70 Years in the Making

It’s been more than 70 years since the Eameses began experimenting with molded wood, using their “Kazam! Machine” to press thin sheets of wood veneer against a heated membrane that was inflated by a bicycle pump. As the designers pushed the material as far as it could go, they continued to explore and discover, surrendering to the design process that ultimately led to their Molded Plastic Chair. In its longstanding commitment to the Eameses’ vision of continued exploration, discovery and refinement, Herman Miller introduces the Molded Wood Side Chair. Creating the classic shell chair out of wood was made possible by today’s revolutionary 3-D veneer technology, whereby the wood is sliced into spaghetti-thin strips and then glued back together. The composite’s flexibility allows it to bend, curve and mold into shape, and because the technique reduces the thickness needed for the veneer, the result is an elegant yet strong and durable shell. This is an authentic Eames product by Herman Miller, and is available via Design Within Reach.

We adore this classic chair that blends just as well with mid-century modern as it does with traditional interiors. What's your take on it? Love it or leave it?

IMAGE CREDITS | copy & images via Design Within Reach

Fab Five: Bleeding Colors

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Role Models: Noor Fares + Holly Hunt

FASHION Noor Fares' Geometry 101 Octahedron Earrings | FABRIC Holly Hunt's Venetian Dreams 

Sally King Benedict

Artist Sally King Benedict creates works that are a beautiful confluence of drawing and painting and that speak graphically in a visual language of color washes, abstract forms and intersecting lines. When creating, she does so unselfconsciously, with obvious freedom and spontaneity, and with a palpable openness, even when being observed. There is a purity to her work that is deeply rich and playful.There is no serious staring at the canvas or paper, no long contemplative moments before maker and medium meet. She glides effortlessly between several different works in progress, instinctive in her movements, dripping paint on this one, crushing charcoal on another, enjoying the fresh air on the back patio of her Atlanta studio where the light is dappled and the surrounding garden is lush and dreamy. She works with multiple brushes in hand at once, her cache of Japanese calligraphy brushes equally at home beside her hardware store bristle brushes that have been trashed by repeated scrubbings across her canvases. Like waves lapping the shore, she is easy come and go with her process, in a comfortable creative rhythm. If there is tension there, it is hidden behind her inherent effervescence of spirit, a quick and contagious Cheshire cat-like smile and fairy laugh.

MOSS, 40 x 40, 2013 | Hidell Brooks Gallery

Benedict’s creative roots run deep, back to her childhood in Atlanta, GA, where she cut her milk teeth in a home that firmly encouraged all manner of creative ilke. “I have been painting and drawing and making sculpture ever since I can remember,” she said. “It always came naturally to me.” It didn't hurt that she was literally submerged in world of modern art by her parents, whose collection included works by Todd Murphy and Dennis Paul Williams. “My mom worked for her good friend Doug Macon who owned a contemporary art gallery in Atlanta in the 90s,” she said, “and Doug was always encouraging me to be creative.” It was this type of upbringing, one that relished whimsy and creative wit, that encouraged Benedict’s color outside the lines approach to self-expression and helped map the course to her current vocation.

She went on to study studio art and painting at the College of Charleston in South Carolina under Cliff Peacock as well as printmaking under Barbara Duval. “This duo shaped my practice as an artist for sure,” Benedict said. “I learned something important from every bit of criticism they handed me.” After college, Benedict stayed in Charleston for several years, met and married her husband George, and enjoyed storied success as an artist, her paintings snatched up by collectors and gracing the pages of national and regional magazines. A phenomenal selection of her works are currently for sale at Hidell Brooks Gallery in Charlotte, NC, but if you can't make it there, good things come to those who shop online. Her website has an enviable bevy of new works up for grabs in her studio. Benedict has also recently collaborated with Serena & Lily and you can expect to see her original works on paper and canvas as well as signed limited edition fine art prints of her work through their Art Collection, which will be available in May. Stay posted and we'll let you know as soon as they are available so you can make haste and break out your plastic. In the meantime, enjoy an exclusive sneak peek of three works that will be offered by Serena & Lily in their Art Collection.

