Julie Richey unveils La Corrente

One of the great joys of being a blogger are the connections I make with artists. Julie Richey is my favorite mosaicist working today and I met her through some work I was doing for the fine folks at Mosaic Art Now. Julie's become a pen pal, a Facebook friend, an occasional contributor to K&RD and a regular source of inspiration. Julie and I have never met in person, but one of these days we will. Hopefully, that meeting will take place in a trattoria in Trastevere where we'll dine on carciofi alla Giuda and pretend it's 2000 years ago.

Julie works in three dimensions as often as she works in the mosaicists' more traditional two dimensions and she sent me some photos of her latest piece the other day and I'm in awe of it. The piece is called La Corrente, which means The Current in Italian and it's her tribute to the Gulf of Mexico.

From Julie's statement:

My work utilizes the innate opulence of mosaic materials – 24k gold smalti, marble, semi-precious stones – to embellish sculptural forms in unexpected ways. The discovery of dentalia shells inspired the densly-packed and fragile under skirt.

La Corrente, (The Current in Italian) is about beauty amidst destruction. The sea kelp adorning her gown swirls in the strong gulf currents. Giant Asian Sea Kelp is an invasive species threatening the balance of plant and marine life in the region. While man overtly destroys the gulf with oil, pollution and fertilizer runoff, another destructive force creeps in with the current.

Here's the front of La Corrente.

And here it is from the back.

Dentalia are tusk shells, a common find along the shores of the Gulf, and she hand applied each one with tweezers. Here are some details photos.

And here's the finished piece in Julie's studio.

I'm awed by her ability to take an art form and push it in new directions. Mosaic is art and Julie's work proves that time and again. The sculpture as a whole tells a narrative that's moving enough, but the materials too pitch in to help tell the story. Much like the Gulf itself, underneath the beautiful form churns a gathering storm.

Brava Julie.

You can see the rest of Julie's work on her website and you'll be seeing more of this one. She's entered La Corrente in the 2011Mosaic Arts International and when it gets selected, it'll be on display at the Mexican American Cultural Center in Austin, TX beginning in mid-February, 2011. The photography featured in this post is by Dallas-based Stacy Bratton.

Julie's available for commissioned work (in two or three dimensions though she can probably handle four dimensions) and you can reach her through her website.

Miele makes vacuum cleaners and they're as good as it gets

Everybody knows Miele from their great dishwashers, coffee makers and other kitchen appliances. It comes as a surprise to a lot of people that they also make vacuum cleaners. Just as their dishwashers are the best in their class, so go their vacuums.

A lot of what makes a good vacuum a good vacuum has to do with the motor of course, but the onboard filter plays as big a role in a vacuum's performance.

Adding HEPA filters to vacuums gets a lot of press when it comes to these things but a HEPA filter's only as good as the seal that isolates what's been filtered. Vacuums that don't filter the exhaust air from from the motor aren't really doing anything but make people think their vacuum's working when in fact, all it's doing is pushing around air and particulates.

Miele's collection of vacuums was tested by an independent lab, Michigan-based IBR Labs, and IBR compared the filter efficiency of Miele's versus a number of other premium vacuums. Here's a chart that shows some of the results.

Miele USA set up a section on their website that's dedicated to explaining the results of these tests and if you'd like more information about Miele vacuums and their filtration, check it out.

What amazed me to read is that my vacuum's motor spews as much dust back into the air as it vacuums up. And that dust and particulates generated by the motor itself. Miele vacuums filter the motor exhaust air and removes the particulates that I for one never knew were there.

For a lot of people this level of air filtration may be overkill, but if you or someone you care about suffers from  respiratory problems, no amount of filtration's enough.

Looking over these reports certainly has me looking at my cursed, $100 vacuum with new eyes. I have to tell you, there's a lot to like here. The motors on these Miele vacuums have adjustable speeds, so you can vacuum things like draperies on a lower setting. Pretty smart. They also look really good. Here's their Libra cannister vacuum.

Most of their models take their names from Classical mythology and I'm torn between if I'd rather the Callisto, named for the nymph who was later turned into a bear

or Neptune, simply because he was so cool.

So consider these vacuums the next time you're in the market for a good one. You can see these vacuums and the rest of Miele's products on their website.

Interactive stairway lights --how cool is this?

My cousin Tim sent me this video this afternoon and I think it's just about the coolest thing I've seen in ages.




It wouldn't bee terribly difficult to put together. All you need is a series of motion detectors and timers and you're set. Thanks Tim!

