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i’m excited to be selling my printed wood blocks in the brand new design*sponge shop! the minimalist side of me came out when i started this new project… i was inspired by artwork in my grandmother’s apartment. she recently moved from new york to california to be closer to our family– and my mom, my aunt, and i had fun packing up her new york and florida apartments, and sorting through her impressive art collection. i noticed that a lot of her small sculptures (mostly from the 1960’s-1970’s) were mounted on small wood blocks. i loved the idea, and that led to these printed blocks.

the wood is from city joinery, a furniture company in dumbo brooklyn, which makes gorgeous custom furniture and works with the most beautiful (and expensive!) wood. i wanted to use wood scraps that were left over from other projects, recycling them, in a way. i’m posting more photos on flickr.

grace’s new shop will feature six brand new, exclusive, limited-edition designs each month. this month’s artists are: karin eriksson, maria of port2port, paula of henry road, jenny sauer of threesheets2thewind, amy adams of perch design, and myself. 100% of the profits will go directly to the designers and 10% of the site’s ad revenue will go to charity. congrats on the new shop grace!

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  5. lena, so nice to hear the evolution of the design… beautifully understated work. love it.

    xphoebe

  8. Beautiful wood blocks! For a recent exhibition, I worked on big slabs of beechwood recently, using handcut vinyl stencils and acrylic paint as well as wood stains. They turned out beautifully (see them in the August archives of my blog) and I particularly liked the solid weight of the “canvas”, which allows them to be displayed as objects, not paintings.

  9. hi heather-
    they’re great! “garden vines” is my favorite.

    looks like a very cool process!

  12. sure, the wood blocks are screen printed. i had a large screen made, so i can print 4-5 blocks at one time. it requires washing the screen a lot, so it’s a time consuming process. but the results are a really clean print.

  13. Great work! I love the images you put on your blog… they are quite inspiring! hope you don’t mind my browsing about… moreover, the patterns you have on your site are amazing and fresh.. keep it up!