TOP | Brown Edge Paper, 10 x 13, paper, 2013 MIDDLE | Aquatint, limited edition print, 2013 BOTTOM | Abstract Gold, 20 x 24, canvas, 2013 All three, and others, will be available exclusively through Serena & Lily's Art Collection starting in May 2013

Admittedly, Benedict has been largely influenced by Abstract Expressionists like the great Helen Frankenthaler, a pioneer in Color Field painting, and Richard Diebenkorn, arguably one of the most influential and prolific American modern artists of the 20th century, as well as Pablo Picasso, Joan Mitchell and David Hockney. As such, she dallies part in figurative and geometric abstraction but there is something uniquely fresh and singular about her eye, her particular spin on abstract imagery. Her color sense is recognizably Benedict, her use of flax Belgian linen panels washed in her favorite hues of black, blue and white are a trademark and highly collectable. The subjects in her face paintings are partly abstraction and cubism, but again, in signature Benedict style, often appear well fed, cherubic, and echo Ziggy Stardust with geometric cheeks, blocky neon eyebrows and noses out of joint.

GREEN BROW, 12 x 16, 2010 | guache and oil pastel on linen board

SWEET CHEEKS, 24 x 24, 2013 | acrylic, gouache, ink, charcoal and oil pastel on linen 

Her sumi ink paintings are an altogether different subject. Historically, Japanese sumi ink painting verges on the mystical and is believed to capture the unseen with an indelible inked brush stroke, one that cannot be changed or altered—you know, like deep metaphors for life. Let’s just say Benedict’s sumi ink works are rooted in more of a I've got no idea how this is going to end up kind ofmysticism. She starts by moistening the Arches Rives BFK paper with water, loads her Japanese calligraphy brush with sumi ink and then, in a series of instinctive, broad strokes, water and ink react resulting in a crazy radial ripple effect, a squid ink like plume of subtle shading and tonal variation, that morphs and changes continually until the paper dries. Then for good measure Benedict grabs some charcoal and random pastels, crushes them into small bits and throws all that on the moistened paper. It’s this kind of approach to art that really excites Benedict. “I love seeing how different liquids and pigments take to different surfaces,” she said. ”It's a constant science project in my studio!”

And speaking of fairies again, Benedict has an endearing lightness of being, much like Peter Pan, who knew that the real trick to happiness was to keep the best of the child you were at heart, without forgetting when you grow up.  Is it her lightness of constitution, her ebullience, that drives her creative vision and makes her art so desirable and lust worthy?  At the very least, it certainly lends itself to her emphatic embrace of motherhood to her nine month old son River. Benedict has most definitely grown up but it has only sweetened the deal for her artistically. “My entire being is better with a baby,” she said. “I no longer take time in the studio for granted. I feel like he has turned a light on within in me that I never knew I had.” That said, her days are delightfully filled with lots of painting, laughing and playing with her family. Her perfect day?  “Sunny, 75 degrees....road tripping with my husband and baby boy.....final destination: Duryea's Lobster Deck, Montauk.” My guess is that wherever she is, Benedict is always at play in the color field of her making, picking flowers and making daisy chains with a mischievous grin on her face.

IMAGE CREDITS | Artwork images provided courtesy of Sally King Benedict. All other photography by Tami Ramsay, shot on location at the studio of Sally King Benedict in Atlanta, GA.

Fab Five: Eye of the Beholder

one | Eye Cushion, Allegra Hicks two | Eyelashes Fabric, Amy Butler three | Two Eye Oil on Canvas Painting, Laura Roebuck via Bowerbird four | Lash Rug, Serena & Lily five | Right Eye Decoupage Plate, John Derian

Happiness

I saw this quote on Twitter yesterday, posted by Asana (which, by the way, is one of the productivity tools that I live by), and it resonated so much with me. It's a work in progress, but I feel like CLOTH & KIND is gradually allowing this statement to be my truth and that makes me fundamentally happy. Does this ring true to you?

IMAGE CREDIT | Background fabric Positano in Kumquat by Amanda Nisbet

Hue: Alabaster

SUZANNE TUCKER  Casablanca in Alabaster | FROMENTAL Chinoiserie Wallpaper | L'AVIVA HOME Cameroonian Juju Hat | COUNTRY LIVING A Victorian in San Francisco | CIRCA LIGHTING Alabaster Ring Table Lamp

Burmese Silk Sarong Pillow

Today I'm drooling over this. What have you seen lately that's got you all excited? Share, please!

