San Francisco As Seen By Artists Greg Gandy And Jeremy Mann

Principle Gallery in Virginia, recently showed a painting exhibit named 'City Views' featuring the work of San Francisco-based artists, Jeremy Mann and Greg Gandy.

I have long been a fan of Greg Gandy's and am now a new fan of Jeremy Mann's as well. Having grown up in the SF Bay Area, I feel these contemporary artists captured the essence of the unique urban experience and ambiance that is San Francisco.


Greg Gandy:
In Greg Gandy's photo realistic paintings, the golden light of sunrise and sunset (the "magic" hour) is a major element, as it bounces off the sloped hills and city buildings silhouetting, or back-lighting, city buildings, cars and people. Bridges and freeways peek out through sunny glares and midday fog. Even the omnipresent city traffic on the one-way streets is executed in such a manner that it simultaneously summons both attraction and familiarity. Shadows are long and inviting as opposed to being ominous. The city is crowded and active but feels serene and unrushed. His works fill the viewer with a calm glimpse of busy urban life and can be gazed upon for hours on end.


Leaving Broadway:

Morning Commute:

Crossing Market:

Pine and Webster:

Sunrise Over The Bay:

Sunset On Pine:

Sunset Over The Golden Gate:

Sunset Over Twin Peaks:

Afternoon Shoppers:

Sunset On California II:

Clouds Over North Beach:

Morning In Knob Hill:

View From Portrero Hill:

See more Greg Gandy paintings and inquire about the sizes, prices and availability here.


Jeremy Mann:
In Jeremy Mann's work, which is more loosely executed than Gandy's with visible brush strokes and a more frenetic painting style, the seductive allure of the city's rolling fog and rainy wet streets is undeniable. His nighttime scenes, with blurring headlights and streetlights reflecting on the wet pavement, perfectly combine a loneliness with longing. In several of his other works, he captures the 'midday haze'; a mix of activity, atmosphere and the look and feel of heat rising from pavement or mist as it hangs above the asphalt. Bathed in blues, greys and yellows, he immortalizes both the emotion and beauty of the 'City by The Bay'.

The Fog & the City In Silver:

Midday Haze In Blue:

Midday Haze In Yellow:

Pale Morning Haze:

San Francisco Downtown Sunset:

Sutter Street And Rain In Blue:

Evening Lights On Market Street:

Evening In Blues:

Evening In Greys:

Evening Fog In Blue & Green:

Lower Fillmore In the Evening:


See more of Jeremy Mann's work and inquire about the sizes, prices and availability here.

If you have a fondness for San Francisco, or just enjoy urban paintings, these two young artists have managed to capture the essence of a populated city with a calming gestalt. They both work in oils and sizes of the works are as small as 12" x 12" and as large as 51" x 48" .

These two artists were also featured last year in a show of Cityscapes at Studio Gallery in San Francisco which still has some smaller pieces of both their work available.

• Principle Gallery
• Greg Gandy's own site
• Jeremy Mann's own site

Creature Comforts. Cute Cozy Hot Water Bottle Covers By Janice Yan-Yan Wu

Artist and designer Janice Yan-Yan Wu of Montreal has turned recycled fleece and vintage fabrics into fun and functional hot water bottle covers she calls Hotties.



The line of products has one of those annoying names that requires lots of punctuation and only serves to confuse people, [from:to:from], but the products are adorable. An earth-friendly way to keep warm, ward off muscle pain and cramps or just cuddle with a cozy creature.



Each hottie is made from a mix of first hand fleece fabric and recycled cotton and vintage prints collected from her community in Montreal. Each comes with the rubber hot water bottle insert and can be easily, filled, cleaned and stored. The covers can be removed and stuffed and used as pillows if you prefer.









The unusual photos shown above were shot by photographer Michael Abril.

She sells them on Etsy as well as at the following Montreal stores:

Arterie Boutique
176 Bernard Ouest
Montreal, QC H2T 2K2
(514) 273-3933

Galerie Zone Orange
410 Saint Pierre
H2Y 2M2
Montréal, QC
Tel) 514-510-5809

Other hot water bottle covers worth checking out are:



•Disaster Designs Hot Water Bottle Covers

•Heal's luxury fur hot water bottles

•Beautifully woven hot water bottle covers are designed and produced by textile designer Angharad Mclaren, in Shetland.

