Mint

Cassandra Smith is an artist and curator working in Milwaukee, WI. She graduated in 2006 from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design with a degree in sculpture. After graduating, Cassandra co-owned the now defunct Armoury Gallery which exhibited contemporary work by local and national emerging artists. She has since curated several shows in the Milwaukee area. Among other places, her work has been show at the John Michael Kohler Art Center, the Milwaukee Art Museum, Hotcakes Gallery, Paper Boat Gallery and the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts.

Fish

Snack Cakes

left: Antelope, right: Coyote

LP: Favorite song for 2 p.m. on a sunny day:

CS: I know it’s probably cheating, but all I could come up with was a two-way tie. If I had my choice I’d listen to these two songs back-to-back on a sunny afternoon: Glad Tidings by Van Morrison and The Obvious Child by Paul Simon.

LP: Beach or mountains?

CS: Beach. The mountains are beautiful, but nothing beats swimming.

LP: What’s your all time favorite animated movie?

CS: I basically love all the Miyazaki films I’ve seen, but my favorite is probably Howl’s Moving Castle.

LP: What sort of progressions has your art taken?

CS: The basis of my work started from my first major piece where I decorated store bought snack cakes with sequins. This lead me to explore the link between decoration and preservation which lead me to work with taxidermy. Since then I have additionally added thoughts about creating synthetic camouflage, making patterns based on traditional shrines/mandalas and exploring masculine vs feminine forms of craft to my work. I want to keep working with these ideas, but I am not necessarily bound to working with taxidermy or animals. I want to work with transforming a variety of found objects.

LP: What is your favorite part about art making?

CS: My art is very repetitive, and I enjoy the tediousness of that. The best part of working on a piece is once I’ve figured out the specific pattern I want to create and I can just get into the rhythm of gluing and painting. That’s the point when I can put on some music or a dvd I’ve seen a million time and just relax and enjoy the process of making the work.

Don’t forget to check out more of Cassandra’s work on her website!

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Lindsay Preston is an artist and graphic designer from San Diego. In “Lindsay’s Quick Queries”, Lindsay brings you work by contemporary artists, and answers to the questions everyone has been wondering about them, like “pancakes or waffles?”

+ above: beautiful elsie marley mini quilts (elsie’s original post here)

+ these pie chart pins from studio fludd are so clever & come in great color palettes

+ it’s like PB&J for grown-ups!

+ smart illustration by daniel gneiding

+ this veggie sandwich (& recipe) looks delicious

+ LOCAL STUFF: The Food Truck Feast is Sunday in Durham (with Only Burger, Indian Food on Wheels, Daisy Cakes, Bulkogi Korean BBQ, Parlez-Vous Crepe and Mom’s Delicious Dishes), Sam’s Quik Shop 11:30-3pm // Invictus is playing Friday night at the NC Museum of Art at 9 pm // It’s First Friday in Raleigh // Saturday is the 12th annual garden party “Art Grows in Durham,” with kids’ projects, a plant sale, local food, artwork for sale, music and a bake sale. // The Beaver Queen Pageant (annual drag show, kid friendly) is Saturday starting at 4pm at the Duke Park Meadow // Check out 5 Star in Raleigh Saturday at 11pm to see Battle of the Bands champions Role Playaz and give a shout to my friend Leslie, the rap-playing cellist in the spandex jump suit.

Arounna Khounnoraj was born in Laos and raised in Canada. She received her art education from The Ontario College of Art, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and an MFA from University of Waterloo. She has received numerous awards and has exhibited her work in solo and group shows across North America and Europe.  Her work is in public and private collections. She currently resides in Toronto and runs her design business bookhou with her husband John and their children Liam and Piper.

Attachment Series, Paper Pattern Sack

Attachment Series, Cloudlike

Attachment Series, Black Seeds Step

LP: What sort of themes do you deal with in your art?
AK: Some themes and elements that I deal with in my work are repetition, collage, connections and also about smaller elements combined together to create a bigger thing.

LP: Does your family inspire or alter your work?
AK: I think that my family has altered my work – before I had kids I did larger installation based work and my work and my work got smaller and more portable – making is easier to start and stop with life’s interruptions.

Don’t forget to check out Arounna’s beautiful work on her site!

Also, check out some process photos of business cards that Arounna just printed for one of Lindsay’s clients on Lindsay’s blog.

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Lindsay Preston is an artist and graphic designer from San Diego. In “Lindsay’s Quick Queries”, Lindsay brings you work by contemporary artists, and answers to the questions everyone has been wondering about them, like “pancakes or waffles?”

These photos don’t begin to do Lindsay Alker’s collection justice, because the real beauty of her fabrics and wallpapers is that they’re designed with lino-blocks and hand silkscreened on linen. The designs are intentionally imperfect to keep that block-print look. Lindsay Alker has designed fashion & furnishing fabrics for over 20 years, and has worked with Diana Von Furstenberg, Calvin Klein, Gap, Ralph Lauren, Cacharel, Agnes B. Designers Guild, Boussac, Liberty of London and many others. This is the first collection she’s produced under her own name.

top photo: mine; bottom photos: the lindsay alker site

This post concludes my ICFF coverage! I’ve put the rest of the photos (from ICFF booths not covered here) on flickr.

the pattern-filled booth of Scottish textile designer Morag Macpherson.

‘Morning! So my plan this week is to post at 9am, 11am, 1pm, and 3pm every day, with ICFF recaps in the mornings and NSS recaps in the afternoons. So check back often! There’s so much to share and I hope you’ll excuse my poor photos—fluorescent lighting isn’t the easiest thing to work with.

These photos are from one of my favorite booths, elasticCo. I have such a soft spot for textile design, especially experimental work, so it’s no surprise that French designer Elodie Blanchard’s work topped my list. Elodie now lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Parsons.

The following photos are from the eslasticCo website:

photo by james ewing

photo by art gray

photo by linda taalman

I overslept Sunday morning and thought for a split second that I might miss my early morning flight, but of course I made it and am having a blast in New York. I picked up my press badge for ICFF yesterday and made a quick dash through the show. More to come but below are some favorites:

dform

graypants

elasticco

Then I headed over to the American Folk Art Museum, which I loved. Can’t wait to check out NSS today!