainwave Sofa is entirely determined by recording 3 seconds of Maassen’s neural 'alpha' activity the very moment he closed his eyes. The resulting 3 second computerfile is sent to a CNC milling machine that mills out the Brainwave sofa in soft foam. It is a tongue-in-cheek reference to a futuristic production workflow in which the designer only has to close his eyes and a computer 'prints' the result out as a functional form. A warm grey felt with buttons in the valleys is applied by hand to the foam honoring the traditional codes of a sofa."

Serving Up Some Unique Art

Esther Derkx gives new life to vintage, discarded serving ware by adding images of athletes and dancers to these abandoned pieces and creating something new and unique. She uses the technique of screen-printing onto ceramics, creating a wild juxtaposition of the human body, mixed with the floral and decorative existing designs of the vintage cups, plates, teapots, etc. The result is simply art...beautiful and imaginative.

See Esther's website for more of her work.

One Day I Will Own: Stephen Chambers

This will be the first of many "One Day I Will Own" posts. These will be my little dream posts about all the glorious works of art I would purchase if I only had limitless amounts of money. Unfortunately, that is not the case. In the meantime I will just admire these things, put them on my list, keep buying lottery tickets, and hope that one day I will be lucky enough to acquire these amazing works.

I am in love with the work of London-based painter Stephen Chambers. I have admired his work for such a long time, so I think it's only fitting that he get the honor of being the first on the list.

The image above is titled, "The Emissary." This is an oil on canvas from 2005. To see more of Stephen Chambers' amazing work please take a look at his website.

Fruit Post-its

These post-its look good enough to eat! You can buy one or a crate of six.

Available from D-BROS.

Today's find on Etsy

"DoomGloomBoom" is the etsy shop of artist Zack Pinson. I am in love with this this piece titled "Duck." I may be getting out the credit card and making a purchase. At $12 per print how could I pass it up? The only thing that could make it better is if it was the original, but I won't let that stop me. The good news is that Zack sells original pieces in his etsy shop as well. Unfortunately...no original of "Duck," but there are several other original pieces available to choose from. Take a look at his etsy shop here and see for yourself.

Paintings by Marion Peck

Marion Peck's paintings are dream-like. Some are like a good dream...some are like a bad dream. But they are all beautiful. Her subjects are people, animals, animals that look like people, and people that look like animals. There are portraits of puppies dressed in suits, kitties with extra eyes, evil snowmen, and so on and so on. It was hard to choose which images to include in this post because there are so many amazing works from this artist to choose from. You can these pieces and many more on her website.

"Nice Girl" and "Boy with Puppy" from Marion Peck's website.

Inky Dreadfuls

"Michael Mararian possesses a poetic propensity for taking traditionally cheerful images and concepts and turning them into frightening, yet humorous, tableaus. Focusing on children as the last bastion of innocence, Mararian draws on a diverse range of influences to deliver the peculiar ink work he aptly calls, M. Mararian's Inky Dreadfuls. In this world our fondest visions of childhood’s naiveté are darkly rearranged to uncover lost innocence and the fear of our modern times.

Though often shroud in the macabre, Michaels' ink paintings are also suffused with a sense of mischievous, almost self-deprecating humor. What can on one level be construed as melancholy and cruel, can alternately be viewed as amusing, even charming. He enjoys letting his viewers decide."

-A portion of Michael Mararian's bio from his website.

The image above, "Pupaphobia-Fear of Puppets" is from Mararian's Phobia Series. Each piece in this specific series is disturbing yet comical. Although, that is true for most of Mararian's work.

To see more of his work take a look at his website.

For the Mod Plant Lover

These planters from Metaphys are ideal for any modern home. Simple and clean, these planters make quite a contemporary statement. The "picture" planters can hang on a wall or sit on a table. The "factory" planters can be grouped together to create a modern design. Beautiful!

To purchase or see more products from Metaphys click here.

The Odd Couple

Polly George has an interesting attention to detail, and it is in the details that her handmade ceramics come alive. Her work is modern--stark white ceramics with classic shapes, but it is the hand applied details that Polly adds to each piece that truly makes her work unique. She creates coffee mugs, teapots, butter dishes and more with roses, butterflies or birds adorned to each piece. However, it is her "Mr. and Mrs. Jones" line of ceramics that I find the most intriguing. Pictured above is the Mr. and Mrs. Jones Citrus Juicers. They can be purchased here. To see more of Polly's work or purchase other pieces visit her website.