by hand, the use of craft in contemporary art (edited by shu hung and joseph magliaro) is a fantastic new art/design/craft book that features some of my favorite artists. the book is based on the recent craft trend, and how many contemporary artists have incorporated crafts like sewing, embroidery, knitting, and crocheting, into their artwork. i’m usually terrible about actually reading the text in design books, but i really enjoyed reading the artists’ descriptions of their work. shown above, left to right: cover, kristen hassenfeld, kiki smith, robyn love, kiki smith, and anna von mertens. a super inspiring book…

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!