Susan Hable

Guest edited by Tami Ramsay

Artist and textile designer Susan Hable spent her formative years in a microcosm of creative support. Encouraged from an early age by her parents, Hable studied art in various mediums and methods with two talented and local female artists in her small hometown of Corsicana, Texas. Greatly inspired and largely influenced by these experiences, her eye for color and form were coaxed into life and, in many ways, set the tone for what was to come. Formally trained as a graphic designer with a minor in art history, her focus has always included a blend of fine art and design, specifically painting and sculpture. With stints in Florence, Italy to study jewelry design with Betony Vernon and mixed media work with the Fuji Studio, as well as studies at Parsons in New York City in fashion accessory design, Hable’s particular brew of art has strong and deep roots in the power of form and seduction of hue but her path to painting simply for the sake of art has been a winding one. The journey initially started in the fashion accessories industry which ultimately led to textile design and the founding of Hable Construction in 1999 in Brooklyn with her sister and business partner, Katharine Hable Sweeney, a company aptly named after their great grandfather’s twentieth century road construction business. “We used textiles to get my art into the commercial world,” she said. This shift into the world of interior design, screen printed fabric and home accessories production provided a different platform for Hable’s designs and marked the beginning of a successful career as a textile artist.

Her unique spin on design has landed Hable Construction multiple collaborations including creating products for Garnet Hill, Barneys New York and Neiman Marcus, as well as exclusive fabric lines with S. Harris, LoomSource and Hickory Chair. Additionally, because of her expertise in the nuances of color and hue, Hable serves as a committee member on the Color Association of the United States, whose members split hairs to create a concise color palette that is agreed to be representative of the major influences, trends, and directions for upcoming seasons. Her whimsical designs can be also found in their newly launched project Gosluck, where you can find playful, fanciful and practical products, like the bullseye watercolor dartboard above.

But life will have its way, and Hable found herself beckoned at an interesting crossroads. Tagged by Didi Dunphy, curator for The Gallery at Hotel Indigo, to contribute a few of her textile designs as art for an exhibit, and encouraged by Hickory Chair creative director Ron Fiore to include some of her paintings in the decoration of their showroom at High Point Market, Hable's art was front and center. In both cases, her work created a buzz and several of her paintings sold on the spot with requests for commissions to follow. “It really ignited something in me,” she said, “and I realized I hadn’t tapped into this part of myself and it was time.”

Hable hit the sweet spot though when she and her husband Peter moved two 1918 tin mill village houses, snatched up at $400 a pop since they were slated to be burned down, from Eatonton, Georgia, into the backyard of their home in Athens. Reconfigured and refurbished as her art studio, “I told myself that I would repay the cost of it one painting at a time,” she said. Having moved from New York City to Athens four years ago, her studio now is a sun flooded creative respite. “It has been such a huge part of my painting. Just having the space for the large paper, plus the beautiful northern light, the quiet and no distractions,” she said. “It is one of the most important things that Athens has given me for my art.” Plus, the history of the tin mill houses is the stuff of legend. “People would come from the train tracks behind the mill houses and say that their great-grandmother died in the front room or that their family lived there for 50 years,” she explained. Although the closets were absent any skeletons, the walls were full of relics from the past. "We found, among some other odds things, a huge skeleton key, a baby shoe, a child’s toy top, an old spoon, and a magnet,” she said, all of which are now at home in the new studio.

Hable now finds herself an artist, in her own right, creating original works of art that are bold, fluid and honest. Her draughtsmanship is part abstraction, part minimalism but unmistakably Susan Hable. Her distinctive quality of line and unassuming technique of hand is everywhere evident, equally in her art as it is in her textile designs. Whether working solely with india ink or with bleeding pools of Hydrus liquid watercolors, her work is a graphic study of free floating flora and fauna, an interpretive color story of her keen observations and inspirations. “In my world, whimsical forms are combined with a unique color palette inspired by nature and beauty, rather than trends,” she said. “My design process begins with the most mundane of moments.” Humble beginnings though they may be, the resultant work is nothing short of a beautiful confluence of graphic shapes, unabashed color and negative space.

IMAGE CREDITS | Photography by Tami Ramsay at the art studio of Susan Hable; Gallery wall vignette image photographed at Bungalow Classic, an interior design retailer of Susan Hable's artwork in Atlanta, Georgia.

Fab Five: Fancy Feathers

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