Dan Golden Designs Plates, Platter, Mugs and A Pillow Exclusively For CB2.

Dan Golden, the illustrator/artist whose irreverent designs I have shared with you in his fabulous carpets and pillows has created some designs exclusively for one of my favorite home decor stores, Crate and Barrel's CB2.



The six items Dan designed exclusively for the store include the following two ceramic mugs, one platter, two plates (dishwasher and microwave safe) and pillow.







Shop for the above items here.

Below is an interview with Dan Golden by Sandra for CB2's blog, In The Loop.


Artist Profile: Dan Golden, Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Where was your favorite place to live?
I haven’t found my absolute favorite place to live just yet, but can tell you that it will have lots of space and incredible views.

What’s your favorite room in your home?
Either the living room or the bedroom; the living room because it’s filled with art & design books, paper, pens and inspirational objects. The bedroom because it’s where we can just chill out and rest/think.

What are your sources of inspiration?
Experiences—alone, with friends, with new people…making connections. And the usual suspects: artists, films/filmmakers, designers, music, books, etc.

What do you drive?
Well, I drive a 2002 Volkswagen Jetta, but I would really love to drive one of these: a vintage Jaguar e-type, a 60s Mercedes 220se, or a BMW model 2002. One day.

What one item do you wish you owned?
Hmmmm….maybe a Rothko.

What are your interests outside of design?
I love comedy/comedians, movies, music, technology, graphic novels (Daniel Clowes type stuff), napping, running, and laughing.

Form vs. Function?
Form and Function, but not necessarily always at the same time.

Your personal decorating style is?
Minimal and vintage.

What’s your favorite element/possession?
Can a dog qualify as an element? If so, then definitely our dog Nutley—he brings a lot of happiness and humor into our lives.

What was/is your biggest indulgence?
Probably my vintage Rolex watch. I obsessed on getting a classic stainless steel oyster perpetual Rolex watch for a long time and finally found the one I was looking for. It has a certain personal significance to me so it’s a very special possession/indulgence.

Do you have one low budget decorating tip?
Draw on your walls.

What’s the best career advice you ever received? Ever gave?
Years ago—when I was a waiter/aspiring singer-songwriter—I met Tom Waits. His advice was to be original and not try to be like anybody else. This advice was simple and true, and applies equally to being a designer.

Dan Golden
CB2

Whacked Out Willow China By Sweden's Nille Svensson. Fake China Dinnerware.

Adding his own narrative to what at first glance looks like classic Willow Pattern China (a style of dinnerware which originated in England in the early 1800s), designer Nille Svensson has created "Fake China."



The blue and white bone china plates measuring 12.3 inches in diameter were originally created for an exhibition in Stockholm on the theme of identity. The Fake China is a cultural twist on the original Chinaware, adding contemporary elements like planes, boats, factories and automobiles. At the end of this post is a detailed explanation about the plate designs in the designer's own words.












ABOUT FAKE CHINA (by Nille Svensson):

On the 12th of September 1745, the sailing ship Götheborg, part of the Swedish East India Company fleet, returned to Sweden from Canton after more than 30 months at sea. It is believed that over 35 members of the crew died during the journey. Only 900 meters from its home harbour in Gothenburg, the ship ran aground and sank. The cargo of several thousand pieces of china was lost and the sailors who did not survive the journey had died for nothing. This story of the harsh reality of commerce has always fascinated me.

When I was asked to create something on the theme of »identity« for the Notch exhibition in 2009, I first thought a lot about how contemporary China, at least from a Western perspective, is generally regarded as a place were things are produced but not designed. China's design identity is also associated with the issue of plagiarism and fake products. I then came to think about the sad fate of Götheborg, and the extremely high demand of Chinese ceramics in Europe at that time. A high demand created out of the fact that the knowledge of how to manufacture ceramics of such quality was not locally available.

As the understanding of production techniques spread, manufacturing of chinaware started in Europe as well. In many cases featuring designs that looked »Chinese«, or were direct copies of Chinese originals. The design was made with the main purpose to add a quality of authenticity to what was basically product piracy. The most famous of these designs is perhaps the »Willow design« made around 1790. The company behind this plate even invented a fake Chinese legend based on the motif just to further promote the authenticity of the product. The motif and the legend has in turn been copied and spread widely ever since. There is even an animated Disney film based on the willow tree legend. From the early plagiarism, the designs grew and permuted and became the starting point of the British and Dutch porcelain-tradition as we know it.

Contemporary designers and artists even relates to the Willow-motif as a kind of starting point. The copy has grown to become an original and as such carries cultural integrity in its own right as it has transformed through the states of copy - original - culture - tradition. What we today may regard as a highly valuable (collectable) item was originally created as a simple copy.