Geek-to-Chic at New York Fashion Week

The following is a guest post by my friend and colleague Mark Johnson, FAIA. Mark attended two events last week I had to miss. In a 24-hour period he went from the granola-loving heights of Google's Boulder, CO campus to the glittering streets of Manhattan where he took in a Fashion Week runway show. Mark has a great sense of humor and amazing stamina. Without further ado, here's Mark:

Last week’s guest post from Google 3D Basecamp was pure “Geek.” Full immersion in the deep woods of virtual camping left me yearning for an experience with more panache, a contrast from the wool caps of Boulder. New York Fashion Week fit the bill, nowhere near the great outdoors and intoxicating for its whiplash dose of “Chic.” I admit Google SketchUp and Kitchen & Bath (K&B) Design are light-years from the fashion runway… how many 20-something runway models cook, anyway? But to my surprise, SketchUp was the toast of the town when placed in the hands of able K&B designers armed with their computers, iPads and Google apps! Here’s my take on “Chic Week” from New York.

Mannequins at New York Fashion Week? They're really Google SketchUp avatars descending on NYC.

The Bath Challenge results from Fashion Week are…“faaaabulous, simply faaaabulous.” So let’s start with some inspiration from the Jason Wu runway show. His first dress is a literal smattering of Geek to Chic. I respectfully call it: “Tribute to hand-drawing with Rapidograph ink pens and ruined shirts in architecture school”...splat! I could have worn a suit like this to design studio every day and never cleaned it. Where were you, Jason, when I needed you? It’s a lovely suit. Practical, and no pocket protector needed!

My favorite suit of the show! Stylish and hides everything I ever spilled. Easy on the cleaning bill.

For the Luxury Bath Challenge, four teams of designers/architects/bloggers were the guests of Brizo Faucets and competed in the Brizo Luxury Bath Challenge, cosponsored by KraftMaid Cabinetry and DeNova Countertops. To pull this off in 2.5 hours and not miss Jason Wu’s runway show was the challenge. It meant finding a quick, easy way of designing, drawing and presenting four luxury bath designs. The choice was multimedia; a combination of hand-drawing and narrative for developing design concepts, followed by team workshops where online images, SketchUp and 3D product models from the sponsors’ collections in Google’s 3D Warehouse were all employed. Not for the faint-hearted… I guess that’s why a few of the architects skipped the Challenge. Since I’m an architect, I can poke them to a point, then they get testy.
Here are pictures of the Design Challenge teams hard at work on their luxury bath designs. Their presentations and the awards ceremony later at the Showtime Show House capped off a wonderful day in NYC . How did we crash a penthouse party during Fashion Week? It’s another win for K&B designers and SketchUp! Check out the descriptions with each picture:

Hard at work on the Luxury Bath Design Challenge - Gloria Graham, Erin Beneker Loechner @erinloechner, Trevor Williams and Eric Schimelpfenig @SketchThis

Corey's team - Linda Merrill @surroundings, Nancy Hugo @nancyhugo, Corey Klassen @coreyklassen, and Michael Tadros @MikeTadros

Kimberly Dowdell, explaining her team's design concept for a luxury bath "Oasis"

Corey Klassen @coreyklassen, takes the judges through his team's bath design. Very architectural in feeling.

Our esteemed panel of judges; Brendan "Cannon", Judd Lord, and Keith Baltimore

Paparazzi and cameras everywhere. They heard about the Luxury Bath Challenge and beat us to the party.

Trevor Williams, Erin Beneker Loechner @erinloechner, Gloria Graha, and Eric Schimelpfenig @SketchThis

Cannon shares the judges' choice for first place; a "Spa" inspired design concept by Veronika Miller @Modenus. Her team members include Bob Borson @bobborson, Maggie Stack King @ecofabulous, and Celine Kwok

I’ll wrap up by sharing another gorgeous Jason Wu’s dress. It captures all the connections between Geek and Chic. If you’re a Google SketchUp geekster, you instantly see how the “sketchy line” tool would make it a breeze to draw this high-fashion dress without crashing your computer. If you’re a K&B designer, the colors may inspire your next project. If you’re a Fashion Week Celeb who found this post on Paul Anater’s blog @Paul_Anater… why of course, it’s a “Jason Wu.”

Jason Wu's tribute to the "Sketchy Line" tool in Google SketchUp? Maybe...

It's another Blog Off: do social sites like Facebook connect or isolate?

So today's another Blog Off, an event where bloggers of all stripes weigh in on the same topic. This week's topic is "Do social sites like Facebook connect the world or isolate people?" The topic was spawned by a flawed scrap of research that the mainstream media pounced on like vultures on road kill. Never mind that the research in question amounted to a poll conducted by an undergraduate of her peers in a  psych class. What mattered was the finding that Facebook is a magnet for narcissists and self-haters equally. Because no one seems to understand statistics or how to construct a logical argument, headlines exploded in August. Within days, the conventional wisdom had jumped to yet another flawed assumption. Namely that Facebook causes narcissism.

