A clever tiling idea from Elle Deco UK

Despite my embrace of cyberspace and online journalism, I remain a die-hard magazine devotee. So old school, I know. For certain kinds of coverage and information, magazines remain–for me at least–both indispensable–and also a million times more satisfying than blogs. (Honestly, I find reading blogs a huge drag if a necessary evil, so I truly appreciate your bothering to indulge me by perusing mine!)

Anyway, all that preamble to say: a love of magazines has its downside, especially when living with a husband who is similarly devoted to the print medium. Magazines tend to pile up and take over our not-so-large apartment. So every 6 months we have a collective hissy fit and spend like the entire weekend just weeding through them so we can have our lives (and our horizontal surfaces) back. This occurred last weekend.

Which is why I am so belatedly posting the above article form the March issue of Elle Deco UK! A really cute idea: rather than stick to one variety of tile, especially for the floor of a small room like a closet, loo, or even a foyer, choose a few different types and make an animated patchwork instead! Great idea if you are wont to troll vintage shops and tile sample sales–where you can often buy only a few square feet of any given design. Love!

As seen on: Fulton Street at South Oxford

Walking out of the Greenlight bookstore yesterday, I happened upon this patch of sidewalk, which someone had adulterated with a mosaic of ceramic fragments! Most whimsical. Next time I spy newly poured concrete, I am going to break a plate and do a little DIY public-art mosaicing of my own…

More ICFF: Sicis party in Soho tonight

Probably by invite only, but if you can sneak in (or just peak in) you’ll see some glittery, shimmery–and highly decorative–stuff.

Sparkle plenty: Bisazza + Swarovski @ ICFF

Next Monday, the Bisazza showroom in SoHo is having a big VIP bash to preview its new collaboration with Swarovksi, launched last month at Milan: crystal-studded mosaics in five patterns! More info on the Bisazza website (under “news”)….there’s a rad design featuring shiny seahorses and coral silhouetted against a solid background.  SPARKLY!

As seen on: 10th Avenue NYC

Strange but satisfying ceramic mosaic facade of a sketchy pizza parlor near 27th Street. Has an offbeat 70s-Euro vibe, no? Two days later I was walking around Philly and saw another pizza parlor clad in the exact same colorway, but a horizontal subway tile format. Perhaps this is a late-20th-century Italian-American culinary stylistic trope I’m unaware of? The mind boggles.

As seen in: Canal Street Station

Chinese artist Bing Lee’s 1998 “Empress Voyage,” an enigmatic ceramic-mosaic mural–based on a quirky pictorial-iconographic language he invented–always makes me smile when I’m dashing through the otherwise yuckers Canal Street station. 

Some info I dug up on the artist: bio here and show of more recent works at 2×13 Gallery here.

As seen in: the Mavi store, Broadway

How cute is this: a “sale” sign rendered in mosaic!

An artist you need to know about: Jeanne Reynal

I can’t remember how or where I discovered her work. Probably at the Gorky show at the Philly Museum last fall? Not sure. I jotted her name down in my cel phone notepad–and then forgot to look in said notebook for a few weeks.

Now that I’ve Googled her: how did I make it through numerous art history classes on mid-20th-century art and NOT come across her name before? She was less a mosaic artist than an artist who chose mosaic as her medium. The American-born talent, who trained in the Paris atelier of Boris Anrep, modernized the ancient art form by treating surfaces like a canvas, embedding found objects in a cement base. She was also a member of the 40s/50s New York Ab-Ex scene: a close friend of Gorky and Rothko,she showed at Stable Gallery, which also represented Joseph Cornell, Joan Mitchell, and Cy Twombly.

Curious for more?

• For a bio, click over to the Anita Shapolsky Gallery here.
• Or to Levis Fine Art here.
• Visit the Smithsonian to read her papers, including her correspondence with Arshille Gorky’s wife!
• More images on Artnet.
• Article on her contributions to the Nebraska State Capitol (she was one of four artists who contributed mosaic murals) here.
• Used copies of “The Mosaics of Jeanne Reynal” can be found online.
• Reportedly has pieces in the collections at MoMA and SFMoMA, although all I could find online where paintings that she donated. Need to do more digging.

Although she seems to have primarily embraced abstraction (see above), her more figurative work–like this 1975 rendering of Martha Graham–is similarly delightful!

A Gorky she donated to the SFMoMA; her work has a similar sense of coloration and painterliness:

If you have any more info on her, please leave a comment!

Studium: Abloom in white!

Welcome to White Bathroom Week, part trois:

While at Studium last fall for the launch of Ashley Hicks‘s book on his decorating dad, David Hicks, this beautiful white marble floral mosaic (above) caught my eye. Be still my beating heart! One day, in my dream life, I will tile MY white bathroom with this crystalline confection!

Similarly neutral in coloration yet even more luxurious: mother of pearl. Yes, I know, it’s not white white…more, um, pearly. But still. Check out the glamorous iridescent penny tile below, also Studium. Would look gorgeous on its own or accenting a field of white ceramic or stone…love…

As seen on: First Avenue, East Village

Ah, streetfront mosaic signage. Just can’t get enough!