It is a healthy reminder of how cultural influenses and values shift and change over time. Not only geographically, but economically and demographically, the general presumption that the Western world is where things are designed and originated, whilst the East is where they get produced and copied will not prevail forever.

With all this in mind I went to the Museum of Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm, stole designs and design elements from plates in the collection, and created my own »fake china« plates, while convinced that nobody can copy anything without adding something to the story.

The result is a small step of cultural evolution. -- Nille Svensson, designer

Where To Buy Fake China


FAKE-CHINA is included in the Röhsska Museet permantent design collection.

In Stockholm, Sweden FAKE-CHINA are available at Svenskt Tenn

For US sales and retail, please contact Jennifer Garcia

For general questions regarding FAKE-CHINA, please email: inquiries@fake-china.com

Remembering Eva Zeisel 1906-2012. Her Life and Her Work.

The world lost a legend on December 30th when Eva Zeisel died at the age of 105. In honor of her passing, I am reprinting a post I wrote on her amazing life and work in April of 2010.


above: Eva Zeisel, 2009, photos courtesy of Talisman Photo

103 year old Eva Zeisel continues to amaze. The Hungarian born designer just doesn't stop. In addition to being an enormous talent, she has a life story as interesting as her work.

She was born Eva Amalia Stricker on November 13th to Alexander and Laura Polanyi Stricker. At the age of 17 she enrolled in the Royal Academy Of Fine Arts, intent on becoming a painter, but was convinced by her mother to try a trade at which she could earn money. She then began apprenticing as a potter. In 1925, she started her own pottery on her family estate. In 1927 she moved to Hamburg Germany, where she worked at Hansa Kunstkeramic for 6 months.

In 1932, she visited Russia for the first time. She worked at the Lomonosov Manufactory designing dinnerware and at the Artistic Laboratory of the Lomonosov State Porcelain Factory (the former Imperial Porcelain Factory) in Leningrad.



By 1935 she was the artistic director of the Glass and China Industries in Moscow, Russia. It was soon after, in 1936, that the talented Stricker was falsely accused of being part of a conspiracy to kill Josef Stalin and imprisoned in Russia for 16 months, 12 of which were spent in solitary confinement.

Upon her 1937 release from prison (without explanation), she was put on a train to Vienna where she was met by relatives. In 1938 she married her second husband, Hans Zeisel in England (her first marriage was to physicist Alexander Weissberg and was dissolved). Soon after marrying Zeisel, they both moved to new York.

In 1939, she created the first department of ceramic arts industrial design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she taught until 1952.


above: Eva Zeisel in 1940 with student work at Pratt. Image courtesy of Pratt.
above image courtesy of Eva Zeisel Archives

She then went on to design iconic pieces for Chantal, Sears, Red Wing Pottery, Hall China Company, Watt Pottery, H. Heisey and more. You can still find many of her vintage pieces at the Orange Chicken Gallery.

At the impressive age of 103, she is still actively designing. She has current collections of ceramics and silk-screened prints for Klein Reid, Classic Century ceramics and One O One earthenware for Royal Stafford, the re-issued Granit collection for Design Within Reach, pens, pen holder and card holder designs for Acme, hand blown glassware collections for Gumps , glassware, aluminum and more for Nambé, exclusive China pieces for various galleries, and a furniture line, and most recently a collection of three Tibetan wool rugs for The Rug Company.



above photos courtesy of Talisman photo and the Brooklyn Museum

Eve Zeisel Glassware for Gumps:


Exclusives for the Neue gallerie:
Fine bone china Baby feeder:

Porcelain painted Icebox pitchers:


Eva Zeisel for Royal Stafford


A coffee set she designed in 1940:

One O One:


Eva Zeisel for Klein Reid:



Eva Zeisel for Nambé:




Eva Zeisel Glassware for Bombay Sapphire:


Designed in early 2001, the Centennial Set consists of six impressively scaled celebratory goblets inspired by Eva's martini glass designed exclusively for the Bombay Sapphire's promotional campaign. Individually hand-blown by master craftsmen, these elegant works of art are made of the highest quality glass.

Eva Zeisel Originals (furniture and more):





Eva Zeisel for Design Within Reach:

Granit tableware:


Eve Zeisel For The Rug Company:

Fish and Lacy X:



Her work is included in the permanent collections of museums worldwide, including MoMA, the Met and the V&A. In 2005, she was awarded the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York.

The Wall Street Journal has a nice little interview with Eva Zeisel here.

Special thanks to the Eva Zeisel forum for additional information and links.

Eva Zeisel Books, Dinnerware and More