From the Telegraph

Facebook provides an ideal setting for narcissists to monitor their appearance and how many ‘friends’ they have, the study said, as it allows them to thrive on ‘shallow’ relationships while avoiding genuine warmth and empathy.

From the Toronto Star

Compelled to tell your 500 Facebook chums every time you can’t find your sunglasses? Want the world to know you look like Robert Pattison? Post new Photoshopped pictures every day?

You, my friend, are narcissistic and insecure.

I could go on and list quotes and back links for days but you see my point. The mainstream media seems to be threatened by social media, the new kid on the block, and the results are predictable.

I have my share of problems with Facebook. I think of it as a cul de sac on the World Wide Web. It's the new AOL I tell people all the time. Facebook is a duplicated, smaller version of the web and despite the fact that it connects people from their respective pasts and presents, the only thing it isolates is people from their futures. I'll get to that in a minute but I love having a site where I can catch up with my nieces and nephews, my siblings, old friends from high school and college and the rest. But my past is my past for a reason. It's pleasant to hang out there from time to time but it doesn't help me get to where I want to go. I think that's Facebook's Achilles' heel by the way and it will be what does it in. It's all but impossible to meet new people there.

I don't know about anybody else, but my life has been completely and utterly transformed by social media. I document most of it on Facebook, but none of this transformation starts there. For me it started with Blogger.

Two-and-a-half years ago I was an unknown designer in a second-tier city tucked along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Thanks to the kick start I got from my Blogger blog, here I sit as some kind of an industry thought leader (I hate that term) with a network of peers, colleagues and friends that spans the globe. My involvement with Blogger, and later Twitter has brought me face to face with a good number of these colleagues and friends. From the first half of 2010 alone here are a few of my personal/ professional connections.

Kelly Morrisseau writes the blog KitchenSync. She is the first designer/ blogger who ever reached out to me as a new blogger and we've maintained a a strong friendship ever since. Here we are in New York last February.

This is the community of design bloggers as it looked last winter. That photo was taken at a cocktail party in New York hosted by Brizo faucets and Manning, Selvage and Lee Public Relations last February.

Here's Saxon Henry, me, Sabrina Velandry, Paul Velandry, Johnny Grey, Chuck Wheelock and Andie Day. We met on Twitter and we're sitting in the first and second rows of a Fashion Week fashion show. We've been brought together by Brizo because we're design bloggers.

This is me speaking at the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show (KBIS) in Chicago last April. I got to that spot because a year-and-a-half ago Google itself found me via my blog and pulled me out of the scrum. They recommended me to Masco and fast forward a few months and there I am speaking at Kraftmaid's KBIS booth.

This is Zoe Voight and I hanging out in the press room at a trade show. I'm in the press room as a credentialed journalist because somebody at Veeder + Perman Public Relations loves me and loves my blog.

Here's a bunch of design bloggers at a seminar sponsored by @brizo.

Here I am giving another talk at another trade show, the Southeast Builder's Conference this time. Masco is paying me to deliver a talk on how much my blog has changed my life. Pinch me.

Everything that's going on in those photos, all of those personal connections, were made possible through my social media presence. When I hear claims that I'm further isolated I laugh at the absurdity of it.

As my travel schedule starts to take form for 2011 I just shake my head. On the inside I still think of myself as that unknown designer in a second-tier city. Based on the events where I'll be speaking, it's pretty clear that that's no longer the case.

Social media sites make the world a smaller place. They present an opportunity for real, personal connections that transcend geography to a degree and with an immediacy that's never been possible in the whole of human history. Social media generally and Twitter in particular, is where I find my future.

As is the case with anything, thew only thing social site offer is a set of tools. By the time sites like Facebook grow to the size they are (they claim 500 million members worldwide) people are bound to abuse those tools and some people can find themselves more isolated. But just as is the case with anything, it's not automatic. Facebook doesn't cause anything but compromised privacy. People who are thrown to narcissism or isolation are going to be those things with or without social media sites. All of that is a distraction from what's possible though. Better than anything I know, social media takes what's possible and makes it what's probable. As I look forward to the career shifts, adventures and challenges headed my way in the next few months I can't help but say that I owe all of it to Blogger, Twitter, YouTube, Posterous and yes, even Facebook. Me isolated? Don't make me laugh.

As part of a Blog Off, you can go to the official site and see the links to all of participating bloggers' posts. As the day goes on, I'll start listing them here as well.