JAPANESE CHAZUTSU TEA CADDIES BY KAIKADO

Posted on 2013-09-23

Kaikado is the oldest family owned maker of handmade tin tea caddies in the world, the family began producing their innovative Chazutsu caddy in 1875, using sheets of tin imported from Cornwall. Today four skilled craftsman led by Mr Yagi, Design Director, still make the traditional tin, brass, copper and silver caddies at the family run workshop in Kyoto.

Each caddy is made of two layers of metal, the double wall construction keeps the caddies completely airtight and the contents dry. With daily use the outer metal layer will change in tone and develop a unique patina; colour changes in copper being noticeable within three months and the tin caddy slowly changing colour over three to five years.

There are more than 130 highly skilled processes involved in the production of each caddy, many of which can only be carried out by Mr Yagi and his father. The special airtight feature has remained unchanged for over a century, production is time consuming and the finishing meticulous in its attention to detail.

Margaret Howell has selected three cylindrical caddies, available in tin and copper, as well as a special 200g tin caddy with a boxwood lid handle.

Mr Yagi will be demonstrating some of the processes involved in the making of a traditional Japanese Chazutsu tea caddy at the Margaret Howell Wigmore Street shop on Sunday 29th September.

www.margarethowell.co.uk

  

MARGARET HOWELL X OPEN HOUSE LONDON 2013

Posted on 2013-09-19

Margaret Howell continues to support Open-City, the architectural education charity founded by Victoria Thornton to raise awareness and appreciation of the urban landscape. Open-City actively promotes public engagement and education programmes, encouraging a dialogue about the built environment and urban regeneration projects. Established in 1992, the charity offered the public access to private and public buildings of architectural merit over a single weekend in September, many of the buildings were open to the public for the first time. The initiative was known as Open House Weekend, launched in London and now a global annual event across twenty cities including New York, Buenos Aires, Tel Aviv, Perth, Barcelona, Rome and Helsinki.

Margaret Howell has sponsored Open House London Weekend since 2003, supporting a number of buildings from the post war modernist movement designed by architects Margaret Howell personally admires, buildings have included The Royal Festival Hall, Swiss Cottage Library, Balfron Tower and Span Housing.

For this year’s Open House London Weekend (21 – 22 September) Margaret is supporting Battersea Power Station and encouraging the public to visit the building before the site is handed over to developers at the end of September.

Margaret has produced a series of postcards showing a selection of her favourite Open House buildings, the postcards will be available at Battersea Power Station and other key venues over the weekend. The postcards preview the creative concept for the Margaret Howell 2014 calendar, in which Margaret selects twelve buildings she has personally supported or visited since Open House London Weekend started in 1992. The calendar will be available in October and sold to support the work of Open-City, with all profits from the sale of each calendar being donated to the charity.

www.margarethowell.co.uk
www.londonopenhouse.org

  

ADRIAN NAVARRO – RED SPACE

Posted on 2013-09-16

Navarro plays with transforming the perception of the spectator, generating an intense and dramatic ambience. Red in all its variants, from scarlet to carmine, passing through cadmium and alizarin, reflects the protagonism of the colour and discovers for us sensations “which only painting can provoke through colour understood as a source of radiant energy” according to the artist. The expression of colour as a malleable pictorial substance is appreciated through loose brushstrokes, spontaneous and rhythmic tracings running across the canvas.

Rhythm, like colour, is fundamental in the work of Adrián Navarro. In a certain way, the surface of the picture hides from us the complexity of the tension between the interior, corporal and gestural rhythm, and the exterior rhythm, rigorous in its repetition. This duality expresses a hybrid space, a reflection of the human mind, where rational conscience co-exists with intuition.

Exhibition runs through to October 30th, 2013

Galería Pilar Serra
C/ Santa Engracia, 6 Bajo Centro
28010 Madrid
Spain

www.estiarte.com

  

DANIEL LERGON – POTENTIAL EISEN

Posted on 2013-09-16

The Berlin based painter Daniel Lergon shows paintings and drawings of his latest body of work. Powdered and neutrally bound iron on canvas and paper functions as the work’s base coat. The iron particles on the painting’s surface oxidate by applying acidified water and therefore determine the modulation of form and color. The potential of the painting’s surface is chemically aroused, unlike in his earlier work series on fluorescent or retro reflective material that was physically changed by applying transparent lacquer. As then light played a major and form giving role, now the process of pictorial invention is made visible in different levels of materiality. The charged material and the artist’s response to it influence the pictorial invention.

Exhibition runs through to October 18th, 2013

Galerie Christian Lethert
Antwerpener Straße 4
50672 Cologne
Germany

www.christianlethert.com

  

STANLEY DONWOOD

Posted on 2013-09-16

Far Away is Close at Hand in Images of Elsewhere showcases Stanley’s ambitious ink and pencil pieces featuring hidden country footpaths, Known as Holloways, and other arboreal scenes. These are featured in Stanley’s hit book of the same name, published by Faber and Faber earlier this year. The large canvases to be shown alongside them formed the official artwork for Radiohead’s latest LP, The King of Limbs, named after an ancient oak tree in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire. Holloway lanes are characterised by an over-arching avenue of fauna that creates a natural tunnel effect. Mysterious and melancholic, their botanical beauty inspires both awe and a liberating sense of feral mindfulness. Stanley’s artworks depicting holloways on display will range from miniature woodcut prints and studies to large works on paper. The King of Limbs canvases were created using oils and spray paint.

“In the lead up to making these pieces I became fascinated with the idea of a cathedral of sound,” says the artist, “I was working with Radiohead on the record that was to become The King of Limbs, and my early hearings of the music seemed to suggest an overarching canopy of detail.” The band’s ambitious compositions triggered a synaesthetic vision in Stanley. “I had a kind of memory that the fluted columns and ceiling tracery of medieval churches owed its inspiration to the northern forests of Europe; the tall tree trunks, the interlaced branches above, the majesty of the woods. I wanted to take this caged spirit of the trees back into the forests, where sounds were free and un-tethered by religion, where the spreading branches supported the sky, not the roof of a church. I began to paint trees, bright, coloured trees, through which dark mists could percolate.”

Exhibition runs from September 20th to October 19th, 2013

Lazarides
8 Greek Street
Soho
London
W1D 4DG

www.theoutsiders.net

  

ADIDAS ORIGINALS ENFORCER MID SNAKESKIN

Posted on 2013-09-16

Priding itself on being one of the first brands to introduce animal prints onto sneakers, adidas chose to replicate its classic ‘90s basketball sneaker with one of the early animal hides to be featured on athletic footwear. The model itself boasts a clean design with a full wrap-around Velcro strap at its ankle, two-color rubber sole, perforated toebox and a padded tongue. For this collection, each Enforcer is made over with a snakeskin leather, in brown or black, with suede overlays and smooth leather accents.

www.adidas.co.uk