Dizzying Design: Deform House & Deformscape Backyard From Faulders Studio

Five years ago, architect Thomas Faulder was hired by Jeff Dauber to transform his Potrero Hills home into a living residence/art gallery space. The result was Faulder Studio's "Deform House".



The third-level addition, which was approximately 1,200 sq. ft., was constrained by existing structural walls and neighboring structures. With the need to maximize vertical wall surfaces for art, the design emphasized the ceiling plane with a pattern of optically shifting grooves.




Sheathing the entire top floor ceiling and rear wall, this lining unifies the spaces and is in contrast with the architectural neutrality of the smooth walls.




The entry gate, perfect for an Apple geek like Dauber, is perforated with a security warning written in binary code text:


The door as it appears at night:


But last year, the backyard got a new look as well. A dizzying plywood floor that transformed the 550 square foot backyard into a Tron-like illusory vortex.



Though the surface of the San Francisco backyard that Faulders created for Jeff, a senior Apple exec, appears to bend and dip toward the Japanese maple tree, it is actually a flat horizontal plane made up of individual plywood tiles.



The outdoor extension, called "deformscape" to the private dwelling is situated in the tightly packed urban neighborhood. The limited space outdoor sculpture garden inherits a large tree, and uses this sole arboreal presence to establish a gravitational pattern of grooves that are focused towards the tree's centroid.



What seem to be painted black lines are, in reality, gaps: the tiles sit atop industrial-fiberglass grating that allows rainwater to drain through to the tree’s roots.



To generate the resultant pattern, a 3-dimensional bulge is formed around the tree, and its distorted wire-grid projected onto a 2-dimensional surface. Taking into account appearance effects created by perspective views from inside, the resultant planar surface appears sink around the tree.






all images courtesy of Faulders Studio and a special thanks to Metropolis Magazine for some additional info.

About Thom Faulders:
Architect Thom Faulders, founder of Faulders Studio, creates client-based projects at a wide array of building scales, as well as hypothetical architectural proposals and speculative exhibitions that explore interfaces between space, perception, and context. The office situates the practice of architecture within a broader context of performative research and material investigations that negotiate dynamic relationships between users and environments.

In combination with practice, Thom Faulders is an Associate Professor in Architecture at CCA/California College of the Arts in San Francisco. He has previously taught at UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, as Visiting Studio Critic at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, and in numerous workshops addressing issues in contemporary architecture, including the CCA 333 Program and the SCI-Arc 2+2+2 Summer Graduate Program. He has been a design jury critic at many institutions, including UCLA, Penn Design, University of Toronto, Columbia, Cranbrook, Harvard, and SCI-Arc.

Visit the Faulder Studio site here.

Many of the wonderful photos in this post are courtesy of Theodor Rzad, see more of his beautiful architectural photography here: Images © DIGITED IMAGE COMPANY

Getting A Leg Up On Furniture Design With Habit.

People often buy new drawer pulls and cabinet handles to add some refreshing design to an otherwise boring or outdated look. So why not do the same with the legs? Habit custom legs is a great way to update a piece of furniture.



Based in Atlanta, Georgia, House of Habit's leather and adorned furniture and legs are made in Italy by the same fashion manufacturers who create products for style houses Louis Vuitton and Dior. While the hand-painted wood, the solid glass and metal legs are individually hand made in the southeastern US.



They create legs of leather, adorned with stones or crystals, solid brass, stainless steel, wood, enamel and glass available in various heights according to your needs.


Metallic leather, wood veneer and polished emblem:


Hand-adorned Swarovski crystal legs with polished emblem:


The leather and crystal adorned legs are made in Italy and use the same leather supplier as Prada. The stones and crystal are hand applied to the leathers by Sabrina (shown below):



The leather and bejewelled legs made in Italy have wood veneers and a polished brass version of the Habit emblem shown below.


The brass, stainless steel, glass, wood and high-gloss enamel legs are made individually in the United States.

Solid glass:


Solid Brass, the Genie and Bamboo styles:


Teal and red high gloss enamel:


Hand-painted wood with polished emblem and faceted stainless steel:

The following pieces of furniture with their custom legs are also available for purchase:






House Of Habit and Habit custom legs are available to the trade only. To learn more, visit their site here.