Millamella

Having just found and purchased 2 lovely Thomas Paul melamine plates from his aviary series, I had to post these incredible finds from Millamella. This is making me strongly consider starting a collection. [via DesignWorkLife]

Riitta Ikonen: Costume Projects

Finish artist Riitta Ikonen is a rare bird. With a degree in Communication Arts and Design from the Royal College of Art in London, Ikonen employs hand-made costumes in pertinent settings to address a wide range of topics — often social and environmental — from personal space to global warming to communication games i.e. Chinese whispers (aka telephone). Some of my favorites include (in descending order) having a bright idea, the tragically impaired migration of house martins, a worrisome absence of snow and ice in certain northern climates, roadkill, and the applications and protective qualities of nylon. Check out the interview on We Make Money Not Art. Thanks, Arwen, for the link!

Ana Ventura

Portuguese artist Ana Ventura is a prolific illustrator and crafter, working in myriad mediums, including textiles, print, engraving, and 3D. I encourage an exploration of her website and Flickr, there is so much to see! These illustrations were created using digitally manipulated photographs of decaying walls — a lovely idea, and so well-executed. [via What Katie Finds]

Anne Hardy

British artist Anne Hardy creates fantastic interior spaces — single room sets that make the viewer feel as if they have stumbled into sci-fi situations, circus grip barrooms, David Lynch trances, botanical caution chambers, and the Collyer brothers' storm shelter. Her scenes are captured with a medium-format camera and wide-angle lens — "I usually start with abandoned objects I find in the street ... I put a lot of specific things into the image, without making specific references, so people can bring different things to it. There is no single explanation. I wanted to create the feeling that there are unfamiliar systems at work here." [via Kate Pruitt via Cyana Trend Land]

Open Source Embroidery

In honor of the Open Source Embroidery show at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art (MoCFA) in San Francisco, I would like to share my first (and to date only) LED embroidery — birthday cupcake! This little experiment was created at Maker Faire Austin 2008, and was made possible by the patience, expertise, and tutorage of friend and co-worker Becky Stern, whose Lily Pad embroidery is shown above. Also partaking in the show is friend Travis Meinolf, who will be hosting one of the ongoing workshops of this event, teaching patrons how to weave. It cannot get any cooler than this! Come out and join us this Thursday, October 2, starting at 6pm. More electronic embroidery with Becky at CRAFT.

Mathieu Missiaen: Paper Shoes

The French artist and designer Mathieu Missiaen of Ndeur created these amazing paper shoes for Heidi Ackerman's Fall/Winter 2009 line. In January of 2009, Ndeur and Make a Paper World (Julien Morin) formed Le Creative Sweatshop: "a conceptual agency based of modern communication means and mediums, through the lens of the DIY culture, working on volume and space scenography." More Ndeur shoes. [via Notcot]

Viral Paper + / Le Creativ Sweatshop ENGLISH SUBTITLES from ofa on Vimeo.

Esteban Diåcono for Ólafur Arnalds

Ólafur Arnalds – Ljósið (Official Music Video) from Erased Tapes.

Argentinian motion graphics designer Esteban Diåcono has created a truly exceptional animation project for Icelandic neo-classical musician, Ólafur Arnalds. The song, Ljósið, is part of the Found Songs series: 7 songs in 7 days. [via Kitsune Noir]

Jorge Colombo: New Yorker Covers

Illustrator and photographer Jorge Colombo is perhaps best known these days for his iPhone sketches with the Brushes app, as seen (frozen) on the latest New Yorker cover. It is such a joy to watch the layering shapes and color blocks transform into city scenes, reminiscent and romantic. Check out the 20x200 print editions. [via 20x200, via my creative director, the ever-talented Daniel Carter]

Hubert Duprat: Trichopteran Integument

Hermit crabs are apparently not the only critters to experience an artful intervention of man. Hubert Duprat, a French artist and naturalist, has replaced the natural river bed materials available to a group of caddis fly larvae with gold, semi-precious and precious stones. Caddis fly belong to the insect order Trichoptera, whose larvae bodies require a protective casing. Read the wonderful interview between the artist and philosopher and art critic, Christian Besson. Watch a short video of the caddis in action. [via Cabinet compliments of Mr. Bourn]

Jenny Grigg

Australian graphic designer Jenny Grigg has one of those resumés that makes the average designer either really inspired or really intimidated — Rolling Stone, HQ, MTV Australia, Pentagram, Harper Collins ... cry cry cry. In any case, I'm a huge fan of well-curated publication series, and Grigg rocks the Peter Carey set for Random House Australia with tissue paper illustration. Glorious! Faceout Books has a nice interview discussing her process (seen above). [via Design Dust via Miss Modular]

Decapod Domicile

Marine biologists at the New Zealand Marine Studies Centre and Aquarium have conducted a keen experiment presenting captive hermit crabs with handblown glass shells. The soft bodied scavengers opt to move into the man-made diggs within 7-10 days, abandoning their old opaque houses. The photos pictured here were taken by author and photographer Frank Greenaway for DK Publishing. Read the 3news story here and watch the video coverage here. [via Mad Scientist NZ by way of Next Nature and on makezine.com]

Bokja

I feel like I've been seeing Bokja everywhere, but to be fair, it popped back into my view at JuBella. Beirut based design partners Hoda Baroudi and Maria Hibri started Bokja in 2000. They employ 10 full time artisans in addition to collaborating with local craftsmen. Thus their textiles are regionally specific and, lets face it, a white room's raison d'être. It's so haute-bohemian that the buying celebrity A-list is outstepping Bokja's bold pattern in the press. Still, for those of us who love rich ornamentation, these textiles are the stuff of dreams.

Anna Serrano: Cartonlandia

If Benjamin Van Oost built a Favela for Slinkachu's Little People, it would be Anna Serrano's Cartonlandia. The first generation LA-born Mexican American artist tends to focus on subjects such as "those in low socio-economic positions, with particular interest in their customs and beliefs, as well as the architecture, fashion, and informal economies." Cartonlandia, Favela, shanty town ... Check out her blog, OK, Bye. [via Reuben Miller]

Jamie Vasta

Even if you didn't go to CCA you may have already encountered the glitter paintings of Jamie Vasta. Her series Kills is eerie, but Mustn't is plain jaw dropping. Her work "continues to upend Disney’s sanitized versions of myth and fairytale. With glitter as a powdery shorthand for magic that cuts both ways, she reinstates the original, darker fables where human nature is darker and messier and endings are usually not happy." Read the entire Art Ltd. article, Young at Art: 15 Artists Under 35. More at her gallery, Patricia Sweetow.